SUNDAY January 27, 2019
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.”
Psalm 122:6
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This commemoration marks the day when Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp, was finally liberated on January 27, 1945. Auschwitz was a prison camp, an extermination camp, and a slave labor camp. During the war, the German Nazis conducted the systematic killing of 6 million Jews––a terrible genocide that must not be forgotten. A sign at Dachau Concentration Camp reads, “Never Again.”
I am sure many people would rather forget the shocking pictures of starving men, women and children, who were shaven and stripped bare before death––let alone the gas chambers and mass graves of the dead and dying. It is too hard for the mind to conceive––unthinkable. Understand, humanity without God is utterly wicked––debase. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Man without God can commit such inhuman atrocities!
Yet God’s love is greater than hate. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie knew this truth. The family hid about 800 persecuted Jews and other refugees. The family was later arrested for their actions. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie were sent to the notorious Ravensbruck concentration camp–near Berlin––where Betsie died.
The Jews are God’s chosen people: For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth(Deuteronomy 14:2). Through the bless nation of Israel, all the other nations of the world are blessed (Genesis 12:2). Through them the Messiah would come. God will bless those who bless Israel (Genesis 12:3). It is important to pray for Israel and the peace of Jerusalem.
“There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still.”
~Corrie Ten Boom~
For more from Raul Ries, please visit Somebodylovesyouradio.org!