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A quote from David Brickner on CNN website.

"David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus, was a speaker. He told congregants that terrorist attacks on Israel were God's "judgment" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. Brickner said, "Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. When a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment -- you can't miss it."


In my opinion, comments like this only bring out more anti-semitism, whether you believe it to be true or not.

SMR,
Don't the religious writings of Judaism say that the fall of Jerusalem and the prolonged exile are due to Israel's corporate sin and lack of repentance?

Here are some of the things that David Brickner says about “The Jerusalem Dilemma” in that sermon:

That Jerusalem means City of Peace, “Ir Shalom,” yet there has not been steady peace there.  He asks: “How do we understand the Jerusalem Dilemma? How does it help us to understand what’s going on in the world and, yes, even in our own lives?”

He says that even though it is a city that represents 'a people,’ ‘a move of God’,  Jerusalem has the dilemma of unbelief.   He talks about how Israel has a history of unbelief, (after being brought out of the wilderness;  in rejecting messages from God’s prophets, etc.), then comments “And really, Israel has not cornered the market on unbelief. Israel is an example of what all humanity has been saying to God since the beginning of time, shaking its fists at the heavens and saying, ‘You’ll not rule over us.’
And so all of the controversy that we see swirling in Jerusalem is really a mirror that the world looks in to see the controversy within. The Jerusalem Dilemma is the Wasilla Dilemma; it’s the dilemma of the human heart.”


Mr. Brickner’s sermon is not a diatribe against the Israeli or Jewish people, it is an analysis of how God has been working in this world, past and present, from the Christian perspective.  It is an analysis of the condition of mankind:  rebellious and disobedient.  And yes, he focuses on Israel and Jerusalem, because this is where his heart is.  But it is a message for all of us.

And despite past unbelief, “Jesus says ‘Come under My wings, O Jerusalem. There’s a place of grace that I want to establish for you in spite of your unbelief.’”  
It’s a place “of grace that whosoever will may come under and find God’s forgiveness.”

Rebecca, thanks for giving the link to the sermon.

Apparently, a month ago David was a guest speaker at the church in Alaska attended by Sarah Palin and family. When Palin was announced as the VP candidate, apparently an internet blogger picked out a small piece of the sermon out of context and twisted the meaning. '"Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's 'judgment of unbelief' of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity." That is not what David said, and it is certainly not what he believes.

This misrepresentation of Davids beliefs apparently became fodder for the media as they quoted the blog without checking or verifying the accuracy. Some reports even stated David was Palins pastor which he isn't.

It just goes to show, you can't necessarily believe what you hear or read in the news.

Well of course the media always presents their version of a story for their own purposes (to get attention). I guess they got it!

I just read what was written on the CNN website.

I'll have to listen to or read the sermon to come to my own conclusion.


Thanks for the replies.

And especially from left-leaning news who would just as well take down Palin, Christianity, and abandon Israel all together, while painting US (conservatives) as anti-Semites. That's a trifecta! (Or "hat trick", for hockey moms...LOL)

O.K. I prefer not to believe that he said that... Although some Messianics might have the proud to judge for the Almighty what's going on at the earth...




Yes we dare to say it about ourselves, but mainly in a time that there where still high-priests etc.
Now we have less of prophecy. So if Messianics can say that they directly haerd it from God one morning about The Twin Towers or about New Orleans, that's one thing...
There will be hardly any Jew who will say that the Holocaust etc. was exactly a certain judgment... in the way that it is shure that God just told him.

But nowadays it's hard also to judge over another nation. So should I blame the Caribean People if there's another Storm with orkano? Should I if a Messianic son of this preacher gets sick, that it is a punishment because of his fathers disbelieve etc...?
Who says that Messianic Jews realy are without blemish? They are not allowed to be punished? Does God realy know that they are the believers?
All kind of questions to make here.

This topic is a sensitive one, and I don't want to offend anyone but as a Jew, it is one I have thought about.

Hitler and Nazi Germany, there are no words which successfully describe the depravity. If I try to look at it scripturally, I can only think of two things. One is that scripture says God scattered Israel. If I remember correctly, scripture makes it clear the our captors went far beyond what God intended in cruelty during our captivity.

According to scripture, dispersion from the land was due to our sin. What the captors did will be judged by God because of their cruelty.

So can it be said, our dispersion due to our own sin placed us in Europe? And can it be said, Hitler, depraved despicable, faces Gods judgement for his great horrific sins?

David knew that God would be merciful, but man would not, as he was given a choice of punishments for his numbering the people.  2 Samuel 24:14  And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.

The rest of us are promised destruction if we put our hands in to take over that which belongs to God.  Zechariah 12:3 underlined in red and highlighted in neon yellow with a big orange post-it to mark the place.

God may be allowing Hamas to attack -- since they did attack and I believe God is both omniscient and omnipotent, it follows that yes, God did/does allow Hamas to do their dirt.

But!, I notice that they keep losing/dying.  I prefer to focus on God's protection of Jews and others who belong to him.  (And yes, even now, in the midst of the general economic decline, God has each of us exactly where he wants us to be -- let's remember that!)

Let's all keep in mind that Jewish people need Jesus and that He is the key to an abundant/eternal life, that he keeps his promise about giving each follower a rich and abundant life, that he loves us and continues, through his Holy Spirit, to teach us how to live.

You know, the last several Israeli PM's have each had to fight criminal charges while in office -- and though I'm not in Israel, to me their guilt is evident.  Yet the country remains strong and vibrant, and no nation dares attack Israel (sometime read Deuteronomy 20-21.)  If only their military strength extended to their morality. -- The ex-President of Israel is charged with rape and approximately, admits his guilt.

So we have personally corrupt leaders of the only nation that God has promised to defend, we have people who refuse Jesus yet stink with moral and civil corruption.

Is God going to continue defending Israel?  Oh yes!!  Does he want Jews to repent, to turn to Jesus?  Yes and yes again.

I am amazed that people look at current events and can't see what time it is -- isn't it obvious.  (Each of us needs to inventory our lives!)  I suppose your milage may vary, but for me Bible study with my wife and friends helps enormously.