The other day at the college my daughter attends, there was a strange object in the parking lot that immediately drew my attention. See if you recognize what it was.
If you said it was a rail car,you would be correct. So what is an old rail car doing on a college campus?
Well, this isn’t your common ordinary rail car. This is an actual Holocaust rail car that was used to transport prisoners, those who the German Reich had deemed to be unworthy to live, to one of the various extermination camps.
How this rail car ended up in Florida I do not know, however there is a Holocaust museum somewhere in S.W. Florida and the car was loaned to the college as part of an awareness program the students have to participate in.
I must tell you that I sat transfixed for several minutes as I gazed intently at this rail car. I am very familiar with what went on inside one of these cars, having read several first hand accounts of the few who survived this journey of death.
As I sat staring at this rail car, I was reminded of a first hand account written by Dr. Milosz Nyiszli, who in 1960 wrote “Auschwitz: A Doctors Eyewitness Account”. In this heart rendering account of extreme human suffering at the hands of the German war machine, Dr. Nyiszli explains in graphic detail how that ninety people were crammed into each of these cars.
With no heat, nothing for a toilet except a bucket, no water, the only food available being that which the “passengers” had brought themselves,these trains traveled for days and days until their destination was finally reached.
Here is a glance inside of this car where ninety humans were packed in like sardines. I am standing a short distance from the end of the car, looking out. The window at the far end of the car would have been secured shut in order to prevent the occupants from eventually discovering their destination,thus preventing full scale panic from setting in.
Certainly, none of us can fathom such cruelty. Nor can we truly understand the human suffering that millions of people endured. To make this even more incomprehensible, these hapless millions were afflicted and ultimately killed because they were somehow designated as “different”.
Think about that statement, the madman of Bavaria, Adolph Hitler, decreed that millions of innocent lives be exterminated because they didn’t look like the so called “master race”. Rather than risk tainting the blood of this “master race”, a solution was devised to ensure this could not happen.
They even gave this solution a name: “The Final Solution”.
Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals, and a whole litany of other people groups were all designated to be destroyed.
Today, it is imperative that we never forget this and other,more recent atrocities aimed at exterminating those deemed inferior by the “powers that be”. It is especially important that our young people learn of this and work hard to prevent it from ever happening again.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today”. Abraham Lincoln
And least you think something like this could never happen again, that 21st century man has evolved far beyond the evil perpetrated in the previous century, I urge you to look and listen to the sounds emanating against those who are “different” than you or I. The drums are even now pounding out warnings to those deemed “unworthy”.
There is only one thing that will prevent a recurrence of the atrocities of the past.
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
O God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, turn our hearts towards you. Create in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us. If history has taught us anything, it is that when we have chosen to walk far from you, our hearts turn to stone. Help us to love, to care, to show mercy and compassion to those who so desperately need it this day. Amen
Have a blessed Sunday,
Ron
“I am the Lord…”
January 5, 2018
Ron Whited Daily Christian living Catastrophic, Commentary, Crisis, God, Idolatry, Imposter, Israel, Jerusalem, Matthew Henry, Old Testament, One true God, Personal, Vanity 4 Comments
“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” Isaiah 45:5 KJV
God revealed himself to his chosen people Israel as “I am The Lord” over 160 times. Repeatedly, God felt the need to remind his people that they need not look to another god because there wasn’t any other, that He stands alone as God.
This was necessary because Israel was surrounded by nations who served any number of false gods, and as Old Testament history shows us Israel went after these gods time and time again.
Indeed, idolatry was something that Israel struggled with throughout its ancient history, eventually leading to the destruction of both Jerusalem and the entire nation of Israel.
In today’s world however, many take offense at this verse, believing that it is the height of arrogance for anyone, including God, to declare Himself as the One True God. Today we seem to want to have options for everything, including our God.
Christians are, of course, fully aware that there are those that teach that there are many paths to God, just as there are many today proclaiming the existence of many gods. True Biblical Christianity however refutes such doctrinal error, as we believe God to be the One True God, Jehovah.
You may be asking why any of this should matter to you. Well, it matters because all of us will face the day in this life when we will need God. Whether it’s a crisis of faith or a personal tragedy that brings catastrophic news, all of us will need God at some point.
It’s in those times of crisis that we need assurance that the One we call out to is indeed the “I am The Lord” of the Bible, and not an impostor.
This is when having a personal relationship with God, through His Son Jesus Christ, becomes most real in our hearts. To know that we can call upon him and that he hears our cry, is worth more than anything we could ever acquire in this life, and is yet another aspect of this Abundant Life we live in Him.
One of the greatest commentaries on this passage of scripture was penned by none other than Matthew Henry. I enjoy reading the commentary of Matthew Henry for several reasons, not the least of which is that it was written long before the divisive seeds of “political correctness” were sown in the Church.
In other words, he explained the truth of scripture without regard to man’s opinions.
I have included his commentary on Isaiah 45:5 so that you may read his clear and concise rendering of this verse.
“That he is God alone, and there is no God besides him. This is here inculcated as a fundamental truth, which, if it were firmly believed, would abolish idolatry out of the world. With what an awful, commanding, air of majesty and authority, bidding defiance, as it were, to all pretenders, does the great God here proclaim it to the world: I am the Lord, I the Lord, Jehovah, and there is none else, there is no God besides me, no other self-existent, self-sufficient, being, none infinite and eternal. And again (v. 6), There is none besides me; all that are set up in competition with me are counterfeits; they are all vanity and a lie, for I am the Lord, and there is none else.”
Be blessed,
Ron