“RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS” DURING THE HOLOCAUST

“Heart of man is desperately wicked” says the LORD in the Bible in Jeremiah 17:9. Most of us stop at verse nine. However the very next verse, speaks that for our LORD, our hearts are important, and He searches our hearts.
– “9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? 10 I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.” – Jeremiah 17:9-10

The former slave trader turned Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter John Newton writes thus in a letter on 03 October 1778.
– “A real conviction of our weakness we cannot learn merely from books or preachers. The providence of God concurs … in making us acquainted with ourselves.” – John Newton

Human hearts are terribly wicked. The LORD looks at our hearts, its motives, its desires and it’s intentions. The real conviction of our wickedness comes when we allow God to show is our wickedness and the evil in our hearts.

On 03 October in 1943 during the Second World War, Lutheran pastor Kjeldgaard Jensen in Gilleleje, Denmark, reads a letter written by the bishops of Denmark, urging and instructing the Danes to assist in the rescue of Jews from the impending Nazi deportation to death camps. The bishops remind their flocks that Jesus was a Jew, and that persecution of Jews violates the command to love one’s neighbour, and also, it is against the Danish understanding of justice. The efforts of the Danish bishops will inspire the people of his town to hide over 1,300 Jews, and safely transport most of them to neutral Sweden.

Sadly history records that people like pastor Kjeldgaard Jensen were few. Western Europe prides itself in Christian faith going back almost to the early Church, yet it fails time and again in standing up for the Bible. 
– “Yes, many individuals, local authorities, and national governments across occupied and Axis-aligned Europe actively betrayed, arrested, and deported Jewish people to Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.” – Gemini Overview
Please note dear brothers and sisters, this observation is not to put down the people. It is simply the placing of a historical fact plainly, without any prejudice. I personally know many from these lands who are great and wonderful brothers and sisters in the LORD. The contribution of these good and the godly children of God in these lands is inestimable, to say the least. 
– “Attitudes towards the Jews during the Holocaust ranged from indifference to hostility. The mainstream watched as their former neighbours were rounded up; some collaborated with the perpetrators and many benefited from the expropriation of the Jews’ property. But in a world of total moral collapse there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values, risking their lives to save Jews by hiding them in their homes, providing false papers and assisting their escape: the Righteous Among the Nations.” – Yad Vashem – Holocaust Memorial Website
The Dutch lady Corrie ten Boom and her family were among the few who are the “Righteous Among the Nations.”

As Christians living in a sinful, wicked and evil world, we will be presented with opportunities to betray the LORD Jesus, like the nations of Western Europe were presented with, during the rise and the reign of Nazism. How would we fare in standing up for the LORD Jesus, and upholding His principles, morals, values and ethics in an ever decaying world? Would we be counted as the “RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS?” May the LORD Jesus help us to live for Him and Him alone.