Who's Coming For You?

 

The engraving of the confession, in poetic form, presented on stone at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts reads:

First 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 for me.

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power. But when, after he came to power, Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested, confined in Dachau and Sachsenhausen, and was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after WWII. Niemöller made confession in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation: “... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?" Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! (my fault, my fault!) We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out. We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934, there must have been a possibility, 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30 to 40,000 [sic] people…” (wikipedia.org/First they came…)

[Genesis 6:5-8] Let’s face it – apostasy (2 Timothy 3:1-5) is once again engulfing humanity at an alarming rate and consuming the souls of mankind (Romans 1:18-32) without discrimination, which I believe will trigger the Destruction of the World 2.0 - very soon (2 Peter 3:10-13). No one will physically survive; but the spirit of man can survive if properly prepared (Galatians 5:15-26). Don’t stand before God with your head hung low saying, “My fault, My fault! (Romans 2:1-11). Stand proud before the Lord as a survivor of truth (2 Peter 3:14-18). Repent; confess your faults today (Acts 2:37-41).