Greetings!
"Shall we continue to sin so that grace can abound? God forbid! How can we, who are dead to sin, still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1-2)
In 1960, Israeli undercover agents orchestrated the daring kidnapping of one of the worst of the Holocaust's masterminds, Adolf Eichmann. After capturing him in his South American hideout, they transported him to Israel to stand trial. There, prosecutors called a string of former concentration camp prisoners as witnesses. One was a small haggard man named Yehiel Dinur, who had miraculously escaped death in Auschwitz. On his day to testify, Dinur entered the courtroom and stared at the man in the bulletproof glass booth. This man had murdered Dinur's friends, presided over the slaughter of millions more, and even executed a number of Jews himself. As the eyes of the two men met - victim and murderous tyrant - the courtroom fell silent, filled with the tension of the confrontation. But no one was prepared for what happened next.
Yehiel Dinur began to shout and sob, collapsing on the floor.
Was he overcome by hatred, by horrifying memories, or by the evil incarnate in Eichmann's face? No. As he later explained in a riveting 60 Minutes interview, it was because Eichmann was not the demonic personification of evil that Dinur had expected. Rather, he was just an ordinary man. And in that one instant, Dinur came to a stunning realization that sin and evil are part of the human condition. "I was afraid about myself," Dinur said. "I saw that I am capable to do this ...exactly like Eichmann." Dinur's remarkable statements caused Mike Wallace to turn to the camera and ask the audience the most painful of all questions: "How was it possible for a man to act as Eichmann acted? Was he a monster? A madman? Or was he perhaps something even more terrifying? Was he normal?" Yehiel Dinur's shocking conclusion was - "Eichmann is in all of us."
Scripture confirms Dinur's conclusion. We all have evil and sin within us, and fall short of God's glory and purpose for us. However, it also provides some good news. Jesus came into the world to save us, and his death and resurrection sets us free the Eichmann that is in all of us. Here is how we overcome:
- We believe. We hold to the promise that God can change us and destroy every stronghold in our lives.
- We repent. We stop what we are doing, turn around, walk the other way, and don't look back. We walk towards God and away from what is wrong with us.
- We preserve. We don't give up, ever. No matter what, we keep on coming; keep on turning around; keep on picking ourselves up. We never stop.
And in the end, we become the person we always wanted to be.... A Christ like being!
"Shall we continue to sin so that grace can abound? God forbid! How can we, who are dead to sin, still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1-2)
Blessings to you this week,
Pastor Tom Barber |
