The Holocaust God's Judgment

Timothy,

God promised that Israel would be a prosperous nation so long as they obeyed him. He did not promise riches to every individual but that the nation would be so prosperous as to provide for all. He gave commandment for the care of the poor among them which proves He did not intend that all would be wealthy.

Mark Osgatharp </font>[/QUOTE]do you think the "thee"s instead of "ye"s have any significance here? perhaps the commandments about the poor were given since he knew the jews wouldn't live up to their side of the covenant.

i think it's very intersting the switch from ye ("if ye harken to these judgements") to thee ("and he will love thee") in the above passage, indicating collective responsibility.

 

what it really means to be chosen:

Amos 3:1
Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

 

The Holocaust was a directed at the Jews primarily. </font>[/QUOTE]I don’t have the time or space to give you a history lesson, but the primary motivation for the mass killings by the Nazis before and during World War II lies in theories of eugenics combined with an occult concepts of an Aryan master race from German mythology. Hitler exploited European anti-Semitism to move Germans and other like-minded people to enact his murderous program. Yes, Jews suffered horribly, but many other people groups did as well.

Godly Jews perished in the Babylonian captivity, as Isaiah said of that time, "The righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come."

Your argument falls. </font>[/QUOTE]Nope. You’ve shifted your premise in order to side-step my point.

You alleged that Jews were being judged because of their sin because they were murdered. Yet you allege here that God-fearing Christians were killed to spare then from the evil yet to come. The way you reason, there’s no way to hold you to objective facts. I could say that the God-fearing people were being judged by God because they were murdered and the Jews were murdered to take them away from the evil yet to come.

Being handicapped does not make a man godly. Being handicapped does not exempt a man from judgement.

Furthermore, "sucklings" were specifically said by God to perish when God raised up judgement on Israel. Who could be less innocent than a suckling babe?

Your argument falls. </font>[/QUOTE]Nope. You’ve shifted your premise to sidestep my point.

For what it’s worth, how do you know that the Holocaust was not God’s wrath poured out on handicapped people and the Jews, gypsies, confessing Christians and such were just caught up in the judgment? After all, the handicapped people were the first to be sterilized and then murdered by the Nazis. The murders of Jewish people came later.

Using your kind of reasoning, the Holocaust was about destroying handicapped people because very few of them survived except for those who were hidden or escaped from German hands. Many, many more Jews survived.

Ah, yes, the Russians, that pure folk who had, in the decades prior to World War II enthroned atheism and sorely oppressed the godly few who lived among them. Keep on going, BaptistBeliever, you are making my case very well! </font>[/QUOTE]Nope. You’ve shifted your premise to sidestep my point.

You were making the case that the Holocaust was about God’s wrath on Jews specifically, not just a general judgment on sinners.

</font>[/QUOTE]Seeing Europe was predominantly Roman Catholic and Liberal Protestant the case is made. </font>[/QUOTE]You’re quite a lawyer! I can understand why you would believe that there were few godly people in Europe since you also don’t believe there are many godly people on BaptistBoard because we don’t share your views! Do you think that if Europe were filled with independent fundamental Baptists with Landmarkist tendencies that World War II wouldn’t have happened?

And what about the Japanese? Where do they fit in to your views of judgment? Was their horrific cruelty to other peoples and nations before and during World War II God’s judgment? Was the city of Nanking, China being judged by God when the Japanese butchered men, women and children with such cruelty that it sickened the Nazi observers. (Interestingly enough, it is my understanding that the Nazi observers rescued a number of Chinese people from death at the hands of the Japanese!)

Yes.

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You seem to keep shifting your premise.

Please tell me which premise you are proposing here so we can discuss it properly.

Do you propose that:

1.) The Holocaust was God’s judgment on Jewish people in Europe and other people who were targeted and suffered the same fate were collateral damage from God’s wrath?

-and/or-

2.) World War II was God’s judgment on Europe and the mass murder of Jewish people was merely a part of God’s judgment on Europe.

-and/or-

3.) All evil that occurs in the world is directed by God toward those on whom He wants to inflict his wrath – including bystanders who are not guilty of the specific sin that God is judging.

Which one(s) do you choose? (If you don’t like mine, please write your own.)

 

IMO, I believe a lot of answers can be found in the OT book of Habakkuk. If you flip too fast through the OT you’ll miss it.

The prophet Habakkuk asks God why He seems to be delaying judgment on Judah for their sinful ways. God tells him not to worry about it and to look at the surrounding nations and from them will come a nation that will be My instrument of judgment on sinful Judah.

Habakkuk can’t believe that God was about to rise up the Chaldeans (Babylonians), a nation far worse than Judah, to be Gods instrument of judgment. But God did use the Chaldeans and of course we know what happened to the Chaldeans later.

As horrific the Holocaust was, it looked as if God may have used Hitler and his henchmen as His instrument of judgment. Just as God will use the Great Tribulation to woo His people (Israel) back to God.

 

WisdomSeeker,

The same reason that neither the Assyrians nor Babylonians were right when God used them to punish Israel. We are told both in Isaiah and Jeremiah that the Lord used these wicked empires to judge Israel, as well as other pagan nations, and then judged them for their very acts against these nations.

This is what as known as the providence of God. God overules and directs the acts of evil men to bring about His purposes - whether in judgement on in mercy. God's providential use of evil men does not exhonerate them and God will still judge them for their evil.

Mark Osgatharp </font>[/QUOTE]Again, I think you missed the point I was making.

This was not a religious war but racial cleansing like so many other wars with genocide as the goal.