Saturday, February 6, 2016

The Tempter's Sieve

         Read here words of exclamation from the Lord, Israel's Messiah, that the writer of the book of Isaiah penned in his 51st and 52nd chapters....."Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness.......Give attention to me, my people......Listen to Me you who know righteousness......Awake, awake, put on strength.......awake as in the days of old......Wake yourself, wake yourself......Awake, awake! Put on your strength......" and "Depart! Depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing..."
         Jesus Christ is telling His church today, with great emphasis and through many voices, to awaken! If you open your ears you can hear it. The following are only a few paragraphs that I chose from a larger post from January of 2012. Please consider the warnings from just of those voices:

 Those Who Ignore History

         Erwin W. Lutzer is the long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He's the author of Hitler's Cross and among other writings is known for his studies into Hitler's Germany, its relation to the German Christian church and for warnings to America of a mass movement such as Nazism happening here. He followed up his award winning book with When A Nation Forgets God where he focuses on the weakness of the human mind when in the hands of master villains.
         Hitler  used his power to "obliterate" the church... "transforming (it) so thoroughly that every vestige of Christianity would be smashed." The "Confessing Church" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller that challenged Hitler was dealt with harshly. The state would take over from the church on all issues such as dedicating infants, marriage and holidays which would become paganized. Lutzer gives us this warning from a sermon by German theologian Niemoller, "We have all of us-the whole church and the whole community-we've been thrown into the Tempter's sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing, and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff. Verily, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of meditative Christianity is at an end."
          The author writes "Of course as any skilled propagandist knows the masses should never be told the 'end-game,' that is, where the leader actually intends to take the people" and quotes Hitler often from Mein Kampf; here are but two of those quotes..."The magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to the big lie than to the little one, since they themselves lie in little things but would be ashamed of lies that are too big" and yet again "By clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and consequently the most wretched life as paradise."