Antisemitism: Who is Behind The Violence & Mayhem in SA? (Part 1)

Introduction on who is behind violence and mayhem in South Africa

How do you prove that Israel is no longer or never has been God’s chosen people? The best way, according to Riekert Botha, is to compare the Afrikaner nation with the nation of Israel and point out the similarities between them as regards their presumptuous allusion to divine election above all the other nations.

As we shall observe later, Botha concludes that none of them were ever chosen as a special people. Suffice to say at this stage, is that God’s election or choice of Israel as his own peculiar people has nothing to do with salvation, but everything to do with delivering unto the world a Saviour. Hence Jesus’ words in John 4:22, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.”

Riekert Botha of the Vita Dei Word School posted a video on his YouTube channel on 22^nd February 2021 in which he addresses the present dire situation in South Africa, with emphasis on the Afrikaner people being the major cause in the build-up to the violence and mayhem in our beloved country, which he attributes to their fallacious view that they are God’s special chosen people.

Before anything else, the author of this article needs to articulate very clearly that much of what Riekert Botha says in his video “God’s Word Through Habakkuk,” is biblically correct, based on Paul’s admonishment in 1 Corinthians 10, “Now these things happened unto them (Israel) by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

The sins of Israel and God’s righteous judgments on her are a stern warning for us on whom the end-times have dawned. God will judge us and any other country in similar ways if we do not repent.

However, Riekert Botha’s views of the end-times, particularly regarding Israel and the immutable promises God made to her are not biblical and, therefore, warrant God’s righteous judgments. We shall see how this fallacy in Botha’s discourse plays out throughout his video. Here now is the video with English captions added by the author.

Whenever violence, mayhem, corruption, murders, thefts, money laundering, and fraud erupt like a volcano in a country, to the extent that those in governance no longer seem to care what the outcome may be, it behooves us to ask what or who is behind all these heinous acts. Is it Satan or is it God, is it the Afrikaner people, or perhaps even the church who believes it has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people and is therefore provoking God’s righteous judgments? (1 Peter 4:17). The initial response to such a question is usually one of dismay, astonishment and even disgust. How can a God of love, mercy, and compassion allow people to be so horrendously tortured and viciously slaughtered daily? Satan is a murderer, not God. (John 8:44).

Indeed, God is not a murderer, but He can and often does use his enemies, and yes, even Satan, to execute his righteous judgments on sin and rebellion in the world, and particularly in a church that has lost its way. Perhaps it is appropriate to say from the very outset that a country that forgets the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be turned into hell.

"The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Psalm 9: 16-17).

The Encyclopaedia Britannica correctly states,

In both the Old and the New Testament, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because with them God’s relationship of promise and purpose was fixed for all those who descended from them.

Whosoever denies this, is worshiping, serving, and preaching another god and not the God of the Bible. They are willfully and deliberately denying God’s steadfast obeisance to his own promises to Israel as a nation, and consequently making a mockery of the eternal truth that all promises are yea and are amen in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). But, more of this a bit later.

Forbidden Tears / Strange Fire

When Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s two sons, brought strange fire before the Lord in the tabernacle, God smote them with his holy fire. Something strange happened then; the High Priest and two of his siblings, Eleazar and Ithamar, were forbidden to lament the death of their two brothers.

“And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar his sons, “Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the congregation; but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that the LORD has kindled.” (Leviticus 10: 6).

The tearing of one’s clothes and loose hanging hair were expressions of extreme grief and sadness in those days, and even to this day in some Eastern countries. It was a natural thing for people in those days to do this when death in the family or some sort of calamity happened to them. Yet, the least sign of lamenting the death of Nadab and Abihu would have put them in league with the two scoundrels.

Do we have any idea how holy God is? Do those who preach his Word realize how important it is to constantly be on the alert not to misinterpret and mishandle his Word? Yet, present-day churches are filled with male and female preachers who ferociously and unashamedly sear their congregants’ consciences with strange fire.

At this stage, it is important to note that the term “strange fire” appears frequently in this series of articles on the violence in South Africa. Its recurring application is to show that most churches in South Africa think they are worshiping and serving God, whilst they are disseminating an ecumenical universal church in preparation for the Antichrist.

Bear this in mind when the author examines Reverend Mike Smuts’ contribution to the spreading of the Gospel in South Africa, who in the author’s opinion may be called one of South Africa’s own Billy Grahams. Riekert Botha holds Mike Smuts in very high esteem.

The other ecumenicist, of course, is Oom Angus Buchan. They preach repentance but a false unity propped up by a void of pure biblical doctrine, as we shall see later. By the way, Billy Graham just about coined the phrase “on God’s side,” an expression Riekert Botha constantly uses without preaching the unadulterated Gospel of God.

In an interview Larry King had with Billy Graham, Larry asked Billy,

“Billy it’s half-time at the Super Bowl. You have thirty seconds what would you say?” Billy said, “I would tell them to think about another game, the game of life, and to be sure they’re on God’s side.” 

This is not the Gospel. It is a false gospel. The phrase “on God’s side” never once appears in the Bible. Yet, Riekert Botha repeatedly uses it to present the Gospel, albeit a false gospel which is no gospel at all.

Permissible Tears

Paul, who often bore the brunt of Roman cruelty, shed many tears, not because of the Roman Empire’s violent and corrupt behavior, but for the churches he planted, for he knew that after his departing grievous wolves would enter in among them, not sparing the flock. And that of their own selves men would arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20: 29-30).

Paul was more concerned about the spiritual violence the grievous and ravaging wolves (false teachers) would inflict on the spiritual well-being of his flocks than the physical violence committed by the corrupt Roman Empire. The latter could only kill the body (Luke 12: 4-5). False teachers who proliferate false teaching in their churches are killing peoples’ souls whom God will cast into hell if they do not repent of their evil.

Riekert Botha’s Tears on Violence and Mayhem in South Africa

In a highly emotional and visibly tearful introduction to his YouTube video, “God’s Word Through Habakkuk,” Riekert Botha explains that he had some reservations and great difficulty to make the video, at the bidding of Gielie Jordaan, the senior pastor of the Shofar Church in Potchefstroom.

The request was to say something about the dire situation in South Africa – the abuses, and the murders, and the raping, and the farm killings, and the fact that there is so much unrighteousness in South Africa, which seems to be protected by the government, the army, the police, and the media in general.

Botha admits that it is difficult to talk about this subject because it involves so much emotion, pain, horrors, blatant injustice, and evil. So, how do you approach such a difficult, sensitive, and profound subject? Riekert Botha makes it clear that viewers can see and hear from his talk that it is difficult, but that he wants them to see it is not something anyone just tra-la-la speaks about.

He continues to say,

But it is a concern which the Bible very, very plainly clarifies. For us, I think, the safest way to describe what is presently happening in South Africa, we need for a moment to distance ourselves from this situation and talk about a situation in the Bible where people like us had similar experiences.

And the one book to which I am always drawn when these types of things come to the fore is the three-chapter prophetic book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk is one of those books that succinctly sums up many things – the heart of God, the modus operandi of God, the message of God, and in a strange and funny way also the situation in South Africa today.

It is abundantly clear that Botha’s heart cry and tears are indeed permissible tears if you will, and tears that may be likened to those of Paul of Tarsus. His concern particularly for the Afrikaner nation echoes the concerns Paul had for his own people, the Jews.

However, Botha loses track of the true reasons for God’s judgments on, not just the Afrikaner, but on all of South Africa’s inhabitants whether white, black, or brown because most churches are following the road back to Rome, the Kabbalah, witchcraft, of which the Shofar Church in Potchefstroom is no exception.

Paul said, they have an outward form of godliness but have denied the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). Therefore, Botha’s premise that God’s judgments on South Africa are due to the Afrikaner’s high-minded view that it is God’s chosen people, just like Israel erroneously thought that it was God’s chosen people, holds no water.

In fact, the assumption that the new breed of Christians in mostly the Pentecostal, Charismatic, Mystical, Hebrew Roots, and New Apostolic Reformation spiritualities is God’s chosen people and God’s new Israel is primarily responsible for God’s righteous judgments on South Africa.

Please read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6