Choosing Evil or Good?
Examples you know!
#1-Adolf Hitler
In last week’s article I left out the link to this very profound piece by Henry Drummond: Since I am having trouble copying the link, would you simply search for “Henry Drummond The Greatest Thing in the Word in librivox” ? You will find that you may read it or listen to it read. ://archive.org/details/greatestthing_1112_librivox
If you have time this week among all the other things you are doing, would you take about 10-15 minutes to hear or read this article by Henry Drummond, an 18th century, Scottish evangelist, author, and scientist?
You will get the most from the first 6-7 clips. I think you will find it worth your time investment.
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Now for today’s article:
Adolf Hitler began his religious life in the Catholic Church in Germany following the example of his mother Klara Hitler; however, father Alois Hitler was skeptical of the Catholic Church. In 1904 Adolf Hitler was confirmed in the Catholic Church, though accounts indicate that he was not at all an adherent to faith. He did use the fact that Jews crucified Jesus as part of his policy for extermination of the Jew. Hitler also espoused that Jesus was not a Jew but was Aryan with blond hair and blue eyes, even though Hitler himself was neither blond haired nor blue eyed.
Why am I describing Hitler’s religious life? I wonder what might have been different if he had admired, accepted, and placed his faith in Jesus Christ as the name “given among men whereby we must be saved”. (Acts 4:12) Apparently he never came to that faith and grace-based acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord.
My point is simple. Hitler had the Bible, a practicing Catholic mother, friends who attended confirmation with him, and apparently an intelligent mind. Can you imagine the change in the history of the world if he had submitted to God, received Jesus and lived for Him instead of becoming the tool of Satan that he eventually became. What I have read of his life shows me that he used religious rhetoric, twisted truth to his political advantage, and adopted “Positive Christianity”, a radically flawed view of the Old Testament, of Jesus, and of the Jewish people. It seems to me that every move he made became self-focused on achieving dominance, power, and control. He became like his father, the devil, as dis the those who crucified Jesus – both Jewish and Roman leaders.
I don’t believe Hitler would be able to say to God that he “never knew” or that God was “unfair to him”. The path he chose led him farther away from the love of God, not closer. His self-deception and selfish ambition did result in power and influence for him but ultimately led not only to his downfall but also to the destruction of millions of people from wars to the attempted extermination of the Jews and other groups in Germany and beyond.
This is another reason why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so important. We must be saved by initially believing the Gospel and continuously saved by His life to become who Jesus saves us to be. So evangelism is vital to the successful fulfillment of the life God desires for us to live, but we also need discipleship. We need to have other believers come around us to help us live out the Christ- centered life and do those “good works which God before ordained that we should walk in them”.
Hitler’s version of the heretical “Positive Christianity” included the teaching that by doing moral practices he would “finish what Jesus Christ failed to do”. Hitler was fatally flawed in his reasoning and his faith. Hitler needed Jesus’ salvation and Holy Spirit guidance into God’s truth to be conformed to the image of our heavenly Father. (Psalm 135:15-18 makes it clear that we become like the god we serve)