May 1, 2024
Web Description: As we observe Holocaust Memorial Day this year with Israel, we must acknowledge the miserable failure of the United Nations to fulfill the goal of its own Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was to prevent the very thing that happened on October 7, 2023. We wake up to the fact that the determination to annihilate the Jews is not gone. And we raise our voices to the nations and declare our determination that the Holocaust will never be forgotten and that nothing like it will ever happen again.
Show Notes: On May 6, 2024, Israel will observe their annual Holocaust Memorial Day. It is important to understand that this aspect of remembrance is something that God has imparted to the heart of the Jewish people. Remembering their history and teaching the lessons of that history from generation to generation is a focal point during the annual fasts and feasts in observance of the Sabbath and in the daily prayers. The Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by United Nations Resolution 60/7, was to have this same focus: to remember the Holocaust and to teach future generations so that something like the Holocaust will never happen again.
Yet the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has exposed the absolute failure of the U.N. to implement the very resolution it established. The horrors inflicted on innocent Israelis on October 7 proved the stated purpose of Hamas and other Islamic jihadist forces, which is the total annihilation of all Jews and Israel—the exact same purpose the Nazis had during WWII with the Holocaust. Not only did the U.N. fail in educating people to prevent this attack, but U.N. personnel actually educated the new generation of Gazan children to hate and annihilate the Jews. Furthermore, facilities and employees financed by the U.N. actively joined Hamas in committing the atrocities of October 7.
We need to recognize this if we are to have an effective time of remembrance of the Holocaust and October 7, 2023. For this year’s memorial, please stand with the Jews throughout the world and with the State of Israel to remember the horrors of the Holocaust, to remember the horrors of October 7, and to honor the memory of those brutally murdered in these and other anti-Semitic attempts of annihilation. So please let your voice be heard in any way you can and in every way you can. Let it be heard clearly by your neighbors and by the nations. Let the cry ring out, “Never forget and never again!”
Key Verses:
• Exodus 20:8. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
• Exodus 20:11. “The LORD … rested on the seventh day.”
• Deuteronomy 5:15. “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you.”
Quotes:
• “When you’re remembering these events like the days of slavery in Egypt and the way God delivered them out of Egypt, it’s filled with lessons. And these lessons are to be remembered; they’re to be learned, and they’re to be taught and imparted generation after generation to all of Israel.”
• “We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to today. The reason we remember is because we want to do something about it today. We want to never forget what God has been teaching, and we want to do something about it.”
• “As Israel prepares to remember the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel this year, sadly it is marred by the anti-Semitic protests that are transpiring in many nations. And these again are happening because of the failure of not only the United Nations as an organization, but also the nations themselves—the failure to educate the children.”
Takeaways:
1. The observances of the Jewish people all have an emphasis on remembrance. The people are to remember what God did, act on what they remember, and teach the lessons of that memory to their children from generation to generation.
2. Holocaust Remembrance Day was instituted by the U.N. for that same purpose. It was enacted so that the Holocaust would be remembered and acted upon, and so that future generations would be taught the lessons of the Holocaust to prevent something like it from ever happening again.
3. The widespread anti-Semitism in the world and the barbarity of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, have exposed the massive failure of the U.N. to uphold and implement the purpose of the Holocaust Remembrance Day that it established.
4. As Christians we must make our voices heard to remember and to teach about the Holocaust and October 7, 2023, and we declare, “Never forget and never again!”