In the News….

This past Monday, January 27th marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz Birkenau. At this camp, over one million people were murdered. It was the largest and deadliest of the six extermination camps where people were tortured and murdered under the orders of Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler. This day is known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating the systematic killing of six million Jews, which was about 1/3rd of the then Jewish population, along with an estimated 5 million non-Jews who were also killed. On the morning of January 27, 1945, 7000 Jews were liberated by the Soviet army. Incidentally, some say that it was the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front who came to liberate them.

For believers, the Holocaust Remembrance Day has a prophetic tone. We remember that the Hebrew term given to the Holocaust is Shoah, a word taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning the coming war of Gog and Magog. Speaking to the armies of Gog, God says in Ezekiel 38:9, “You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you.”

The words like a storm, is in Hebrew, ka’shoah and they took it to point to the Nazi Holocaust. Shoah has also been translated as destruction, devastation, and ruin. While the term Shoah is used in several other places in Scripture (Isaiah (2x), Job (3x), Psalm (4x), Proverbs (1x), Zephaniah (1x)), when it is mentioned by the writing prophets, it refers specifically to end time prophecy. And this year’s Remembrance Day is somehow different, for we can see, we can feel how such a Holocaust could easily happen again and soon.

A recent survey done by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany reported that today a majority of people in seven countries believe a mass genocide against Jewish people similar to the Holocaust could happen. The highest percentage of people believing this is found in the U.S. Some 76% of Americans said they thought another Holocaust could happen, followed by the UK at 69%, France at 63%, Austria at 62%, Germany at 61%, Poland at 54%, and Hungary at 52%. In Romania, 44% said they thought such a scenario was possible. And this is in line with end time prophecies.

Besides the one they themselves were inspired to name as ha’shoah, the one in Ezekiel 38-39 which speaks of an invasion of the Israel by 10 different countries of which Russia and Iran are included, there is another. We also recall the prophecy from Zechariah 13 which gives explicit prophecies for Israel, speaking of, not one third, as it was in the Holocaust of the Second World War, but two thirds of the Jewish people who will perish.

These are hard prophecies to read about, but these two are among so many others, for the LORD is warning Israel and the world of a coming global war, the last one before Yeshua returns. This day then on January 27th reminds us of two things: First, it reminds us of the new and coming Holocaust, including the terrible wars depicted in the Hebrew Bible as well as and in particular, from the Book of Revelation. Second, it reminds us of what the state of this world will one day be, when evil will be stopped and eradicated, and a great time for the people will come over our planet. We ought to proclaim both these realities. Prophecies are to us a beacon of hope. Yeshua is coming back and very soon. Amen.

Click here for the Video: International-Holocaust Remembrance Day