Holy fear for the dark days ahead

"A country is not just what it does - it is also what it tolerates." - Kurt Tucholsky, German essayist of Jewish origin

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me."- Ps Martin Niemdler

Just returned from the land of Israel, where I spent two awesome weeks learning about the nation of Israel, and God's faithfulness to his covenantal people.

Whilst there, one of the places I visited was the Yad Veshem, the Holocaust museum. The Yad Veshem is really a very sobering place - and documents a very dark period in humanity. During the Holocaust, a staggering 6 million Jews died. Why? For no other reason than that they were Jews - God's prooftext. God has said He will preserve a remnant of Jews for Himself, and if they are annihilated as a people, God would be proven to be a liar. This is what the Evil One wants, and this spiritual dimension is behind the 52 genocides perpetuated against the Jewish people throughout history.

But while the Jewish slaughter is staggering, equally horrific is the small number of people who stood up as the voice of conscience during the Holocaust. And all this in Christianised Europe. While the killings were going on, the Church was largely silent. By its silence, it was complicit.

In the 1938 Évian Conference convened by then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, only one nation out of 32 committed to take refugees. That country: the Dominican Republic. What a sad state of affairs that the world was sympathetic, but chose to turn a blind eye. Faith without works is dead.

At the Yad Veshem, a tree is planted for every single individual who is considered the "Righteous Among the Nations" - these are non-Jews who risked their lives to save the persecuted Jews. If they just saved one Jew, they would have been honoured. How many in the entire world did so? Just a paltry 18,000 (among them, Oskar Schindler and Corrie Ten Boom).

Why so few? The reasons boil down to the following: (1) Prevailing anti-semitic feeling (2) Apathy (3) Atmosphere of fear in Nazi Europe (4) Conformism.

The Gentiles who risked their lives to save the Jews did so even though there was a very real threat they would die doing so. They risked the constant fear of betrayal from their fellowmen; in Western Europe, they would have been sent to the death camps; and in Eastern Europe, they were in danger of execution.

When I reflect upon that, I dare not say that I too would be brave. That is why as the days get darker, one of my prayers is for God to give me a holy fear of Him. Fear of God, not fear of men.

"They overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." (Rev 12:11)