An article headlined:—
Ken Funston: The endemic hatred of Jewish people – where will it end?
appeared in the ‘Belfast Newsletter’ of 4th September, some time ago now.
In a foot note to the article we are told this regarding the writer — ‘Ken Funston gained his PhD from Ulster University in 2020, and recently co-authored, with Cillian McGrattan, The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History: Protestant Memory on the Border.’
Dr Funston shows his learning by referring to the hatred of Jews — antisemitism — in history right up to the present time. He sets the present conflict in the Middle East in its proper context by referring to ‘the murderous mullahs of Iran and their Hamas and Hezbollah cohorts.’ He also highlights the cowardly contrivance of public figures to stay on the ‘safe’ side of such antisemitism by saying nothing critical of their wickedness or by openly siding with them!
A more important question to be asked, than the one that makes up the title of the article, is: ‘The endemic hatred of Jewish people – WHEN did it begin?’
However, it is clear that this hatred of the Jew is not a new phenomenon when he states, ‘The hatred of Jews – antisemitism – it can actually be traced as far back as ancient Greece’. However, it is also clear that he did not consult the Bible on this subject! It is the key to understanding antisemitism.
The hatred of the Jew dates back much further than the Grecian period.
I. THE HATRED OF THE JEW STEMS FROM WHO THEY ARE!
We read this back in the days when the offspring of Jacob had just become the nation of Israel: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people,” Exodus 19:5.
That promise was given repeatedly to Israel.
“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth,” Deuteronomy 28:1.
“But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you,” Jeremiah 7:23.
“Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God,” Jeremiah 11:4.
1. However, it was a conditional promise, with judgment to follow disobedience! Exodus 19:5 begins, “If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then . . .”
The breaking of God’s ‘Covenant’ brought upon the Jewish people the most severe chastenings and judgments. Privilege and favour, when rejected and cast aside, are always judged severely!
To be given the moral law of God in the form of ‘The Ten Commandments’, was a privilege shared by no other nation. They were known only by those, outside of Israel, who saw in Israel a spiritual and moral establishment, that differed very much from all other nations, and desired to enter into such an experience through submission to those commandments!
Turning aside
When Israel turned aside from such a privileged relationship with the Lord, there was a high price to pay.
Obedience was very well rewarded!!
“If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” Leviticus 26:3-12.
Consequences of sin
But when such blessings were despised and counted as nothing, terrible were the consequences!
“But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate. And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them,” Leviticus 26:14-39.
Their disobedience and rejection of the Lord was punished by His handing them over to the animosity of the Gentile races.
2. Because God is hated by unregenerate man, then anyone openly associated with Him will be likewise hated!
I believe you have evidence of this in the case of the first murder!
“And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him,” Genesis 4:3-8.
Whatever they talked about gave rise to Abel’s murder! It can only be about why Cain was rejected by God while Abel was accepted.
I am sure Abel told Cain that it had nothing to do with them as individuals but everything to do with the sacrifices they offered as a manifestation of their hope for salvation and pardon to be granted by the Lord.
Abel had offered a lamb, the God-appointed sacrifice, while Cain offered the works of his own hands!
So it is still the cause of discord. Once a sinner, be they members of the family or a stranger, is told that his works will not get him to heaven but there must be faith in Christ’s death on the cross, the dispute starts!
Hated
The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake,” Matthew 10:22.
“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake,” Matthew 24:9,
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you,” John 15:18.
“I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” John 17:14.
That truth has been demonstrated throughout the 2000 years of this New Testament age, under the Romans in the first centuries of his era and under the counter-reformation mounted by the Roman Catholic Church in response to the great revival of Gospel preaching in the 16th century and later.
Christians have foolishly and shamefully sought to avoid this sharing in the Saviour’s reproach.
“Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue,” John 12:42.
That ‘spirit’ is very much amongst God’s people today! Staying in the world’s ‘good books’ is the dominating desire of all too many professing believers!
Parallel
This hatred for the Christian today is but the new Testament counterpart to that suffered by the Jews in the Old Testament age. Remember the words of John. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you,” 1 John 3:13.
It would be a wonder indeed if the Christ-rejecting, sin-loving world did not hate us!
3. What does not receive the same notice is the increase in hatred of true Biblical Christianity. There has been, for the last 100 years or so, an increasing rejection of the Word of God amongst those who ‘profess’ to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus indicated that a chief indication of our love for Him was a keeping of His Word.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments,” John 14:15. Where there is a rejecting of the Word of God, there cannot be any love for Christ.
Modern ‘Christendom’ is marked by an abandoning of the Word of God. The pulpits of our local ‘ecumenical’ denominations are dominated by those ministers who teach “for doctrines the commandments of men,” Mark 7:6.
Every form of depraved perversity if sanctioned – sodomy, transgenderism etc. These evil practices are not condemned at they ought to be but are ‘accommodated’ within the denominations. This has given rise to the legalising and protecting of such abominable behaviour.
This is the latter-day apostasy of which Paul wrote – 2 Timothy 3. Paul says, if I might highlight some of his Holy Ghost inspired words, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . without natural affection . . .fierce, despisers of those that are good . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God,’ verses 1-4.
This ‘hatred for the Jew’ and the ‘hatred of Bible religion’ are but the two sides of the one coin.
II. THE GREATEST EVIDENCE OF THIS HATRED FOR THOSE ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOD OF HEAVEN HAS YET TO BE SEEN.
Today’s increase in hatred of all things Jewish or Christian, is but the acceleration which will be fully manifested just prior to the Saviour’s return.
The ‘Belfast Newsletter’ article asks the question, ‘How shall it end?’ BUT no answer is given to this question and that is because the Bible, that despised book that very few ‘academics’ would ever wish their name to be associated with, is not consulted.
Nevertheless, it is in the sacred volume that you find a very detailed answer to this question – and to all questions of importance!
1. The Lord Jesus specifically indicates that unparalleled hatred against the Jew will break out in Jerusalem just prior to His return in glory. How can Dr Funston have overlooked such enlightening information on just where ‘antisemitism’ will end?
The Olivet prophecy
“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be,” Matthew 24:11-21.
Unsurpassed
It has to be noted that this ultimate display of hatred for the Jew and all things of God, breaks out in Jerusalem. Two things indicate this.
2. The incident that is the signal of the beginning of what Jeremiah called ‘Jacob’s trouble’ (Jeremiah 30:7) will take place in the ‘holy place’, verse15. This a reference to the very heart of the Jewish temple which is yet to be built again in Jerusalem.
The term is first used when dealing with the adorning of the Tabernacle and also is used in reference to Solomon’s Temple (Exodus 26:33, 1 Kings 6;16.)
3. The warning of the Saviour is addressed to those living in Judaea, verse 16.
This persecution of the Jews will take place three and half years into the reign of that man referred to in Scripture under a variety of names and types. He is ‘the beast’, ‘the antichrist’, the ‘man of sin’, the ‘son of perdition’, the ‘wicked’.
He is the personification of apostasy and rebellion and will lead wicked man’s final rebellion against the Lord. It will be accompanied by a hatred for the Jew and the Christian.
4. We are told that it will last for three and half years.
In many ways, Israel is presently stoking the fires of future persecution by some, not all, of her responses to terrorism of her neighbours. The wickedness of Hezbollah, Hamas and many others are beyond questioning! Israel has every right to respond to their terrorism BUT, she would be wrong to adopt their cruel tactics.
I support Israel on the basis of what it is the Lord says of her regarding the future. “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. . . . For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” Romans 11:1-2, 25-29.
Of old, the Lord has revealed His merciful plans for Israel at the end of this age.
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD,” Jeremiah 31:31-37.
It is in the light of such promises that I side with Israel!
Trouble
But she has great trouble ahead of her.
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:1-8.
Here are the cruel characteristics of the Antichrist, the admiration that he will engender amongst the ungodly, his blasphemies and his war against the saints of God.
But here also is his ‘Sell by date’, if I might use an idiom common today! We are told that he will be permitted by God “to continue forty and two months,” verse 5.
The devil has ever been subject to those restrictions it has pleased God to place upon him. This final persecution, organised and empowered by the devil, will last for a time and times and the dividing of time, or a thousand two hundred and threescore days, as it is elsewhere decreed (Revelation 11:3, Daniel 7:25.)
Seven years before the end of this age and the return of Christ, the unbelieving Jews in the land of Israel will enter a covenant with the antichrist, the ‘king of the rebuilt Babylon’, who will have ascended to political dominance in that part of the world.
It is a covenant which promises ‘peace’ for the Jews.The Lord calls it by a very different title, as is revealed in the book of Isaiah.
“Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it,” Isaiah 28:15-18.
It will prove to be a “covenant with death.” The antichrist will break that agreement after three and a half years by the erection of “the abomination of desolation”, a term for an idol, in the temple which the Jews will yet build in Jerusalem, it will be the signal which will start the “Great Tribulation”, Matthew 24:21.
Paul tells us in more detail what will take place. “That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
The answer
We are given in great detail an answer to the question asked by Dr Funston in his article, in the only source of truth in this world — the Word of God!
5. It is the Saviour’s intervention at His second advent which will end ‘Jacob’s trouble’. Let me make plain, that it will end all trouble for the Gentile believers as well!
I mention Jeremiah 30:7. That verse in its entirety states: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”
Note the last phrase — “he shall be saved out of it.”
How memorable are the words of Zechariah regarding this deliverance. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn,” Zechariah 12:10.
Here is the end to Jewish rejection of their Messiah and the conversion of the remnant in Jerusalem which will lead on to the conversion of all the Jews that will still be scattered amongst the nations when Christ returns.
I have already quoted words from Isaiah 28 on this deliverance.
“Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it,” verses 17-18.
The Lord’s return will destroy antichrist and end his persecution of the Jews and the redeemed Gentiles.
What a joy to read Revelation 18 and savour again and again the utter destruction by our enemies by our Conquering Champion, the Lord Jesus Christ.
“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” Revelation 6:12-17.
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh,” Revelation 19:11-21.
This we may read now but never forget that as John saw by way of a vision we shall see it in actuality as we rise from the grave to join in this gladsome march of glorious victory.
Read it Christian and cease from despair!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
16th September 2026