Subject: Re: Martin Luther
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 23:54:56 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

From:          Philip Nowland
To:            <heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Subject:       Re: Info on Martin Luther

Shalom everyone

I think that it is about time that we in the Hebraic Roots movement did a
bit of growing up, and stop being shocked by anti-Semitic attitudes when we
discover them. HaSatan hates the people of Israel with a passion that
appears to be as intense as his hatred for the Lord Himself. He will use any
agent that he can, even people who otherwise should know much better. He has
even used believers in Jesus, although many of us find that hard to live
with.

Martin Luther is not the founder of our faith - that was Yeshua
Ha'Mashiach - Jesus Christ.

If people go to a lost eternity - it is because they reject Yeshua, not
Martin Luther. If you believe otherwise then you have to re-write the Tanach
and the Brit Chadashah.

Jews or Gentiles who refuse to acknowledge Yeshua, according to the
Scriptures, do not reject Yeshua as the Messiah, because Martin Luther
slipped into anti-Semitism, but because of their own unbelief. That is what
they will be judged for, and will have to answer for it at the Great
Judgement. Martin Luther himself will have to answer for himself.

See what 2 Thessalonians says about all this - 1:7-9
....and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is
revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha'Mashiach). These shall be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from
the glory of His power, (NKJ)

Oh! Yes, the anti-Semitic attitudes of certain Christian leaders throughout
the church age, cannot be condoned, justified or even explained, and most
likely presented a serious stumbling block to our ability to share the good
news about Yeshua to those who are Jewish.

But at the end of the day, if we are not careful, in attempting to explain
why some Jewish people refer to the anti-Semitism of people like Martin
Luther as reason for why they cannot believe in Yeshua, we may be guilty of
avoiding the issue, as to the real reason why any person rejects Him.

We must never put a stumbling block in the way of anyone (Jew or Gentile)
from accepting Yeshua as their Lord. Anyone guilty of anti-Semitic attitudes
must repent of such, or the consequences for them are most serious. I find
it difficult to understand how any true believer in Yeshua, could manifest
anti-Semitic attitudes.

Yet, we must not be side-stepped by the numerous excuses that people make
for failing to come to terms with the most radical claim on humanity that
could be made:

Acts 4:10-12
......let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by
the name of Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha'Mashiach)  of Nazareth, whom you
crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before
you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has
become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there
is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
(NKJ)

Jews and Gentiles have been rejecting that name - Yeshua, since even before
He died for their sin. And that was at least 1500 years before Martin
Luther. Who do we blame before the Reformation?

I am quite disgusted by any anti-Semitism, whenever I see it, by whomever
practices it. I will stand against it with the whole of my being. But do not
let our surprise and shocked responses to the anti-Semitic comments of a
mortal, fallible and imperfect man, draw our attention away from the real
reason why people reject Yeshua.

Otherwise, we become motivated by emotion and propaganda, rather than
Scripture.

And before you jump to any conclusion that my sentiments on this point are
in themselves anti-Semitic, ask someone who know me what my real feelings
towards Yeshua's earthly people are. I love the people of Israel.

In spite of the horrors that we discover in the history of the Christian
church, let us never loose the sense of perspective that Scripture gives us
regarding any person who rejects Yeshua as their Lord, whether they be Jew
or Gentile

Philip Nowland - Huntingdon, England

************************************************************************

From:          Stephen Yulish 
Subject:       RE:Martin Luther
To:          heb_roots_chr@geocities.com

Many of you reacted with disbelief concerning the statements that
Luther made about the Jews. For further information on this topic see
"Our hands Are Stained With blood:The tragic story of the "Church" and
the Jewish people" by Michael Brown PH.D. 

In 1984 in celebration of
the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth, the World Lutheran
Federation issued the following statement; "We cannot accept or
condone the violent verbal attacks that the reformer[Luther] made
against the Jews. The sins of Luther's anti-jewish remarks and the
violence of his attacks on the Jews must be acknowledged with deep
distress, and all occasion for similar sin in the present or the
future must be removed from our churches...Lutherans of today refuse
to be bound by all of Luther's utterances against the Jews." 

It just shows all of us that even though we are saved we can still 
be confused by satan's lies!

Stephen Yulish

P.S. On a personal note, when I was director of the Jewish national
Fund in Arizona in 1983 we had a statewide dinner in honor of a
Lutheran, Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Jews in Hungary from
the gas chambers. I had the support and assistance of several Lutheran
churches in Phoenix. When I wrote a letter to the editor of the local
newspaper in 1988 crticizing the movie "The Last temptation of Christ"
(before i was a Believer), these Lutheran Nuns of the  Desert
smothered me with love. When I became a believer and attended a church
pastored by a Jew and with the largest number of born again Jews in
Phoenix I found that these same women occupied the first few rows of
the church. they loved Israel and the jewish people.Praise God!

************************************************************************