“When A Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany” (Part 2)

By Erwin Lutzer

In Lesson #1, “When God is separated from government, judgment follows.

Lutzer quotes Hitler’s remarks to Rev. Martin Niemoller, “You confine yourself to the Church.  I’ll take care of the German people.”

It should be noted that one of the great dangers to any nation, then and now, is for Christian citizens to become distracted or preoccupied with oneself or the Church thus allowing, permitting government officials no accountability to its citizens they serve.

The following is an eyewitness account of how some members in the Church in Germany reacted to Nazism in their time. Ask yourself the question, “what would you have done?”

“I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust.  I considered myself a Christian.  We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it because, what could anyone do to stop it?  A railroad track behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks.  we became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by.  We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!

Week after week the whistle would blow.  We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp.  Their screams tormented us.  We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow, we began singing hymns.  By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices.  If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.

Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore.  But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep.  God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.”

Lutzer then quotes A. Dostoevsky, the former Russian writer and Christian thinker, “When God does not exist, anything is possible.”

We, as citizens in America, are quickly entering into a new realm of a godless society and loss of freedoms.  Will we wake up before it is too late? – that is the question.

May we once again ponder the words, of Sir Edmond Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil – is that good men do nothing.”

Early in Jesus’ ministry, he spoke the following words to a small group of His disciples describing how they and we should live:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16)