Cruz’s evangelical backer seeks to convert Jews, predicts new concentration camps

Times of Israel ^ | February 9, 2016 | Eric Cortellessa

[Praxeologue]

A controversial Christian evangelical leader whose endorsement is being proudly trumpeted by Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz works energetically to convert Jews to Christianity and has predicted that there will be a new period of concentration camps for Jews before the return of Jesus.

Mike Bickle is also notorious for having said that God sent Hitler to hunt Jews for not accepting Jesus as the messiah.

Bickle, the founder and director of the International House of Prayer, a Kansas City-based Pentecostal Christian missions organization, runs the Israel Mandate project, an effort to “mobilize an international prayer movement that would pray 24/7 for the nation of Israel to receive their Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus),” according to its website. The ministry hosts a regular livestream of such prayer for anyone to participate.

In public sermons over the years, Bickle has focused intensely on end-times prophesies, and has predicted that Jesus will not return until Jews embrace him as their Lord and savior. His website claims that “Jesus ‘bound’ Himself by His own prophecy, saying He would only come back and rule in Jerusalem when Israel’s leaders ask Him to reign as King over them.”

For Bickle, this is what explains Nazi Germany’s murder of more than six million Jews. In a 2011 sermon, Bickle cited a passage from Jeremiah 16:16 to elucidate the attempted extermination of European Jewry.

“The Lord says, ‘I’m going to give all 20 million of them the chance to respond to the fishermen. And I give them grace.; And he says, ‘And if they don’t respond to grace, I’m going to raise up the hunters.’ And the most famous hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler,” he told an audience.

On January 21, 2016, Cruz issued a press release announcing Bickle’s endorsement. It came a little more than a week before the Iowa caucuses, a contest where support among evangelicals helped Cruz edge out real estate mogul Donald Trump, who had been previously leading in the polls.

“Through prayer, the Lord has changed my life and altered my family’s story,” Cruz said in the announcement. “I am grateful for Mike’s dedication to call a generation of young people to prayer and spiritual commitment. Heidi and I are grateful to have his prayers and support. With the support of Mike and many other people of faith, we will fight the good fight, finish the course, and keep the faith.”

The press release included a biography of Bickle and a description of the many facets of his organization, including its annual conference for young adults, three full-time ministry schools and “24/7 prayer led by worship teams.” It also included a statement from Bickle.

“Our nation is in a great crisis in this hour,” Bickle said. “We need a president who will first be faithful to honor God’s Word. We need a president who will work to defend religious liberty, uphold our Constitution, keep our country safe and our economy sound, and speak truth to the nation. We have been praying for righteous leaders, and Ted Cruz is such a leader. I am enthusiastically endorsing Ted Cruz.”

Cruz has faced some criticism in recent days over his use of the term “chutzpah” to mock real estate magnate Donald Trump’s “New York values,” a comment some said reeked of anti-Semitism.

“Using ‘New York’ as a euphemism for ‘Jewish’ has long been an anti-Semitic dog whistle,” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote last week. The role of Bickle and evangelical leaders in past campaigns

This is not the first time Bickle has involved himself in national politics. He played a prominent role in former Texas governor Rick Perry’s Response Prayer event that effectively launched his 2012 presidential bid. Bickle spoke on stage during the event and musicians from the International House of Prayer’s worship team performed.

This is also not the first time that a controversial evangelical leader — and one with a history of calling Hitler’s persecution of Jews an expression of God’s will — has been involved with US presidential politics. In 2008, Sen. John McCain welcomed the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, a televangelist and pastor of a mega-chuch in San Antonio, Texas.

Audio from a sermon in the 1990s captured Hagee, like Bickle, citing the Book of Jeremiah and saying, “If that doesn’t describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust, you can’t see that.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., heaps criticism on the Obama administration's policies with Russia, Iran and other international hot spots as he questions Secretary of State Kerry during the committee's hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., heaps criticism on the Obama administration’s policies with Russia, Iran and other international hot spots as he questions Secretary of State Kerry during the committee’s hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 8, 2014. (photo credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

McCain eventually rejected the endorsement and denounced Hagee’s rhetoric, but not until three months after this sermon first came to light, and after he had secured the Republican nomination, although the veteran Arizona senator said he had been unaware of such comments at the time of accepting Hagee’s backing.

“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible,” McCain said in a statement. “I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee’s endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”

His campaign would admit that it did not sufficiently vet Hagee’s background, while also saying that it had been seeking his support early in the election process. Bickle on the fate of Jews

Throughout Bickle’s ecclesiastical career, he has professed adamantly that biblical prophesy suggests a bleak future for the Jewish people, including another era of Holocaust-like conditions.

On December 2, 2005, he delivered a sermon that said “Israel’s condition just before Jesus’ coming is described in scripture as being in prison camps and assaulted by foreign armies. Not all of Israel,” he clarified, “but a significant number of Jews will be in work camps, prison camps or death camps.”

‘A significant number of Jews will be in work camps, prison camps or death camps’

Bickle went on to say that half the Jews in Jerusalem will wind up in those camps:

“God says, ‘I’ll gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city will be taken.’ And it says ‘half of the city,’ he said. “There’s 600,000 Jews living in Jerusalem now. And I don’t know what the number will be then, but according to the numbers now that would be 300,000 brought into prison camps from one city.” He then repeated for effect, “Three hundred thousand Jews.”

In a separate sermon, on July 23, 2006, Bickle cited more scripture to expand on what he claimed will become of the world’s entire Jewish population.

“A lot of Israel’s going to get converted, but a lot of Israel’s going to worship the anti-Christ,” he said. “A lot of Israel’s going to have revival, a lot of Israel’s going to fall away. Portions of Israel will be supernaturally protected and portions of Israel will die and go away to prison camps.”

He explained that, according to the Book of Zechariah, one third of world Jewry will “get radically saved and become lovesick worshippers of Jesus,” sparing them from the inevitable apocalyptic fate of the rest of their fellow Jews.

“And so all of Israel, at the end of the day … they end up dying or if they survive they get radically converted at the Second Coming.”

But it’s not all bad news, according to Bickle. “Many are going to get converted between now and then,” he said, reassuringly. “We’re not giving up on Israel until the Second Coming. It’s the efforts of leading people to the Lord right now that’s significantly related to the events that are going to happen.”

The Cruz campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

[OneVike]

Dirty little secret is that most Democrat voters also think the Jews were punished. They read the Bible, just not the parts that tell them to stop stealing and stop being perverted.

However, if you haven’t noticed, the vast majority of those who we want to win in the middle and from the old Yellow dog Democrats agree with Evangelicals on this.

So this is a no starter.

The agnostic ones are already voting for the one who will be best for their back pocket.

Agnostics overwhelmingly ignore all things religious by default. My brother in law is one, and he and his agnostic/atheist friends dislike the Jews.

So no, they will knot care

[rmlew]

What is wrong with someone wanting to convert Jews? I'm not offended.
Looking at the growing antisemitism of the Western Left, and Muslim violent antisemitism, I don't find concentration camps or death camps crazy. We have an active genocide of Yazidi in the Middle East today.

Stop the hysterics and be logical, people.

[babble-on]

You talkin to ME??

Well I’m the only one standin heah!?!

/travisbickle

[OneVike]

They cannot be logical because they have no light in their heart.

Those who reject Christ cannot be logical, because logic comes through wisdom, wisdom comes from God, and you must accept Christ to get to God. So how would you expect them to get blessed by the Holy Spirit when they reject the truth?

[StAnDeliver]

Bickle=Schadenfreude. Post more like this please.

[StAnDeliver]

"most of the Old Testament is a lament about Jews' stubbornness and continual backsliding against the laws of God. It is replete with prophecies detailing all of the sorrows that would befall them unless they turned to the Lord, which they did not do, and so those sorrows are upon them."

Really? When? Why would God punish those to come while helping Israel prosper now?

Tel Aviv is the most vibrant city in the Med. You should go there and tour the sorrows lol.

No don't bother answering just shove your head back up youknowwhere and go to sleep and you wake up back in the Religion forum next January 20...

[Nervous Tick]

I greatly respect Mike Bickle, and the LORD’s work he has done, and is doing.

What needs rectifying?

[Praxeologue]

I greatly respect Mike Bickle, and the LORD’s work he has done, and is doing.

I would like to be able to agree with you.

How, then, can you interpret Bickle's words, as in post #35, above, as inoffensive to both Jews and Americans? That will be a tough task, but I want to be convinced.

[bramps]

If you read any of the 4 gospels from the New Testament, you may learn many very interesting and wonderful things, such as Christ’s opening line to his disciples:

Matthew 4:18
Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

[ilovesarah2012]

Oh boy

[Nervous Tick]

>> How, then, can you interpret Bickle’s words, as in post #35, above, as inoffensive to both Jews and Americans?

Why would I need to do that?

Is it the job of a preacher to preach what is “inoffensive to both Jews and Americans”?

Or must he preach GOD’s truth in love?

Please tell me: which watchman loves those over whom he watches? The one who sounds the alarm? Or the one who keeps silent so as not to “offend”, not to wake his charges from their sleep?

Tell you what. Prove that you’re a truth seeker rather than a bomb thrower by bringing to this forum the CONTEXT of Mike Bickle’s teaching from which this inflammatory sound bite was extracted.

Then we can talk further. Thanks in advance.

FRegards and Blessings. In JESUS’ name.

[soycd]

It ain’t what you read, it’s what you believe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKVVEE5iGzA&list=PLqahuOnbQGyjYSm1bCjI0TUxu_M7mtWxU&index=59

[Praxeologue]

Tell you what. Prove that you’re a truth seeker rather than a bomb thrower by bringing to this forum the CONTEXT of Mike Bickle’s teaching from which this inflammatory sound bite was extracted.

Then we can talk further. Thanks in advance.

I will surely look, as you recommend, but so should Cruz's campaign and so should all of us. That is why I posted this. If Cruz is the man I think he is, he will respond swiftly to this controversy, after doing his research.

[Nervous Tick]

>> If Cruz is the man I think he is, he will respond swiftly to this controversy, after doing his research.

And if Ted Cruz is the man I KNOW him to be, he’ll recognize this for the manufactured controversy that it is, and not waste resources on it.

[Nervous Tick]

>> I will surely look, as you recommend... so should all of us.

I’d definitely encourage you to look into International House of Prayer, Mike Bickel’s ministry.

See for yourself if the real-life preacher and prophet Bickel matches the nasty jew-hating caricature that the left-leaning media has drawn of him.

If you take a close, deep, honest look, I think you’ll find that he does not deserve that caricature.

http://www.ihopkc.org/

blessings

[bramps]

I was simply making the point that Jesus was coercive.

...still would suggest you someday read his story in the New Testament.

[soycd]

Thank you. I have read it, many times. What I witness in person has always left me with the most impression.

I have seen life, I have seen death and I have killed. Humanity remains within me.

[Boogieman]

“Really? When? Why would God punish those to come while helping Israel prosper now?”

Hoo boy! Do you know that when the prophecies about Israel were originally given to the Jews, there were plenty of people saying much the same thing? There were always scoffers who looked around and said “hey, life is peachy now, why should we believe this crackpot who is saying God told us bad things are coming?”

Yet, all of their human reasoning and fallible judgements about the state of the world didn’t delay God’s will from taking place exactly as it was prophesied to happen. The Jews still suffered the first exile, the second exile, multiple destructions of the temple, and finally the diaspora. Now, those events were all prophesied but they were not the final events prophesied concerning Israel. There are still tragedies left which haven’t unfolded yet which are predicted by the same prophets who foretold all those other events in great detail.

A wise person might consider those facts and conclude: “perhaps we should listen to the prophets this time since they have a pretty good track record so far...”.

[rmlew]

Thank you for saying I can never be logical.

[SeaHawkFan]

Cruz need do nothing!

What other presidential candidate has ever had the praise and congratulation of the Knessett?

Or the endorsement of the US Rabbinical Council?

Trumpets are bizarre.

FOR THE WIN!!!!!