My ancestors sympathised with Hitler – killing men, women and children, bayonetting babies, torturing children.
Werner Oder, the son of an Austrian Nazi war criminal, had a radical conversion to Christ who, he says, set him free from antisemitism and gave him a special love for the Jewish people. Thus in October he flew to Israel to show support when most foreign nationals were fleeing the hostilities. His own salvation experience enables him to speak out fearlessly about current events
On arriving at Tel Aviv, when I was still numb with the shock of witnessing a repeat of Holocaust atrocities, a border control officer asked me: “Why are you coming to Israel when everyone is leaving?”
I replied: “I have come from the UK to lend my support to Israel at this time, to tell them that I love them, to be with them in times of danger, to grieve with them and share their sorrow.”
The man was so moved he almost forget to check my passport.
I believe God is using this awful tragedy to make the world wake up to the responsibility of bringing Hamas and their sympathisers to justice.
The man was so moved he almost forget to check my passport
My ancestors sympathised with Hitler – killing men, women and children, bayonetting babies, torturing children.
Few of their war criminals were brought to justice. Instead, they were recruited by the governments of post-war nations who permitted their demonic spirit to mutate into the evil we have seen perpetrated in Israel.
But not even the Nazis did what Hamas is doing; no animal does what these murderers of women and children did.
I have no time for deluded ‘Christian’ volunteers working for NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) who tell their church back home that Israelis are the criminals, and Palestinians the victims. It only encourages people living in the comfort of their homes, 3,000 miles away, to make 100 per cent judgements out of their one per cent ignorance.
So what does God have to say about the war in Gaza? When I asked him, he replied from Scripture:
“This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not turn back the punishment of my wrath. Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom; I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses” (Amos 1:6-7).
What is happening in Gaza today has been prophesied 2,700 years ago by a Jewish shepherd! We don’t need to elaborate on the three sins of Gaza, because the fourth sin of Gaza happened before our very eyes during the 7 October atrocities, where ‘whole communities’ were slaughtered and the rest were “sold to Edom”, the descendants of Esau. (Esau wanted to kill Jacob whom God renamed Israel).
What is happening in Gaza today has been prophesied 2,700 years ago by a Jewish shepherd
I also believe that God is warning us from the prophet Obadiah:
“The day of the Lord is near for (Gaza and) all nations. As you have done, so it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon you own head!” (Obadiah 15) God has now raised up his heavenly and earthly armies to punish Gaza, to destroy the walls and level the fortresses in punishment of the horrific crimes that have shocked the world. And, because the whole world is under the power of the god of this world, who has been a liar from the beginning, his media circus is circling like hyenas in the hope that Israel will be torn to pieces. (An investigation is under way that proves that photographers working for the New York Times, CNN, AP and Reuters moved with the Hamas invaders from the first moment of attack, taking pictures of the atrocities, while the BBC relied on Hamas for their [dis]information!)
This is not just Israel’s battle, it is God’s battle! Three thousand years ago Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, faced a vast army that came to annihilate them. A God-fearing man, as “all Judah stood before the LORD, with their little ones, their wives, and their children” (2 Chronicles 20:13), he prayed: “We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chronicles 20:12).
Today, Israel is standing before the Lord with their wives, children and little ones, calling upon the Lord. And, like the army in the days of Jeshoshaphat, they have been going to war praising the Lord in the beauty of holiness, calling upon Adonai with all their hearts.
When IDF soldiers captured one of the minarets in Gaza, they declared, “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad” (“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”), over its speaker system – never before in history have we seen such a thing!
Amidst this bloody conflict God is re-writing history – there is hope! And God wants us not just to be witnesses of this historic event, but to take part in the shaping of history.
Amidst this bloody conflict God is re-writing history – there is hope!
Like it or not, we are called to participate in fighting the good fight against the evil of deception that, like tear gas, has invaded the Church. I am so dismayed by the blindness and sheer ignorance of our British ‘Christian world’; it makes me ashamed to call myself a Christian.
Once known as a Christian country, whose cathedrals reverberated with the hymn “Jerusalem…builded here among those dark satanic mills”, we have largely abandoned Jerusalem.
These ‘dark satanic mills’ are rotating in tolerance of the pro-Palestinian “Kill the Jews” demonstrations that reveal the spirit controlling whatever is left of Great Britain. What has been hidden behind the ‘stiff upper lip’ of Queen’s English, English church culture and British colloquialism is a Nazi The man was so moved spirit that refuses to condemn Hamas terrorism, but arrests Christians who have the courage to declare publicly that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.
On Remembrance Sunday, as well as remembering the fallen from Britain’s wars, we need to widen it to include:
- The 1,000s of Jews who were murdered throughout history for no other reason than the fact that God chose them to become a blessing to the world.
- The millions of Christians who were murdered and tortured for no other reason than their witness to Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah and Saviour of the world.
- The men and women of the Israeli army who have followed God’s call to remove evil from their world.
We also need to remember the people of Gaza. Many want to be free from the demonic yoke of Hamas and live in freedom.
When this war has ended and we pray it will be soon, thousands of Gazans will love Israel for the freedom the Jews brought to their country!
Let us not be silent like the German Christians of World War 2 who said and did nothing in a time of slaughter, but let us say with Isaiah: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch” (Isaiah 62:1).
Pastor Werner Oder leads the Tuckton Christian Centre in Bournemouth. His book, ‘Battling with Nazi Demons’ is available from Onwards and Upwards Publishers.