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“YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE!” #4
A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME OFFER
I don’t drive a white Rolls-Royce, and I don’t have
a colony of groupies, and I don’t preach much about UFOs. But I do follow
the teachings of this long-ago guru named Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Is
Christianity just the world’s largest, mysterious global cult system?
I know we used this book just last week — Flee the Captor, written by
Herbert Fort — and I don’t want you to think it’s the only book we’ve
read in the past three decades! But this incredible World War II story
tells about born-again Christian John Weidner, whose Dutch-Paris escape
network assisted more than 1,000 Jews and Allied airmen in escaping the
clutches of the Gestapo in occupied France. Time after time, John and
his fellow believers helped desperate people get across swollen rivers,
over treacherous mountain passes, and, most importantly, across the barbed
wire fences separating the Nazi territories from neutral Switzerland.
But the brief vignette I want to share with you today happened right toward
the close of the story. Weidner and his associate, Jacques Rens, were
captured by the Milice, the collaborationist French special unit of the
Gestapo, working hand in hand with the occupying German forces. They were
taken to a prison in Toulouse, and the painful interrogation process began,
punctuated with the threats of torture or execution. The Milice forces
realized that the war was winding down, with the Allies on their way,
so they were especially brutal and bitter. But John managed to make friends
with a young guard named Rene Brunner. He had a Catholic background and
the two men ended up discussing religion several times through the prison
bars.
Then — tragic news. John and Jacques had hoped to awaken in the Milice
police chief, who was, after all, still French, some spark of loyalty.
Could they possibly be set free, so they could continue their underground
work on behalf of both the Dutch and French people? But no, l’Intendant
Marty had informed the German Gestapo — the real thing — about the two
“big fish” they had captured, and Hitler’s men were coming to pick them
up in the morning. An execution had already been scheduled, and now John
Weidner had just one day left to live. A guard gave him paper and pencil
to write any final letters.
Well, a little bit later this Rene Brunner came over to the cell. “I’m
really sorry,” he said. “I just heard the bad news. I wish I could help
you.”
And John Weidner motioned him closer. “Look,” he said quietly, “you know
that the Allies are going to be landing in France soon. The war is coming
to an end. Everybody here will probably be arrested, and I imagine you’re
all going to be killed yourselves as war criminals. You know that’s coming.”
Then he made Brunner a proposition. “Help us escape from here. We know
all the escape routes to Switzerland. We’ll get ourselves out, and we’ll
get you out too. Once we’re in Geneva, I’ll vouch for you and help you
start a new life.”
And right there in the story I want to just “freeze-frame”
if we can. Because here, right now, March, 1944, a man is offered salvation.
A way out. “You don’t have to die,” Weidner pleads with him. “Take a stand
for truth and justice . . . and at the same time gain your own life!”
Here in Ephesians chapter three, we’ve been pondering the incredible Bible
truth that God intends freedom and salvation for both Jew and Gentile.
Paul the apostle has the exciting challenge of sharing this news, of dispensing
grace. We already studied verse six, but here it is again:
“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles
are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers
together in the promise of Christ Jesus.”
And now let me read for you the Bible commentary materials
for this same verse six which we found in the Adventist set of volumes.
“The news that men NEED NOT BE LOST, that they may
be joined in one body to Christ, to their ETERNAL salvation . . . IS THE
GOSPEL.”
I want to tell you something big, friend: those words
really hit us in the soul. “Men need not be lost.” If you’re outside the
circle of salvation right now, this very moment, this Thursday in the
year of our Lord 2004, that doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to be lost!
You don’t have to be driven to the cemetery and just stay there. You don’t
have to settle for just this one short stay on this broken-down planet,
followed by the darkness of eternal extinction.
Let me finish the story of this French guard, Rene Brunner. Weidner and
Rens were leaning against the bars, praying and pleading that he would
say yes to their proposition. Obviously they wanted freedom for themselves
in any case. “You don’t have to die,” they urged. “You don’t have to go
down with the ship.” But after a long, agonizing pause of soul-searching,
Brunner shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it,” he said. “I have
been with this outfit since the beginning, and I will stay with it till
the end. Whatever happens to me will happen.” However — an interesting
P.S. — he did agree to help the two Resistance men escape. It’s an incredible
story: at 10 p.m. that same evening, they managed to force their cell
door open with some tools this Brunner slipped to them. Then, because
of the strict wartime curfew, they had to wait next to a third-story window,
hoping the gendarmes wouldn’t wake up, clear until six a.m., when they
finally dropped down to the street below. They got away clean; in fact,
Weidner died just a few years ago right here in Southern California, a
much-decorated hero of that great conflict. By the way, he was still able
to put in a good word for the French officer, Rene Brunner, who, in the
war crime trials which followed, received 20 years of hard labor instead
of the expected death sentence.
But the offer extended to him parallels the one every man, woman, and
child on this planet receives. “You don’t have to die,” God says. That’s
right out of Ezekiel 18:
“Get a new heart and a new spirit,” God invites us.
“Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death
of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!”
So there’s great urgency to this invitation. “Men need
not be lost!” God cries out. “YOU don’t have to be lost!” And the second
important parallel is this: just as that Rene Brunner had to switch loyalties,
you and I have to as well. Weidner said, in essence, to this prison guard:
“It’s now or never. You’re going to have to repudiate your past, repudiate
Nazism, repudiate your friends here, repudiate the French collaborationist
movement, leave your home and your security blanket. If you come with
us you’re choosing the values of democracy and fair play, but all you
can bring with you is a toothbrush, a Bible, and a willingness to be on
our side.” And here in the book of Ephesians, chapter three, Paul tells
us: “Men need not be lost.” But quoting right here from verse six:
“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles
are heirs TOGETHER with Israel, members TOGETHER of one body” — a NEW
body, by the way, where you have to switch allegiances to that new body
— “and sharers TOGETHER in the promise of Christ Jesus.”
Friend, maybe you’ve noticed how in recent months we’ve
continued to come back to one theme over and over: our assurance of salvation
in Jesus Christ. And for two reasons: first of all, this is real! If anything
in the Bible is real, it’s this promise right here. You have Jesus — you
have life! That’s I John 5:12:
“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have
the Son of God does NOT have life.”
How can it be any plainer? You can be dying of AIDS
— but if you have Jesus, you’re going to live forever. You might be in
prison — on death row, even — but if you have Jesus Christ, you’re going
to live in a Paradise beyond those bars for billions of years. The Bible
says so. You may be in a bad marriage, an abusive relationship. Your life
might be in danger from it all. But if you have the Son, you have eternal
life.
So that’s reason #1: this is real. It would be criminal for me, knowing
the Bible says this, to not share it with you. But the second reason is
that most of the world, even people sitting in churches on Sabbath and
Sunday morning . . . don’t truly comprehend the powerful reality of this.
That Gestapo guard had life offered to him. The escape route was established;
John Weidner knew the way out of the Nazi horrors of France; he knew the
road to the New Jerusalem, so to speak — meaning Geneva. “Why should you
die?” he pleaded. “Come with us and live.” And friend, right now, today,
God uses His Holy Spirit to plead urgently with us. “Here’s the way out,”
He says. “Heaven has given you Jesus; heaven has offered you Calvary and
a plan to escape from Lucifer’s fate. He’s going to be tried for war crimes,
but you don’t have to join him! His death sentence doesn’t have to be
yours!” In fact, Jesus Himself offers, “Let Me vouch for you. I’ll get
you out of Satan’s kingdom, and then on Judgment Day, I’ll put in a good
word for you . . . because I happen to be quite well acquainted with the
presiding Judge!”
Friend, I urge you right now to say yes. It’s the best offer you’re ever
going to get.
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