April 9, 2007
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Schindler's List
I came across this very interesting thought in my readings today, from this article.
Now I want to relate a story. Some years ago I viewed the 1993 Academy Award movie of the year, Schindler's List, the Steven Spielberg story of Oskar Schindler, the Nazi war profiteer, who shortly after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 began to use the Jews of the Krakow ghetto as workers in his pots and pans factory. At first he saw them only as chattel to be used to line his own pockets, which he did quite successfully, becoming exceedingly rich. But as the war dragged on, and as he increasingly witnessed Nazi atrocities being inflicted against the Jews of Poland, increasingly did he begin to use his own wealth to bribe Nazi officials and army officers to give him more and more Jews for his factory that the Nazis had turned toward the end of the war into a munitions factory and that, by Schindler's personal instructions, became a model of non-productivity in the Nazi war effort. Though it virtually bankrupted him personally, he saved over twelve hundred Jews from certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
I recount this story line only to say that I was struck by some statements put in his mouth toward the end of the movie. The war has just ended, and having worked for the Third Reich, both he and his Jewish factory workers realize that the Allied authorities might search for him. As he bids farewell to them, they present him with a letter signed by each of them that they hope will help him before the Allied authorities.
At this moment Schindler suddenly becomes very sober and quietly says: "I could have done more. I could have done more!" He begins to sob. "I could have done more. I didn't do enough. This car-why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people." Pulling off his lapel pin, he exclaims, "The pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people! One more. I could have bought more people! But I didn't." His knees crumble and he sobs heavily.
As his words - "I could have done more! Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. The pin. This is gold. Two more people. One more. I could have bought more people. But I didn't." - seared themselves into my mind as I sat in the darkness of that theater, I suddenly became convicted that many Christians-I among them-are going to be asking similar questions at the Great White Throne Judgment: "Why did I not do more to reach the lost for Christ? Why did I think I had to have that more expensive house, that more expensive car, that snowmobile, that ten-speed bicycle that hangs most of the time in my garage? Why did I not use more of my resources for the cause of Christ?" More poignantly, "Why was I not more committed to Christ's cause? Why did I esteem my own self-preservation so highly? Why was I not willing to go myself?" In that Great Day I fear that many of us will have no answers to salve our smitten consciences.
May God raise up in our day, while divine patience still grants us time, a multitude of men and women who will boldly dare to go into this lost and dying world where no man has ever gone before with the liberating law-free gospel of God!
Comments (4)
As a Jewish Believer, and a woman who lost family in the Holicaust, I thank you, Tim for posting this article. I truly believe that Schindler did all he could. Where was the rest of the world? He was one man. Why did God allow this to happen? These are questions that have been asked for years and years by the Jewish nation; by my parents, my aunts and uncles, people all over the world.
I must believe, that God used this hellish time of our history to bring men and women to himself. I think of Corrie Ten Boone and others who gave up all they had to speak the Gospel to those 6,000,000 Jews and almost 5,000,000 gentiles who died at the hand of Hitler.
The Halicaust was an awful, terrible, time where man's sin was so promonant (forgive my spelling). But, how many other times in World History was sin so apparent? Slavery, the killing of millions in Cambodia; the imprisonment of Chinese Christians, etc.
We do need to be bold men and women, and we do need to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We do need to pray for the lost and dying. And, we do need to remember the Lord's forgiveness in our own lives.
My favorite passage of scripture speaks volumns to my heart. I hope it can be an encouragement to you as well.
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives within me. And, the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who Loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galations 2:20
May we all remember that it is Christ who chose us and loves us and desires us to be fishers of men, so that all can believe.
Shalom!
Thanks, Tim...so much. May the Lord bless your day.
I have all the respect for Schindler, - he did his duty in saving the lives of innocent people. Afterall, life is the greatest gift from God. I will not, however, accept Judaism as more than a religion of hypocrites. They were the people whom God had been preparing for the coming of the Messiah, their promised savior, - and they have rejected him! How can one still be so arrogant after so many years? And still believe that they are 'the chosen ones'? I am not anti-semite, but I will not consider anyone who practices Judaism anything but a hypocrite. To me, it is no wonder that the Holocaust has happened. My deepest respect and blessings to those jews who have accepted Christ. May Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy be an example to those whose hearts are still too hard for the love of Christ!
Tim...did you happen to answer this fellow above? I think he is somewhat anti-semetic, but didn't know if you knew him, or if it was worth answering him...just wondering.
Mrs. Swift
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