"His Israel"

As I watched a portion of a movie about the Holocaust,  I became intensely overcome with despair.  I watched as husbands and wives, parents and children were separated by the Nazi soldiers.  I had all I could stand and I protested watching any more of this atrocity.  It's hard enough to know it happened, but to watch it performed was gut-wrenching.  Two days later (this morning) it came to me as I read Zechariah, that this was not the first time this has happened to the Jews.  The Bible is full of this kind of history for God's people.

Funny, that I don't remember thinking through this before.  Over and over, God tells His people to repent, return and obey.  They were stiff-necked, His word tells us.  But they are His people and He loves them and He will never forsake them.  I guess it's just that this holocaust happened closer to my own time, that it seems worse.

In the movie, an especially evil Nazi commander makes a speech about how the Jews have always come back and reproduced throughout history but not this time, he concludes.  And from that speech came the scene of separation described above.  But the Nazis were not the first to think they had power over God.  It was an act of evil nations hundreds of years before the forties that have tried this great feat.  But they found they fought against the God of Creation, something no one can do and win.

In the book of Zechariah, the angel of the LORD said, "O LORD of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah...?  And the LORD answered gracious and comforting words... 'I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion...' Therefore, thus says the LORD, 'I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy, my house shall be built in it... My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.'"  (Zechariah 1:12-17)

God will never allow the extermination of His people.  John MacArthur states in his study Bible for the introduction to verses 18-21, "The second of night visions adds details to the judgment of the nations who persecuted His Israel, building upon God's promise to comfort His people."  They are "His Israel" and His people, as are the Gentiles whom God has "opened a door of faith" (Acts 14:27).  Let us "enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise" for the compassion and comfort shown us by our great God.  (Psalm 100:3-4)