 So, let's take a look at a historical perspective. The book of Isaiah chapter 44 in verse 1 and in verse 8 says, Yet now here, O Jacob my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen, you are my witnesses. So what is the historical perspective on this issue? In the more than 3,300 years since the Jews left Egypt, our journey as God's chosen people, or servant, has taken us throughout the four corners of the earth. Being His witnesses, we have encountered all of His tree's great empires face to face, and we have outlasted them all. Our experiences have taught us much, including the enduring nature of our people and our Torah. We will now explore some additional lessons in our unique history to further highlight this subject. If we examine a timeline of Jewish history, you will see that it begins with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through our exodus from slavery in Egypt, through the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and extends right through until today. As God promised to Abraham, our history demonstrates the miracle of the Jewish nation who has always retained a faithful remnant that has survived against all odds. Yet, in every generation, Jews have been lost through persecution or through abandonment of Judaism in favor of the foreign culture of the day. However, faithful Jews have always resisted demands to abandon our beliefs for other gods. For the last 2,000 years, we have viewed calls to believe in Jesus in this way. In Deuteronomy 11 verse 16, there's a warning that states, Beware lest your heart be deceived, and you turn and serve other gods and worship them. Every Jew alive today has a long line of ancestors to thank for having remained true to Judaism and the Jewish people. In every generation, those Jews who embraced other cultures and religions at the expense of their Judaism failed to have descendants faithful to Judaism and most of them became totally assimilated within 3 to 4 generations. Think of it this way, if one of your great grandparents had converted, you would in all likelihood not identify as a Jew today. The book of Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 4 says, But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day. If God wants the Jewish people to survive, then those Jews who cut their ties to historical Judaism are swimming against the tide of God's agenda. Let's look at the Second Temple Era and the Rise of Christianity. Christianity arose during very trying times for the Jewish people, and it is important to understand the historical context of that period. In the year 586 BCE, following the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians, the Jews were carried from their land into exile. After 70 years, Ezra the scribe led a large number of Jews back to Israel to reclaim the land and rebuild the temple. The majority of Jews however remained in Babylon even after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. Then there was the Great Assembly. Upon returning to Israel, Ezra convened a special assembly of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Court, known as the Anshe Knesset Hagdola, men of the Great Assembly, whose members included the likes of Nechemia, Daniel, and Zechariah. Since the era of the prophets had come to an end, the Great Assembly addressed itself to several critical needs of the nation. Two of the greatest achievements of the Great Assembly were one to canonize the Tzennach, or the Old Testament, as Christians refer to it. To do this, they selected those books that were consistent with the laws and beliefs of the Torah and whose prophecies were of enduring relevance. From the writings of the Tzennach, we get a consistent picture of Jewish beliefs, including the Messianic Era. They also organized the Jewish Prayer Service. To express the beliefs and aspirations of Judaism, the Great Assembly formalized Jewish blessings and prayers. Among these are the Shmona Esrae, the 18 blessings which formed the core of the Jewish Prayer Service. By examining its sacred words, we get an insight into a variety of Jewish beliefs, including the topic of the Messiah. Let me read an important prayer from the sitter, our Jewish Prayer Book. Quote, The offspring of your servant David may you speedily cause to flourish and enhance his pride through your salvation, for we hope for your salvation all day long. Blessed are you, God, who causes the pride of salvation to flourish. This blessing from the Shmona Esrae, which is recited three times daily by observant Jews, deals with our belief in the Messiah. Obviously, there is no mention that the Messiah will be the Son of God, that he will suffer and die as an atonement for our sins, or that there will be a second coming. These Christian ideas are totally foreign to Judaism. As the men of the Great Assembly passed away, they bestowed the mantle of leadership to a long line of sages known as the Tanayim, who led the Jewish people into the Talmudic times. Their adherence to the laws handed down from Moses to the judges and to the prophets set the stage for the continuity of our faith until today. As the Talmudic rabbis in turn assumed the leadership of the people, they were prepared to withstand the tests of exile and our enemies. Then came Hellenism and the roots of Christianity. Perhaps the greatest challenge that Judaism faced in the Second Temple Era was the spread and influence of Hellenism. Through the conquests of Alexander the Great, Hellenistic ideas made their way into the land of Israel. Conflict arose between the man-centered philosophy of Greece that emphasized physical beauty and pleasures, and the God-centered Torah of Israel that emphasized holiness and adherence to God's laws. This battle still rages today. As many Jews sided with the Greeks in their disregard for the Torah, this conflict was further heightened. The events of the Chanukah story, which took place in 165 BCE, saw this conflict result in a successful conclusion with the Jews achieving a spiritual as well as a military victory. Although the founders of Christianity were Jews, they took this new religion on a path that led away from the Torah to make it more palatable to the Greek world. Greek mythology contained foreign notions, such as virgin-born saviors, and many of their heroes were venerated as being sons of God. The New Testament was composed almost entirely in Greek, unlike the books of the Tanakh, which were written in Hebrew. Paul, the main promoter of Christianity, made his new religion more appealing to the pagan nations by replacing the observance of Torah law with total faith in Jesus. Over time, additional pagan influences were brought into Christianity, such as the belief in the Trinity and vicarious atonement, as well as pagan holidays. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, its doctrines and practices demonstrated that it was focused on appealing to the surrounding pagan nations. Soon thereafter, all its Jewish ties were severed. Here are the pagan origin of the major Christian holidays. Sunday is the weekly festival to the Sun God. December 25th is the festival of the winter solstice. Easter comes from the festival to the fertility goddess Oster, with its fertility symbols of eggs and rabbits. That brings us now to Christianity and the Jews. Despite the efforts of Christianity to portray itself as the religion of love, it had posed the greatest threat to the Jewish people over the last 2,000 years, both physically and spiritually. The church's legacy of religious and economic oppression, as well as the wholesale slaughter of Jews, remains as history's longest standing oppression of one group against another. Many missionaries are very quick to apologize for atrocities committed by Christians over the centuries against the Jews, but are equally as quick to tell you that those murderers were not real Christians. They say real Christians wouldn't do that because they are so loving. It has always been difficult to accept an answer like that. In truth, they are only trying to escape the responsibility that their religion has had concerning Jewish bloodshed. What about the millions of believers in Jesus who sat by and did nothing? Were they also not real Christians? Many Protestant missionaries try to absolve themselves by attributing the bloodshed to only the Catholics who initiated the Crusades, the Acquisition, and numerous blood libels and pogroms. Yet, when we read the writings of Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, we also see a tremendous amount of hatred towards the Jews. Through his work on the Jews and their lies, Luther's anti-Jewish rants from the 1500s influenced the leaders of the Nazi Party in the 20th century. Let me quote Martin Luther. First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians. Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and their tombs. Fourthly, the rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach anymore. To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden, the Jews. That's Martin Luther. Most Jews are painfully aware of the brutal persecutions by Christians throughout history. Therefore, for the missionaries to succeed in overcoming Jewish resistance to Christian beliefs, they must first succeed in overcoming the problem of Christian history toward the Jews. This is usually accomplished with an avoidance of the subject and an overabundant demonstration of love. Nevertheless, this is still denial. Some missionaries, on the other hand, actually try to put the blame for persecution on the Jews themselves. Why was the Second Temple destroyed? Why did the Holocaust happen? They suggest that it was because the Jews rejected Jesus and therefore God was angry with them. Every Christian is strongly impacted by the stories of the New Testament. And when they read certain passages, it is very difficult for them to feel much love and respect toward the Jews, our rabbis, Jewish law, or Judaism itself. Jews are characterized as heartless and ruthless, as seen in the story of the Good Samaritan, the character of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus, and numerous other examples. Too often, the words of the Christian scriptures have stirred resentment towards Jewish leaders and Jewish law. Many New Testament quotes have been used to incite hatred and even bloodshed towards Jews throughout history. For instance, you Jews are of your father the devil and the lust of your father you will do, from John 8, verse 44, or, but when he or John the Baptist saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptized and he said to them, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath, Matthew 3, verse 7, or the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out, they are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, Thessalonians 2, verses 14 and 50. As Jews, we recognize the heroic compassion of many Christians who saved Jews during the Holocaust and other times of persecution, but we have also experienced similar acts of kindness from Gentiles of other faiths and we call such people righteous Gentiles. In conclusion, evangelical Christians are behind the aggressive efforts targeting Jews for conversion and we must educate ourselves and others to be prepared. A final lesson from Jewish history is that we have no rebel heroes. Quote the book of Numbers chapter 14, verse 9, only do not rebel against the Lord. There is much that we will find in our Tanakh, our Jewish Bible, or the Old Testament as Christians call it, personalities, events, laws and principles, but one thing we do not find are rebel heroes. What do I mean? All the heroes of the Tanakh are people who stood up for the Torah and for sustaining the religion that God revealed to the Jews. When things were not going well for us, they called for a return to the old order, Torah observance, because this is our foundation. Occasionally, people came along and said, the old is out and we've got something better. Yet none of them is among the heroes of the Tanakh. Not so in the non-Jewish world, which is devoid of Torah. Their rebels are often their heroes. Yet every new system of law that man creates, no matter how seemingly enlightened, ultimately degrades and must be recreated again and again. In our century, Lenin and Mao touted communism and claimed the old order is unjust and we have something better. Likewise, their systems of government became unjust in a short time. In 1776, the American Revolution overthrew an unjust tyrant. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, the American government and society needed a new revolution. In the religious world, Martin Luther proclaimed that the old order of Catholicism was corrupt and offered a revised form of Christianity. Today, we can clearly see what became of his protest in Germany as it progressed into the 20th century. 2000 years ago, Jesus made the same type of proclamation against the Jewish religious establishment. His words provided sufficient reason for us to reject him. He was not our type of hero.