This will be the last day I’ll share quotes from Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, but I would encourage you to buy the book and to read it.

 “Who stands fast?  Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God—the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”  (432)

“His soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison…[Bonhoeffer] had always been afraid that he would not be strong enough to stand such a test but now he knew that there was nothing in life of which one need ever be afraid.” (Payne Best, 504)

“Bonhoeffer was very happy during the whole time I knew him, and did a great deal to keep some of the weaker brethren from depression and anxiety.” (Hugh Falconer who was in prison with Bonhoeffer, 517)

“This is the end…For me the beginning of life.” (Less than 24 hours before he left this world and right after he preached his last sermon in a prison on Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 1:3,  page 528)

Some more quotes from Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas:

 “If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.” (176)

“It is high time we broke with our theologically based restraint towards the state’s actions—which, after all, is only fear.  ‘Speak out for those who cannot speak.’  Who in the church today realizes that this is the very least that the Bible requires of us.” (246)

“Confirmands today are like young soldiers marching to war, the war of Jesus Christ against the gods of this world.  It is a war that demands the commitment of one’s whole life.  Is not God, our Lord, worthy of this struggle?” (302)

“Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption.  Christ alone is the conquering of death.” (380)

Metaxas’ book, Bonhoeffer, is worth your time if only for the quotes.  Let me share several with you. Unless I note otherwise the quotes are all from Bonhoeffer.

“Where a people prays, there is the church, and where the church is, there is never loneliness.” (69)

“In New York they preach about virtually everything, only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.” (99)

“The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty…before which all creatures must kneel.  Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away, he cannot join the house of God…The church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned.” (138)

“What is at stake is by no means whether our German members of congregations can still tolerate church fellowship with the Jews.  It is rather that task of Christian preaching to say: here is the church, where Jew and German stand together under the Word of God, here is the proof whether a church is still the church or not.” (150)

“Where books are burned, they will, in the end, burn people too.” (Heinrich Heine, 162)

Yesterday I shared about Bonhoeffer’s thoughts of the steps the Church must take when there are those who are victims of the state.  Illegal immigration has been a hot topic for some time and has really heated up due to the recent steps taken by Arizona. 

Let me start by saying that I think the State has every right to close the borders and to enforce the laws of the land.  I think the State has every right to expect those who enter our country to enter legally, though I wonder how many Native American’s wish their forefathers had stronger immigration policies when our forefathers came to America!

In Alabama, Tim James’ effort to be Governor has him running adds about having the driver’s test being in English and I understand that if people are going to come and live in our land that they must be expected to learn English just as I would learn Spanish if I were going to move to Peru.  I support those ideas, but how should the Church treat those who are in our country legally or illegally?  How should respond to the person who can’t speak English, who has a child in need of medical attention, or a family who is in need of food?

I think the whole issue speaks to how great our country is.  I don’t read about people trying to sneak into Somalia or Cuba, but they do try to get here because we indeed live in a wonderful place.  My concern is that if we are not careful we can allow our sense of pride in our nation to take over our obedience to Scripture.  We are to render to Caesar what is Caesars, but we are also to give to God that which is God’s.  Jesus speaks of true ministry in Matthew 25 and somehow I don’t think a lack of a Green Card should keep us from ministering to those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, our in prison.  A lack of a Green Card should keep us from hiring them, but not from ministering to them.

I’ve thought a lot about this over the last few years and Bonhoeffer’s thoughts triggered some more thoughts.  As children of God we have to come to and understanding—the Cross will always wave higher than the flag and our allegiance lies ultimately with the Kingdom of God.  I’d love to hear what you think.

I have been a fan of Dietrich Bonhoeffer since my seminary days.  I wrote several papers in my theology class on him and even named my first Golden Retriever after him!  I’ve read his books and they have always challenged me and moved me to a closer relationship with God.  Needless to say I was thrilled when I heard Eric Metaxas was writing a biography of his life.  I bought it when it came out and read it while I was in Destin.

The book’s title tells you a lot about the man—BONHOEFFER PASTOR, MARTYR, PROPHET, SPY.  Bonhoeffer was a great read.  It is long, 542 pages, and it is thorough.  It walks you through the life of this great man of our faith.  He lived in Germany and watched the rise of Hitler and opposed him when most pastors were falling in line to support him.  That opposition led to Bonhoeffer’s taking part in a conspiracy to take Hitler’s life.

Bonhoeffer is famous for the following analogy…if you see a mad man driving a car toward a group of people you have two choices—you can wait and minister to the people he hit or you can take the steering wheel away from him.  Bonhoeffer watched as the Nazi’s increased their persecution of the Jews and of the church and realized that it was time to take action.

He wrestled with this because he was a pacifist, but he came to the following understanding of the relationship of church and state.  He said, “Without doubt, the Church of the Reformation has no right to address the state directly in its specifically political actions.”  But he did say the church has a vital role with the state.  He said the church must help the state be the state and he suggested three way that the church must do this.

First, the Church must question the state regarding its actions and their legitimacy—to help the state be the state as God has ordained.  Second, he said the Church is to aid the victims of state actions.  When there are victims of the states actions the church must step up and minister to them.  Finally, he said the Church “has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.”  On this last point he was specifically talking about the Jews that we being attacked by Hitler.

As I read Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and as I read of what the German government was doing to the Jewish people I couldn’t help but think of what might be happening to many people in the United States in the days to come.  Tomorrow I want to talk about how Bonhoeffer’s thoughts about the church and state might apply to how the church today must think about illegal immigrants.

On Sunday I will preach the second sermon from 2 Corinthians.  This week’s text is 1:3-7, and the general idea is that when we suffer for Christ we are comforted by God and the reason we are comforted is so that we can comfort others who are suffering.

 During my study I found an interesting story from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s   life.   I first read it in R Kent Hughes commentary, but I also found it in a sermon by Dale Whitehead.  This is how Whitehead put it,

 Bonhoeffer was one of a handful of German Theologians to stand up to the Nazification of the German church. He was prominent in writing the famous Barmen Declaration, which rejected the infamous Aryan clauses imposed by Nazi ideology. Bonhoeffer went so far as to found an underground seminary in Finkenwald, Bavaria, which was closed by Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler. This led to Bonhoeffer’s joining the resistance movement and his being imprisoned by the Gestapo in April 1943.

 While he was in prison he wrote numerous letters to his fiancée, Maria Von Wedemeyer, one of which included a poem he had written and entitled “New Year 1945.”  Here is a portion of that poem,

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving

Even to the dregs of pain

At Thy command, we will not falter

Thankfully receiving all that is given

By Thy loving hand

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly could have allowed himself to slip into a state of hopelessness. But he didn’t. Why? He did not slip into a state of hopelessness because he had turned to God for His comfort and had received it.

 So what happened? Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer delivered from his imprisonment? And what is the answer? The answer is yes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was delivered from his imprisonment through death.

Just three months after writing the words of the poem,  just as the war was ending, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung in Flossenburg prison.

 But this was not the end of the story. Eighteen years later a woman who had just lost her fiancé in a sledding accident read the poem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer had written to his fiancée and was comforted. She then, after being comforted by the poem, sent it to the parents of her deceased fiancé who also found comfort in that same poem. This ultimately led the father of her deceased fiancé, Joseph Bayly, to write his own book of poems that he entitled “Heaven.”

Then a most interesting thing happened. Eighteen years after the publication of the book of poems entitled “Heaven,” Joseph Bayly, the author of the book, encountered a pastor friend who related to him that he had visited a terminally ill woman in a Boston hospital for some period of time and had given her his book of poems that was entitled “Heaven” in an attempt to provide her comfort. The pastor said that the dying woman had stayed awake late the previous night to read it and told him of the comfort and help she had received from it. A few hours later she died. The woman’s name was Maria Von Wedemeyer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s fiancée three decades earlier.

God’s comfort is meant to circulate from person to person just as we saw it circulating from person to person in the story I just related to you. God’s comfort is not to be hoarded but shared.

I remember reading about a missionary agency who had an amazing seal.  The seal had the picture of an ox standing between an altar and a plow and the motto below it said, “Ready for either.”  That was the attitude in Philippians 1.21-23 and it was the call of Jesus in Luke 9:23.  Are we ready for either?

Are we willing to take up the plough and work until He calls us home?  Are we willing to lay down our lives for the Gospel if He calls us to be among those who were slain for the Lord?  (Revelation 6:9-11)  I listened to a tape of Leonard Ravenhill preaching the other day and he shared something AW Tozer told him, “When you saw a man carrying his cross out of the city you knew one thing–he wasn’t coming back!” 

That reminds me of Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s famous line, “When Christ calls a man He bids him come and die.”  Are you willing to take up the cross?  Are you willing to follow Him?  The truth of the matter is–you are not a follower of Jesus Christ unless you can answer yes to both of those questions.  I want to encourage you to get ready for either and to live for the only GLORY that will last!  Tody could be the DAY…let’s make sure He finds us faithful.