Christliche Busse Um Israel (With German Translation)
Art Katz

Arthur "Art" Katz (1929 - 2007). American preacher, author, and founder of Ben Israel Fellowship, born to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. Raised amid the Depression, he adopted Marxism and atheism, serving in the Merchant Marines and Army before earning B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from UCLA and UC Berkeley, and an M.A. in theology from Luther Seminary. Teaching high school in Oakland, he took a 1963 sabbatical, hitchhiking across Europe and the Middle East, where Christian encounters led to his conversion, recounted in Ben Israel: Odyssey of a Modern Jew (1970). In 1975, he founded Ben Israel Fellowship in Laporte, Minnesota, hosting a summer “prophet school” for communal discipleship. Katz wrote books like Apostolic Foundations and preached worldwide for nearly four decades, stressing the Cross, Israel’s role, and prophetic Christianity. Married to Inger, met in Denmark in 1963, they had three children. His bold teachings challenged shallow faith, earning him a spot on Kathryn Kuhlman’s I Believe in Miracles. Despite polarizing views, including on Jewish history, his influence endures through online sermons. He ministered until his final years, leaving a legacy of radical faith.
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In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of not holding back and speaking out against sin and transgressions. He connects the Holocaust to the judgment of God promised in Scripture, particularly in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The preacher calls for repentance and a willingness to go through a spiritual death and resurrection, surrendering one's own desires and serving God's purpose alone. He urges the audience to be radical in their faith and to lift their voices like a trumpet, proclaiming the truth to Israel, Jacob, and all nations.
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This is not a religious response. This is a significant response for those who have heard your word and have received your call. Seal it in heaven. Put an end to the natural life, to the religious life, to the charismatic life, to the well-meaning life, to the polite life, and be radical. Be raised up in this people that they might lift their voice as a trumpet to tell Israel its sins, Jacob their transgressions, and Germany its error. Its false ambition, its continuing imperialist desire. For God has appointed a day in which he will judge all nations by that man whom he has raised from the dead. Let your voice be heard in this earth. Whether you were sprinkled with water or were baptized and immersed, God is not interested in the form. He's interested in the reality made possible by his own death and resurrection. He gives you this opportunity to join him in the waters of death that you might be raised to newness of life, more than politeness. Rehearse this with him. You who are down on your knees, Lord, I receive my baptism, though I didn't understand it then, I understand it now, and I receive it as my death. I'm buried with you, and when I get up from my knees, I fully expect to experience the resurrection for newness of life, new thought, new expression, new impulse, new courage, new love that's really love, beyond sentiment that can be offended against and not fail. For it is your love, your unconditional love that Israel needs to experience by those who will convey it, for they are in your life. Lord, I seal these children unto the resurrection and raise up in this church an intention beyond anything that men have conceived. Maybe for the first in the history of the church in Germany, an apostolic church whose foundations are immovable, for whom the kingdom has come beyond the petty religious ambitions of men. Because they have repented unto death even of their own design for the church that your kingdom might come. Seal it. Perform it. Be glorified by it. Let this night be historic for the church of Jesus Christ in this nation that Israel might be blessed and your soul gratified and your name glorified before all nations. Thy kingdom come. It's our cry and our belief, our real hope, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And amen. Give Him priestly praise, not something out of your mind, just your spirit, freely flowing. All obstructions removed. They have been brought to death. Your self-consciousness. Give God your voice. Express your gratitude for so great salvation that He has made possible through our identification with Him in death and resurrection. Let's lift up our voices. Beyond charismatic praise. Priestly praise. Uninhibited. Full of God Himself. God celebrating God through a people whose life is not their own, whose praise is not their own, whose prayers are not their own. For whom to live is Christ. For whom to worship is Christ. For whom to serve is Christ. Give Him your voices in priestly praise. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Precious God and the King. Hallelujah. And the Savior and the Redeemer. The Holy One of Israel. Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory. My Father and my God. Glory. Glory. Glory. Glory. My Father and my God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Only by that life could he have the courage to express it. And suffer the rejection that it must bring. Only by the life, the Christ life, the resurrection life. That union, that oneness, would have shown the Jew in your midst the difference between mere religion and authentic spirituality. That demonstration was never made for 2000 years. So what alternative did they have? But their own rabbinical Judaism? Or secular culture? And in that they perished. We are called to move Israel to jealousy. And Paul doesn't explain what that means. As if this is a critical purpose for our life as the church. To move to jealousy the enemies of the gospel, is ultimate requirement. And the church that can answer it, is indeed the church. And will only become such a church, out of repentance. An awareness of its terrible historic failure. And its present failure still. And a repentance unto death. Woe is me, I am undone. Out of that death will come the life. That will move Jews to jealousy. Even in admiration for your courage. To face them with an unwelcome message. That you know they're going to reject. And yet you're compelled by the love of Christ. You cannot keep silent. You're Christ full. And when they see this, that you're willing to risk their censure and their condemnation. You have the painful rejection, of a Germany that so desperately wants Jewish approval. That that very courage will move them to jealousy. Because they know it's beyond religion. It's nothing other than God himself. I'm a Jewish believer. Burdened both for Germany and for Israel. But I'm strangely chafed at this so-called repentance. Needing continually to be repeated. Affecting nothing in the church. And certainly nothing for the Jews. Repent. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This requires a valid baptism. One that is a real burial. Because our history and present life has persuaded us. That in ourselves, there's no man good. Even our best intentions are not good enough. Only Christ. The resurrected one. As our life. Consistently. Is our answer. And God has provided the means. And God has provided everything. A baptism that is more than a religious ordinance. This is a burial of that which must be buried. Because there's no hope for it. Even in its best German form. Hope falls short of the glory of God. Who will enter those waters? That's once and for all. And if there's no resurrection after that burial. You of all men are most to be pitied. But don't think that you're going back to your job. Your business, your profession. All of the nice amenities of your present life. Your hopes for the future. You have no hope. You've died. This is a newness of life. And it's radical. And it has one motivation only. The glory of God. And not our convenience. It's for the want of this that God is waiting repentance. We have practiced a Christianity of convenience. And it left a great vacuum. As it necessarily must. And into it came demonic Nazism. We made it possible. We provided the vacuum. Into which this evil came as a flood. For nature abhors a vacuum. And will soon enough fill it. If not with the reality of God. Then the reality of Satan. Nazism is our fault. Respectable and polite Christianity. Not only made it possible. But made it inevitable. The kind of Christianity that we thought would be polite. And humane. Where Goethe wanted to garland the cross with roses. Wonderful human sentimentality. Becomes ironically exactly its opposite. In the most ugly, bizarre, inhumanity and cruelty beyond what we can think in man. Be assured your sins will find you out. And it will express itself ironically. You celebrated humanism. And wanted to be polite and nice. Then here is the fulfillment. Bestiality. Unbelievable cruelty. Utterly inhumane. God is not mocked. And whatsoever a nation sows. That too will it reap. There is no understanding of what is Jewish. Independent of what is German. We have affected each other. Shaped a common culture. Conspired against God. And against his king. And we have both suffered for it. What would it mean for a German church now? That does not just seek its own cathartic relief. But will find a place of true repentance. And brokenness. Not only for itself but for its fathers. For do not think that you would have done any better than they. If you had lived in the Nazi time. No man is good. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God is waiting for that repentance. And the laying down of that life. And the evidence of the truth of it. That we will find a new ability. And a burning passion. To tell Jacob of their sins and Israel of their transgressions. For that prophetic church that can warn of the judgment to come. Is alone qualified to speak of the restoration that will follow. Comfort ye, comfort ye my brethren. For they have suffered double for their sins. They don't need some kind of schmaltzy sentimental pat on the back. They need comfort. That is by the spirit of God's own word. In the midst of their being judged. By a people who did not withhold and did not spare. They spoke the word of judgment. They called Israel to the recognition of its sin. They will also speak to Israel God's comfort. That will be a comfort indeed. The same comfort that you yourself will know. Who have been raised out of death. Unto newness of life. And can rejoice in Christ Jesus. As Savior and Deliverer. Your comfort them. With the same comfort wherewith you have been comforted. If indeed you have been comforted. And your religious life is not a fraud. So this is the deep repentance that is needed. Not the holocaust as some regrettable momentary lapse. An embarrassing historical failure. But the inevitable consequence of our own long apostasy. Our sin is Israel's sin. And it is exactly the same sin. We will not charge them with their sins from some place of superiority. From the place of brokenness. The priestly place. That is able to speak to a sinning people. As those who know their own sins. And are exactly as Israel's. A church willing to come under the Jewish people. In its priestly service. For which they seek nothing for themselves. No benefit, no satisfaction. No personal relief. For their sake. And the Lord's sake. A priestly church. A broken church. A repentant church. What a blessing for Israel. A real blessing. And what a blessing for the German nation itself. Who have such a presence in its midst. Of a broken priestly people. Willing to come under another. And forfeit any self interest of its own. I can't think of any single message. That Germany needs more to hear. I can't think of any demonstration. Present Germany needs now more to see. What is not only God's calling for the church of Germany. But the nation itself. God's purpose is not your imperial ambition. You should be a master people over the nations. He knows your secret heart. And this ambition has never died. That when the historic reconciliation between East and West Germany came. I personally did not rejoice. Something in the inner man. Now we will see it again. The true Germany. In its ambition and power. Betraying God's call. Not to be a great force in the world. But a priestly nation. To the people of Israel. So that they might be restored to Zion. As the redeemed of the Lord. For their redemption is his coming. And his coming is his kingdom. In which nations shall study war and peace. Again, no more. The Jew is not just another ethnic people. They are at the heart of God's theocratic design. For only with their return will his law go forth out of Zion. You could do nothing more for the nations. Not that they should admire your engineering brilliance. And your masterful business ability. But that you should affect Israel's true restoration. That they might bless all the families of the earth. And all the nations will know. That the God of Jacob is a long God. That's your task. Go tell it at the Reichstag. At the Bundestag. But with apostolic conviction. Not as a theory. An opinion, a suggestion. But as the word of the Lord. To the nation. Spoken with authority. By a people whom he has raised from the dead. Because they have deeply repented. Of their own sins and the sins of the fathers. Of which the holocaust was only a symptom. The holocaust is to Germany what the crucifixion of Jesus is to Israel. Our Jewish sin is not the crucifixion of Jesus. It's the summation of all our sins. Our long history of apostasy. And the rejection of the prophets that were sent unto us. But when the Lord himself came. We could not only not recognize him. We were offended by him. And had to crucify him. He was the summation of our sins. And not the sin in itself. So also the holocaust for Germany. It's not the sin in itself. It's the summation of all your sins. Through all your generations. In converting the radical faith. Into a domestic addendum. A Sunday convenience. To the burglary life. Repent. For your fathers. And for yourselves. For nothing has changed. And God will not honor your false repentance. That seeks only your relief. He waits for this recognition. This depth. This death. That he might be all in all. Israel's destiny is at stake. Our eternal destiny. Waits more on such a church in Germany. Than in any other nation. The nation that cast us into the physical fires. Is the same intended by God. To save us. From the eternal fire. Of his judgment. You have a destiny. A mandate. Unfulfilled. That you cannot fulfill in yourself. But only in the power of his life. In union with him. Both in death. Burial. And resurrection. I want to pray. For such a repentance. Such a church. Such a nation. Lord if this is your word. It astonishes me. But let the spirit of truth witness to it. Stab us in our hearts. Even where our minds cannot lay hold of all this. So different from what we have understood. Thinking we were doing Israel service. To let them alone. That we are polite. Come Lord. In this first speaking of this word in this nation. Let there be from among this people. The first fruits of repentance. The first breaking. The first willing going down into death. The forsaking of all interest. That if there is no resurrection. This people of all people. Are most to be pitied. And our Jewish people with them. So in the name of Jesus. As the minister of this word. I invite you to repentance. Authentic repentance. For yourself and for your fathers. Unto death. A real going down. Which when you are raised up. Your life will no longer be your own. His. Christ fools. For his last days purpose. And his purpose alone. Now don't mock God. Don't come out of your seat. For psychological relief. As a religious reflex action. Come out of your seat for death. With the end of all your expectations. Even of how you were going to serve God. It's no longer your problem. It is his. When he will have the total possession. For the expression of his life. Who will come forward for this? Who will kneel at this platform for this? You will validate your baptism. And bring to it the meaning that God had always intended. God waits. For this repentance. Who will come? God is at hand. To it. These words. Spoken first by. The Baptist John and Jesus. Are inexorably joined. Always. You cannot speak of the kingdom without speaking of repentance. There's no entry into the kingdom without repentance. So we have the reality of the kingdom in exact proportion. As we have authentic repentance. And it's not a once and for all repentance. It's a continual state of being. More rightly a state of death. For true repentance is the awesome acknowledgement of God. As he in fact is and not as we thought him to be. And before that holy presence. No man dare lift his head. Job was described by God himself as being outstanding. The foremost of all men. God boasted on him. And yet at the end of God's dealings with him. The same man cries out. I've heard of you with the hearing of my ear. But now my eye sees. And I abhor myself. And repent in dust and ashes. This is classic. This is definitive. And we fall grievously short of this repentance. And for that reason the kingdom does not come. It's the ultimate expression of God in glory. And requires the most profound coming down of man before it. What does it mean to repent in dust and ashes? What does that symbolically represent? Having gone under the ground in burial. There's no place for me other than to be buried. Now that I have glimpsed you as you are. There's no place for me as man but in death. And God received that statement from Job. And he said pray for your friends, your comforters. For my anger is kindled against them. For you have not spoken as my servant Job has spoken. I am continually leaving bewildered saints in my path. And I'm remembering one occasion in America. An outstandingly successful fellowship. You know what my message for them was? You think you have it all together? You haven't even begun to speak as Job's comforters have spoken. Which is the most sublime spirituality in the holy scripture. It was not appropriate for Job. But the statements in themselves are sublimely spiritual. And despite that God says my anger is kindled against you. However spiritually insightful you were. Deep in your understanding. You still failed. For there's only one statement that I can receive from man. I abhor myself. And repent in dust and ashes. Is there a nation in the world today for which the issue of repentance is more important than Germany? You will live continually under the shadow of the historic past. Will you ever be washed from the stain of the holocaust? And yet there's continual reference to repentance. And I've had opportunity to observe it. Even most recently in the conference on prayer for Israel in Berlin. There's a continual theme of repentance toward the Jew and toward Israel on the part of the German church. You would think that as a Jewish believer my spirit would rejoice. But the more that I heard these appeals to repentance and witnessed the character of it the more uncomfortable I felt in the inner man. Something is wrong with this kind of repentance. One of the evidences of which is the continual need to reiterate it. How often are we going to feel sorry for the same thing? That it needs again and again to be restated. Maybe the problem is that we have not rightly understood the matter of repenting. And that feeling sorry falls short of it. I got the impression that what these German saints wanted was psychological relief. They came to the conference in the hope of getting it and had to experience it in their desperate situation. There's a word for this in psychology. They wanted catharsis. A relief for a burden of guilt that evidently had not been met in any other way. And so I began to ponder this before the Lord. And here is my essay. Notes on the issue of German repentance toward Israel. What's wrong with this kind of repentance? Maybe it has to do with not rightly understanding the issue of guilt. That assumes that Germany is the cause of the Holocaust against the Jew. If that's your understanding you'll never be relieved. Because it misses the truth of the Holocaust itself. The magnitude of that tragedy is beyond the issue of German complicity. And if we were students of God's dealings in history with Israel we would be able to distinguish between the judgments that God brings and the rod that he employs. Nazi Germany was the rod of God's chastisement. But the cause was Jewish sin itself. Historic and present. The sins of the fathers never recognized or acknowledged. The cries of the prophets never heard nor repented for. And the sin continues. And gathers its weight. And though God may deter in bringing his judgment he's not under obligation to bring it immediately in a cause and effect situation. But bring it he will in his own time for his own purpose. So you need to pray for the book that Klaus is translating. Utterly radical in its thesis Jews will rail against it. Segments of the church will be offended by it. The Holocaust as judgment. In exact proportion to Jewish sin. Yes, even in Germany. The kind of influence that we expressed in our history here. Our substitution of German civilization for God's messianic answer. Encouraging German rationalism that is offended by the supernatural God. That had its final expression in God is dead theology. And in the Jewish reform Judaism. This is more than I can say at the moment. God's judgments are always in proportion to our sins. And when Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem. The lawyer, the condemning what do you call it the state, the prosecuting attorney. Gideon Hausner writes this in his memoirs. A man's sin or his crimes or that of a nation may go for a long time unrecognized and unattended. But there must come a time when the culprit is apprehended and the righteous judgment inflicted. So had it come for Eichmann. Many years after the end of the Nazi time. As the scripture says be assured your sins will find you out. It found us out in the Holocaust. And why was Germany the rod of our chastisement? Because it we so celebrated German culture. There was no segment of the German population more enthusiastic for Goethe, Schiller, Fichte and Hegel. We could not believe that a Hitler could come to power. But not in the land of such celebrated civilization and culture. This has got to be a momentary thing. This too shall pass. But it did not pass and became our judgment. So to feel guilty as the cause of the Holocaust is a false guilt. One that God would not have you to assume. Does that mean that Germany is completely absolved of all responsibilities? Not at all. You are still the rod of God's chastisement and the willing rod and for that there needs to be acknowledgement and repentance. But not for a falsely assumed guilt. There is a deeper sin than the Holocaust. For which repentance God still waits and therefore he will not honor your false repentance which you are only wanting for your psychological relief. The German sin is identically the same as the Jewish sin for which the Holocaust is the judgment. What is that sin? It is the betrayal of the true faith by both Christians and Jews in taking our inheritance and domesticating it and making of it a Sunday or a Saturday culture a bourgeois accommodation that would not in any way threaten our real interests and allow us a modicum of religiosity That's the sin for which repentance God waits The taking of the apostolic faith and the making of it some kind of addendum to our busy life Not just in our liberal Christianity but in our orthodox It's nothing less than the misuse of God for man's own purposes and man's own ends It is ultimate idolatry because it is performed in the name of God and thinks it is even doing him service and so to seek psychological relief through repentance is to continue in that same sin We are the object of our religious life our relief our satisfaction our happiness It's the way it has always been and its character remains even in its best charismatic forms We have not seen this and repented for the misuse of God in the framing of a religious life in which our personal and selfish interests are foremost that has no interest in a kingdom come so that he doesn't want to experience the inconvenience let alone be an object of opposition or persecution better to supply a religious accommodation It is still much better to somehow adapt religiously to take the whole thing upon itself and perhaps to sanction the goals of the respective state and to give all the imperialistic ambitions of such a state a little bit of religious pleasure It's the sin of Christian nations everywhere and the decline of Great Britain is the evidence The land of Spurgeon and George Whitefield the great missionaries is the land of the rock punk culture and it's celebrated Christianity has a funeral for Princess Diana who is a jet set princess of the worst kind such is the bankruptcy of British Christianity I waited for the British church to express its prophetic voice to protest the celebration of this pagan and her illicit relationship with a Muslim prince not a word not a statement even in its prophetic publications there's a repentance for which God is waiting but it's not for our relief it's for His for we have offended against Him since time memorial and what rubs the salt into the wound is not to offend against Him as pagans but as Jews and as Christians who share together the same mentality of a religious convenience that serves the purposes of man and is entirely indifferent to the purposes of God ultimate idolatry performed in the name of God Himself and still continuing in seeking this cathartic relief at Israel's expense and the fact that this relief is never obtained and needs again and again to be repeated shows how questionable are its motives and how unrecognized the church wants to repent on Israel I'll give you a good reason your failure to have made known to the Israel in your midst the reality of its own Messiah and God in whom you professed to believe allowing them to co-exist side by side to have their own religious institutions as if somehow the synagogue is a valid religious reality and not a statement of continuing Jewish apostasy from Christ is there any nation in the world that has had a longer Jewish presence than Germany and has so little affected them by your witness we had a direct mandate in scripture this gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and then also to the Greeks God's priority God's order which we consciously circumvented because the Jews are so intimidating and so bright and intellectual and professional and their lives seem so well ordered better than ours how dare we tell them that they are lost without our Christ in whose name Jews have suffered historically in Germany such an obedience to the requirement of Jesus as Lord has got to appear to Jews as being utmost arrogance who would dare perform it only one that one who is truly repentant and broken and has so descended into death which is what repentance is a burial of the inadequate religious life and a coming forth in a newness of life that does not need Jewish approval and is willing to bear the offense of the Gospel itself in that you have failed you have not maintained an apostolic witness to that people whom God has placed in your midst it's the statement of your failure the betrayal of the kingdom and it's gone on historically and never been recognized nor acknowledged as sin and therefore continues still the scandal of the Jew is something that polite Christianity cannot afford and if German society has been anything it's been polite more important to be polite than to be radical no wonder Nietzsche said God is dead he showed no evidence in polite German Christianity for a Christianity that is polite is not Christian it's a contradiction in terms the very nature of the faith is radical and will always bring upon itself reproach it's a reproach for which German Christians were unwilling of course Paul said he would wish himself accursed for his brethren's sake that they might know Christ of course that's Paul that's not us that's a man speaking as a Jew in his fleshly ethnic identification with his own people of course we could not be expected to have a burden like that really? well I want to raise a question is Paul crying out in Romans 9 out of his Jewishness what he is in the natural or is he crying out as an apostle and that the grief he is expressing is not some ethnic identification but that of the high priest and the apostle of the faith himself if that's true then there is a possibility for an identification with the Jewish people that is beyond sentiment it is the deep heart cry of God himself for which we would be willing to forfeit our own salvation did Paul have it because he was a Jew? or because he was an apostle? I'm not talking about his title I'm talking about his apostolic union with God his repentance was authentic it was not a little feeling sorry it was a man who went down into death and everything that he celebrated as a man and religiously died with him all his categories went into death and he was raised to newness of life there is no one in whom the resurrected Christ had greater continuation than the apostle Paul that's what he meant when he said for me to live as Christ what's our excuse? what did Paul enjoy that is not available to us? what expression of the resurrection life which bears the grief of God for Israel and the courage to express it is not available to us also everything depends on our repentance expressed in our baptism was it a burial? the only thing that our humanity deserves? for in the flesh is no good thing at all or was it a getting wet? performing a religious obligation by those who did not recognize that baptism is a burial and if they knew it even now would not desire it how shall we expect apostolic reality from a church that is still alive unto itself and has never repented unto death and wants only relief and is itself the object of its own consideration I am not arguing now for a form of baptism because my preference of course is for the full immersion as burial but there are untold millions who have gone down that way and came up out of that water no more changed than those who were merely sprinkled what was their intention certainly not death not burial for they were not persuaded that there was anything about them that required so radical a thing they are after all nice people who need only to be reformed or improved not buried you know what I am saying the Jew finds us out and has always revealed the condition of the church even Luther's condition there is something about the unbelieving Jew that reveals our secret heart and shows us where in fact we are not only with regard to them but with regard to God a really repentant German Christian will tell Israel their sins and Jacob their transgressions that's what we are told in Isaiah do not hold back lift your voice like a trumpet and tell Israel of its sin and Jacob of his transgressions and that the holocaust was not some momentary historic aberration but the calculated judgment of God promised in scripture in Deuteronomy and Leviticus in the books of Moses of what would befall us in the last days if we will not acknowledge our transgressions and that of our fathers that the sword would pursue us and terror in the chamber and the infant and the old man at the bottom and the young man and the maiden at the top exactly the way the bodies were stacked in the gas ovens God may deter his judgment but he will not avert it for he is not God and only the people who will tell Jacob their sins and the judgment that is yet to come of which I spoke last night of which Jesus spoke that there will never again be anything like it that eclipses all of the suffering of the past even the Nazi Holocaust itself and if that time were not cut short no flesh would survive that time is future the conditions for it are already at work it's near who will tell Israel their transgressions that you are going to suffer again for your unrecognized transgression that instead of coming out of the Holocaust broken and repentant to ask why did we suffer this where was God for his covenant people unless he was required to be silent or as the scripture says to turn his face from us and that what we have suffered is in exact proportion to our sins and the sins of our fathers for which there has been no capora no covering no remission for without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sin no Levitical priesthood no place of sacrifice no shedding of blood two thousand years of accumulated Jewish sin without a covering open and naked to the retribution of the powers of darkness only too happy to inflict the judgment and take a malicious delight in doing instead of crying out what was our sin we cried out never again not us we may have been victim in the past in our Jewish defenselessness but now in the possession of the state and the apparatus of the state number one world's air force military power never again and who contradicts us who warns us who shows us the word of God of the judgments that have come and the judgments that will come only a church that really loves us loves our souls and wants to save us from the eternal fire and will speak a warning that will not be appreciated that will not be understood that will invite angry reprisal not to offend and to seek a reconciliation which never comes nor can it come is only serving our emotional need and offers nothing to the Jew redemptively it confirms them in their understanding of themselves as victims after all for what sin should they have been judged they live such a nice bourgeois life and make their contributions to society and never hurt anybody only those who have the courage to speak to them the truth can save them from the judgment that is to come both in time and eternity so long as they see themselves as victims victim of what of the church's failure the bankruptcy of Christianity and the corruption of the New Testament that encourages anti-Semitic attitudes so long as you condescend to them you confirm them in their victim mentality in their condemnation of the church and the church's message and the church's gospel and therefore it robs them of the only hope that could save them out of death and hell brother, what you're suggesting is frightening I don't have the courage for it I don't have the ability for it that's true in your present condition of the resurrected Christ to whom all authority has been given in heaven and in earth the high priest and the apostle of our confession the ultimate prophet who is also truth as he is also love he would not withhold himself he would suffer the death of their disappointment he would suffer the pain of their rejection he did it 2,000 years ago in his own body and he will do it now in yours and you will be able to say with Paul for me to live is Christ here is your sin you're falling short of the glory of God and living beneath the resurrection applauding yourself that you endorsed the doctrine but have no necessity for its reality well able to conduct services and programs as a church that has its own satisfaction as its purpose for being but take the apostolic mandate of God seriously you'll have to say with Paul as I have to say standing tonight in front of you speaking this for a first time who is sufficient for these things a church that's sufficient is outside the faith is already apostate and doesn't know it yes there's a repentance for which God is waiting but not the sentimental one that we thought that only provides us with a relief it's a deep repentance historically over done historically long standing and the truth of the church still even in its best charismatic forms how dare you speak this to us German Christians after what we have suffered at your hands we have been your victim we have been your victim
Christliche Busse Um Israel (With German Translation)
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Arthur "Art" Katz (1929 - 2007). American preacher, author, and founder of Ben Israel Fellowship, born to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. Raised amid the Depression, he adopted Marxism and atheism, serving in the Merchant Marines and Army before earning B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from UCLA and UC Berkeley, and an M.A. in theology from Luther Seminary. Teaching high school in Oakland, he took a 1963 sabbatical, hitchhiking across Europe and the Middle East, where Christian encounters led to his conversion, recounted in Ben Israel: Odyssey of a Modern Jew (1970). In 1975, he founded Ben Israel Fellowship in Laporte, Minnesota, hosting a summer “prophet school” for communal discipleship. Katz wrote books like Apostolic Foundations and preached worldwide for nearly four decades, stressing the Cross, Israel’s role, and prophetic Christianity. Married to Inger, met in Denmark in 1963, they had three children. His bold teachings challenged shallow faith, earning him a spot on Kathryn Kuhlman’s I Believe in Miracles. Despite polarizing views, including on Jewish history, his influence endures through online sermons. He ministered until his final years, leaving a legacy of radical faith.