Satan's Policy of Anti-Semitism; Rev.
12:3-4
The topic in this chapter
focuses on the doctrine related to Satan’s antagonism and hostility to Israel as Israel because of the way God has chosen to use Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in His
plan for human history. Revelation 12:3 NASB “Then another sign
appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten
horns, and on his heads {were} seven diadems.” The identity of the
dragon is indicated clearly in verse 9. The imagery of seven heads and ten
horns is related to the final kingdom that Satan will energize in human history
that will be antagonistic to Israel and will try to destroy Israel during the Tribulation. The Tribulation will make the
holocaust pale in comparison. Satan knows that once the Tribulation begins he
has seven years to wipe out all the Jews.
Revelation 12:4 NASB
“And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when
she gave birth he might devour her child.” Historically, some time in eternity
past, Satan influenced one third of the angels to follow him. He threw them to
the earth, so this is his command to the fallen angels to go down to planet
earth and influence human history. Then in the second part of the verse we see
his role in relationship to the woman, Israel. His mission up to the cross was to prevent God from
providing salvation, and so there were satanic attacks against Israel all the way through the Old Testament.
Revelation 12:5 NASB
“And she gave birth to a son, a male {child,} who is to rule all the nations
with a rod of iron [His future destiny]; and her child was caught up to God and
to His throne [the ascension].”
If we understand
anti-Semitism it gives us a tremendous ability to understand the trends in
politics today. Anti-Semitism is basically opposition to, prejudice against, or
intolerance of the Jewish people because
they are Jewish. The term “semite” derives from Shem who was one of Noah’s
three sons. Shem was the father of various people groups, including the
Akadians, the Elimites, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Arabs (usually
descendants partially from Abraham through Ishmael, or down through Esau, but
also there were other Arab groups that came out from cousins of Abraham),
Syrians, Lydians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Midianites, some Armenians and
Ethiopians as well as Jews. So the term “semite” technically covers a wide
range of Middle Eastern people. So technically the term refers to both Arabs
and Jews but the term has been narrowed and is used simply to refer to those
who are descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Since World War II and the
holocaust anti-Semitism has been somewhat politically incorrect in the West and
looked down upon in some sense, and so many people have cloaked and camouflaged
their anti-Semitism in a new anti-Zionism. This is called the new anti-Semitism
and it is rooted in past anti-Semitism and it targets not just the Jews as
individuals but Israel as a nation because now and since 1948 the Jews have returned to the
land. Ultimately it boils down today as to whether or not they have the right
to protect themselves as a nation. If they are criticized for carrying out what
any other nation would do in terms of national territorial self-defense and are
not treated the same way as any other nation then that becomes a very subtle
and horrible form of anti-Semitism; it is basically saying they are not allowed
to defend themselves. It is buying into the horrible lies and propaganda of
Islam and the lie that there is such a thing as the Palestinian people and the
lie that the “Palestinians” have a right to the nation; they really don’t,
there is no ethnic group known as Palestinians.
It is important to
understand the connection between Nazism and the modern terrorist activities of
the radical Muslims in the Middle
East. That connect comes
through a man who was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Mohammed Effendi
al-Husseini. He was a gangster and a thug who organized the Arabs and generated
the first terrorism after the end of World War I in order to react against the
British who were trying to promote the Balfour Declaration. In 1933 he went to Berlin to sit down with Hitler and fill him with
anti-Semitic ideas coming out of Islam and there was this relationship that
developed. He raised a couple of SS divisions that were Muslims in the Balkans
during World War II. After the end of that war a large number of Nazi war
criminals were able to escape into Syria and Saudi Arabia and Egypt because they were welcomed by the Arabs.
Some go to the other
extreme and say that any decision that Israel makes we ought to support. That is not true. Just
because they are Israel doesn’t mean they are right. Zionism is the belief that the Jews have
a right to their national homeland. Christian Zionism is the belief that
Christians had to help Jews achieve a national homeland and to secure that for their
people. At its core Zionism is the belief that they have a right to have a
nation, and like any other nation they have the right to defend themselves and
to protect their borders and their national integrity. Supporting Israel doesn’t mean supporting everything they do, it means
supporting them in their mission as a nation to protect their borders and to
secure their own safety.
In a 1998 fatwah there was
issued a statement: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilian
and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any
country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the Al Aqsa
mosque (on the Temple Mount) and the holy mosque (the Ka’aba) in Mecca from
their grip—a reaction to the fact that there had been so many Americans in
Saudi Arabia during the 1st Gulf War.
Illustrations