Increasingly, the affairs surrounding the Jewish nation are in the news. In many instances it is the terrorism of their relentless enemies and the increasing support for the protests mounted by pro-Palestinian demagogues.
The growing silence amongst those nations which were once staunch allies, especially after the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust in WW II, has become ‘deafening’!
Of course, Israel itself can catapult itself into the news with its retaliatory attacks and the measures it takes to safeguard itself from the attacks mounted from within Gaza and its old enemy, Iran.
Even those who would count themselves friends of Israel have expressed disapproval of some of the counter measures taken by the Israeli armed forces.
I acknowledge that I read the news surrounding what is happening in Gaza with the experience I have learned in my life with regards living where there is a minority, who are opposed to the existence of the community of which I am a member – the Protestant and British people of Northern Ireland, and that gives me an insight into the activities of the Palestinians!
For centuries we have had to live with an opposition that has often resorted to lies and falsehood, the mendacious manipulation of reports of incidents which so distorts what truly happened to leave the impression that Irish
Nationalists/Republicans are the poor victims of oppression when in truth nine times out of ten they were the instigators of the activities they complain about.
Oh yes, there were activities, unlawful and shameful, that Loyalists engaged in but, if truth be told, they were, in most instances, actions taken in response to aggression and terrorism. Not always, but provocation by murderous acts played a major part in the unlawful acts by Loyalists.
I have watched with vexation of spirit, the wheeling out of children and women to weep and lament at the actions of the security forces when they were sent in to deal with IRA gunmen and the rioters who sought to cover and conceal and make possible the escape of the murderous snipers, who shot at the police and army from behind the cover of ‘poor abused civilians’!
How often we have had to listen to hand-wringing women tell the news cameras that the gunman who was shot by the security forces was merely out to the shops to obtain a loaf of bread for his poor old granny.
Those same ‘wringing hands’ had made sure that no gun was found when the police and soldiers moved in to search!
This is not an exaggeration! My generation could recite innumerable incidents which illustrate what I have just written.
Coming through that makes me exceedingly cautious when viewing and hearing and reading parallel reports of events in Israel and Gaza.
However, with that preamble behind us, let me come to what I would wish Christians to recognise, and it is this.
I. THE RISING TIDE OF WORLDWIDE ANTI-SEMITISM IS BUT A FORERUNNER OF THAT FORETOLD IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
The prophet Jeremiah gave us a phrase which describes that time of dreadful persecution for the Jews, especially those in the land of Israel, that lies in the not-too-distant future.
“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,” Jeremiah 30:7.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, Jeremiah terms the terrible trauma the Jews will endure at the hands of their enemies, a mere three and a half years before the Saviour’s return in power and great glory, as “the time of Jacob’s trouble”!
The Hebrew word translated “trouble” is translated in other Old Testament passages by the words ‘distress, affliction, adversity, anguish, tribulation.’
There can be no mistaking what lies ahead of the Jewish people!
The Saviour endorsed Jeremiah’s description in Matthew 24.
“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. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened,” verses 15-22.
The Saviour’s words indicate a most scourging time of persecution. Indeed He says, “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
What Hitler did with six million Jews in living memory, will be surpassed in that “time of Jacob’s trouble”!
II. ISRAEL HAS BEEN REAPING FOR THE LAST 2000 YEARS THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TRIAL OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
“Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified,” Matthew 27:17-26.
Let it be known by all, that when you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you become guilty of the blood-shedding of Christ on the cross.
It is not just something borne by the Jewish race. They, in a very abominable manner, are guilty of the blood of Christ.
But they are not alone! Heed these words.
“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” Hebrews 10:26-31.
Rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ is a most heinous sin for which there is no means of escape!
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him,” Hebrews 2:3.
If a person dies having rejected Christ then only eternal damnation awaits such!
The last 2000 years of Jewish history are living proof that the rejection of Christ angers God and brings down His judgment upon the guilty.
Please take heed of this truth, dear reader!
One more thought!
III. FOR THOSE JEWS ALIVE WHEN THE LORD JESUS RETURNS THERE WILL BE A LIFTING OF THE JUDGMENT THAT PRESENTLY LIES HEAVY UPON THEM.
Again I quote the Word of God.
“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,” Romans 11:26.
Paul is here quoting Isaiah.
Just when will that take place?
Well, we are told when in the words: “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion,” Isaiah 59:20. That ‘coming’ is a reference to the coming again of Christ!
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people . . . Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city,” Zechariah 12:1-3; 14:1-2.
Here we have the culmination of “Jacob’s trouble”! But, as promised by Jeremiah, “ But he shall be saved out of it.”
Rejoice Christian for what is yet to come in the experience of the Jewish people, even at the very zenith of the attack upon them by their enemies, led by Antichrist.
“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth (The prophetic earth, the territories of the old Roman Empire – Editor.) be gathered together against it In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness. And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God. In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem,” Zechariah 12:3-9.
That picture of deliverance is repeated by Zechariah.
“Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one,” Zechariah 14:1-9.
This is how the growing spirit of ‘anti-semitism’ will end!
The words of Isaiah come to mind. Please consider what the Lord said so long ago!
“For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer,” Isaiah 54:7-8.
Two thousand years may seem to us a very long time but the Lord speaks of the passage of time during which His wrath has rested on Israel, and which will yet for a time rest upon her, as “a small moment” and the terrible experiences of Israel since their rejection of their Messiah as “a little wrath”.
These words must be understood as being an expression from the lips of the One with Whom time carries not the same comprehension as it does with us mortals.
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” 2 Peter 3:8.
Furthermore, two thousand years is as nothing when viewed in the light of the “everlasting kindness” that will be enjoyed by redeemed Israel when her troubles come to an end!
Dear reader, how little mankind understands of what God has revealed of that which lies ahead of it?
How pompously foolish are the words and boasts of a Putin, a Trump and the myriads of others who plan in ignorance what they will do with their lives!
What of you?
“And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you,” Mark 13:5.
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting,” Galatians 6:7-8.
Today, believe the Gospel and embrace Christ by faith and thereby live in the joyful hope of an eternity in His presence.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
28th October 2026