(There is a special message at the end of this article for those who might happen to read this and do not have Jesus in their life and are looking for peace and a way to better understand the present-day insanity and confusion.)

This commentary will seem to contain a certain level of sarcasm.

That is completely intentional.

Let’s look, rationally and sensibly, at the properties, characteristics and similarities of the following items. Perhaps we may be able to put things in their proper perspective.

Warning #1: Intellect and reason will be required for this evaluation.

Warning #2: Pre-determined agendas contrary to reality must first be set aside.

Step One: Defining each item in terms of shared VERITAS (Latin for “TRUTH”).

A Gun: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Knife: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Baseball Bat: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Hammer: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Car: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Truck: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Bus: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

An Airplane: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Helicopter: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Bomb: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

A Shovel (includes all types): An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

An Axe/hatchet/pickaxe: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting without human intervention.

The Jawbone of an ass/donkey: An inanimate object that is incapable of acting (as a weapon) without human intervention.

So now we have determined the primary characteristic that each of the above items have in common. However, I am certain that the creative genius of man could add many more inanimate items to this list.

Important Notes:

• All the items on this list also share other indisputable characteristics: If left unattended, they will remain inanimate until the end of time.
• All the items on this list have been used by humans to kill humans in the past.

Of all the items in the above list, the “gun” seems to garner the most vitriol in terms of rabid and brainless accusations and blame in spite of the physical impossibility of any single one of them being capable of any action independent of human direction.

Why do you suppose that is?

Step 2: Using intellect, logic and reason to separate Truth from Falsehood.

Could it be that the purveyors of this mantra of blaming an inanimate object have a devious purpose in their ceaseless blathering and blaming every time an evil person commits an evil act with one of them?

I must confess, it did occur to me that it is possible that the liberals/globalists want to disarm law-abiding Americans as they have seen how well that works in all the other countries where disarmament has been achieved, and communism has been the natural progression by governments. Victims and slaves do not have firearms – or freedoms.

It puts me in mind of a quote by Thomas Jefferson: “Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who don’t.”

Below is an example of this blathering that I mentioned above. It reveals the orator’s true agenda in its glaring deception and purposeful obfuscation of reality.

It should be noted here that the term “assault weapon,” when applied indiscriminately, is a blatant attempt to confuse and mislead, so when you hear this term (and you truly seek truth), you should follow the Latin directive: Caveat Lector (reader beware).

“Today, in the wake of yet another tragedy, I urge Republican lawmakers in Congress to fulfill their duty to protect the American people. Work with us to pass a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to enact universal background checks, to require safe storage of guns, and end immunity from liability for gun manufacturers.” (Joe Biden following the shootings In Maine, Oct 2023)

This is clearly a mental health issue that should have been stopped by Card’s doctors and family, but Biden blames an inanimate object in his statement on the shooting.

(Source: https://defconnews.com/)

And now for something completely different!

Speaker Mike Johnson on Gun Control: “The Problem is the Human Heart, Not Guns… We Have to Address the Root Problems… Mental Health.”

Wow! Someone who has probably read his Bible in which can be found this verse:

“’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).

Now to the crux of this commentary

Some might say that I have wandered into politics here. Well, like it or not, politics is being increasingly employed in the process of attempting to blur the clear lines between reality and the mass deception that the Word of God has warned is coming and, I believe, is already here. However, it is going to get oh-so-much worse when God Himself executes deception as a specific judgment on this willfully unbelieving world.

“The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.”  (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) Emphasis added by me.

If you have read this far, I hope you will read just a little further.

My friend, you do not have to go down with this perishing world. You can have the promise of God to receive eternal life in place of eternal death.

It is the One and Only Way that the sovereign God has determined for all those who will to be saved from the consequences of their sin and rebellion against Him.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

The special message I promised you:

For anyone who may read this article and has not trusted in Jesus Christ and therefore has no hope or peace in your life.

You can have hope. You can have the peace that Jesus has promised to all who have made Him their Lord and Savior. The peace that passes understanding.

It requires that you come before God on His terms.

And, what are His terms according to His Word?

• Genuine repentance (turning to God instead of continuing to reject or ignore Him).
• Confession of sins (that you are a sinner and acknowledge that to God).
• That you understand that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
• To acknowledge to God that you are unable to pay that debt
• Belief that Jesus Christ paid your death sentence for you on the cross.
• To believe that Jesus is the Way, the only Way, that God has established by which humans may be saved from the consequences of their sin and rebellion.

God has made it absolutely clear that there is no one who comes before Him, under His terms, that will be refused.

• No one: no race, no color, no country of origin, regardless of any previous belief system: no one.
• No matter what your past sins have been, God can and WILL forgive you because He says He will.
• Salvation is available to everyone without any exceptions.

If you put all your trust for salvation in Jesus, and Him only, you can follow that prayer up by simply saying, “Thank you, Father God, for hearing my prayer and saving me,” because we can trust Him to keep His Word. He always has. He always will.

“Truly, Truly, I say to you that he who hears My words and believes the One who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed from death to life” (John 5:24).

There are no answers and there is no hope in the world by governments, organizations, politics or politicians. There are only lies and deception. But you can have the Truth and the peace you seek.

The answers are in the Word of God. The Bible. If you ask God, with all your heart, He will hear you.

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Pro Salvator Vigilans                      

To contact me: canoeman96@gmail.com

When the Arab terrorist group Hamas entered Israel on October 7, the world was horrified. On that day, these terrorists kidnapped 200, killed 1,400, and wounded more than 4,500 Israelis. Innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered simply because they were Jewish.

The appalling attack brings to memory another terrible act of violence against the Jewish people that took place 85 years ago. On November 9–10, 1938, innocent Jewish Germans endured devastating physical and spiritual darkness much like the evil perpetrated against Israel today.

Kristallnacht was the defining moment regarding the Nazis’ approach to the Jewish people, effectively launching the Holocaust. The Third Reich officially established the full-blown persecution of those they would later distinguish with badges bearing the Star of David. Cultural prospects began to deteriorate immediately for the Jewish people, though so many of them had long known this land as their home.

The Night of Suffering

So what exactly was Kristallnacht? The word literally means “night of crystal” but has since taken on the fuller meaning “Night of Broken Glass.”

The pretext for the event was the tragic decision of Herschel Grynszpan (a Polish Jewish teenager) to assassinate Ernst vom Rath (a German official) in Paris on November 7, 1938. Grynszpan’s evil act was a reaction against anti-Jewish policies impacting his own family. It was, of course, also foolish and played directly into the Nazis’ hands, giving them the opening they desired to institute an all-out assault on the Jewish people.

The scope of Kristallnacht almost wearies the imagination. Rampant violence erupted throughout Germany, as well as in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and beyond. Disguising it as an organic demonstration, the Hitler Youth and Nazi Storm Troopers elaborately engineered the brutal pogrom. It was a bloodbath.

The destruction was massive, as Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were mercilessly destroyed. Firefighters protected German properties while allowing conflagrations to blaze unhindered in Jewish-owned structures. The sensation of walking over the broken glass must have given them a perverted sense of satisfaction.

To add insult to injury, authorities demanded that the Jewish people pay an exorbitant penalty to cover the extensive damage they had suffered.

Reports of the damage can vary widely, as much of the night seems a blur to this day. But the consensus is that roughly 30,000 Jewish men—perhaps 10 percent of Jewish men in Germany—had their first encounter with Nazi concentration camps, especially Buchenwald (on a hill above Weimar), Dachau (northwest of Munich), and Sachsenhausen (in Oranienburg, north of Berlin).

Kristallnacht’s Enduring Legacy

When my wife and I attended a 500th-anniversary Reformation tour of Germany in 2017, we stayed three nights in Weimar, and our bus drove past Buchenwald. This firsthand visit helped us understand how this death camp would have overshadowed the city and its residents.

Like Haman in ancient Medo-Persia, the Nazi attitude toward the people of Israel was brazen and uncomplicated: “It is not fitting for the king to let them remain” (Esther 3:8).

Studying Kristallnacht is heartbreaking but captivating. As U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated afterward: “I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th-century civilization.” For almost inexplicable reasons, the event still holds a haunting attraction. It is, at once, a study in human depravity, exploitation, and violence on the one hand, and intense agony and suffering on the other.

Never Again?

Out of the shards of the broken glass of Kristallnacht, God crafted a work of art. Half a world away, He convicted a group of Bible-believing, Israel-loving Christians to formulate an immediate response. On December 1, 1938, only three weeks after Kristallnacht and the beginning of the Holocaust in Germany, The Friends of Israel Refugee Relief Committee (now known as The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry) launched in Philadelphia. It began out of loving compassion, through great vision, with remarkable wisdom and courage, and at great personal risk to all involved.

In faith, they named the organization The Friends of Israel 10 years before the birth of the modern State of Israel. These brave men and women were willing—metaphorically and even physically—to walk over the broken glass of Kristallnacht, with “great sorrow and continual grief in” their hearts (Rom. 9:2).

The civilized world has vowed for the past 85 years to never forget such tragedies as the Jewish people suffered. Yet, how many today know anything at all about this monumental event?

Could there be another Kristallnacht, even another Holocaust, before the Rapture of the church? We desperately desire to say no, but recent events, most notably the violence Hamas committed against innocent Israelis and pro-Palestinian protesters’ support for these actions, indicate otherwise.

May the Lord help us, by His grace, to carry the same burden for the Jewish people that our forefathers bore—even being willing, as they were, to risk our own comfort and worldly esteem.

Reposted, with permission, from the Friends of Israel Blog

***

Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.