This next quote comes from a man called the Goldenmouth. His sermons were so passionate, and he is presented as a very godly man. You be the judge …
“The synagogue is worse than a brothel … it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts … the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults … the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews … a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ … a house worse than a drinking shop … a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and an abyss of perdition … I would say the same things about their souls. As for me, I hate the synagogue … I hate the Jews for the same reason.” — John Chrysostom (CE 344-407)
On this foundation it became easy for Spain to unleash the Inquisitions on its Jewish community. Jews were given the choice to leave or convert. More than 30,000 Jews were murdered during the Inquisitions by the church—not for the sin of not becoming Catholic, but for the sin of converting and still secretly being loyal to Judaism. Lighting Sabbath candles was punishable by death. A Jewish convert would be burned alive for refusing to eat pork.
It is no wonder that Hitler used to gloat that he was merely finishing what the church had started!
But surely it can’t end like this, can it? Can Jesus the Jew return to an anti-Semitic bride? No, the end-times church will love Israel. Even as the Jews brought salvation to the nations, the true church will intercede for revival in Israel.
No longer will the younger brother persecute the firstborn. I am reminded of the amazing witness of Casper ten Boom, father of the more famous Corrie. When the Jews in his Dutch town had to take the yellow star, he stood in line with them.
That is the type of love toward Israel that Paul spoke of when he poured out his heart in Romans 9—to the point of being willing to trade his salvation for the salvation of Israel.
“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Messiah for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel” (Rom. 9:2-4a; emphasis added).
Such compassion can only be found in the bosom of the Messiah Himself. And it is this type of selfless intercession that will lead to the revival in Israel—a revival of which the prophets spoke.
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