Tuesday,
October 26, 2021
I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and
Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to
set up his Kingdom: Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or
not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no
longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own
desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching
ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:1-3
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: In sticking to its calling – that is,
preaching the risen Jesus Christ – the church deals a deadly blow to the spirit
of annihilatiion.[1] Bonhoeffer lived[2] through Germany’s disasterous days of World War
1, and was only 39 when executed by Adolph Hitler’s Nazi government shortly
before the end of World War 2. This serious
thinking pastor understood the spirit of annihilation. Hitler, an egotistical maniac, was Hell-bent
on his final solution to create for Germany (and, in his
mind, all humanity) a perfect Aryan people, both by engineered breeding of
physical greatness, and particularly by exterminating those who did not fit his
plan (Jews, the infirmed, and dark-skinned races). Military leaders who both feared and followed
Hitler firmly entrenched a pathway to Hell for Bonhoeffer’s generation. Hitler’s master plan towards a perfect race
in a perfect place was the perfect medium for the spirit of annihilation – bombs
and gas chambers as the natural selection of man becoming God.
Bonhoeffer dared to speak-out against Hitler’s
diabolical plan. His protests were
ignored, and the preacher turned to the underground resistance, even joining a
plot to assassinate the dictator.
Shortly before the end of the war, and the end of Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
suffered a short climb of the gallows steps.
Hanged by the spirit of annihilation, his words ring, truer for today, as
they have for all the generations of persecuted peoples.
The church’s job isn’t fighting the spirit of annihilation
with intrigue, plots, and bombs; instead we are to hold-up for all to see this
Lord Jesus Christ who is all in all.
That is always the next sermon. And in a world such as ours, hedonistic,
self-centered, strong-headed, and Hell-bent for self-annihilation, preaching
the crucified, resurrected, and coming-again Christ cannot be anything less
than first priority.
For You Today
Whether you are a preacher or not, if you are a believer in
Christ, you are bidden to take up a cross – to come and die
with the Lord.
Is there anything else on your To-Do List that
comes higher than that?
You chew on that as you hit the
Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
[1] Title and Other Images:
Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
[1] Ethics,
General Editor, Wayne Whitson Floyd Jr., Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001 (132)
[2] 1906-1945
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