When I Was A Paper Boy...

When I was eleven years old, I delivered the early morning newspaper.  Of course, I would always read the paper somewhere along my route after the sun came up.  One of the continuing stories I read about and has remained in my memory, is the capture and trial of a Nazi SS soldier named Adolf Eichmann.
 
Eichmann, along with Hitler engineered what Germany called the Final Solution.  It was a Nazi plan for genocide, the extermination of the Jews.  The details of Eichmann’s trial chill me to the bone.  How can such evil be manifested by one man against another?
 
Hitler and his henchmen were not the first in history to try to exterminate the Jews.  Ancient history teaches us in Exodus 1:22 that Pharaoh ordered all the Jewish newborn boys to be thrown into the Nile River.  In the Book of Esther, Haman gave the order in Esther 3:13, “….to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children…”
 
So why is there such anti-Semitism that runs throughout history?  In case you don’t know, the devil is at war with God.  He has been ever since he said, “I want to be God.”  As you know, Jesus was born in the line of Judah, a Jew.  Now in war, if you can strike a pre-emptive blow, often you gain the victory.  If all the Jews are dead, then Jesus could never have been born.  We all know that after every strike there remains a faithful remnant.
 
Those seeds of hate carry on from one generation to the next.  But what does God promise to people who stand with the Jews?  From Genesis 12:3, hear God’s covenant.  “I will bless those who bless you (Israel), and whoever curses you I will curse.”
 
So, to all my Jewish friends out there, from me to you, “God bless and sustain you!”
 
Shalom,
 
Pastor Allan
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