Loving as God Loves

Loving as God Loves

Based on Matthew 5:43-48

June 23 2019

Khen Lim

Source: olsterwijk-marketgarden.com

The time was September 1944. The place was Arnhem, Holland. Allied airborne forces were looking to capture a very important bridge here in what was an error-filled Operation Market Garden. This is the story of a remarkable man, Major Robert Cain (1909-1974) who did the unthinkable in what was the most improbable of escapes, turning it into the unlikeliest of triumphs.

Major Cain commanded the B Company of the 2nd South Staffordshire Regiment, which was a glider-based unit of Britain’s 1st Airborne Division. On a mission to fight the Germans, his men landed eight miles off from the Bridge at Arnhem in a place called Ultrechtseweg. 

Here, the British 2nd Battalion were in a desperate fight to hold on to the Dutch north end but then disaster struck. Cain found themselves in an ambush together with the A Company just beyond the Municipal Museum. Brandishing Stug III self-propelled guns, the Nazis blunted Cain’s mission, leaving 300 of his soldiers dead including two of his closest friends.

Source: quora.com

Finding himself in a hollow in the slope just outside the Museum and under constant tank fire, he only had PIATs with them since they were all quite lightly armed. These were Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank man-portable weapons. 

Together with him was Lieutenant Georges Dupenois, the commander of B Company’s Nr 12 Platoon. Together, they held off the Germans for a good two to three hours until their PIAT ammunition dried up but beyond that, things became untenable and they had to withdraw. Otherwise, they would all be in a “death trap.”

By this time, most of Cain’s men were either killed or wounded or taken prisoners. In fact, things got so bad that the A and B Companies of the 2nd South Staffords had ceased to exist. With what’s left of his men, he took the reins of the C Company and secured the high ground near Den Brink but even so, the Germans spotted them and shelled them into submission with mortars.

Worse, the ground was so thick with roots that it proved almost impossible to dig in. Summarily even more of his men were killed or seriously wounded. By now, German tanks had begun to pummel them, forcing Cain to pull back further. 

This time, they retreated from Arnhem and made their way to Oosterbeek. There, he led the mixed parties that were assembled near the church not far from the river. Among them were Cain’s remaining 100 men from his depleted 2nd South Staffords.

It didn’t take long for the Germans to continue their assault as they now attempted to cut Cain’s men off from the river. As simple as that may sound, it was a serious dilemma for the Brits. Either Cain continued to fight to the end or he could surrender. He had lost so many of his men by now and it was only a matter of time for him and his remnant battalion to eventually meet their death. Or at least that was how it looked to most observers especially after he had lost another forty men. 

To make things look completely impossible, they were the last bastion at a village that was completely surrounded by over 6,000 enemy soldiers backed by tanks, rocket launchers and at least 100 heavy guns. But he refused to submit to the Germans.

Source: Flickr

As the Germans tightened their grip around the village, Cain wrestled a PIAT and took on the approaching tanks. With an artillery officer hiding in a nearby house providing him with information, he lobbed almost fifty bombs in the direction of the German tanks. Although some of the bombs would have hit the tank, it managed to fire at the house and killed the officer and then caused the chimney to collapse, almost taking Cain along with it.

 Next, he crawled to the corner of his trench and saw another Stug self-propelled gun coming down the road towards them along with a second tank. From thirty yards out, he fired his PIAT and damaged its tracks. The tank retaliated but missed him. 

With all the smoke and dust thrown up by the tank blocking his view, Cain didn’t take long to fire his second PIAT bomb, which again prompted a furious response from the enemy that is, until a 75mm Howitzer was somehow available to finish it off with an armour-piercing round. Cain made no mistake in killing off the tank crew who were trying to escape the blazing tank.

Turning his attention to a third tank within his proximity, he quickly engaged it with his PIAT but the bombs exploded in front of his face. The impact threw him backwards and caused him to be temporarily blind. It was a miracle that he survived the explosion. Once he recovered, he shouted for someone to get a PIAT and finish the tank off, which they did.

In an incredible turn of events, the Germans have had enough and backed off from their assault, returning to where they came from. It was only then things became clear that in a rather spectacular fashion, Cain had single-handedly destroyed three highly formidable Tiger tanks, while standing in the open. 

He had swiftly turned a completely unwinnable certain-death defence into a lethal counterattack that was ferocious enough to thwart the Germans and in their hasty withdrawal, the chance was available for his men to safely escape over the Rhine under night cover.

Source: Tynwald.org.im

By the end of the Battle for Arnhem, Major Robert Cain was reportedly responsible for destroying or maiming a total of six tanks of which four, and not three, were the dreaded Tigers not to forget also a fair number of self-propelled Stug III guns. For his incredible courage and valour, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, which cited his responsibility and leadership in not ceding ground but instead, successfully drove the Germans off in complete disarray.

The Cross was, of course, the highest and most prestigious award ever to be given for gallantry. And what is perhaps a sobering thought was that in its 149-year history, only one in ten of the 1,354 recipients of the Cross lived to be honoured with one. That is because the awardees were usually posthumously decorated.

Jesus’ radical idea of love

This is a truly moving story but in today’s millennial culture, it begs the question of what it takes to be a hero in many people’s eyes. As the Second World War begins to recede away from view and even many of the school history books, it is becoming increasingly easier to forget who people like Major Cain was and what heroics they did with their lives. It’s even easier to think that many of today’s celebrities are deservedly considered heroes.

Source: vt.co

There are many who adore people like the Kardashians. Or even the pot-dulled Mars-bound Elon Musk. Or the destructive socialist Ocasio-Cortez. It’s not difficult to find fans who still clamour for the Clintons or even the Obamas. Or those who think the world of Hollywood’s catalogue of über liberal A-graders, none of whom have any idea of the sacrifices made by heroes like Major Cain much less understand the significance of democracy and freedom in light of the world wars fought and won by the Allies.

You really want to wonder who today’s heroes are as far as your friends are concerned. If you’re married, what about your children? Or grandchildren? Whose posters do they pin on their bedroom walls? Whose jerseys do they wear every day? Whose movies do they clamour to watch all the time? Who do they imitate? What kind of people are they inspired by and aspire to emulate? In fact, who do we hope our children want to be like in their lives?

Without a doubt, war heroes like Major Robert Cain garners more than just a simple mention. He and many others who fought in the war are justifiably hero status. That’s because these were the people who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Remember Jesus said:

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” (Jn 15:13, NLT)

There is no question that when Jesus revealed this to His disciples, it was considered a very radical idea. But then so is this:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’” (Mt 5:43-48, NLT)

Here, Jesus lays down the precise steps to becoming a real hero. And in these steps, He has called us to go beyond even giving our lives to save a friend or putting our lives on the line for a neighbour or fighting to defend our country. He has redefined heroism by calling us to a lifestyle that the world has no idea of.

In the above passage, Jesus begins by reminding those who have heard it from the Pharisees. According to their teachings, loving one’s neighbour must come with hating one’s enemy. Jesus refutes the second part, correcting it to, “loving your enemies” as well. He goes further by asking us to do the following five things:

Pray for those who persecute us

In other words, we are to be concerned for those who do terrible things to us just because we are Christians. Despite the suppression and whatever repressive things our persecutors inflict upon us, we need to think prayerfully about their actions and seek God to bless them instead. In other words, we should not pray that God will punish them.

Behave as “true children of your Father in heaven”

We are called to conduct ourselves to be children of God in the truest sense of what the relationship means. To be true children means to be righteous like Him, to be holy like Him and to be forgiving just like He is forgiving towards us.

Love those who don’t love us

This is the radical part where we are to dismiss the Pharisaic claim that we must hate our enemies. Instead, Jesus calls on us to show love even to those who don’t care about or think lovingly of us. We all know it’s easy to love those who love us but He challenges us to do beyond what “corrupt tax collectors” do. Jewish culture then considered “tax collectors” as heinous and godless people whom they disassociate with.

Be kind to those who are unkind to us

No less radical is Jesus’ call to us to be kind even when people are unkind to us. Saying that even the pagans are kind to one another, we now need a much higher benchmark to extend our kindness to everyone and not just to those who feel the same about us.

Be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect

This is Jesus reminding us that we are not only created in the Father’s image but that He holds us to a much higher standard than anyone or anything else. Because we are created in His image, it means that our behaviour has to be a reflection of His. We are to pursue an image that others can see God in.

Should we hate our enemies?

According to the Pharisees, without a question we must hate our enemies because they hate us. This is clearly laid out in Matthew 5:43, which says exactly that:

“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” (Mt 5:43, NLT)

There are two things that are fundamentally – and deliberately – wrong with this advice. Firstly, the Pharisees had narrowed the meaning of the word ‘neighbour’ and secondly, they have distorted God’s use of the word ‘hatred.’ We shall look more deeply into these two issues.

The word ‘neighbour’ has been intentionally narrowed to only referring to the Pharisees’ fellow Israelites. And so to “love your neighbour” would specifically mean to only show love to their own kind but not to others. As for the others, the Pharisees suggested that the Israelites must then hate.

In this command, the Pharisees are basically commanding the Israelites to love one another but consent to their hatred for anyone else who wasn’t their “neighbour.” That is why when Jesus broached on the subject of love and the neighbour, one of the Pharisees prodded by asking, “Who is my neighbour?” in a bid to trap and embarrass Him. 

The apostle Luke recorded this event in the Gospel to show how the Pharisee had sought to justify his own position. By restricting its definition, he could ‘prove’ that it was right to narrow the scope of love to only themselves but not the others. In other words, the Pharisee was looking for a technical comeuppance but he was getting none of that from Jesus.

Source: youtube.com

To answer him, Jesus related the Parable of the Good Samaritan:

“‘A Jewish man was travelling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there but he also passed by on the other side.

“Then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?’ Jesus asked. The man replied, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’” (Lk 10:30-37, NLT, m.e.)

Jesus showed the Pharisee himself that the neighbour isn’t necessarily a fellow Israelite. In the Parable, He underlined that the neighbour was anyone who demonstrated mercy. More specifically, he was anyone within his circle of influence or anyone who is within the position to help another person. 

Regardless of creed, colour, race or religion, a neighbour doesn’t even have to be anyone who has shown you love in the past. In fact, he can even be someone who has hurt you before. In other words, if a person helps you, he is your neighbour and by that, you are to love him as yourself.

As for the part that says, “hate your enemy,” the Pharisees misused God’s hatred for evil and directed it to personal enmity against one another. Here’s one instance:

“When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. You must not intermarry with them. Do not let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters for they will lead your children away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you and He will quickly destroy you. This is what you must do. You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.” (Dt 7:2-5, NLT, m.e.)

In the above passage, Moses was describing God’s instructions against the Canaanite nations. There is no question that God hated them. According to the details given, it was the worshipping of other gods – idols, in other words – that bothered God tremendously. For that, He made it specific that the Canaanites must be completely destroyed. 

Without a doubt, God’s mercy is not evident here. There is no reason to believe that the “love your enemy” suggestion works here. On the other hand, it’s quite easy to see that such a passage works very well with the Pharisees interpretation of hating one’s enemy. But we have to be able to discern something else here.

God’s commands to destroy Canaan is unique at an extraordinary time in history. This is not something we can apply in our persona lives. Instead, this was a ‘holy war’ in which God was judging a nation of people who defiantly chose to commit to idolatry. This was a war of God that was clearly against a world of increasing corporate idol worship.

Yet, despite such hatred shown against the Canaanites (as an example of such nations), it wasn’t God’s idea that His own people would also hate their own personal enemies. The Bible is clear in the view that God takes no pleasure or delight in putting anyone, even the wicked, to death. When He makes such special commands, just like He will in the Last Days, these are unique in the sense that they are on a national level, which is a different scope to hating our own enemies on a personal level.

Other than Deuteronomy, the Pharisees would have delved into another one. Let’s try Psalm 139:

“O God, if only You would destroy the wicked! Get out of my life, you murderers! They blaspheme You; Your enemies misuse Your Name. O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate You? Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose You? Yes, I hate them with total hatred, for Your enemies are my enemies.” (Ps 139:19-22, NLT, m.e.)

By comparison, the passage in Deuteronomy is tame compared to this one. Often referred to as an example of an Imprecatory Psalm because they invoke judgement, calamity or curses upon one’s enemies or those regarded as enemies of God, the Pharisees could also have used any one of the others including Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 58, 79, 83, 137 and 143. All of them carry sufficient venom because they call down deadly curses on God’s enemies whoever they may be.

These psalms don’t sound anything like loving our enemies. They are hardly encouraging or inspiring in that sense. But like the one in Deuteronomy, these do not talk about neither do they refer to our personal enemies. They have nothing to do with the kinds of enemies we make in our daily lives. They are also not relevant to people who decide we are their enemies. Either way, they don’t apply.

What this means is that they have nothing to do with hatred for our personal enemies. They cover exclusively God’s enemies. In other words, they do not talk about hating our personal enemies, which is where the Pharisaic position is all wrong. It’s not that because someone hates me, I must then count him to be my enemy. 

That may be the Pharisee’s viewpoint but that’s not what Jesus calls us to do. It is that someone hates God in which case, I do not consider him my friend. I am not to hate those who hate me. I only have no liking for those who hate God.

In some Bible translations, the term ‘perfect hatred’ is used in Psalm 139. While the word ‘hatred’ refers to a feeling of destructiveness as in being malicious, hostile, envious or in strife, Perfect Hatred points to the things that God hates that we also share. Because God hates sin, we are to hate sin.

But on the other hand, we are not to hate or be hateful towards others in return (Mt 7:12, 1 Pt 2:22-23). This is because this form of hatred does not belong to God nor does it define Him. Instead this is the hatred the world teaches and even encourages. 

Remember that Jesus said that anger (or hatred) in the heart is a prelude to murder. John Stott once said, “There is such a thing as perfect hatred, just as there is such a thing as righteous anger. But it is a hatred for God’s enemies, not our own enemies.”

It’s also important to understand that we have no knowledge as to whether a person who professes to be God’s enemy will or won’t come to Christ by hearing and knowing the Gospel. That’s Jesus’ way of telling us to love all our enemies by praying for them to come to know Him.

Christ’s love for the enemy

Ed McClully, Pete Fleming and Jim Elliot (Image source: starrycluster.wordpress.com)

Almost exactly four years ago, in June 2015, a retired missionary, Elisabeth Elliot passed away at the age of 88. But to evangelical Christians who held her in the highest regard, she was a legendary inspirer who did the unthinkable in 1958 by returning to the savage tribe of Waoranis and ministered to them, fully aware that her missionary husband was brutally murdered by them.

Elisabeth’s young husband, Jim Elliot, was one of five missionaries who fleshed out their dream of going to the rainforests of eastern Ecuador to spread the Gospel to a tribe of American Indians who were known for their intolerance and violence. 

Commonly referred to as ‘Aucas’ (meaning ‘violent’), the initial reception in January 1956 was cordial when the missionaries – Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully and Jim himself – landed on a beach along the Curaray River and made camp.

“Biti miti punimupa,” Jim and the rest would have said when they met the Aucas for the first time to mean “I like you, I want to be your friend.” It was straight out of the Waorani textbook, meant to be a friendly icebreaker and a way to bring a message of love and salvation to a tribe notoriously infamous for having killed all outsiders who were caught in their area. 

Nate, the missionary-cum-supply pilot, thought of the idea of lowering a bucket filled with supplies to people on the ground while flying above them so as to offer gifts to the Aucas without endangering his fellow missionaries. They’d especially use an amplifier to speak out friendly Aucas phrases.

Months followed before there was a breakthrough in communications. This was when the Aucas returned a gift offering, which they placed in the bucket dropped down by Nate. Inspired by the sudden turn of events, Jim and the others felt it was time to finally meet the Aucas face-to-face. And so after the beach landing, they erected a tree house as a safe measure in case contact was still hostile.

Source: karencone.org

Nate then proceeded to fly over the Aucas’ village and made the invitation to meet at the beach. Four days later, an Auca man and two women emerged from the rainforest and despite the communication difficulties, they managed to share a meal together. Every effort was made to extend friendship to the tribal members with invitations to bring others the next time.

On the sixth day, two Auca women came. Excited, Jim and Pete waded across the river, rushing to meet them except that when they got close enough, it appeared that they weren’t friendly. It was then that they heard a terrifying cry coming from behind them. It sounded like a war cry. That’s when they saw a group of Auca warriors armed with spears, preparing to launch at them.

Due to some inexplicable miscommunication in which the tribe misconceived to be a threat, the Aucas decided that the missionaries were hostile. Even though Jim had carried a gun for safety and had reached for it, he somehow hesitated. Though he thought to, he knew he couldn’t use it. 

Before they set off on their mission to Ecuador, each of the missionaries had promised they would not kill an Auca who did not know Jesus to save himself from being killed. Within seconds of encountering one another, the Auca warriors threw their spears, killing all the missionaries: Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming and Jim Elliot.

Late the following afternoon, January 8, Jim’s wife, Elisabeth, waited by the two-way radio, looking forward to hearing from her husband and Nate. They were to discuss how things had fared and what the plan was moving from that point. 

But no call came and as evening turned to nightfall, the wives had become worried for they knew the omen wasn’t good. After all, they were dealing with the Aucas and from what everyone knew of this tribe, no news was not good news.

Source: youtube.com

The next morning, another missionary pilot decided to fly over the beach in search of the men. What he saw was a badly damaged plane beached by the river mouth, looking deserted and beyond easy repair. On his return, news quickly spread around the world of the five missing missionaries. Eventually, the U.S. government despatched a search team to the same area where they found the five spear-pierced bodies.

It would be predictable for most people to assume that Operation Auca would’ve failed and subsequently be abandoned as a result of the deaths of the missionaries. But that didn’t happen. 

Hardly two years after their deaths, Elisabeth Elliot including her 3-year-old daughter, Valerie, and Rachel (Nate’s sister) decided to move to the Auca village. Presumably, this would not have been without people desperately trying to discourage them from their decision. The feeling was that they would meet the same fate as the five missionaries.

Source: maf-uk.org

However the result of their decision was nothing should of stunning. From the efforts of Elisabeth and Rachel, many Aucas had come to Christ through the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. From their message of love and salvation, they became a friendly tribe. 

Today, missionaries including Nate’s son and his family, still inhabit among the Aucas. Elisabeth herself even helped to make a movie about Operation Auca called ‘Through Gates of Splendour,’ showing real-life scenes of the five missionaries on the beach with friendly Aucas prior to their untimely demise. 

There were also footages of the two years in which she spent with her toddler daughter living in rain-swept huts in an Auca village at the foothills of the Andes, subsisting on barbecued monkey limbs and other local fare.

It’s very hard to imagine how these two women could share the Word with the very men (and women) who had killed their husband and brother but because of their boldness and loving witness, many of the Aucas turned to Christ. Beyond any shadow of doubt, Elisabeth and Rachel truly understood Jesus’ words in this passage – love your enemies.

During his short life, Jim had longed for more people to become missionaries but in his tragic and untimely death, however, he came to inspire even more people to go on missions – even dangerous ones – just to share the love of Jesus than he ever could have done in life. 

In his death, he and Elisabeth inspired so many to understand Christ’s definition of love that surpasses hate and anger. Fuelled with true forgiveness covered in love and kindness, the Aucas experienced Christ in a way totally unimaginable by a world so wrought in enmity.

The Bible contradicts the Pharisees

Source: christianitymalaysia.com

One would assume that the Pharisees’ stand on loving your neighbour but hating your enemy would have been anchored on lessons embedded in the Old Testament but that is not true. As we have seen earlier in the deliberate distortions applied to the words ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy,’ there is enough in the Old Testament to negate the Pharisaic standpoint.

In looking at the Pharisee’s focus on how the trap was laid on Jesus by forcing Him to ‘identify’ the neighbour, we come to the point in Leviticus where the issue isn’t so much who but how:

“Do not stand idly by when your neighbour’s life is threatened. I am the Lord. Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord. (Lev 19:16b-18, NLT, m.e.)

What is evident in the above passage is that it does not emphasise on who the neighbour is. It seems God has no interest whatsoever in properly identifying any specific person or race or ethnicity. In that sense therefore, who the neighbour is, is immaterial and unimportant. What is more important is how you are to love your neighbour and Scripture affirms that you love as you do yourself.

As for the Pharisees’ decision to hate one’s enemy, at least two passages in the Bible will reject that standpoint. Both instruct us under no uncertain terms that we are to be good to our enemies:

“If you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner. If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help.” (Ex 23:4-5, NLT, m.e.)

That doesn’t sound like God wants us to hate our enemies. Considering that this is from one of Judaism’s most important books in the Bible, it is hard to understand how the Pharisees could have missed this. It is clear that whoever the enemy is – whether he is someone from our own stock or not – we cannot be hateful. Instead, God says we are to be of assistance. The following verses aren’t any different:

“If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.” (Prov 25:21-22, NLT, m.e.)

People often say, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” In other words, some friends can be nasty enough for them to blur the distinction between themselves and our enemies. Friends can be so unfriend-like that they might as well be our enemies. 

In the case of the above, when we treat our enemies like our friends, then, the better question is, “Who needs friends?” If we do not distinguish between what constitutes an enemy from a friend, then it is true that we don’t exactly need any additional definitions. In a world where we treat everyone with love, there is no longer any need for social distinctions. There will be no enemies. Neither will there be friends. Simply because both are the one and the same. That is Christ’s love.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Two

Source: faz.net

This is the story of a Lutheran pastor called Uwe Holmer. Set in the years towards the final stages of the Cold War (1947-1991), it tells a powerful story of love and forgiveness, the two most potent antidotes to hate, and the nullification of the enemy attitude.

Born in 1929, Uwe Holmer undertook theology when he was 19 years of age with the dream of becoming a pastor. This he did, leading a small Christian community just outside of East Berlin, caring for the mentally challenged, the elderly, the infirmed and also those who were afflicted with epilepsy. By this time, Nazi Germany had since collapsed with the cessation of the Second World War. In its place was a Communist-ruled East Germany and the beginning of the Cold War.

Under Communism, religion was at best tolerated but generally frowned upon by the leaders to the extent that no one would openly practise Christianity because no one was welcomed to. Holmer would invariably find himself at odds with the Communist leadership helmed by the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED* in short), Erich Honecker (1912-1994). It’s a miracle that neither Honecker nor any of his henchmen saw reason to have him disposed of or even despatched to some labour camp.

* Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands

Like most East Germans, Holmer’s family was a victim of Communist persecution. For him, he tried as many as eight times to try to get his eight of his ten children enrolled at the local university in East Berlin. Eight times, the Ministry of Education turned him down. It was, of course, not in its jurisdiction to have to explain themselves why but it wasn’t too difficult to guess. 

Source: ndr.de

As a Lutheran pastor stationed in Lobetal, an East Berlin suburb, his faith was hardly popular with the Communist regime; in this case, the Ministry of Education was led for 26 years by none other than Honecker’s wife, Margot.

Being the man solely responsible for the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, Honecker was just as unpopular with the masses. With the Wall dividing German families from being reunited, many would have had axes to grind and emotional accounts to settle. 

None would have been sympathetic when the Wall finally came down in November 38 years later amidst a stunning wave of democratic reforms that swept across eastern Europe including the Soviet Union.

Deposed as the country’s leader, the Honeckers found themselves homeless after they were booted out of their official residence, a luxury apartment in the Waldsiedlung housing area in Wandlitz, an exclusive suburb of palatial homes meant exclusively for the senior SED party members.

But it wasn’t just that. As the country’s most deeply resented and hated political figures, the Honeckers had nowhere to go and no one wanted them near their homes. Apparently even their daughter made no suggestion to join her family. 

Friendless and with no resources to bank on, he and his wife were essentially persona non grata (stateless). And now, they were also beginning to feel the weight of criminal prosecution as cases mounted against Honecker’s earlier involvement in the callous killing of East Germans.

Source: faz.net

At the same time, he had become physically sick and weak. Other than kidney problems, Honecker was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and badly needed all the help he could muster even if that meant seeking it from those whom he and his wife had long persecuted. 

By now, even the Communist party had turned their back on them. But help ultimately did come and quite unbelievably from the unlikeliest people – Pastor Uwe Holmer and his wife.

Consider Holmer’s ordeal under Honecker. Apart from having further education denied for his children, he also had his phone tapped so that Communist authorities could listen in on his conversations. Having his personal right to travel around the country denied, Honecker made sure he couldn’t attend his father’s funeral. 

All his mail correspondences were closely monitored where letters were brazenly opened at will. And of course, Holmer’s family members were constantly harassed by the authorities who took it upon themselves to make life as difficult as possible.

But now, oh, how the tables had turned. The persecutor was now a hunted man. He was homeless and increasingly facing exile from his own homeland. In his sickly condition, he was also likely to go to jail if not executed for his crimes against humanity. And Holmer and his family had every reason to hate Honecker for the man he was towards them.

It would have been perfectly understandable had he turned his back and walked away. After all, it wasn’t his problem that the ex-leader and his wife were facing serious predicaments that were their own doing. But he didn’t turn his back on them. In their hour of dire need, Holmer and his family’s action taught them a powerful lesson in Christian compassion, forgiveness and love.

Source: bz-berlin.de

Looking back after all these years, Honecker’s wife Margot in a 2012 interview revealed no remorse to her actions as the former East German first lady. Breaking a longstanding silence since the dissolution of East Germany, she continued to idealise a “lost nation,” calling it a “tragedy” that it has conceded its sovereign validity to the forces of democracy. 

She showed no understanding, let alone compassion or regret, for those whom her husband had killed for attempting to escape to the West. As to any sense of contrition or guilt for their past actions, she said, “It didn’t touch me at all. I have a thick skin.”

In contrast with that was a pastor and his wife who clearly understood Christ’s concept of love. Like Elisabeth Elliot, they knew and felt called to love their enemies. After all, how much bigger an enemy is there than people like the Honeckers? For those who remember the repression of living under Communist rule, the Honeckers were monstrous.

Contrary to expectations, the Holmers offered their vicarage to the ex-leader and his wife on the last day of January 1990. Their actions were, of course, completely misinterpreted. Not only that no one felt it the right thing to do but no one understood why anyone would do something like this. 

Source: gettyimages.fr

Public discontent erupted with many protesting raucously outside their home. Their phone didn’t stop ringing with many venting their anger and issuing deadly threats. It got so unmanageable that the police couldn’t guarantee their safety. Even church members became disillusioned enough to halt their offerings.

The condemnation was widespread across the whole of East Germany. For the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg that assisted the Honeckers, there was much recrimination and condemnation with public hue and cry. 

After all, they have long been held responsible for the discrimination and persecution of Christians throughout East Germany especially those who did not conform to the Communist regime’s ideological practices. The fact that the Honeckers stayed at the Holmers’ residence until April 3 (of the same year) didn’t help.

With all that appeared seemingly wrong with Holmer’s gesture to the deposed anti-Christian Communist leader, the uproar was palpable and didn’t appear to quell. In fact, it wouldn’t have been surprising had the incensed public become uncontrollable enough to cause deep fractures within the Christian community. It was obviously time for someone to act but there wasn’t any surety as to who would be best fit to explain let alone pacify such an unsettled lot.

It was then that Holmer wrote to the local newspaper. In the letter, he wrote in German, “In Lobetal, there is a sculpture of Jesus inviting people to Himself and crying out, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’”

“We have been commanded,” he continued, “by our Lord Jesus to follow Him and to receive all those who are weary and heavy laden, in spirit and in body but especially the homeless… What Jesus asked His disciples to do is equally binding on us.”

And with that, we are witness to the power of Christ’s love. And that love fully extends to our enemies. Holmer’s reaction to the one person who prevented his children from attending university was to offer him and his wife refuge at a time when it was the most deeply unpopular thing to do.

Holmer’s action was undergirded by the power of Christ and not mere humanitarian spirit. To care for an enemy like Honecker requires far more than doing the politically correct thing. It requires something far more out of this world, a kind of spiritual guidance and strength that can only be found in the Word of God. 

Romans 13 is also another good vantage point to gain a better understanding of this. The day might come for each of us where we must choose to either stand up and do what Christ calls us to or just go with the flow as far as public sentiments are concerned. In other words, we either follow the Lord’s hand and cede to divine inspiration or be consumed by a worldly mindset.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Three

Image source: thestoryofliberty.homestead.com

Pastor Christian Führer (1943-2014) of Leipzig’s St Nikolai Church reminded us of a past darkened by almost unbearable tension between the communist East and the democratic West. The Cold War had cruelly sliced the once-proud Germany into halves, dividing families and breaking hearts. It was a sobering time for many who thought then that an already-broken Germany could set the stage for the Third World War within a space of a few decades. 

One must understand that this was once a time when the East German communist authorities had vastly upped police-state controls by way of the cruel Stasi, its secret police, unleashing a brand of brutality Germans equated to the Gestapo of the Third Reich. In fact, many thought it was worse – this was unseen oppression clouded by masses of suspicion and mistrust.

Set against this backdrop in 1981, Führer made his church available to young people who were looking to express their frustration and anxieties. Aware of unseen eyes, these gatherings took place late in the evening where people would come and showed concerns over the frailties of peace under communism and the increasing arms race. 

Führer initially thought it was going to be less than a handful but as it turned out, more than a hundred appeared, mostly though not exclusively all young but entirely disapproving of Honecker’s government.

With the disenfranchised who had now gathered at his church, Führer brought them to the central altar of the sanctuary where he got them seated on the floor. There, he laid a large roughly hewn wooden cross and placed it on the floor where everyone could encircle it. Then he asked everyone to take a candle, light it and place it around the cross if and when they had a point of concern to raise.

Thinking that this might not go down well with the dissidents, imagine his surprise when farce gave way to collective action as each and every one of them did exactly what he wanted them to. 

Source: disappearingman.com

Invariably, what was supposed to be an informal get-off-the-chest dialogue became an incredible prayer meeting in the short history of East Germany (officially then the German Democratic Republic or GDR in short). In no time, the bare wooden cross had glowed with the intense illumination of more than a hundred candles.

No one wanted to leave. From barrenness and hopelessness, all who came to the prayer meeting was filled with the camaraderie of openness and freedom where everyone embraced an unforgettable night. No one foresaw that this would set the tone for even more amazing things that would forever change their lives. 

Führer recalled that Jesus was truly present in the sanctuary because “we are trying to do what He did and what He wants us to do today.” And with that, the church doors of St Nikolai Church were thrown open for everyone who felt marginalised by Honecker’s government to come and be accepted into the wide open arms of Christ. 

“Come unto Me, everyone who is troubled and burdened and I will relieve you!” And they came and they came!” Führer remembered saying.

From that point onwards, the Evangelical-Lutheran pastor boldly arranged what he called ‘peace prayers’ on the first evening of every week. People would come together and prayed for peace not just for East Germany but for the entire Europe and where conflicts arose. 

But that was not all. Those who prayed would walk into the streets, holding candles as witness to peace and freedom that was to come. No one had ever seen let alone experienced such phenomenon in the oppressed land but it offered remarkable inspiration and hope to anyone who felt there was no future whatsoever with Honecker in charge.

Following what everyone knew to be a rigged election in May 1989 with the Communists claiming 98 percent of all cast votes, an outraged public cried out for reform but only to be suppressed by the government. All routes to Führer’s church were blocked in a deliberate plot to hinder access and eliminate its influence. 

There was no doubt that Honecker believed that the church was fuelling political dissension and public-wide insurrection. But nothing stopped the people who turned out in even greater numbers.

Source: Associated Press

Hardly half a year later came East Germany’s 40th anniversary of communist rule and with that, the Soviet Union’s President Mikhail Gorbachev was invited to attend the nationwide celebrations in East Berlin alongside Honecker. 

Unlike any of his predecessors, Gorbachev decided he’d had enough with socialism’s serious shortcomings and introduced sweeping economic and political changes, which he called Perestroika. Within this repurposing of the communist framework was ‘Glasnost,’ an unheard-of openness in discussions of economic and political realities that were radical for the Soviet Union throughout the 80s and 90s.

Honecker saw all of this as threats to his regime and how he wanted to run East Germany. He also knew that if Gorbachev were to be given full podium to air his views in public, he’d have riots on his hands because what the Russian offered was pretty much what the people had been yearning. 

And so to quell public unrests, he had the police batter and bully peaceful and defenceless demonstrators in Leipzig for ten hours straight since that was where Führer’s church was. Despite the violent tactics, no one fought back with countless put into Black Marias and taken away.

Source: flammentanz.tumblr.com

Given the tumultuous events of October, Führer had not stopped with his peace prayers despite government warnings not to incite trouble through “further demonstrations.” Honecker did everything in his power to stop them. Short of a public massacre, he used armed police and the military to instil fear into the people through an intimidating show of force.

He also forced the city into lockdown with the town closed for business and schools shuttered until further notice. He erected roadblocks with stringent checks through all passing traffic. Tanks were very visible as they encircled the city’s central district, baying for blood. Fearing the worst, hospitals throughout Leipzig had filled their stocks of blood plasma and multiplied their supply of beds.

Word went around that Honecker was studying and considering the use of the freshly-minted “Tiananmen Method,” seeing that the Chinese government had ‘effectively’ forced the public to back off in Beijing. It was a massacre no one in Leipzig wanted but for Honecker, it was an interested solution that could work for him. If intimidation didn’t work, mowing down scores of demonstrators might force the public to rethink their demonstrations.

As for Führer’s weekly prayer meetings, Honecker despatched as many as 1,000 SED members including the Stasi secret police in order to ruffle a few people up with the view of scattering them. By early afternoon, there were already 600 people milling around the church. 

These were people who had heard the Word. They were exposed to the Gospel and had been impacted by Christ. Quite incredible, Führer could recall, “I was always glad that the Stasi agents heard the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount every Monday. Where else would they hear these?”

And so when Monday prayer service approached, St Nikolai Church became the epicentre of something very unusual. As the centre stage, it couldn’t get any bigger or more important but it was more than that. While there was a huge turnout to pray at the church, there were also other churches throughout the city that experienced the same phenomenon. The peace prayers had truly fanned out beyond just one point.

Even more amazing than the numbers was the sense of peace and calm. Atmosphere at the service was composed if not relaxed. With only standing room around the sanctuary at St Nikolai, Führer reminded everyone to avoid angry confrontations and refrain from provocation or responding to one. In pleading with the congregation to resist violence, he spelled out the Sermon on the Mount once again.

Source: welt.de

As the 2,000-strong congregation opened the church doors that led to the street, they were greeted by a sea of people welcoming them in their midst with candles in their hands. That night, there were some 70,000 fellow East Germans who took to the streets guided by Führer’s reminder to be at peace. Make no mistake about it, there were also a strong presence of the police and military wherever the people quietly marched. But no one was deterred by them.

“Our fear was not as big as our faith. Two hands are needed to carry a candle and to protect it from extinguishing. So you cannot carry stones or clubs at the same time,” Führer said. That would explain how not one window broke (since no one carried stones). 

In fact, a government official commented on how well prepared both parties were but even so, the authorities had no idea as to what to expect let alone respond to the night march. But he did say, “We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers.”

Source: newstatesman.com

A month thereafter, the Berlin Wall finally came down and with it, the entire Communist stronghold over Europe. In a November 2009 article for the Aquila Report, Führer added, “In church, people had learned to turn fear into courage, to overcome the fear and to hope, to have strength. They came to church and then started walking and since they did not do anything violent, the police were not allowed to take action.”

Jesus goes against the grain

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5:44-48, NLT)

The Pharisees taught the Jews to love their neighbours but not their enemies. Hate became a cornerstone of Semitism where anyone who wasn’t a Jew was to be worthy of their hatred. That is the complete antithesis of what the Old Testament has to say, which was to “do good to your enemy.” Between the two opposites, Jesus commands us not only to do good to your enemies but to in fact sincerely love them.

In other words, it’s not an outward action but a deep inward desire to truly care for them to the point where we should pray for their wellbeing in a hope that God will forgive them and bless them. 

Remember that our actions are not as important to the Father as what goes on in our hearts and minds. It is our sincere intention that He wants to know because that defines our real motives far more than any outward impression.

Jesus said this in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!’” (Mt 5:43-44, NLT, m.e.)

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ And the soldiers gambled for His clothes by throwing dice.” (Lk 23:34, NLT, m.e.)

In the above passage from Luke, Jesus prayed for His enemies, knowing that they had all done wrong by Him. And yet He sought His Father so that He may forgive them of their transgressions. It wasn’t as if Jesus did all this in the knowledge of His enemies. They had no idea that the person whom they sent to His death would ultimately do the very thing that sometimes even best friends don’t do. 

As He neared His death, hanging on the cross, He still had the inner resolve to not just pray but to forgive His enemies. Note that He didn’t pray to ask His Father to unleash cruel deaths upon them. His prayer wasn’t about vengeance but of loving forgiveness.

Source: survivalblog.com

In a world of eye-for-an-eye retribution, all this was both radical and unprecedented. Ancient teachings talk more about taking the fight to our enemy with the view to destroying them. It was all about conquest, annihilation, subjugation and possession. It was all about looting what isn’t ours because the victor takes all and the triumphant writes the history books. No one ever cared about the enemy and if he’s fallen, he’s as good as forgotten.

But Jesus turned the table on this ancient dogma and taught about the kind of love that enemies knew nothing about. The Pharisees would have been appalled to learn something so diametric to what they believed in. This was a command that went way beyond the usual statement of love. Jesus wasn’t just asking us not to seek revenge on those who hate and despise us or even those who go out of their way to hurt our feelings. 

He went farther by commanding us to actively pursue their goodwill and to love them from deep within our heart. Hence the enemy becomes our neighbour as well and with that, he in turn becomes our friend. So while the haters will drown in their bigotry, Christians are to savour the real meaning of love.

Jesus understands that His command is radical to even stumble some of us. It’s well and good to tell us to love our enemies but how on earth can we do that? What exactly does it even mean or entail? What do you really have to do? Will it be too difficult? Will it ask too much from me? I mean, is it even possible in reality?

Predictably, the Son of God offers us four things to do:

Righteous love: Pray for our persecutors

Jesus said so in Matthew 5:44. Luke also mentioned how Jesus actually did so in 23:34.

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’ And the soldiers gambled for His clothes by throwing dice.” (Lk 23:34, NLT)

Source: charismanews.com

But praying for our persecutors is often easier said than done. In the practical realities of a harsh world, we are all taught to think differently when confronted by our persecutors. At the very least, if we don’t lash out at them or hurt them in return, simple worldly wisdom suggests we should keep our distance and not befriend them. If we don’t talk to them or be involved in whatsoever manner, they can’t keep on harming us.

Yet Jesus’ view is completely different. Unusually different. He commands us to reverse our attitude and instead to love our persecutors. Christian author R.E. Nixon once said, “Persecutors are the most difficult enemies to love.” He’s certainly not wrong. If we can love them the way East German Pastors Christian Führer and Uwe Holmer could, we could draw our inspiration and do the same.

Because the command “love” is in the present tense like the verb “persecute,” the implication here is that this is a continual action that Jesus expects us to carry out. In other words, it’s not a past activity but one where we are called to actively love and pray for our enemies even as they step up their persecution against us.

Another key point to make here is that Jesus asks us to pray for and not against our persecutors:

“‘You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!’” (Mt 5:43-44, NLT, m.e.)

The prepositional difference between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is obviously staggering. To pray for our persecutors mean we are to means to be well-intentioned in our prayers. It means our prayers should demonstrate concern and thoughtfulness, care and kindness. To pray against would be quite the opposite because our prayers are otherwise weaponised to do battle against our enemies. To pray against our enemies is to ask God to not only stop them from harming us but to vanquish them.

When Jesus says to pray for our enemies, He is asking us to bless and not curse them, which is what the imprecatory Psalms are essentially about. With these Psalms, we declare our enmity against the enemies because they hated God in the first place. These aren’t our personal enemies; instead, they are enemies of God. Jesus’ call is in reference to personal enemies, meaning those who have a specific axe to grind with us in our daily lives.

Prayers are the centrepiece that links the victim to the victimiser. They are what brings us together with those who hate us and want to do us harm. To partake in prayer is to possess a love for those we pray for. Without such love, prayers are simply not possible and no matter how hard you try to make it sound like one, they don’t mean anything to God.

Prayers that really work are those that come from deep in our hearts where there is a groundswell of love, all ready to be given to those who hate us. Elisabeth Elliot knew this very well. If she didn’t, she couldn’t possibly have made that trip to the Aucas freshly after knowing that her husband including four others were speared to death by them. 

Without prayers, Uwe Holmer couldn’t have possibly justified what he did when he and his wife opened the doors of their vicarage to the once-powerful but now-homeless Honeckers. It would have been just as impossible for Christian Führer to justify sending the congregation out to the streets had it not been his belief that prayers for their persecutors were important.

As each day takes us one step closer to the End Times, persecution will only grow more intense. We have already seen the last number of years where Christians around the world have suffered at the hands of their persecutors in unimaginable ways. While developed nations generally witness persecution through the use of politically and legally-motivated repressive measures, those in Third-World nations experience it in a more gruesome fashion including fire-bombings, beheadings, rapes and genocides. 

Prominent Italian sociologist and writer Massimo Introvigne cited statistics that showed that in 2016 alone, more than 90,000 followers of Christ were killed. Overall, an average of 105,000 Christians are killed annually simply for their faith.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

In Communist China where persecution of Christians has been greatly amplified of late, there has been an almost inexplicable explosion in numbers of Chinese who have come to embrace Christ. While there is an estimated 30 million who attend the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Church sanctioned by the government, the numbers who attend the underground illegal house churches are far greater though there’s no telling how many.

American pastor Francis Chan’s view of this explosive growth is that it is founded in Chinese Christians believing that Jesus was enough. And from that point, they were able to make disciples far beyond our imagination even in a country well known for its persecution of Christians. 

Chan thinks that the reason behind the unstoppable nature of its underground church growth was that the Chinese were ready to embrace suffering at the hands of their persecutors. On the contrary, churches in the West have stumbled because they are “so stoppable the moment it gets too difficult.”

Central to the Chinese Christians’ embrace of suffering is their willingness to undergo personal sacrifice. They were willing to do the really difficult things. They understood and accept that where Christ was tortured for them, they too are prepared to do that for others. 

And more often than not, that also means their prayers would focus on forgiveness of their enemies that they, too, may come to know Christ and embrace Him. For Chan, this fact alone is what separates the Christians in China from those in the West. While the former has come to embrace suffering for the glory of Christ, the latter is still procrastinating.

Such persecution will worsen from one year to the next. One day, it won’t just be China alone. As the world learns to intensify its hate, there will be even greater suffering abound. As Christians, we need to be ready to stand firm, be ready to go into deep intense prayer and be ever ready to love those who persecute us.

Christ’s love for the enemy, Part Four

Source: religionnews.com

The great Charles Spurgeon once told a story during one of his sermons that encapsulates Christ’s love quite perfectly. From his June 1857 sermon comes the following story in his very own words:

“There was once a young man in your position: he had begun to pray, and his father knew it. He said to him, ‘John, you know I am an enemy to religion, and prayer is a thing that never shall be offered in my house.’ Still the young man continued earnest in supplication. ‘Well,’ said the father one day, in a hot passion, ‘you must give up either God or me; I solemnly swear that you shall never darken the threshold of my door again, unless you decide that you will give up praying. I give you until tomorrow morning to choose.’ 

“The night was spent in prayer by the young disciple. He rose in the morning, sad to be cast away by his friends, but resolute in spirit, that come what might he would serve his God.

“The father abruptly accosted him—‘Well, what is the answer?’

“‘Father,’ he said, ‘I cannot violate my conscience, I cannot forsake my God.’

“‘Leave immediately,’ he said.

“And the mother stood there; the father’s hard spirit had made hers hard too, and though she might have wept she concealed her tears. ‘Leave immediately’ he said. Stepping outside the threshold the young man said, ‘I wish you would grant me one request before I go; and if you grant me that, I will never trouble you again.’

“‘Well,’ said the father, ‘you shall have anything you like, but mark me, you must go after you have had that; you shall never have anything again.’

“‘It is,’ said the son, ‘that you and my mother would kneel down, and let me pray for you before I go.’

“Well, they could hardly object to it; the young man was on his knees in a moment, and began to pray with such unction and power, with such evident love for their souls, with such true and divine earnestness, that they both fell flat on the ground, and when the son rose there they were; and the father said, ‘You need not go, John; come and stop, come and stop;’ and it was not long before not only he, but all of them began to pray and they were united to a Christian Church.

“So do not give way. Persevere kindly but firmly. It may be that God shall enable you not only to have your own souls saved, but to be the means of bringing your persecuting parents to the foot of the cross. That such may be the case is our earnest prayer.”

Live as befitting of our Father’s true children

Source: revderrickkeeter.wordpress.com

“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” (Mt 5:45, NLT)

In learning to love our enemies, we are partaking in a transformation that makes us act like our heavenly Father. In the above passage, God puts it in such a way that one form of action explains He does the things He does. Because He blesses both us and our enemies, He therefore expects us to conduct ourselves in a way that reflects our relationship as “true children” to Him. 

As He puts it, He posts sunlight that doesn’t just benefit us but also others just as it is when He sends rain. And that’s the way it is and always has been. God offers His love readily to all without distinction.

The use of “sun” and “rain” in the passage are indicators of God’s blessings. For the Jews whose lunisolar calendar was (and still is) agrarian-based, both the sun and rain – including the moon – were important. 

Being so, it is obvious that where crops were concerned, rain would be a significant blessing. It wouldn’t have mattered how it might inconvenience some people so long as agriculturally, it was indispensable. The same applied to the sun, the giver of Life, and the very source of sustenance that only God, its Creator, is capable of raising.

Both the “sun” and the “rain” are divine providence without which the Jews have historically felt life itself was unsustainable. It is such with the sun that the entire order of life and its cyclical existence depends on how it works in accordance to God’s perfect timing. Since He is the Creator, everything to do with its astrological properties is indeed divine. 

And so, the mention of the “sun” and the “rain” in the above passage is central to God’s incredible grace. They are also one of life’s most evident proof of blessings that God bestows upon humanity beyond His Chosen people. So although His saving grace is only meant for those who place their trust on the Son of God, His daily blessings are unreservedly for everyone because even unbelievers are His creation. That also includes our enemies.

The very act of loving our enemies isn’t just about winning them over as friends. We don’t know if they will ultimately become friends to us and so we cannot count on that as the motivating reason. 

More importantly, our change in conduct reflects more on us being God’s true children because we act like Him. And since we are created in His image, it is only appropriate that our actions and the things we say should be a true reflection of us being the unique creations of His hands.

In God’s dispensation of fairness and justice, God still loves His children including our personal enemies. But that doesn’t mean He tolerates sin. It’s not too difficult to apply that viewpoint to us who are His believers also. As it is said:

“And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgement. Show mercy to still others but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.” (Jd 11:22-23, NLT, m.e.)

Christian evangelism need to be punctuated with mercy for the sinner and a robust dislike of sin and its deadly effects. In much the same way, God does love the sinner – which includes us as well – but He detests his sins. For Him to love the sinner, it means He is merciful to everyone and not just those who believe in Him:

“As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?” (Ezek 33:11, NLT, m.e.)

The Book of Romans reveal how even the apostle Paul struggled with sin in ways so humanly relatable to us. He, too, desperately wanted to be freed of sin’s ravaging effects in his own flesh (Rom 7:21-25). If God didn’t hate sin, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die in our place so that our sins could be forgiven.

But are we to love the sinner? Of course! Luke amplifies this so profoundly with Jesus’ words:

“‘But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.’” (Lk 6:27-28, NLT, m.e.)

To love the sinner is the same as saying to love someone who is an enemy for it is he who sins or acts wickedly. We shouldn’t escape the irony of this statement because at times, we Christians also behave in sinful ways that make us enemies of others. 

In that sense, just as we are called to bless those who wish evil and to pray for them, there will be others who will do the same for us because we, too, are wont to sin from time to time.

Make no mistake here – God does not sugarcoat sin even when it is we who commit and carry it. He calls on all of us to personal repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. As you know, this means we are put in the same basket as our very own personal enemies. 

In this way, we can love our enemies and still label their actions as undesirable. Hence, when we show affection for our enemies, we do the thing Jesus calls us to and that is to pray for them as well. Only then can we be considered as true children living in harmony with our heavenly Father.

As Christians, we are to excel in love

Source: crosswalk.com

“If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.” (Mt 5:46-47, NLT)

It’s a no-brainer – everyone is capable of love, unbelievers or not. Even celebrities tell you that when they’re on stage with a mike in hand before thousands of their adoring fans. Loving someone doesn’t take a lot because for many, it’s just what someone says. Yet of course, there are those who express their love in more genuine terms. They love their family members as well as they love friends, work peers and anyone they care to.

A husband loves his spouse. A mother loves her little girl. A friend loves another friend. There is nothing to stop anyone from loving another person because everyone is entirely capable of it. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the person is saved. In other words, one can love without Christ’s salvation.

But here’s the big rub – Christian love and natural human love aren’t and shouldn’t be the same and that’s because as Christians, we demonstrate affection borne of God’s own lesson in love. Where we are called to be the salt and light to the world (Mt 5:13-16), it means our love for others is incalculably dissimilar. Everyone else loves but Christians love differently and at a magnitude that can only come from knowing Christ.

Jesus was very blunt when He says it’s not a terribly big deal to love those who love us back. Worse, He says “even the tax collectors do that!” In ancient Jewish custom, those who were “tax collectors” were considered heinous and are largely alienated from society. 

So to put it simply, Jesus considers loving those who love us is as banal as it is completely insignificant. Hence, there is no reward in something everyone is entirely capable of doing. But there’s more.

Jesus said the same thing about kindness. There’s nothing especially unique if we are only care for those we count as friends simply because everyone – including pagans – do that anyway. Like “tax collectors,” “pagans” or unbelievers are stigmatised in ancient Jewish culture. In other words, even godless people know how to be kind to one another and therefore, it’s not a difficult thing to do.

Christians have to do better than that. We have to reach higher because expectations are higher. In the Gospel According to Matthew, that is precisely what Jesus says:

“…unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Mt 5:20, NLT, m.e.)

Source: smoodock45.wordpress.com

It is a well-known fact that Jesus has no time for the Pharisees. In the Sermon on the Mount, He often alludes to them teaching incorrectly or that they distort His Father’s commandments. 

In that sense, He doesn’t hold their views to any high regard for He considers theirs to be of an unacceptable standard. That may or may not be the standard of the world as well but all the same, our righteousness must be “better than” – take that to mean “higher” or “superior” – any unbeliever or worldly person.

So what does “better than” mean? It means that, as Christians, we need to benchmark Christ when it comes to defining love. In that sense, it’s not just mere love but extraordinary love. Forget the mushy, faux, veneered Hollywood-ingrained love. Humans indulge in human love, which may be fine by world standards but as believers, we emulate Christ.

But how do we do this in practice? Well, Scripture does provide insight to this and much of it has to do with how we change ourselves so that the love of Christ may shine from within us.

Firstly, don’t argue with people even if that means having to defend our faith in Christ against those who attack us (Php 2:14). Instead pray and ask God for wisdom to discern the genuine nature of the question in mind. 

After all, some are sincere in their desire to want to know while others aren’t really interested. All they want is to put us in our place or simply to keep us at arm’s length. In all of that, we just have to make sure we’re always ready to answer and do so with gentleness and respect:

“…if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” (1 Pt 3:15, NLT)

Secondly, pray for those whom you know who need Christ. If you want to love them in the way of Christ, praying that the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin is a powerful way. Through and by the Holy Spirit, they will be convinced of the truth of the Gospel and from there, they will be saved and the precious gift of eternal life will be theirs.

Thirdly, be sensitive to the feelings of those around you. Know when to speak and when to keep your counsel. To love others the way Christ loves us is to allow Him to open doors for us to speak and when that happens, we must then point them to Him and tell of what He has done for us and in us.

Lastly but not least, be an example of Christ’s love to others. Giving the best sermon is one thing but living a life of Christ is quite another. As they say, talk can be awfully cheap but to act in and for Christ elevates our love to a level that the world knows very little about.

From all of these, the question is whether or not others see Christ in you. Do they see His love in your conduct? Do they experience His patience through the way you fraternise with them? Do they feel His purity in how you respond in times of trials? Do they sense His joy when you share your life with others?

Source: frank-answers.com

Here are just some of what you can do to love others like Jesus:

-        Love the person seated in front of you be it on a bus or train or if you’re waiting at a terminal but of course, if you’d like that to happen, you have to get off your smartphone and talk

-        Bake a cake or cookies or simply bring food to your neighbour and then engaged in pleasant small talk but do so without bringing up any invitation to your church

-        Invite your neighbours over for a cup of afternoon tea but make it simple, informal and chirpy event where everyone can banter, laugh and enjoy without turning it into a Bible study

-        Buy some food and hand it to a homeless person by the sidewalk without expecting anything in return and that means no praises and not even a thank you and while you’re at it, give him a hug

-        While the kids are doing their activities, refrain from retreating to the car and checking your smartphone but instead, mingle with the other parents and engage in friendly chats

-        Volunteer in a soup kitchen to feed the poor and the homeless and commit to it regularly

-        Offer to coach your local school sports team so that you can be an inspiration and a source of encouragement to them

-        Visit a local hospital and pray for patients who are in need of and who welcome prayers but not before you listen to what they can tell you of their maladies

-        Be the bearer of gifts and visit an orphanage and then spend time with the kids by talking to them, listening to whatever they can tell you and then be a source of encouragement to them

Be perfect as your Father is perfect

“…you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5:48, NLT)

This is the verse that brings to a close this section on loving our enemies. In this part, a good question to ask would be, “How good does a person have to be to go to Heaven?” A short answer is, “You need to be perfect.” Perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And that means to be completely, totally and morally perfect, the very sense of perfection in loving the way God loves.

Theologian Alfred Plummer (1852-1916) once defined perfect love by saying, “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human and to return good for evil is divine.” If I hurt you because you hurt me, that’s returning evil for evil. In the equal but opposite direction, I will do good just to reciprocate your goodness. 

On the other hand, if I hurt you even though you have been good to me, that’s wicked. But despite being hurt, I still persist in being good to you, that’s love perfected in Christ. That is moral perfection founded on the way we love because God loves.

All that is fine but the little problem we have is that we can never be perfect in this life we live. Burdened by a world creaking under the deadweight of immorality, we are prone to stutter in sin ourselves. That is why Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:3, 6, NASB). Because He is well aware that we will stumble and sin.

Source: earstohear.wordpress.com

Danish Christian writer, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) once told of what he called, “the Parable of the Ducks” but in just as many words, it’s also a story of how we can exceed ourselves. As to why Kierkegaard aimed the story at the church, it is because he often found it to be so forlorn of the teachings of Christ that it was laughable. And with that, he spared nothing in critiquing the church.

What he saw was a clergy that did everything to dilute Jesus’ messages to the extent that it might as well be something completely different. The people themselves were already estranged from the truth. They had long lived lives that were absent of passion and commitment but with a clergy that was essentially ‘reinventing’ the Gospel, it was all Kierkegaard could do to illustrate this through his “parable.” And so he decided to tell a story of a land in the kingdom of ducks where there is a church for ducks.

And Kierkegaard’s parable goes like this:

One Sunday, all the fluffy ducks dutifully tottered their way down the main street and to town church. There, the duck choir sang magnificent hymns accompanied by the chief duck organist at the pipe organ. 

After that, the preacher duck went to stand at the pulpit with his bill stuck upright as he began to quack his sermon. Opening his Bible, he flipped to the page where God spoke of His great gift of wings to all ducks.

And with that, the preacher duck said, “With wings, we ducks can fly! We can mount up like eagles and soar the heavens on high!” We can liberate ourselves from the confines of our pens and fences. We can finally get to relish the euphoria of what real freedom feels like!” 

And all the ducks cheered so loud that for a moment, it looked like the roof of the church was lifted up. 

“Let us all give thanks to God for such a great gift of wings!” the preacher duck exclaimed. In absolute joy, all the ducks present stood up and in a single chorus, gave a hearty “Hallelujah” followed by many instances of “Amen!” 

Satisfied that his fellow ducks have now seen the great light, he began to usher them home. The ducks all got up from the pews, turned around… and waddled home.

Kierkegaard’s parable underlines how easy it is to fall into the same mundane trap every day. Remember that Christ called us to rise above mediocrity so that we can present the fullness of our capabilities to Him. None of us was born to live ordinary, meaningless and banal lives with an average existence in mind. 

God has bestowed upon each of us a range of different gifts, talents, skills, abilities, intelligence, passion and energy to do extraordinary things. He has given us the raw untapped potential so that we can achieve exceedingly for Him. So, don’t waddle, fly!

Kierkegaard’s funny little parable should remind us that the purpose behind studying the Sermon on the Mount is not to make us smart. It is not learning that is the goal. Neither is it a pursuit in increasing our head knowledge. The aim is to strive for inside-out transformation as each and every one of us endeavour to strive for perfection so that we can be more like Christ.

Kierkegaard isn’t saying that we can attain perfection on earth. What the parable tells us is that while we will never be perfect in our mortal life, God has called us to embark on our walk of sanctification where we are called to a process of perfection. 

In other words, we all have plenty of room to grow and improve. We have goals to aim for that takes us closer to holy perfection. We have many more things we can do to attain perfect righteousness. We can do many things for many people around us that spells Christ perfection in love.

Remember, Jesus said, “You are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:48, NLT). And that brings me to a nice little tale that goes like this:

It was the day after Christmas when Mr Humboldt drove up to the main road downtown. As he got to the curb side, he turned his new car into the parking lot, got out and walked towards the newsagent. It was something he did each morning before he had his breakfast and head out to work. 

At the newsagent, he would get his usual morning paper and a carton of fresh milk. The only difference this time was he got to drive his brand new and shiny wheels for the first time to town.

Source: Flickr

As he got close to the newsagent, he noticed an unkempt raggedy looking kid peering at his car with the obvious yearning look. That got him a bit worried and twitchy. He could picture the instant when he turned his back, he could look to steal something. 

Perhaps the nice badge on the hood. Maybe the hub covers. Or even the roof-mounted antenna. You’d never know these days what kids can steal, he thought to himself.

And so he reminded himself to not waste time. Get to the newsagent, grab the morning paper and a carton of milk, hand over the exact change and return quickly in case something really went missing in his brand spanking new car.

With that playing in his mind, Mr Humboldt got out of the newsagent quicker than usual. With the paper rolled up under his arm and the carton of milk in his hand, he strode towards his new car and opened the door. Right at that very moment, the same kid was there. Mr Humboldt was nervous though he tried hard not to show it.

“Sir, that’s a real nice set of wheels,” the kid said.

“It sure is, kid. It’s brand new too,” Mr Humboldt replied.

“Sir, may I ask how much a new car like that costs?” the kid asked.

He replied, “I don’t really know, kid.”

“My brother got me this new car as a Christmas gift,” he added.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence from the boy. All he could do was to look stunned at the car and then switched to glance at the towering Mr Humboldt. And then he switched back to the car. And back at him. He still couldn’t believe what he heard.

With complete bewilderment, the kid uttered something that froze Mr Humboldt. He never saw such a comment coming. Not from anyone. Especially not from a kid like this one. 

You’d expect someone, anyone, to maybe say, “Gee whiz, how I wish I had a brother like yours” or something to that effect. But that wasn’t it.

Instead, the kid said, “I’d love to be like your brother, sir.”

Righteousness is only from God

“For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” (2 Cor 5:21, NLT)

In other words, only God can give us the kind of righteousness that allows us to enter Heaven, the kind that defines absolute or completely virtuous moral justification. It is the kind that is only mirrored by God’s own perfection in every sense of the word, every attribute, every attitude, every behaviour and found in every sinew of His being.

The apostle Paul’s above words are pretty profound. What he is saying is that God made Christ who is sinless so that He may shoulder our sins for us. And in doing so, through Christ then all of us can thus become the righteousness of God. 

That’s another way of saying that it is impossible for us to attain righteousness in any other way. Without Christ, there is really no righteousness for us. We don’t stand a chance of attaining it elsewhere or from anyone else. Righteousness is freely available from God. It is His gift to us that comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all His believers.

Remember that it was on the cross that Jesus swapped out our sins and then made His perfect righteousness available. He did so in order that one day, we can stand before God and He will not see our sin because in its place is His holy righteousness. This means that we have been made righteous in the sight of God. On account of what Jesus did on that cross, we are now accepted as righteous and is treated as righteous by God.

Loving our enemies not possible without God

Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979 (Source: jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

“And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” (Rom 5:5, NLT)

It’s effortless for anyone to show love to those among our family members or friends who also love us back. Tit for tat, love for love, it’s easy and everyone does it very well. We send greeting cards, hampers and buy gifts to people we feel deserve it because they’re nice, they’re friendly, they’re thoughtful and because it’s the kind of friendship we love to keep. 

And we can keep doing this year in and out as we remind ourselves to keep that friendship running because it’s worth every bit of our time and effort.

But doing that to those who have nothing good to say about us, stab us behind our back, nasty and selfish, arrogant, run us down and hell-bent on destroying our reputation would very likely be impossible. Even if we do send people like this a greeting card, it would be void of warmth. 

Instead it’s just an obligatory act just for show because deep inside us, we too have nothing good to say about them and we have no intention to do anything about it. Very likely too, we will also have enough people around us who will influence us enough to keep our distance from those who are so obviously, simply by their words and actions alone, our enemies.

Loving our enemies is just not a normal thing to do. Human love is always an emotion we invest in those who love us back in return. Christians often can discuss loving our enemies but to put that into action is something else altogether. 

Our theological understanding of loving our enemies is almost essentially an on-paper thing. To find another Pastor Christian Führer or Pastor Uwe Holmer or Jim Elliot at any corner of the world isn’t easy because the world has been force-feeding us on a diet of hatred towards our enemies.

To really and truly love our enemies, we need God’s help. We need Him to pour out His love into our hearts (Rom 5:5) simply because we just don’t have that kind of love to work on. 

Calling ourselves Christians and not being able to love our enemies is abnormal because God would have poured out His love into our hearts. His divine love should have been inside us. It should be evident enough in our lives that people can see that it points to God.

If you feel that way about yourself, you’re in good company. In fact, all of us who call ourselves Christians need to re-evaluate the way we love others and not just those who love us back. We might need to go back to the drawing board and turn back on our ways, realising finally that to love our enemies, we must cede to Christ to love them through us.

While sinners, Christ died for us

Source: americanbelievers.blogspot.com

“But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of His Son while we were still His enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of His Son.” (Rom 5:8-10 NLT)

And that’s the point: While we were still sinners, we remain God’s enemies. And even though we were enemies, Christ died for us. God demonstrated that He could still do the ultimate to love us sinners. By sending His Son to die on the cross, He showed us the brand of divine love that no one can match. 

No human love comes even remotely close to Christ’s love. While human love limits us to exclude our enemies, Christ’s love keeps on breaking new ground, doing the very things we commonly find not just undoable but also abhorrent.

The fact that Christ died for us while we were still sinners speaks volumes of the exemplary love that many of us keep struggling to learn. It is the kind of love that people like Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint knew about. 

We can say that because these missionary wives knew to go and share the Gospel with the very men (and women) who murdered not just their husband and brother respectively but three other young American missionaries. 

In case you wonder how they did what they did, the answer is simple. They not only they knew about Jesus but they actually had a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They are fully aware of that Jesus died for them when they were still sinners. And then, armed with that awareness, they extended their reach in true love and forgiveness to the Aucas who had sinned against them.

God never asks us to do anything He hadn’t done in the first place Himself. Just as God loved us when we were His enemies, He now calls us to love our enemies in the same way.

Interesting reading materials

1.    Ambroise, Angela (April 2011) Elisabeth Elliot (update from Valerie Elliot Shepard) (Gateways to Joy) accessible at https://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2011/04/elisabeth-elliot-update-from-valerie.html

2.   Ambroise, Angela (Dec 2010) Interview with Valerie Elliot Shepard (daughter of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot) (Gateways to Joy) accessible at https://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2010/12/interview-with-valerie-elliot-shepard.html

3.   Author Unknown (July 2014) Christian Führer – Obituary (The Telegraph) accessible at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10938435/Christian-Fuhrer-obituary.html

4.   Author Unknown (May 2012) The End of Honecker (University of Cambridge Research) accessible at https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-end-of-honecker

5.   Author Unknown (nd) Erich Honecker (Military Wiki) accessible at https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker#cite_note-91

6.   Benge, Janet and Benge, Geoff (Jun 1999) Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose (Christian Heroes: Then and Now series) (Edmonds, WA: YWAM Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Jim-Elliot-Purpose-Christian-Heroes/dp/1576581462

7.   Bickle, Mike (no date) Session 11 Replacing Passive Love with Active Love (Mt 5:42-48) (International House of Prayer of Kansas City, Free Teaching Library) accessible at http://www.mikebickle.org.edgesuite.net/MikeBickleVOD/2012/20120701_Replacing_Passive_Love_with_Active_Love_SOM11.pdf  

8.   Blake, Daniel (June 2011) Shocking Figures Reveal 105,000 Christians Martyred Each Year (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/shocking-figures-reveal-105000-christians-martyred-each-year.html

9.   Briggs, Megan (June 2019) Christians ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’, Join Hong Kong Protests (ChurchLeaders) accessible at https://churchleaders.com/news/352793-christians-sing-hallelujah-to-the-lord-join-hong-kong-protests.html

10. Carson, D. A. (Dec 1999) The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway) available at https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Doctrine-Love-God/dp/1581341261 

11.  Childs, David, ed. (1985) Honecker's Germany – Routledge Library Editions, German Politics (London: Taylor & Francis) accessible at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315727585

12. Dennis, Mike (1993) Social and Economic Modernisation in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (London, UK: Printer Publishers) accessible at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/social-and-economic-modernization-in-eastern-germany-from-honecker-to-kohl-by-mike-dennis-london-printer-publishers-and-new-york-st-martins-press-1993-pp-viii-252-4500-isbn-0312085699-st-martins/5EAFFED028A29B46045F6F39030D418C

13. Elder, Eric (nd) I Believe in Forgiveness (Christians.org) accessible at http://www.christians.org/creed/creed12.html)

14. Fulbrook, Mary (Dec 2008) The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (London, UK: Yale University Press) available at https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Fulbrook-Honecker-2008-12-17-Paperback/dp/B00KM03U3M

15. Hays, Mike (Sept 2014) “…We Must Obey God!” Romans 13:1-7 (Britton Christian Church) accessible at https://www.brittonchurch.com/we-must-obey-god-romans-131-7/

16. Klett, Leah MarieAnn (Jun 2019) Chinese Christians Memorise Bible in Prison: Gov’t ‘Can’t Take What’s Hidden in Your Heart’ (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/chinese-christians-memorize-bible-prison-cant-take-whats-hidden-in-your-heart.html

17. Miller, Susan (Oct 1995) Jim Elliot – Missionary Martyr (1927-1956) Heroes of the Faith series (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Faith-1927-1956-Barbour-Paperback/dp/1557487324

18. MJS (Nov 2018) The Forerunner of Mercy (Christian Doctrine) accessible at https://www.christiandoctrine.com/christian-poetry/prayer/2073-the-forerunner-of-mercy

19. Newell, Roger (Sept 2014) Reflections on Pastor Christian Führer of the Nikolai Church in Leipzig (Contemporary Church History Quarterly, George Fox University) accessible at https://contemporarychurchhistory.org/2014/09/reflection-on-pastor-christian-fuhrer-of-the-nikolai-church-in-leipzig/

20. Nieuwint, Joris (Sept 2015) Major Cain, The One Man Tank Destroyer Who Received a VC at Arnhem (War History Online) accessible at https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/horten-229-v3-flying-wing-48-images-have-you-seen-all-of-these-before.html

21. Pang, Jessica and Zaharia, Marius (June 2019) ‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’ an Unlikely Anthem of Hong Kong Protests (Reuters) accessible at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition-protesters-halle-idUSKCN1TJ16T

22. Pham, John-Peter (Dec 2008) Erich Honecker (Alternation) accessible at https://alterfaith.wordpress.com/tag/erich-honecker/

23.Pierce, Larry and Pierce, Marion (2010) Modernised Edition of Spurgeon’s Sermons (Winterbourne, Ontario) accessible at https://answersingenesis.org/education/spurgeon-sermons/138-prayer-the-forerunner-of-mercy/

24. Potter, Deborah (Nov 2009) The Church That Helped Bring Down the Berlin Wall (The Aquila Report) accessible at https://www.theaquilareport.com/the-church-that-helped-bring-down-the-berlin-wall/  

25.Price, Joe R. (Nov 2016) Perfect Hatred (Topical Sermons) accessible at http://bibleanswer.com/perfecthatred.htm

26. Roberts, Sam (June 2015) Elisabeth Elliot, Tenacious Missionary in Face of Tragedy, Dies at 88 (The New York Times) accessible at https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/us/elisabeth-elliot-tenacious-missionary-to-ecuador-dies-at-88.html

27. Siemon-Netto, Uzve (June 1990) East Germany: Luther vs Lenin (First Things) accessible at https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/06/east-germany-luther-vs-lenin

28. Smith, Samuel (Dec 2016) 90,000 Christians Killed in 2016, 1 Every 6 Minutes: Study (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/news/90000-christians-killed-in-2016-1-every-6-minutes-study.html

29. Smith, Samuel (Jun 2019) Ex-Muslim Who Planned to Kill Christians and Faced Death for Becoming One Tells Her Story (The Christian Post) accessible at https://www.christianpost.com/world/ex-muslim-planned-kill-christians-faced-death-tells-her-story-defying-jihad.html

30. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1883, republished June 1995) Spurgeon’s Sermons (5 Vol. Set) (Baker Books, 4th Printing Edition) available at https://www.amazon.com/Spurgeons-Sermons-5-Vol-Set/dp/0801011132

31.  Swindoll, Charles R. (Dec 2009) Jesus: The Greatest Life of All (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Great Life Series) available at https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Greatest-Life-Great-Lives/dp/1400202582

32. Von der Heydt, Barbara (Dec 1993) Candles behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution That Shattered Communism (Woonsocket, RI: Mowbray Publishing) available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Candles-Behind-Wall-Revolution-Shattered/dp/0264673328

33. Warmbrand, Leigh (Sept 2017) Love Your Enemies (Central Plains Evangelical Free Church) accessible at http://cpefc.org/love-your-enemies

34. Weitz, Eric D (1997) Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) available at https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5889.html

35. White, Kathleen (Jun 1990) Jim Elliot (Men of Faith) (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers) available at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556611250

36. Williamson, Forschungsmitarbeiter Mitch (Aug 2015) 2nd South Staffords – Arnhem Part II (Weapons and Warfare – History and Hardware of Warfare) accessible at https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/08/19/2nd-south-staffords-arnhem-part-ii/