Persecution of Jews and Christians

During the second half of the Tribulation (called the Great Tribulation) the Bible predicts that there will be many sad and horrible things that will happen, not just to the planet, but to the people who live on the planet. Possibly the saddest is the persecution that will happen to, well, anyone who doesn't take the mark, but particularly to Christians and Jews. In fact, in speaking about Israel and the Jewish people, Jesus Himself predicts in the New Testament that this period of time will be the worst persecution they've ever faced. And that's saying something.

Have you ever wondered why the Jewish people have been persecuted so much down through history? From Haman in the book of Esther to Herod who killed the babies two years and under in Bethlehem, to the Spanish Inquisition to Hitler to Ahmadinejad, and on and on and on the Jewish people have been the target of hate and racism like no other group of people. Why is that?

Well, we'll give you our take. Most of us believe in an ultimate good, which is just one of the characteristics of God. But just like there is an ultimate good, there is a literal, ultimate evil, and that ultimate evil is Satan. Just like God is real, Satan is real too, and one of his desires is to destroy the Jews, mainly because they are God's chosen people.

But there's another reason why Satan would like to see the Jews wiped out and Israel cease to exist as a nation. The Bible tells us that one day, in fact shortly before His crucifixion, which we believed happened in 32 AD, Jesus was talking to a group of Pharisees, who were the religious leaders of the day in Israel. Actually, He was lecturing them on what a bunch of hypocrites they were, and He was right, they were. He gets done letting them have it, and He says to them, "you (Israel as a whole but the Jewish leadership in particular) will not see me again until you say, 'blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.' " 

What does all that mean? "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" was an expression meaning, "God, send us your Blessed One," or "send us Your Messiah" would be another way of putting it. So what Jesus is saying here to the Jewish leadership is, simply, "I'm not coming back until you ask Me to."

Let me ask you a question. If there is no nation of Israel left on earth, if there are no Jewish people left on earth and particularly no Jewish religious leadership left on earth to ask for Jesus to come back, could He come back? The answer is no, because Jesus is a Man of His word. He has to wait to be asked by the Jewish leadership before He will come back to earth for His Second Coming. (Remember the Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming are two different things. At the Rapture of the Church, Jesus comes to the clouds and calls up Christians to meet Him in the air, and then goes back up into heaven. Seven plus years later He comes back for the Second Coming, where He comes all the way to earth). Jesus is not going to come back to earth for the Second Coming until the Jewish people ask Him to. We'll talk more about that in a minute.

So, the bottom line is, the attempts to exterminate the Jews down through history are no coincidence; they have been influenced by ultimate evil. Haman tried, Herod tried, the Spanish Inquistion tried, and Hitler killed six million, which at the time was a third of all Jews living in the world. And when Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the map, he's not kidding. Just like Hitler wasn't kidding. If there is no Jewish person left at the end of the Tribulation to ask Jesus to come back, He can't come back. Satan knows it's his only chance of evil winning out over good. We believe that is one of the main reasons why the Jewish people have been under constant harassment and persecution from day one. And that is why it is so important that Christians support Israel and support the Jewish people. If we don't, who will? We at "The Bible Predicts" support and bless Israel and the Jewish people at every opportunity.

If you are Jewish and you are reading this you may be thinking, "are you crazy? Jewish people don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah, why would we ask Him to come back to earth? He's just a man, and besides He's dead."

All we can ask is that you keep reading.