CHRISTIANS WHO CARED

Day 6 of God Keeps Covenant: Christians Who Cared.

Dr. Michael Brown has written a powerful book entitled Our Hands Are Stained with Blood – The Tragic Story of the “Church” and the Jewish People. In the midst of recounting the horrific mistreatment of Jews, Dr. Brown gives us a wonderful chapter entitled, “A Blessed and Beautiful Stream,” in which he acquaints the reader with a few of those who have stood out in history against this tide of anti-Semitic evil.

Of course many of these believers were the quiet ones who remained in obscurity. They were those who cried out to God in prayer for the Jewish people or who performed secret acts of kindness despite the personal danger. We know that many of these “righteous Gentiles,” (as the Jewish people call Christians who care for them) gave their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Corrie ten Boom’s family is one of the best-known examples (as depicted in the book and movie, The Hiding Place.)

Interestingly, many of the Puritans who shaped early America had a vision for Israel and held the hope that the Jewish people would return to their land and their Lord. Perhaps one of the reasons God has so blessed America has been the fact that many times through the years we have opened our arms to Jewish people fleeing the persecutions of Europe.

Samuel Rutherford, a famous Scottish Puritan, had a deep love for the Lord and His ancient people. I love this description from one of his letters quoted in Dr. Brown’s book:

O to see the sight, next to Christ’s Coming in the clouds, the most joyful! Our elder brother the Jews and Christ fall upon one another’s neck… They have been long asunder; … O longed-for and lovely day-dawn! …let me see that sight which will be as life from the dead, Thee and Thy ancient people in mutual embraces. (2)

In the early 1800s, the London Jews Society was formed. This organization encouraged Jews to immigrate to Israel and also established the first Protestant Jewish Church there. They opened schools and a hospital. The result was that, for the first time in 1,700 years, there were known to be Jewish people in Israel who came to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. During the intense persecutions in Russia in the 1880s, the London Jews Society helped the first Russian immigrants “home” to Israel.

Even Queen Victoria, who reigned on the British throne for more than 50 years in the last half of the 1800s, strongly supported a homeland for the Jewish people.

In today’s Scripture from Isaiah, whom is the Lord addressing? Could it be that He is actually stirring all of us in the Church to “comfort” His chosen people? I believe so!