The Pilgrim Path---Psalm 9: 9,10 (4-18-20)

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

---"Faith is an intelligent grace; though there can be knowledge without faith, yet there can be no faith without knowledge. One calls it quick-sighted faith. Knowledge must carry the torch before faith. II Timothy 1:12, "For I know whom I have believed." Thomas Watson, Puritan

---"We never trust a man till we know him, and bad men are better known than trusted. Not so the Lord; for where his name is ointment poured forth, the virgins love him, fear him, and rejoice in him, and repose upon him." John Trapp

A man that knew, loved, and trusted our God---Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906--1945). His father, Karl, was Berlin's leading psychiatrist and neurologist from 1912 until his death in 1948.He had the gift of being raised in special circumstances. Dietrich knew he was going to become a theologian and minister around age 14. What he would never have envisioned---was the radical transformation of the country he loved. He "saw" the world as a young man: Mexico, Cuba, Denmark, Libya, Italy---lived a while in England, Spain, and in America...He always had to get back to his beloved Germany---because Hitler's National Socialism was starting to "ruin" his land. This "creed" of Hitler's was becoming part of the church. Bonhoeffer had to hear a churchman named Hermann Gruner make this declaration in 1933, "The time is fulfilled for the German people in Hitler. It is because of Hitler that Christ, God the helper and redeemer, has become effective and redeemer among us. Therefore National Socialism is positive Christianity in action...Hitler is the way of the Spirit and the will of God for the German people to enter the Church of Christ." What terrified Bonhoeffer was the way he had already "seen" Jews treated and made scape goats. Plus, the so-called, "Aryan-Clause"---denied churches to men of Jewish heritage...Bonhoeffer said at a Conference in July, 1933, "The conflict is really Germanism or Christianity, and the sooner the conflict comes out in the open, the better..."

---Bonhoeffer would earn his doctorate in theology at age 21. He would help lead the "Confessing Church" in Germany---the German Reich Church pledged allegiance to Hitler...Bonhoeffer also led a "secret" seminary for the Confessing Church---until its brick and mortar location was found and closed---by the Gestapo...Then he led the seminary---as he put it, "on the run"

---"Why are you telling me all this?" you ask ---Because life is short---and you might as well Make it Count...Live It For Jesus Christ The LORD----this was Bonhoeffer's attitude---besides---the LORD is our stronghold!

Some Bonhoeffer Quotes:

The church was silent when it should have cried out.

Christ kept himself from suffering till his hour had come, but when it did come he met it as a free man, seized it, and mastered it...We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christians, we must have some share in Christ's large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes...

It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith...

Peace is the opposite of security.

You would be surprised, and perhaps even worried, by my theological thoughts and the conclusions that they lead to; and this is where I miss you most of all, because I don't know anyone else with whom I could so well discuss them to have my thinking clarified. What is bothering me so incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today...We are moving toward a completely religion-less time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious anymore. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."

The only fight which is lost is that which we give up.

---Bonhoeffer would become a member of the "Abwehr" (German Military Intelligence---his brother-in-law would help get this position). He would be a double-agent....Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943. On Hitler's orders he was given a summary court-martial and hanged on April 9, 1945...in a message to a beloved churchman, Bishop Bell, he said, "This is the end----for me, the beginning of life."

Grace & Peace in Jesus Our LORD, Pastor Jason