by Gerald B. Winrod. Published in 1935.
“And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy.”
— Acts 23:12-13.
Preface
The same forces which crucified Christ nineteen hundred years ago are today trying to crucify His Church.
Many Christian leaders have not yet realized it, but Christianity is in the grip of a life and death struggle at the present time.
International Jewish Communism, which has already undermined all nations, firmly expects to exterminate all Christians. What the Cause of Christ has endured in Russia the past eighteen years, surpasses its suffering at the hands of bloody Nero.
One of the purposes of the present treatise is to show that this conspiracy is not of recent origin. — Gerald B. Winrod.
The Jewish Assault on Christianity
Christianity is passing through a crisis the like of which it has never faced before. Whether or not it possesses sufficient moral and spiritual resistance to survive, remains to be seen.
Paul said the Christian’s instruments of battle were not physical: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”
The same thought is emphasized in the supernaturally inspired words to Zerubbabel: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
The strength of the Church is in its ability to influence the hearts and lives of men by the demonstration and proclamation of divine truth. Questions like the following constantly haunt the writer: “Will the Church be able to demonstrate sufficient power to triumph over its foes in the present crisis? Or has it become so weakened by apostasy and pernicious teachings that it will have to be drenched in its own blood before it can be brought to its senses?”
Persecution has always had a purifying effect upon the Church. Like the individual saints of which it is composed, its “strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Unless the Christian forces of the Western nations come under a new baptism of old-time spiritual power, the Church will go down and Soviet Atheism will come up. The Russian Empire was destroyed by the Red hordes, eighteen years ago, because it did not possess sufficient spiritual vitality to resist the onslaught.
The Greek Orthodox Church, which governed the religious life and thought of Russia, was a cold, dead, pagan institution. It lacked life, emotion and creative energy. Consequently it yielded to the first attack of organized Atheism. Its gorgeous temples have been turned into museums, brothels, and centers of entertainment and vice. Its wealth has been confiscated. Its priests and other leaders have been put to death. Its members have been slaughtered by the milllions. Church life is a memory of the past.
Now let us turn our attention toward Germany. Next to the British, the German people are the most religious people in Europe. Protestantism was cradled there. Out of sixty-seven million population, sixty million Germans are today identified with some kind of a Christian Church.
For several years, the Moscow conspirators focused their attacks upon Germany. It looked for a time as if the Country was doomed. But by degrees, the Church began to assert its moral and spiritual strength. Finally the deep, underlying principles of Christian truth manifested on the surface with the result, that by a single stroke, Communism was destroyed.
Dynamic evangelism is the only dependable antidote for Soviet Atheism.
In my book, ‘Adam Weishaupt, a Human Devil’, I have shown that the same underground organization which produced the French Revolution is responsible for the present wave of international Communism.
The latter part of the eighteenth century witnessed the destruction of France. The same sinister agencies were at work across the English Channel in Great Britain. It is a matter of historic record, admitted by the best historians, that the revival of John Wesley saved England from the fate of France.
If the Church of America continues to lose its spiritual moorings, it requires no prophet to determine what the future will bring forth.
An old philosopher once said, to know a thing well one must understand its first cause. It is unpleasant to realize that a certain element of apostate Jewry is behind the turmoil of this dark hour and the present Soviet persecution through which the Church of Jesus Christ is passing.
The Jews and the Prophets
Even a casual reading of the Old and New Testaments will show that the Jews are a disobedient and rebellious people. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians required to excuse and condone their evil deeds simply because of their nationality.
Jesus knew better than anyone else the unspeakable crimes of which these people are capable. It was to them that He addressed the following powerful polemic:
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!…. And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
In this indictment Jesus lays the charge of persecuting the prophets at the door of the Jewish people. It is by far the most severe, denunciatory and withering blast of language which fell from His lips during the entire thirty-three years that He was in the flesh.
The Jesus of this, the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, is not the quiet, reticent Jesus of modern literature and the fashionable pulpit. The Jesus, whose righteous indignation is here asserted, is a man of words and action, a man in the act of pronouncing eight woes upon the Jewish leaders and finally condemning them to the damnation of hell.
In the next breath Jesus affirms His Godhead and says that He will soon send other messengers of God to them. He then predicts that they will treat His coming servants exactly like their fathers treated the prophets.
“Behold I send (or ‘I am about to send’) unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.”
True to the Lord’s promise, after His departure He sent the first group of messengers forth on the day of Pentecost. Others followed later. The book of Acts records the persecutions and deaths they suffered at the hands of the very Jews who declared they would not have been guilty of the similar conduct of their fathers.
It is particularly significant to notice that Jesus blamed the Jews for the murder of Abel. But how could this have been in view of the fact Abel was a son of Adam and Eve, whereas the Jews date their origin from Abraham about nineteen hundred years before the birth of Christ?
By way of parenthesis, it should be remarked that the name Jew did not originate until a few hundred years after Abraham. It was first used in the book of second Kings as a reference to the patriarch Judah in distinction from the other ten tribes of Israel. Later the term became the appellation of the whole nation.
When Jesus accused them of killing Abel, He was seeing beyond their particular nationality. He was seeing beyond the garb of flesh which they were wearing.
He was looking deep into their souls. He was seeing the demonic poison which was stored up in their life stream. He knew that the same Satanic hatred for the program of God which took the life of Abel was to reach its climax in the murder of the Messiah and His apostles. Hence the judgment which He pronounced upon them: “How can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
To grasp the full meaning of the above reference to Abel, one needs to understand that from Eden to Bethlehem’s manger there runs a perfect avenue of divine heredity. This path of the ages, carved straight through the human family, may be likened to the Gulf Stream which plows its way across the ocean. The conflict of the centuries is the fact that Satan tried repeatedly to break the royal line so the Redeemer of the world could not be born.
Early in Genesis, after the fall of man, it was announced that the “seed of the woman” would bruise the serpent’s head. This is the first reference in Scripture to the virgin birth of Christ. Eve was given to understand that a male child, a descendant of hers, would break Satan’s power in the world. When Cain, the first child was born, it is evident that Eve thought he was the one who would destroy the serpent, then and there, because she said: “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” This was a mistake for the reason that a study of Cain’s life shows him to have been full of hereditary poison. He was guilty of six specific sins: he worshipped in self-will, was angry with God, refused to bring a sin-offering, lied to God, would not repent, and murdered his brother.
Abel, the second son, was in the blood-line between Eden and the manger. It was for this reason that Satan inspired the killing of Abel so the line would be broken. Seth was born later to repair the damage. After that, the two lines, ran in parallel until the deluge — the Sethites and the Cainites. Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and many others, were in the royal line from which the promised Redeemer was finally born.
Now, in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, we find Christ charging the Jews with the same sin which was laid against Cain — namely, that they had become the instruments of Satan for the destruction of the plan of human redemption. The poison of the serpent had been handed down until that hour; it was flowing in their veins; the blood of the righteous Abel was upon them; they were cooperating with Satan; they had permitted themselves to become a party to the same crime of which Cain was guilty; they were trying to destroy the Saviour of the world even as Cain tried to destroy the line from which the Redeemer was to be born.
When these facts are understood, this chapter becomes truly pathetic. There Jesus stands in the temple dedicated to the worship of the true God. He is confronted by a crowd of blind and impure hypocrites. Sinless anger burns on His face as His eyes melt into anguish and misery. From the hill on which the temple is situated he looks down upon the city spread before and beneath Him. He cries out: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kill — eat the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
Then once more addressing the Jews, He cried: “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” As Jesus walked down the steps that day, the people only saw a simple man leaving the temple, but the angels saw the God of Heaven forsaking it. As an example of how the Jews treated the prophets, Jesus cited the circumstance of Zacharias being slain between the temple and the altar. This takes us back to the twenty-fourth chapter of second Chronicles.
Baal worship had invaded Israel. Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, exalted herself to the throne of David. She caused all the male members of the royal family to be put to death except Joash, the six year old son of King Asaziah, who was hidden away secretly by the good priest Johoiada.
In this revolution which overtook his nation, Johoiada showed great tact and ability. He waited until public sentiment became ripe for a change, then on a certain day when a large crowd was assembled in the temple court, he displayed the child and drove Athaliah from the throne.
Soldiers had been previously concealed in the temple and were armed with weapons. At the proper moment, Johoiada released his private army from hiding and stationed warriors at the various places of entrance so no one could leave or enter the court.
The power of idol worship was thus broken, with a single stroke, in Israel. Athaliah with Mattan, her chief prophet of Baal, were put to death.
Johoiada died at the age of one hundred and thirty. As a signal honor he was buried “in the city of David among the kings.”
Zechariah was the son of Johoiada and succeeded his father as the leading priest of Israel. Because Zechariah dared to rebuke the Jewish leaders for their apostasy, King Joash had him put to death. “And the spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada, his father, had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it.”
In less than a year from the time that Zachariah was killed, the Syrian armies overran Jerusalem and massacred the people. Joash was later put to death.
On the eventful day, when Jesus stood before the Jews who thirsted for His blood, He reviewed this bit of Israelitish history by reminding them of their crimes against the prophets of old.
The Jews and the Christ
Speaking to the sect known as the Pharisees, Jesus said: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
The Pharisees wielded a Satanic influence over their nation. They represented a system of occultism mingled with Jewish doctrines and beliefs. They poured a constant stream of poison into the thinking of Jewry which twisted and perverted the minds of the rank and file of people.
Although the Sadducean high priests were the head of the Sanhedrin, the decisive influence upon public affairs was in the hands of the Pharisees.
The People’s Bible Encyclopedia says: “They had the greatest influence upon the congregations, so that all acts of public worship, prayers, and sacrifices were performed according to their injunctions. Their sway over the masses was so absolute that they could obtain a hearing even when they said anything against the king or the high priest. Hence the Sadducees, in their official acts, adhered to the demands of the Pharisees, because otherwise the multitude would not have tolerated them.” As a Jew avoided as far as possible all contact with a Gentile, lest he should thereby be defiled, so did the Pharisee avoid, as far as possible, contact with the non-Pharisee, because the latter was to him unclean even though a Jew. The egotism of the sect is at once evident.
There is no way of calculating the demoralizing influence that this group of men had upon the people who looked to them for leadership. In tracing the origin of this organization we find that it began back in the occult demonism of the Chaldean sooth-sayers.
General A. Netchvolodow says: “The Chaldean science acquired by many of the Jewish priests, during the captivity of Babylon, gave birth to the sect of the Pharisees whose name only appears in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Jewish historians after the captivity (606 B.C.). The works of the celebrated scientist Munk leave no doubt on the point that the sect appeared during the period of the captivity.
“From then dates the Cabala or Tradition of the Pharisees. For a long time their precepts were only transmitted orally but later they formed the Talmud and received their final form in the book called the Sepher ha Zohar.”
When the leaders of Israel contacted the occultism of the Chaldeans they brought a Satanic element into Jewry which was in a great measure responsible for all of the subsequent crimes of the nation. The Pharisees carried on constant subversive activities against the Gentile peoples around them. They were, in a sense, the Communists of their day. To them, a Gentile was no better than a dog. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, explains: “For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they were highly favoured by God. These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good-will to Caesar, and to the king’s government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras’s wife paid their fine for them. In order to requite this kindness of hers, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by Divine inspiration, they foretold how God had decreed that Herod’s government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children. These predictions were not concealed from Salome, but were told the king; as also how they had perverted some persons about the palace itself; so the king slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused, and Bagoas the eunuch, and one Carus, who exceeded all men of that time in comeliness, and one that was his catamite.”
Josephus also tells how the Pharisees were able to crowd their way into the lives of Gentile rulers to the point of gaining control of whole nations exactly as Jewish financiers and political leaders are doing today.
The following historical statement by Josephus, describing ancient Alexander, at the time when Alexandra was ruling, sounds like it might have been written about some modern country: “These are a certain sect of the Jews that appear more religious than others, and seem to interpret the laws more accurately. Now Alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favour by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs: they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed (men) at their pleasure: and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra. She was a sagacious woman in the management of great affairs, and intent always upon gathering soldiers together; so that she increased the army the one half, and procured a great body of foreign troops, till her own nation became not only very powerful at home, but terrible also to foreign potentates, while she governed other people, and the Pharisees governed her.”
Thus we see how, back there, powerful Jews were able to rule from behind the scenes, pull wires and produce Gentile strife the same as they are doing today through their “Gentile fronts” among the various nations. We must always remember that it is natural for the Jewish people to have only contempt for Gentiles. They are possessed of a natural aversion for Christianity. When they gain control of a country, as in Russia at the present time, they never fail to vent their ill-will upon Christians.
From the foregoing, we now understand that the Pharisees represented the secret, sinister organization which existed for the purpose of opposing God and overthrowing all law and order. Out of their evil, occult program, there eventually came two documents known as the Kabbalah and the Talmud.
The Kabbalah governs the spiritual life of the Jews, while the Talmud regulates things material. Concerning the writings of the rabbis which were added to the Old Testament Scriptures by these leaders, Josephus says: “What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.”
It is believed by many that the Talmud and other writings of the Jewish leaders were directly responsible for the rejection of Christ. These “traditions” blinded the eyes of the people to a true understanding of the prophecies which related to the coming of the Messiah. They produced the hatred which finally resulted in the assassination of the Son of God.
Hence the words of our Lord: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” And again: “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.”
A few quotations from the Talmud will give an insight into the mental processes of the rabbis of all ages, and will show why these inhuman writings were objectionable to Jesus. Gentiles, realizing the sinister contents of these documents have sought at different times to destroy them. All copies were ordered burned by Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, in 1306, but the book survived the flames. The Jewish conception of God was that of a tyrant whose wrath had to be constantly appeased by the most rigid observances. He was confined, they believed, to the four walls of their own bigoted nationalism. Their contempt for other peoples is shown by quotations from the Talmud:
“You (the Jews) are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts.” “On the house of the Goy (non-Jew) one looks as on the fold of cattle.”
The following prayer from the Talmud is quoted to the present day: “We beg Thee, O Lord, indict Thy wrath on the nations not believing in Thee, and not calling on Thy name. Let down Thy wrath on them and inflict them with Thy wrath. Drive them away in Thy wrath and crush them into pieces. Take away, O Lord, all bone from them. In a moment indict all disbelievers. Destroy in a moment all foes of Thy nation. Draw out with the root, disperse and ruin unworthy nations. Destroy them! Destroy them immediately, in this very moment!”
“It is more wicked to protest the words of the rabbis than of Torah (law of Moses).” “The decisions of the Talmud are words of the living God. Jehovah himself asks the opinion of earthly rabbis when there are difficult affairs in heaven.”
“Jehovah himself in heaven studies the Talmud, standing: he has such respect for that book.” The Talmud teaches that the Jewish nation is the only nation selected by God, while all the remaining ones are contemptible and hateful. That all property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which consequently is entitled to seize upon it without scruples. That an orthodox Jew is not bound to observe principles of morality towards people of other nations, and on the contrary, he even ought to act against morality, if it is profitable for himself or for the interest of Jews in general. Continuing quotations from the Talmud:
“A Jew may rob a Goy, he may cheat him over a bill, which should not be perceived by him, otherwise the name of God would become dishonored.”
“It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere… it is permitted to kill him before he has denounced… though it is necessary to warn him and say, ‘Do not denounce.’ But should he say, ‘I will denounce,’ he must be killed, and he who accomplishes it first will have the greater merit.” “How to interpret the word ‘robbery’. A Goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a Goy or from a Jew, but he (a Jew) is not forbidden to do all this to a Goy.”
It would be a mistake to pass lightly over the Satanic influence which the Chaldean priests wielded upon the Jewish leaders while they were in Babylon. This association of Jews with pagan magicians perverted the teaching of the Old Testament into murky materialism and brought the people under a despotism of demonism.
In Scripture the Chaldeans are classed with the magicians, astrologers, soothsayers and sorcerers. Therefore, the inner circle of Jewish leaders in the days of Christ were nothing short of black magicians.
Is it reasonable to suppose that this hereditary poison which was handed down in the life-stream of Jewry, from the time of the Old Testament prophets, has ceased to exist? The common-sense answer is No. We have with us today the same kind of human “vipers” that Christ had to contend with nineteen hundred years ago. They constituted the scheming, tricky group which stirred up the mobs that screeched for the destruction of the Son of God. They uttered the most vicious cry that over fell from human lips: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” “Then Pilate said unto them. Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.”
Had Christ shown hatred toward the Gentiles, started a revolution, organized an army, marched on Rome and promised to give the Jews earthly power, they would have accepted Him as their Messiah and King. But they rejected Him because He said: “My kingdom inset of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” It was a tragic night when our Lord went into the garden of Gethsemane for His final season of prayer before facing Calvary. Three times He prayed: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Prior to this time, certain Jewish leaders had approached one of the disciples with a financial offer if he would only lead the mob to the place where the Saviour had secluded Himself for the evening. The Jews possess rare ability for stirring up strife among the Gentiles. They know exactly how to create confusion and unrest. They are experts in arousing human passions by producing mob psychology. They are able to stampede crowds into croaking special phrases like frogs.
We see this today in the streets of the large cities of the world where throngs of unemployed men congregate, carrying banners, and repeating slogans. Little do these mobs know that behind their misery there are usually Jewish Capitalists who have deliberately planned the abnormal economic conditions which produced their suffering. Little do these mobs know that at the top of their Communist organizations there are powerful, but diseased, Jewish minds.
Judas told the conspirators that the One Whom he should kiss would be Jesus. So, the deceiver drew near, sneaking like a serpent through the undergrowth and shrubbery of the garden. Reaching the Master, he greeted Him with a familiar oriental salutation consisting of a gentle embrace and a kiss on the cheek.
In a few minutes the Lord was entirely at the mercy of the savage pack of Jewish wolves. They were determined to do away with Him. This was the world’s blackest night.
First the innocent Victim was taken to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest. Then to the Sanhedrin. And finally to Pilate’s Court. All three of these trials were illegal. Both Jewish and Roman laws were broken.
Meanwhile, Judas had collected the thirty pieces of silver due him for his part in the crime. He hurried quickly away from the mob, into the semi-darkness, down the path, and vanished from sight. At first he was inclined to congratulate himself on having made some easy money. This was before his conscience began lashing him.
Is it too much to suppose that Judas soon discovered that he had blood on his lips? Yes, his mouth was moist. He found his lips were bloody. Only a few minutes ago, he had kissed the cheek of the Son of God. And the sweat which bathed the Lord’s face had been great drops of blood. It was true that blood was oozing through the pores of the Lord’s body at the time of the fatal kiss. Medical science declares that only one thing can produce a bloody sweat — namely, a broken heart.
In the sad hour of the garden prayers, Jesus loved the world so much, so deeply, that the physical organ in His breast could not stand the strain; it actually collapsed. His heart could not stand the outburst of emotion. It was literally, physically ruptured. And this sad experience fulfilled Psalms 69:20: “Reproach hath broken my heart.” When the heart collapsed from the deep emotional impact, blood naturally dripped through the pores of His flesh.
Let sinners remember that this was the way Jesus Christ loved them just before He went to Calvary to suffer for the sins of the world.
Try to imagine the feelings of Judas when he discovered the blood of the Master on his lips! Poor conscience stricken creature!
Back to the Jewish leaders he ran. “I have sinned”, he cried, “in that I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” the Jews replied scornfully. “See thou to that.”
Then the cringing betrayer literally threw the thirty pieces of silver on the floor of the temple, and fled from the presence of the vicious priests. “I have betrayed innocent blood,” he sobbed. Judas was found dead a few hours later, having committed suicide.
Special notice should be taken of the word “innocent”. The last thing the betrayer did before he died, was to declare that Jesus Christ was guilty of no wrong, that He had committed no sin, that He was living a clean, pure, innocent, sinless life.
Had Jesus been guilty of one sin, Judas would have known about it and would have used it to justify his heinous crime in that tragic hour. The immaculate life that the Master lived while in the flesh, is an unanswerable argument for His immaculate conception and Godhead.
Yes, this innocent, sinless Man from heaven, was subjected by Jews, to every conceivable indignity, and because of their demands was finally put to a horrible death on a disgraceful cross like a common criminal.
The Jews and the Church
In the parlance of the street the Jew is sometimes called a “Christ hater.” The spirit of Judaism is one of direct antagonism to the principles of Christianity.
It is not difficult to understand why an apostate people, who have rejected their Messiah, should continue in spiritual darkness and despise everything that bears His name. No sooner had the tomb of Christ been sealed than the tormenters set out to destroy His followers. This assault has continued straight through the centuries, until now it has come into fruition in the form of international Jewish Communism.
In the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts, five specific persecutions, sponsored by Jews against the infant Christian Church, are recorded. Failing to blot the new religious conception from the face of the earth by putting its Leader to death, they invented every conceivable scheme for torturing and murdering those who pledged allegiance to His plan for redeeming the world from the curse of sin.
The Jews regarded Christianity as being an illegitimate child of Judaism. Therefore, in their hatred, they believed it to be their solemn duty to stamp it out. After the divine visitation at Pentecost, so many thousands of Jews were converted that the leaders became alarmed.
One thing stood in their way — the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Had His body remained in the tomb, they would have found it easy to combat the new Faith which had suddenly sprung into existence. But with the resurrection being discussed on every side, they found themselves confronted with an insurmountable difficulty. When first faced with the fact of the empty tomb they did not hesitate to resort to deliberate falsehoods.
“And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
The first few months of the Church’s history witnessed five distinct persecutions. What the Cause of Christ has endured at the hands of Jews, through the centuries, far surpasses anything the Jewish people have suffered from Christians.
The attitude of the Jews toward the early Church reminds us that there would be no Christianity in the world today had Paul and others not taken the Gospel message to the Gentiles.
First persecution: Acts 4:1-22. A pitiful beggar, a man born a cripple, was placed near the gates of the Jerusalem temple every day to beg for alms. On a certain occasion, as Peter and John were about to enter, the poor, helpless creature stretched forth a dirty, bony arm and pleaded for a coin.
“Silver and gold have I none,” said Peter, “but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.”
Instantly the resurrection life of Christ smote the recipient of divine mercy and he jumped to his feet “walking, and leaping, and praising God.” The man was more than forty years of age and had therefore been a familiar object on the streets of Jerusalem for years.
This miracle caused a great stir throughout the city. Large crowds of curious people gathered around the apostles and the healed beggar.
Peter was quick to take advantage of the opportunity and turned the occasion into a sermon. “Why marvel ye at this?” he asked, and then explained that a far more wonderful miracle had occurred a short time before in Jerusalem — namely the resurrection of Christ from the grave.
When the report of this healing reached the treacherous Jews, their minds got busier than ever. They began devising new plans for putting an end to everything that was being done in the name of Christ.
Their first thought was to deny that the miracle had been performed. Then they realized that this was useless because the man was so well known. At that moment he was rejoicing, praising God, testifying to his deliverance and telling everybody what had happened. “And we cannot deny it,” mourned the Jews who would have lied to discredit the story if it would have advanced their selfish purposes.
The members of the Sanhedrin came together and the little band of Christians were forced to appear before them. A torrent of abuse was turned loose upon the trembling group until finally Peter, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” became bold. As spokesman for the group, he made it clear that the Christians proposed to obey God rather than man.
Had it not been that the mobs were at that time favorable toward the apostles because of the miracle which had been performed, the Jewish leaders would have no doubt put the entire body of believers to death.
Second persecution: Acts 5:17-42. “Many signs and wonders” were wrought among the people by the apostles. All manner of diseases were healed. But the Jews could see no good in any of this relief of human suffering because it did not come through the narrow, selfish channels of their bigoted nationalism.
The leaders agreed to the use of physical weapons in their attempt to destroy spiritual power, the same as Communists are doing today in trying to exterminate Christianity by killing Christians. Repeated acts of supernatural intervention preserved the early Church. Without divine assistance it would have perished. These early miracles confirmed the words of the Founder that the gates of hell would not be able to prevail against the Church.
The Jews “laid hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth.” Next morning when the Jewish senate convened and messengers were sent to bring the apostles for trial, it was discovered that, unknown to the jailors, they had escaped and were at that very hour preaching in the area of the temple.
Jerusalem was in turmoil by this time. Had the officials dared, they would have killed the Christians without a legal trial. When the saints appeared before the tribunal they were told that they had been previously warned not to teach in the name of Jesus. “Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us,” said the high priest.
From this, it is evident that the apostles had been denouncing the Jews and charging them with the responsibility of Christ’s death. Here we find the leaders complaining about His blood being upon them, forgetting apparently their previous utterance: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” It is to the credit of our spiritual ancestors that they were able to fill a whole city with the doctrines of Christianity in the face of such defiant opposition.
Peter finally dared to shout: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” Next, he called upon his persecutors to repent of their sins. We read that this “cut them to the heart.” Who was this upstart that he should have the audacity to rebuke them!
When they were almost ready to demand the lives of the apostles, Gamaliel, a tolerant member of the Sanhedrin, lifted a warning voice. If the new cult was not of God, he declared that it would come to nought and fall by its own weight. “But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” At length, this line of common sense reasoning prevailed, and the passions of the leaders cooled a bit.
The result was, instead of killing the apostles, they were given another warning and a severe flogging. This form of punishment was cruel, brutal, cowardly and unjust. But even though bitter and painful to the flesh, it caused rejoicing to the spirits of the faithful few. As the wounds healed they “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.”
The only way the Jews had of striking at the Christ Whom they hated was to injure His followers; they availed themselves of this opportunity.
Boldly and properly disregarding their illegal judges, the Christians kept on preaching Christ and reminding the Jews of their crimes against the government of God.
Third persecution: Acts 754-60. The blood of martyrs began flowing in the same year that the Lord ascended into heaven. The Jews’ first victim after Christ was a man named Stephen, whose primary crime was belief in the deity of the Son of God. This was regarded as blasphemy.
The story of the murder of Stephen is one of the saddest in all the history of the Church. It is significant that a Hellenist, rather than an apostle, should have become the first Christian martyr. Stephen was accused of three things: blaspheming God, setting aside the Old Testament, and belittling the Temple. Each of these charges was untrue. Even while lying witnesses were being introduced against him, the members of the Jewish counsel saw his countenance light up with a spiritual glow like “the face of an angel.”
After listening to the charges, the priests asked their helpless victim: “Are these things so?” But instead of devoting himself to an answer of questions which everyone knew to be based upon falsehoods, Stephen entered into a discussion of Israelitish history and closed by rebuking his judges for their hypocrisy.
He declared that their devotion to God, the Law and the Temple, was hypocritical. Here are his words: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.”
Thus Stephen laid bare the full measure of their guilt. The blood of the Son of God was upon their heads; they had ignored the miracles which testified of His deity; they had rejected the Pentecostal program of the new Church; they had also spurned the wooings of the Holy Spirit. Before God they stood condemned, and judgment was sure to overtake them! Taking no thought of his own safety, Stephen shot his words of truth, like barbed arrows, into the hard hearts of his merciless tormentors. As he spoke, the Jewish leaders yelled and screamed to drown his words. They stopped their ears with their fingers to avoid hearing the truth about themselves. Like serpents they hissed their poison at the courageous Christian. They rushed upon him with one accord.
In their madness they dragged him outside the city, removing their outer garments as they ran. With stones they pelted the body of the first Christian martyr until his life ebbed away. This execution was illegal because the matter was not submitted to the Roman Governor.
Emulating the blessed Saviour, Stephen cried with a loud voice: “Lord, lay not this sin at their charge.” “And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Fourth persecution: Acts 8:1-3. The first three persecutions were spontaneous and did not result from deliberate planning. There had been no co-ordination of effort. Events had transpired so rapidly that there had been no time to sit down and quietly work out a concerted plan of attack. But the spilling of Stephen’s blood seemed to whet the Jewish appetite for more Christian suffering. From that hour, nothing but a terrible pogrom could possibly satisfy them. The sight of blood, the appearance of the first deadly wound in the flesh of a believer, seemed to stir all their criminal instincts.
They came to the conclusion that an organized effort was imperative if the new Faith was to be put down. Up until that time, their attempts to suppress the truth had proved ineffective. In searching for a persecutor who would be both cunning and brutal they selected a brilliant young rabbi by the name of Saul from the city of Tarsus.
It will be recalled that this was the young man who had guarded the coats of those who stoned Stephen. Saul stood grinning at the contortions of the martyr squirming and writhing in death agonies, under the barrage of rocks which were heaped upon him.
Jesus told his followers to go everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings. This was done following the Pentecostal harvest feast which brought Jews to Jerusalem from all parts of the civilized world. Those who accepted the Gospel message, on that great occasion, returned to their various communities to kindle spiritual fires.
Unwittingly, in the fourth persecution, the Jews contributed to the success of this very plan of evangelizing because when Saul began scattering believers, driving them from their homes, forcing them into exile, “persecuting them from city to city,” every such Christian became an evangelist. Until this time, the activities of the Christians had been confined for most part, to the city of Jerusalem and its immediate environs, although a skeleton of Church organization was set up reaching into other areas, resulting from the embers which blew in all directions after the experience Pentecost.
“As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.”
The very name Saul became a terror to the early Christians because of the heartless methods which he used. He and his helpers were happiest when they could rush into a house and catch a little group of believers in the act of worshipping — they would kill and wound some, banish others, and torture still others in ways too numerous and terrible for words.
The irony of this organized attempt on the part of the Jews to blot the cause of Christ out of existence, was the fact that their own ring leader got gloriously converted on the road to Damascus and became the greatest missionary and evangelist the world has ever known.
But, in later years, Paul never forgave himself, nor was he ever able to erase the memories of his early attacks upon the little Church, which he came to love so dearly and for which he finally sacrificed his life.
Fifth persecution: Acts 12:1-19. The next spasm of Jewish terror, mentioned in the early part of the book of Acts, was directed against Peter. This persecution is of particular importance because it introduces a new element in the Jewish plan of destroying Christianity. It reveals the scheme, which was continued for hundreds of years, influencing Gentile rulers to do their dirty work for them.
During the first few centuries of Church history, when the pagans slaughtered Christians by the tens of thousands, a careful study will show that time and again the pogroms were precipitated by powerful Jews who were able to maneuver things from behind the scenes. They simply used pagans to carry out their crimes against Christians in the same manner that the player moves chessmen on the board.
St. Justin said in the middle of the second century: “The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians. They wandered through the country, everywhere hating and undermining the Christian faith.”
Tertullian said about the same time: “The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian action.”
A plain example of Jews causing unbelieving Gentiles to destroy Christians is to be seen in this, the fifth persecution. We read that Herod the king has James put to death by the sword because of Jewish influences being brought to bear upon his throne. This ruler was the grandson of Herod the Great who murdered the babes of Bethlehem after the birth of Christ. James was one of the three, with Peter and John, who enjoyed the sweetest possible fellowship with the Lord.
No details are given in the Scriptures about the killing of James. And yet underneath the simple statement, a deep anguish and sympathy may be felt. Then the next verse shows that the wicked king had planned to make away with Peter in the same way. “And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. And when he apprehended him, he put him in prison… Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”
The Jews desired a public execution of Peter. They wanted his death to be viewed by all because he was one of the principal leaders of the despised Christians. This would give them a chance to gloat over their ability to wrap Gentile monarchs around their fingers. It was quite an achievement, in their estimation, to get a Roman king such as Herod, to do their bidding.
But a strange thing happened during the night preceding the day when Peter was to be put to death. Another miracle occurred.
Although execution awaited him, the faithful apostle who spent the night chained between two soldiers, slept as sound as a babe. Suddenly a shaft of light shot into the darkened cell like a bolt of lightning and an angel smote Peter on the side. He dressed quickly and followed the heavenly visitor to the outer court, through the gate, and down the street. Not until then did he realize that his deliverance was real and not merely a dream.
Making his way to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, Peter found that an all-night prayer meeting was being held in his behalf. He came into the presence of the saints rejoicing “that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the Jews.”
The angel smote Peter and the result was life and liberty. A short time later the same angel smote Herod and the result was disease, death and worms devouring his flesh. And this king was not the last to be cursed for allowing himself to come under the domination of Jews.
So Herod having consented to an ignominious death for Peter, himself suffered one much more ignominious.
Judgment
It is not a safe thing for non-Christians to persecute Christ’s saints. God will not permanently excuse or condone such crimes. History is replete with judgments being visited fast and furiously upon individuals and nations who have made this mistake.
Torturing Christians is a dangerous pastime. “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” “And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.” “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
The Jewish Bolshevicks who are today digging a pit for Christianity in Russia are creating a future hell of judgment for themselves, exactly like the Jews of the first century sealed their destruction by torturing the saints at the dawn of this age.
The same Romans whom the vicious, designing and tricky Jews used as tools to destroy the Christian Church, later turned against them and added sorrow upon sorrow until the nation was at last drenched in its own blood.
Jesus said to the Jews: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
This pathetic prophecy was literally fulfilled in the middle of the first century when Titus, the Roman Emperor, brought his iron legions against the city of Jerusalem for one of the most terrible slaughters the world has ever known.
Famine, disease, pestilence and starvation on the inside of the city walls — and the Romans pushing fiercely against them from the outside, brought upon the Jews such a wave of judgment and suffering as the human race has never before or since witnessed.
A few pertinent snatches from the history of the Jews, written by Josephus, will be sufficient to illustrate this fact:
“But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they are after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious everywhere came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor….
“This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as guarded them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies….
“Titus then went round about the enemy with some chosen troops, and fell upon their flanks himself; so the Jews, who had been before assaulted in their faces, wheeled about to Titus, and continued the fight. The armies also were now mixed one among another, and the dust that was raised so far hindered them from seeing one another, and the noise that was made so far hindered them from hearing one another, that neither side could discern an enemy from a friend. However, the Jews did not flinch, though not so much from their real strength, as from their despair of deliverance. The Romans also would not yield, by reason of the regard they had to glory, and to their reputation in war, and because Caesar himself went into the danger before them; insomuch that I cannot but think the Romans would in the seclusion have now taken even the whole multitude of the Jews, so very angry were they at them, had these not prevented the upshot of the battle, and retired into the city….
“Then did the famine widen its progress, and devoured the people by whole houses and families; the upper rooms were full of women and children that were dying by famine, and the houses of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children also and the young men wandered about the market-places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead, wheresoever their misery seized them. As for burying them, those that were sick themselves were not able to do it; and those that were hearty and well were deterred from doing it by the great multitude of those dead bodies, and by the uncertainty there was how soon they should die themselves; for many died as they were burying others, and many went to their coffins before that fatal hour was come. Nor was there any lamentations made under these calamities, nor were heard any mournful complaints; but the famine confounded all natural passions; for those who were just going to die looked upon those that were gone to rest before them with dry eyes and open mouths. A deep silence also, and a kind of deadly night, had seized upon the city; while yet the robbers were still more terrible than these miseries were themselves; for they break open those houses which were no other than graves of dead bodies, and plundered them of what they had; and carrying off the coverings of their bodies, went out laughing, and tried the points of their swords in their dead bodies; and, in order to prove what metal they were made of, they thrust some of those through that still lay alive upon the ground; but for those that entreated them to lend them their right hand and their sword to despatch them, they were too proud to grant their requests, and left them to be consumed by the famine….
“There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. It was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, ‘O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these Jewish rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; he thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a byword to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.’ As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the Jewish soldiers came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, ‘This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also’? After which those men went out trembling, being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother.
“This sad instance was quickly told to the Romans, some of whom could not believe it, and others pitied the distress which the Jews were under; but there were many of them who were thereby induced to a more bitter hatred than ordinary against our nation. But for Caesar, he excused himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine.”
Josephus tells how this state of affairs continued for months until finally the Roman soldiers set fire to the gates and literally burned their way into the city. The siege of Titus continued until the sacred Temple was burned and razed to the ground. He continues:
“While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire.”
Again we are reminded of the Lord’s reference to this terrible judgment which was predicted to come upon the Jews, “Your house is left unto you desolate.”
The Jews and the Church (Continued)
The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70 was a direct fulfillment of the prophecy made by Jesus in Matthew 24:2, “See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Naturally, when Titus plowed down this gorgeous structure, Christians hailed the event as a confirmation of the Lord’s ability to read the future. This aroused ever increasing interest in prophetic subjects among the believers. The destruction of the Temple and the siege at Jerusalem resulted in the dispersion of the Jews. And wherever they went, they carried burning hatred in their hearts for the saints because they were constantly reminded that Christ had predicted their downfall. Now, coming to the middle of the fourth century we find another example of Jewish influence over Gentile rulers, which is equally as remarkable as their control of King Herod.
For three hundred years, powerful Jews dispersed to all parts of the Roman Empire, kindled ill-will against the Christians. Then came Emperor Constantine who reversed everything and made Christianity the official State religion of the nation. This was a rebuff to both the Jews and pagans who had used every conceivable scheme to destroy the Faith.
After the departure of Constantine from this life, his three sons ruled the Empire. Meanwhile the Jews bided their time, waiting for the right opportunity to place a Gentile in power whom they could control. Their chance came, following the death of Constantine’s last son, when Julian ascended to the throne.
Contempt for Christianity filtered through Julian’s mind and he resolved, as soon as an occasion might arise, to deal it a final, crushing blow. He swore that when the time was ripe he would throw off the religious cloak of Constantine.
It remained for the Jews to produce a situation in which they could assist Julian in venting his spleen against the believers who were then growing strong both in numbers and spiritual strength, due to more than a half century of religious freedom. Happily for the Church, this Emperor reigned only two years, but those two years embodied a period of unspeakable agony.
Julian gave the Christians the name “Galileans” which, in his day, was a word that carried a slur with it. As if actuated by the spirit of anti-Christ he adopted the curious means of attempting to nullify the Bible prophecies. His contact with the Jews was no doubt responsible for this novel idea. Early training had taught him how to gain favor with Jewish leaders by insulting and tormenting the followers of Christ.
Neither Jews or Christians had forgotten that the destruction of the Temple was a fulfillment of predictions made by the Lord. It was therefore decided that, as a slap at the Christians, Julian should rebuild the edifice in Jerusalem and turn it over to the Jews.
From all quarters of the Empire, Jews came to assist in erecting the building and to offer their wealth. Julian personally made the preliminary arrangements and sent one of his chief officers to superintend the work. The Jews who were directing affairs from within the shadows, shaping the official policies of the Empire, saw in this a deadly rebuff which promised to ultimately threaten the very existence of the Christian religion in the world.
Stirring scenes were enacted. Women brought their ornaments and jewels by the cartloads. So much precious metal was received that tools were even cast and forged of it. It looked to Jews and pagans as if the prophecies of the Bible relating to Palestine were going to be set aside.
But God intervened at the last minute and when the Temple was part way built a violent earthquake and severe electrical storm took place which demolished the whole undertaking. Fear came upon the Jews and the workers so that all activities were suspended. Not only Christian writers, but pagans as well, record this strange happening.
Julian was mortally wounded on the field of battle with the Persians a few months later. He became known in history as “the Apostate.” It has been related that just prior to his death, he cried: “Thou hast conquered after all, O Galilean.”
Church leaders, through the age, have been alert to Satan’s use of the Jewish people in thwarting the program of Christ in the world. Some Christians have been more outspoken than others, on the subject, but every generation has produced its watchmen who have known the truth and have dared to proclaim it. Among the more bold spokesmen on this question was Martin Luther who prepared a treatise entitled, The Jews and Their Lies. In it we read the following statements which are characteristic of the entire discussion:
“How the Jews love the Book of Esther, which is so suitable to their bloodthirsty, revengeful, murderous appetite and hopes! The sun has never shone on such a bloodthirsty and revengeful people, who fancy themselves to be the chosen people so that they can murder and strangle the heathen.
“No folk under the sun is more greedy than they are, than they have been and always will be, as one can see from their accursed usury. They console themselves that when their Messiah comes, he will collect all the gold and silver in the world and divide it amongst them.
“The Princes and authorities sit and snore with open mouths and let the Jews take, steal and rob what they want out of their open purses and chests; i.e. — they let themselves and their subjects be skinned and sucked dry by the Jews’ usury, and make themselves, with their own money, beggars in their own State…. The Jews have got our money and property, and are therefore our masters in our own land.
“It all agrees with the judgment of Christ that they are poisonous, bitter, vindictive, and malicious serpents, assassins and children of the devils who kill and inflict injuries by stealth because they cannot do so openly.
“I will give my true council.
1) Set their Synagogues and schools on fire, and heap over earth that which will not burn, so that none may see a stone or cinder of them evermore….
2) Break down their houses likewise, for they practice therein the same thing that they practice in their schools….
3) Take from them all their prayer-books and Talmudic writings where such idolatry, lies, curses and blasphemies are taught.
4) Forbid their Rabbis to teach henceforth on pain of death….
5) Abolish absolutely the right of way for the Jews, for they have nothing to do in the country….
6) Forbid them usury….
7) Give flail, ax, mattock, spade, distaff and spindle into the hands of the young Jew and Jewesses, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their noses….”
“But if we fear that they may do us harm in body, wife, child, servant, beast, etc., etc…. let us reckon up with them what they have taken from us by usury, and so share it amicably, but drive them for ever into the fields.
“Anyone might think I am saying too much. I am not saying too much, but rather far too little…. If we do not want to partake in the Jews’ blasphemies we must be separated and they must be driven out of the land. That is the best advice that secures both sides in such a case.”
The Jews and Communism
No informed person who is truthful denies the Jewish character of Communism. The writer recently published in one of his magazines, the names and nationalities of every leader in the Moscow dictatorship as it was set up eighteen years ago. It was discovered that out of the 545 members of the bureaucracy, 454 were Jews and there were only 23 Russians in the group.
In other words, the Russian people are governed by a gang of anti-Christian foreigners, many of whom are said to be unable to speak the language of the people they govern. Some of the principal officials of the Red government are reported to have come from the East Side of New York.
It has been said on the floor of the United States Congress, and the charge has not been denied, that a certain Jewish banking concern in Wall Street sponsored Trotsky’s mass meetings of rebellion in New York some years ago, sent him across the ocean secretly, and deposited millions of dollars in a Swedish bank to the credit of the destroyers, with which the Russian revolution was financed. In her remarkable book Waters Flowing Eastward Mrs. L. Fry states that back in 1893 a Jewish secret order here in America appointed Jacob Schiff, a Wall Street Jew, chairman of its committee on Russian revolutionary activities. If this is true, it simply means that Mr. Schiff sat at his desk in New York and directed the destruction of the Czar’s government thousands of miles away. It is impossible to separate Jewish Communism from Jewish Capitalism. Laboring men who think they can free themselves from the Money Power by embracing Communism are being betrayed by soap-box oratory.
The Moscow leaders are the world’s wealthiest Capitalists. They own one-sixth of the earth’s surface. They control one hundred and sixty million Gentile slaves. The Russian people are not allowed to vote, own property, exercise free speech, enjoy freedom of press, or worship God. The masses are kept in their weakened, helpless condition by the most powerful system of secret police ever invented in the history of the world.
The attitude of Communism toward Christianity was explained by Lunatcharski, one of the leading Jewish members of the Moscow dictatorship:
“Why should we believe in God? — We hate Christianity and Christians. Even the best of them must be regarded as our worst enemies. They preach love of one’s neighbor, and pity, which is contrary to our principles. Christian love is a hinderance to the revolution. Down with love of one’s neighbor; what we want is hatred. We must know how to hate, for only at this price can we conquer the universe. We have done with the kings of the earth; let us now deal with the kings of the skies. The anti-religious campaign must not be restricted to Soviet Russia: it should be carried on throughout the entire world. The fight should also be developed in the Moslem and Catholic countries, with the same ends in view and by the same means.”
There is no way of knowing how many millions of Russian Christians have been slain during the last eighteen years because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
The magazine, New Outlook, recently carried an article entitled, “Men of Russia.” It was the author’s purpose to make a critical examination of the ring leaders of international Communism. He says: “Some of the business men are Russians, but most of them are of other bloods, and practically all of them have prison records…. In considering the men of Russia, it should be remembered that it isn’t often that ex-prisoners get a crack at the society which punished them, but they did in Russia.” The writer in New Outlook, then proceeds to discuss some of Moscow’s principal Jewish fiends:
“Joseph Stalin is a minor official of the Soviet Government. He is but one of the three hundred or so members of the Central Executive Committee, and yet, nevertheless, he is the first man of Russia today. Although serving as secretary of the All-Russian Communist Party, Stalin is not a Russian. His every feature is commensurate with ‘stalin’, the Russian word for steel.” Parenthetically it should be remarked that Stalin is merely the customary “Gentile Front” for the Moscow Jewish leaders. His Gentile wife died a “mysterious” death recently and he immediately married a Jewess. The article continues:
“Lazarus M. Kaganovitch is a member of the Politbureau or arbitrary ‘Brain Trust’, and chief organizer of the Second Five Year Plan. This Polish Jew is Stalin’s Number One Boy, and his logical successor as dictator.
“Maxim Maximovich Litvinov is Commissar of Foreign Affairs. He is the super-traveling salesman of Bolshevism. This shrewd Polish Jew has fought diplomatic battles in every political arena where the gate receipts warranted his appearance. He returns from these victories from time to time to his spacious Moscow office to check up one more Red diplomatic triumph by sticking a new red glass tack in the huge map which covers the wall behind his desk.
“Klementy Voroshilov (another Jew) is Commissar of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. He is the dashing yet modest cavalry officer who is charged with preparing the Russian forces for an anticipated war.
“Mikhail Kalinin, (an Armenian Jew) is President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Like all big leaders he served his term in prison, taking an important part in the revolution of 1905 as member of the Council of Workers’ Deputies.
“Karl Radek, (another Jew) is Contributing Editor of Izvestia, official government newspaper. Radek has frequently been suppressed by radical organizations for being too radical. “Michael Borodin, Editor of the English-language Moscow Daily News. This Czechoslovakian Jew was educated at Valparaiso University in Indiana; and spent many years agitating for the International Communist Party, in Spain, in Mexico, in America, the British Isles, and China. “‘Just’ Padolsky, master of the Foreign Office Press-Censorship Bureau. He may have a first name, but it is doubtful that anyone in Russia, including his wife, knows it. He is a soft-spoken Jew in eight languages, not counting American slang, of which he has a thorough knowledge. Padolsky is a hundred per cent Communist.
“Jerry Lifschitz, Ex-Vice-Yankee Consul, ex-Second-in-Command of Moscow Amtorg. This Polish Jew, had an American jail and prison record for I.W.W. activities; and an added palm for being twice tarred and feathered by irate Midwest American farmers.
“Comrade Smirdovitch, (another Jew) is the ‘Red Pope’. Smirdovitch, an atheist, is the official restrainer and regulator of religion in the U.S.S.R. He is a member of the important Central Executive Committee. As the official Anti-Christ of the Soviet Republics, he decides how far remaining priests of the church may go toward preaching the Word of God. Kindly, cultured, educated, tolerant in manner, Smirdovitch says religion will die out when divorced from superstitious ritual, pomp, and fear. His job is to help kill it.”
Toward the close of the article, this writer in the New Outlook says: “But the men who control Russia are not Russians. Members of the Jewish race from all over the world predominate. Every member of the foreign office press censor bureau is a Jew. Little men of Russia who help in responsible positions, heads of offices, trusts, are mostly Jews.”
Let Christians remember that the international Jewish Communists and Capitalists expect to eventually destroy all Gentile governments, rule the world, and establish throughout the earth the kind of conditions they have introduced in Soviet Russia. They expect to murder all Christian believers and blot Christianity out of existence. The struggle is between the philosophy of the Jew Karl Marx and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The manner in which the Moscow Jews have proceeded with their program of destruction is recorded in a quotation taken from the London Times dated November 14, 1919. The quotation is a letter written by a British army officer, who was stationed at the time in southern Russia, to his wife in England. It reads:
“The Bolshevists are devils… I hope to send you copies of 64 official photos taken by British officers at Odessa when the town was taken by the Bolshevists… I suggest you… make them widely known. Their horror may make people realize…. The victim gets crucified with nails through his elbows. The hands are treated with a solution which shrivels the skin. The skin is cut out with a razor, round the wrist, and peeled off, till it hangs by the finger nails — a human glove. The victim gets terrified and insane…. Other photos are of women. Women with their breasts cut off to the bone…. Passes issued to Bolshevists by commissaries… authorize holders to arrest any girl they fancy for use of the soldiery. Sixty-two girls of all classes were arrested like this and thrown to the Bolshevist troops. Those who struggled were killed…. The rest when used… were mutilated and thrown dead or dying into the river…. Slaughter-houses were choked with corpses…. Hundreds of suspects, men, women and children, were herded in these, doors and windows manned and the struggling mass fired into until most of them were dead or dying. The doors were then locked and they were left… veritable plague spots… causing widespread epidemics…. The Bible, to them is a ‘counter-revolutionary’ book to be stamped out… churches are used for anything from movie shows to ‘slaughterhouses.'”
Let no Christian be duped into believing that we are supposed to sit supinely by and permit the Reds to create a reign of terror in America simply because this menace happens to be a “Jewocracy.” True, there is a stratum of Jewry that is indeed “Chosen” and has been a blessing to humanity through the centuries, but there is another stratum that is a “curse in all places” as Jeremiah said they would be. Speaking through the lips of the prophet in Ezekiel 38:3, God said: “I am against thee, O Gog” — and this is a clear reference to Communism with its seat of government in “Meshech” (Moscow).
It is possible that this invisible empire has existed as a self-propagating body ever since the Jewish leaders contacted the Chaldeans while in Babylonia. Persons holding to this view agree that the organization has almost completed its course, that the time for the consummation of the plot is near at hand, that the last great attack is now being launched for the purpose of setting up an international system of Jewish government. The existence of this secret sinister organization in New Testament times is implied in 1 John 4:3, “And this is that spirit of anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”
The entire cabal is so large and far-reaching, its motives so hellish, its plan of attack so contrary to Christian thinking, that it simply staggers the mind when it is first exposed to view. But the results of its devastating influence may be seen both in history and among the nations today. It breathes the spirit of the last great Beast-Emperor described in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. It discloses the perverted Messianic theories of an apostate people.
This anti-Christ force has apparently manifested itself from its underground sources in different ways at different periods of history, but never with the boldness and permanency that it has since it came to the surface eighteen years ago.
There have always been two kinds of Jews. One racial division represents all that is highest and best in Jewry, and regards the Jews primarily as being a system of religion. The other has little inclination toward religion, but regards Jewry as a political State, the purpose of which is to conduct world conquest until the nations are brought under one head with themselves in control and all the Gentiles changed into serfs.
When the Romans turned against the designing and wicked political leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and Sadducees were driven under cover. With the dispersion that followed, their taint was taken to the ends of the earth and has grown up in every nation. No doubt Jesus had this in mind when he warned to: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” In all parts of the world it appears that this poison “leaven” is “leavening” the whole lump of the nations. What used to be the Russian Empire is now completely “leavened.”
These are the subversive forces that have moved through the centuries, changing their form from time to time as governments have been made to heave, totter, cave in, and fall, but always with the same object in view, a final culmination when all nations will be leveled and a super-Jewish State set up, presided over by one man, their apostate Messiah. This is the genius behind Socialism and Communism.
I have tried to treat thoroughly the matter of this age old invisible empire, in my two books, Adam Weishaupt, a Human Devil, and The Truth about the Protocols.
In the last analysis there are only two remedies for Jewish Communism: 1) the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 2) full stomachs. The Red Menace thrives only where there is spiritual inertia, and physical hunger.
