Fascists and Fig Trees

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Fascists and Fig Trees

Prophecy - Signs
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Wendy Wippel

It hasn't really hit the headlines, but anti-Semitism is on the rise: Jews are "Nazis", Israel is a uniquely repressive regime (and at fault for all Mideast problems), and Jewish atrocities deserve the world's condemnation. Irrational, but still resolutely believed. Why? At the risk of being the "Church Lady", one word: Satan.

Incidents of anti-semitism have particularly spiked in Europe over the last few years. The surge is blamed on the rapid Islamification of that continent. European Jews, sampled from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia and Sweden (wherein 80% of European Jews reside), in findings released on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, reported a substantial increase in anti-Semitic acts over the preceding 5 years. Some examples:

In Rome, on "International Holocaust Remembrance Day", packages containing severed pigs' heads were anonymously delivered to the Israeli Embassy, the city's main synagogue and the Jewish Museum of Rome.
In France, Jewish children were gunned down by a radical Muslim last year at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school.
In January, anti-government protesters (largely Arab) in France chanted, “Jew, France is not yours!"
Also in France (just yesterday), four Arabs attacked, strangled and beat a young Jewish man who had dared to ride a train to work.
Japanese authorities, just last week, reported a mysterious wave in Japanese libraries of vandalism and defacement of copies of "The Diary of Anne Frank".

The Japanese defacing Anne Frank? Where does this kind of malice come from?
Leaders of Muslim countries, not surprisingly, lead the poison parade: Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran called Israel a "rabid dog" and said its leaders "look like beasts and cannot be called human."

Pakistani religious leader, Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai, said: "When the Jews are wiped out ... the sun of peace [will] begin to rise on the entire world."
Iraqi Cleric Qays bin Khalil al Kalbi, on American soil, told America's Jews that: "Allah chose you to be the most wretched of all people and that Allah chose Hitler to kill you, so who is better?”

And a Saudi cleric, Muhammad al Farraj, broadcast a poem on Saudi airwaves that went like this: "Adolf Hitler had a blessed way of burning you, oh rotten nation, if I were allowed to pray for a non-Muslim, I would pray for the soul of the Nazi leader who barbecued you."

Where does this kind of irrational malice come from?

Often from these Muslim Clerics who are imitated as mentors, spreading demonization of Israel and the Jews and holding up the Palestinians as the most egregiously oppressed people in the world.

Ad men, cartoonists, op-ed liberals pick the refrain up. (Great abetted by social medial, a documented source of the worldwide appropriation of anti-semitism as a socially responsible worldview).

We get leading Lebanese and Egyptian recording artists espousing hatred of Jews. Teens on a Dutch TV Show expressing the belief that Hitler failed by not killing all the Jews.

Pink Floyd lead man Roger Waters, who incredibly enough attached the six-pointed star to a floating pig at a concert last summer.

We get a group like the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions), which works ceaselessly to intimidate Western artists, businesses, academic institutions, and even churches, to boycott and isolate Israel. This is a group that works tirelessly to create the global perception that Israel is the world's pariah an entity to be shunned and castigated.

BDS members, at a performance of Israeli saxophonist Daniel Zamir in South Africa last summer, unbelievably, began to sing, "dubula e juda” as his audience filed into the auditorium.

"Dubula e juda” means, "shoot the Jew". Where does this kind of completely irrational, entirely reprehensible vitriol come from?

I've been asked that. Lots of times.

Fortunately, I have an answer, because God tells us. In Zechariah 3:1-3;

Quote :: “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel.

The world's hatred for Israel comes from Satan himself. We don't know what Satan said, but we know that it was antagonistic towards Israel because God rebuked Satan, and identifies Himself as the Lord who chose Jerusalem.
Hatred fueled by jealousy of Israel,

Quote :: "who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God." (Romans 9:4-5).

A jealous hatred confirmed by Revelation 12, which tells us that Satan waited but failed to devour the Son at birth, and, failing that, was enraged at the women (Israel) which birthed the Son and continued to seek to destroy her.

Did God choose Israel for their righteousness? No, Joshua is clothed in filthy garments, and God admits that His chosen people are a blackened chunk of wood, destined for destruction if not plucked from the fire.

It was never about their perfection.

But God still rebukes Satan and orders Joshua's filthy rags to be replaced with his own robes...

Quote :: ”And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.”

He then makes an amazing statement:

Quote :: "Hear, O Joshua, the high priest… behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH. And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day,’ says the Lord of hosts." (Zechariah 3:8-9)

Despite their filthy rags, God still chooses Israel. The promised Prince of Peace will come and take away their sins.

The accuser, the adversary, will be silenced.

And then? According to Zechariah, there will finally be peace in the Middle East: When the Messiah comes,

Quote :: "every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree.’” (Zechariah 3:10 NASB)