Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Gideon - God is My Lord

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[00:00:56] Revived Thoughts is a production of Revived Studios. This is Troy and Joel, and you're listening to Revived Thoughts. The thing that most hinders us from letting God be Lord is our cowardice. That is why we have Gideon.

[00:01:19] Because he comes with us to the altar of the Most High, the Almighty, and falls on his knees to this God alone. Every episode, we bring you a different voice from history in a sermon that they delivered.

[00:01:30] Today, we're going back to Berlin to listen to a Dietrich Bonhoeffer episode that was preached on February 26th, 1933. Bon-Bon is our, I think, our most recent speaker. Is that right, Troy? Yeah, no, no. We did do an episode by Watchman Nee,

[00:01:47] and we determined that was the most recent speaker that we— as close to our time as we get. We allowed it to slide through, because even though radio and TV had been invented by that time, he lived in the 1960s, give or take when he died.

[00:02:02] But it was okay, because it was in Chinese, and no one really recorded him. So you can't—we try—some people will sometimes message us, and they'll say like, hey, you should do an R.C. Sproul sermon or John MacArthur sermon,

[00:02:12] or something. I'm like, these guys are still alive. You can go listen—or you can go listen to their own recordings. Like, there's no way I'm going to read it as good as the guy who originally read it.

[00:02:22] So we try to keep revived thoughts sequestered to people whose recordings are outside of our time. We don't try to. We do keep it sequestered to people who are not in our time. You can't go listen to them so that you can actually bring these back to life.

[00:02:34] I don't need to bring back to life a sermon that is currently alive. Right, yeah. That's actually important to bring up, because we probably—we do have a lot of new listeners that don't understand our— may not be super familiar with our formula.

[00:02:48] But yeah, that's kind of the parameters that we put ourselves in. You have to be dead. And ideally, in theory, there's no voice— people can't go and listen to that person directly. Because we always think that, you know, like, you can go listen to that person preach.

[00:03:02] You know, like a—like a C.S. Lewis or something like that. Like, there's recordings of that guy out there preaching. Then go listen to that one. Only one. Only one recording of C.S. Lewis, actually.

[00:03:10] And we had it on our show Revived Radio, that short-lived show where we brought back the radio days. There was only one recording of C.S. Lewis that's ever actually been. If you want to go listen to it, you can go to that episode that Elise did

[00:03:22] before she was doing Martyrs and Missionaries. What's interesting to me is C.S. Lewis doesn't sound like you kind of think he would. Like, I didn't think he—in my head, he has like this deep British booming voice. And he actually was pretty soft-spoken.

[00:03:35] However, in this—I'm so off. We're so—they don't listen to the script. That's okay. If you want to hear something trippy, though, go to YouTube. You can hear G.K. Chesterton, who also is recorded.

[00:03:44] And he does—in my head, he did sound exactly like I thought he would. So if you like those kind of guys. Lots of recordings. Anyway, the main point, back on track. We're—those are the guys you're going to listen to.

[00:03:56] Bonhoeffer is bumping up against the barrier which our cutoff is, is what we were trying to say. Exactly. And I don't think there are any recordings of his. And if they were, they'd be in German.

[00:04:07] So we're safe. And certainly this sermon's not recorded, so we're calling that as fine. All right. We've done several Bonhoeffer episodes before as the main point. I think we counted there are five of them.

[00:04:16] One of the very first episodes that we ever did was a Dietrich Bonhoeffer sermon. And it did so very well. The person who read it for us read it with incredible passion. And it actually got turned into a sermon jam. It is the episode, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Overcoming Fear.

[00:04:31] I even had a woman who—pretty early on in the show, I've gotten to know— she's friend of the program, I guess you could say. And she basically was like, that sermon really helped turn around my life.

[00:04:40] So Bonhoeffer sermons have always had a really, I think, good impact on people. And I don't think that this one will be really any different. But first, Joel, let's just read some positive comments.

[00:04:50] We try to make it a habit to read some things that we've been hearing from all of you on Spotify. We need to create a jingle intro for this segment, you know? We do. Yes. We love talking about positive responses. Some type of musical chime introduction thing

[00:05:06] that can herald the positive feedback section of the podcast. Yeah, we do. I will say—and that sounds—now that I'm saying it, I like the positive— you can write negative comments. It's just—we do get those. I don't normally read them on the show.

[00:05:19] That'll be a different jingle. It's more of a downer. And we don't—and I'm not like purposely always avoiding the negative ones. We don't get that many. Please don't buck that trend and go, I'll help you out. But it just tends to be a lot more positive.

[00:05:31] And usually the ones that are negative, they're kind of hard to fit. So again, not trying to encourage you to send the other kind. All right, let's go to Spotify. Thoroughly enjoyed Revive Thoughts. Love the history of the church that I learn about

[00:05:41] and all the discoveries that came through this podcast. And then the next—he just left the letter L, Nate. Now I don't know if there was more that was going to be there or if the L is a typo. I don't know if this is another Eric situation.

[00:05:52] I don't think it is. I think it's just a typo. Anyway, thank you, Nate. We really appreciate the comment. Very kind of you to share. We also had Breaking Idols, I Stand With Uganda, who has actually been on our show before.

[00:06:02] He responded to a tweet of ours that we put out. I was giving an opinion on something. But he said—he shared our shows over on X, over on Twitter. And he said, if you aren't listening to Revive Thoughts,

[00:06:11] then I don't know what you're doing with your life. And so, yeah, beat that. I agree. You got to be listening to the show. Of course, I'm speaking to the listeners. So that makes it a little redundant. But get that out there. That's what we're saying.

[00:06:21] All right, Jill. Take it away. Yeah, high praise from those folks. Thank you so much. Bonhoeffer. I like when we talk about Bonhoeffer now because we kind of cover the grounds of his story, his backstory.

[00:06:35] And then we kind of get to focus on more specific areas of his life. And so each time we revisit Bonhoeffer, we get to kind of dial in and drill down and focus on a specific either portion of his life or portion of his culture

[00:06:48] just to kind of better flesh out the environment and audience in which he was living and acting and preaching in, what his congregation was like, what his environment was like. And this episode is no different. We'll kind of jump into what Berlin—

[00:07:03] What was society in Berlin in the late 1930s there? What was his environment a little bit more here? But some people might not be familiar with who Dietrich Bonhoeffer is. So we'll do a little bit of an overview here. Crazy life, crazy story. Born in the year 1906.

[00:07:20] And at the time he was born, Germany was very progressive, not very theologically serious. And that's what kind of made Bonhoeffer stand out so much as he became more theologically trained, he developed these bold opinions on things that made him stand out quite a bit

[00:07:41] and definitely rocked the ship for a lot of Germans. The church that he went to growing up was one where the pastor sold pictures of himself and then autographed him. So just to give you kind of an idea of the culture,

[00:07:54] it was not one where they took their worship of God very seriously. When Nazis took over Germany and demanded allegiance at the University of Berlin, and that's where Bonhoeffer was teaching at the time, only he and his brother-in-law would stand up to them

[00:08:11] and they were forced out of it because of it. There's this famous instance where Hitler came on the radio and gave this speech. And right after that airing, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a radio address that came on the radio condemning Hitler,

[00:08:26] which was a very bold move at the time. But again, the Nazis, Hitler, they were all rising to power during this moment. Hitler wasn't the juggernaut that he would be years later. But the Nazis were gaining quite a bit of popularity

[00:08:40] and Bonhoeffer saw the writing on the wall. He knew that this wasn't good. As the Nazis became more powerful, he attempted to subvert them on a few occasions. He was very bold in what he felt like his involvement in stopping political movements

[00:08:57] could be so much so that it eventually would get him, spoiler alert, arrested and executed. But not before he would get kicked out of Germany, a few different times actually during his life, and he would sneak back in to minister to his church body.

[00:09:12] After World War II rages on and Hitler tries to take over the entire world, a very controversial failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, which we've covered on previous episodes, I told you this guy has a crazy life, again, eventually leads him in prison.

[00:09:30] We did an episode called Marriage Sermon that Bonhoeffer did, which was a sermon that he wrote while in prison for a couple that he knew that was getting married. What a great testimony of character where you know you're probably getting executed,

[00:09:47] but you want to write a sermon praising the union of marriage and congratulating these two. It's a neat look at what must have been going on in Bonhoeffer's mind. The sad reality of his death is that he was executed just three weeks

[00:10:03] before Germany was liberated and the war ended. So, just a few more weeks and he would have been set free, but he met his end there right at the end of the World War II in 1945. Now Bonhoeffer lived an incredible life

[00:10:19] and even today his books Cost of Discipleship and Living Together are very influential. Joel, didn't you read one of these recently? I read Cost of Discipleship, yeah. So people are reading it today and actually the speaker for this episode, whose name is also Joel, not the same Joel,

[00:10:34] told me that he had either just read Cost of Discipleship or was reading it as well. So look at that. It's good. It's very dense. It's definitely one you need to have a notebook side by side

[00:10:47] and you need to, at least how I work, you got small portions. I'm talking like five pages at a time and then you gotta think about it for a while. But I thought it was good. And some people will give him a hard time.

[00:11:03] They'll say, hey, there are things in these books that I don't like. I don't think they're pure doctrine. And I think there's probably some truth to that. I look at the culture that he is in and look at what he was up against

[00:11:15] and I go, man, I give a lot of grace for somebody who's standing for Christ so firmly in a culture like that. Now we talked about, you know, we're talking about how it looked for him after the Nazis took over.

[00:11:23] However, this sermon that he's preaching comes in the year 1933. It actually comes, it's the first sermon he makes after Hitler has taken over as the chancellor. And I think it's important we look at what the culture of Germany looked like during that time because it's wild.

[00:11:43] We've talked in the past about what the news of the day was. I literally read a bunch of newspaper headlines from the week before that Bonhoeffer did a sermon one time and the number of things that were going on were wild.

[00:11:53] Another one of our other episodes we also talked about what it was like to go through the Great Depression in Germany. But this episode, I wanted to look more at the actual culture. What was it like? If you were living in Berlin, sure you're out of money

[00:12:06] and headlines are scaring you, but what else are you seeing? And part of the reason I wanted to do this is because over the summer Elise and I were in Kansas City. There's an art museum there, the Kauffman, I think it is, right Joel?

[00:12:18] And it's free, you can go in. Nelson. Nelson, why did I think of that? Kauffman's something else there. Anyway, the Nelson, and it's a free museum and there's a lot of really great parts of it that have good arts. But when you get to the contemporary art,

[00:12:32] there's just kind of an immediate shift you notice. And something I never noticed before, Elise was the one who pointed out, we're looking at all this really strange, odd, just disturbing, bizarre art that just, you know what I'm talking about when I say contemporary art.

[00:12:45] And Elise pointed out, look at when all this art was made that we were looking at and literally every single piece they had in that hall, all of it was gross and weird looking. All of it was made between 1920 and 1935 in Germany.

[00:12:59] And it was like, oh, that's kind of weird. This is telling you something about their culture when all their art is that kind of stuff that you think of when you think of modern art. And it makes sense. This is coming right after World War I.

[00:13:14] It devastated Europe, it devastated Germany. And the Germans are just kind of reacting to that. Their culture, their art is becoming bizarre because they're kind of leaving their moral foundations. And yet at the same time, when you looked at the weird art,

[00:13:28] you couldn't help but kind of notice that's the same stuff we make today. Like that is not all that different than the kind of art you would see in museums hanging today. Since that notion from the summer when we were in the States

[00:13:40] and we were looking at that weird art of what was going on in Germany, it made me really think about what was it like? If you're walking down the streets in Berlin, let's say you're walking to church on Sunday. What is the average Berliner's life at that time?

[00:13:52] Because I think it helps give us some perspective of what Bonhoeffer was doing. First, crime was high. It was a lot of crime, a lot of prostitution in the area. And that was true since the end of World War I.

[00:14:05] A lot of women turned to that as a way to support themselves. And it had only gotten worse since the war had ended. And technically, the German culture frowned upon it, but it thrived underground. And alongside it grew many other problems as well.

[00:14:21] Like drug trafficking was also huge at the time. Cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers, they were big on the market over there. And whenever you got organized crime, you get gangs that form up around it. Police reports of the time document at least

[00:14:39] 62 different violent gangs that were within the Berlin city warring over territory pretty constantly. So think their version of the mob. And they wore certain rings to identify them as allegiance with certain gangs and stuff. And so they were given the name, what translates into English, Ring Brothers.

[00:15:02] So just like we would call, say like mobsters or mafia. I don't know if that's a direct one-to-one comparison, but everyone there was aware of the Ring Brothers and what was going on there. And it was difficult to do anything about it.

[00:15:15] You couldn't put them in jail because again, they were so ingrained. They could intimidate witnesses, they could provide alibis, they could pay off officials. And so organized crime was pretty rampant there. And part of the reason that the Nazis rose to power

[00:15:31] was with the promise of eradicating the crime problem that was in Berlin and restore order. But despite all of the power that the SS and the Nazis had, the Ring Brothers, they weren't really fully eliminated until East Germany in the Soviet era, decades later.

[00:15:49] There were also over 500 entertainment style clubs, entertainment in air quotes there. Adult clubs essentially. Adult entertainment industries, illicit things. Tourists could actually buy a guide, a book that would tell you all the best clubs and all the different things that you could do there.

[00:16:08] An uncommon for the time thing there was the homosexual clubs that you could find. They were quite popular and there were even early movies made supporting the homosexual movement. And this was coming up on 100 years ago now. And Troy and I were talking before the show just about

[00:16:29] King Solomon saying there's nothing new under the sun. We talk about American society, but that list that I just read through there, it is undistinguishable from American society right now. Germany was just ahead of their time. They were just 100 years before at all.

[00:16:45] But it's all been a part of human nature and how the adversary manipulates people. And even more so Troy will get into. Just the way through art and society and culture and nature. How it seems like Satan will misdirect us

[00:17:06] and cause us to worship other things that aren't God. Yeah, even and this is something I found out a little bit after our notes that we were doing through. Even because people will say, okay, there's the LGBT movement in America. And even the T, the transgender stuff

[00:17:22] was also popular of those 500 clubs where you could do whatever you wanted. There were at least five known clubs dedicated to the T side of that wing. So I mean, when we say that they were in a very similar place that we are today, they really were.

[00:17:37] Now another aspect of Germany at the time was science. Albert Einstein, after all famous from this era, right? However, lurking beneath the love of physics and physicists was the idea that science was going to replace religion and that philosophy would kind of help it along.

[00:17:52] These can be seen really especially in two different places that were really important to society. The first was the philosophical circles were really promoting an early version of deconstructionism. Now, if you've heard the term deconstructionism, you've probably heard it today.

[00:18:04] It's used a lot of times if you're not familiar with it. It's kind of this idea of, it's a lot of times honestly used for people to leave the faith. They do this whole, I'm going to question everything I know. But eventually they just kind of question themselves

[00:18:16] right out of God. Well, if you're wondering where that came from, the term deconstructionism, this idea of tearing everything down until you get to the basement level basically until there's really nothing left comes from this part of Germany. Germany created it and I didn't actually know

[00:18:32] that that was the direct, like where the word and the idea came from, but it was. And just as people are using it today to walk out of the faith, they were using it back then to question everything and tear the world kind of apart as well.

[00:18:42] Also, if you've ever heard of critical race theory, well, critical theory also comes from the same time period of Germany. The philosophical roots of that idea of criticizing and just, you know, cutting everything down around you again stems from the same era. So this is the philosophical side

[00:18:58] where people are just digging apart their culture. And if I can give them a little bit of grace, I mean they had just lived through World War I and Germany lost that war and it was a really hard, terrible war. People had survived, you know, poisonous gases, bombings,

[00:19:12] I mean all kinds of horrific stuff. I can't understand, especially if you didn't have a strong faith in God, how after all of that was over, you're probably questioning everything. You went into that war believing you would be, you know, winning the war

[00:19:25] and you might even be building a great Christian kingdom on Earth and all your professors and teachers were saying get out there and win the war. And four years later you saw several people die, you lived in horrible trenches, you maybe came back with injuries.

[00:19:36] You probably were questioning everything you ever knew and the people who grew up under that, I can see why those ideas would have been popular. What's surprising, more surprising to me is that, you know, society seems to be re-embracing those ideas. It's pretty dangerous.

[00:19:50] The second philosophical and scientific thing that kind of shows you how big a deal science was was social Darwinism. We've talked about eugenics on this show, if you've never listened to the interview I got to do with Joel Berry, the head editor at the Babylon Bee

[00:20:01] where he talks about his own history dive he did on eugenics movement. I really recommend you do, it's very, very good and it's one of the most powerful sides of history and how Christians stood up to what was going on in eugenics

[00:20:14] is just one of the most powerful things you can use today. People will ever tell you, you know, Christianity is bad, it's never done anything good for the world, and people will say that today. You point them to that episode and go, yeah, I don't think so.

[00:20:23] But the idea that man was of different races and that some races were higher than others and specifically the idea that the German race was higher than others, this was firmly entrenched in their worldview because of their belief in science.

[00:20:34] People like Nietzsche had even said in their own words that, and I'm kind of almost directly quoting him here, that Christians had ruined society and by not letting the undesirables, the lesser races, the poor people, the handicapped die off and keeping them alive,

[00:20:49] taking care of the poor, loving on them, that Christians basically were causing a stain and a strain on the race. They were ruining society for the rest of everyone else because society couldn't evolve into a more perfect form while those no good Christians

[00:21:04] were taking care of the poor and it's just like, wow, it is amazing, just amazing how much they hated us for that but also that kind of thinking was ingrained into the society of Germany at that point. They looked up to Nietzsche,

[00:21:16] Nietzsche was an earlier person who told them everything was falling apart and so when Germany kind of embraced this idea that the world's falling apart, we might as well have a good time while we're going down, Nietzsche became one of their heroes.

[00:21:27] And lastly, another aspect of their society that just shows how ingrained the scientific worldview had replaced all religion and faith in God was psychology under Freud. His movement took over at this time, he became very powerful. Freud himself has said that church and religion

[00:21:43] were useful for a time but they need to be replaced with schooling and basically therapy and psychology. All of that religion stuff had served its purpose in his mind but psychology could take it from there. These are kind of the scientific worldview things

[00:21:57] that have landed on Germany at this time in around the year 1933 of Germany. Yeah, I can't help but think that, I mean, I'm sure there's a myriad of variables that go into what created the Nazis and Hitler but it's hard to look at society,

[00:22:15] at this society and go, wow, is Hitler what happens when a government is born out of a society like this? Is that the natural progression, the outcome that comes from all this? Again, I'm sure there's some anthropologists that would have more thoughts on it

[00:22:35] but you can't help but wonder, kind of make that correlation there. Another thing that became very popular during this time was an intense love of physical fitness and self-improvement through health. The inventor of Pilates, Joseph Pilate, he was German and he was getting popular at this time.

[00:22:53] The fact that you could work out and express yourself through dance all at the same time, becoming very popular. People were also falling in love with nature as a way to escape, right? There were 40 different societies that had formed around the idea of exploring

[00:23:09] and being one with nature. Resorts all over Germany to help people connect with nature, right? Another big trend, organic food. We take that kind of for granted here in America today but again, with all these things, talk about physical fitness,

[00:23:25] we talk about nature, we talk about organic food, these were all things that Germans were championing almost 100 years ago and again, were all things that you can't help but wonder. Again, there's nothing wrong with physical fitness. I feel like we all understand this

[00:23:43] but when Satan can get you to worship something else that isn't God, he can help control a society like that and you definitely can see that in American society where a lot of us are just obsessed and focused on the wrong things.

[00:24:03] Mysticism also took off during this era. Healing crystals and such. And then you have the art community and Troy was talking about the contemporary art that came out of this era. Contemporary dance is often attributed with coming out of Germany during this era.

[00:24:20] Me, myself being in the filmmaking world. I left this for you. I literally put this note and I made sure that it was on yours because I put it where I put it because I was like, I bet you Joel can do

[00:24:31] a way better job explaining this than I can. Oh yeah, the German expressionism. Cinema style was very popular during this time. A lot of horror dystopian style movies came out of this era with a very distinct style. It'd be hard to miss.

[00:24:45] You'd probably recognize, like your old original Dracula from the 30 silent movie style stuff was coming out of Germany during these eras. So, very distinct for better or for worse in most areas, worse. And also, and I didn't mention it, but a lot of really inappropriate pornographic films.

[00:25:05] The beginnings of a pornography industry were also being imagined. They weren't doing it alone. And it is important to say, America and some of the other countries in the world at the time were doing some of these things, but Germany was really, I think you could say,

[00:25:19] doing it on a whole other level and doing all of these things all together. And what if you had a business that could make your wishes come true and wanted to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life with you? The commerce platform Shopify

[00:25:44] revolutionized millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify, you can create your own online shop without any programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient set-up and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay and Co. Achieving this was never so easy.

[00:26:05] Shopify offers all the tools to set up your online business on a single, secure platform. Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de//try Simply type in shopify.de//try and get started. Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify. Now you may be wondering

[00:26:31] why did we spend so much time on an episode about Bonhoeffer not even talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We went to a lot of places, but this wasn't him. Well, for starters, this is the world Bonhoeffer was preaching in. One filled with sex, drugs, violence

[00:26:44] and a city that had given up following God and was now in free fall giving itself over to every other kind of scientific philosophical pursuit it could find. Many people have critiqued Bonhoeffer. I said this earlier where they kind of say,

[00:26:56] oh, you know, he wasn't as good a theologian as we might like. And look, there's probably some truth to that. But given the context, look at where he was, look at what he was up against and you can see how difficult it would be.

[00:27:09] Another thing too, as is the truth, I did not realize how much of our own life was tied to things that started in Germany during this really bad time. How many parallels, I mean, just we mentioned words, deconstructions of critical theory. Those things exist in our world today

[00:27:23] because 80, 90 years ago, a culture that had given up completely on God created them. And it says a lot about maybe where we're at today that we're re-adopting several of those problematic ways of viewing the world. And I can't help but worry, as I think many of us might,

[00:27:39] that we might continue adopting what comes next, right? This all kind of happened and became popular right before the Great Depression. And when the Great Depression came, the people were in a free fall. They were looking for some rope to cling on to

[00:27:53] and the Nazis held out a rope saying, hey, I know you're in trouble. We can get you back on path. And that's a real fear, I think, that we might have to worry about as the world kind of falls into the same things that Germany did 80, 90 years ago.

[00:28:08] If there's some kind of world event like a Great Depression or something like that, could somebody stand up and say, look, I can bring you back to the good old days. I can be strong and create a world of order. Can I get us back on path?

[00:28:19] You just had to give me all the power to do it. And you got to kind of worry that that kind of same message wouldn't be tantalizing to the people all over again. I think it would be. And there's just also many parallels.

[00:28:30] You cannot deny just reading about this time period in Germany, it's just undeniable how many of the same things they were struggling with we struggle with today. It was within this world that the Nazis would rise to power. It's within this world that they would control

[00:28:45] by promising to solve the inflation and Great Depression that was during their time, by promising to put an end to the immorality and drugs and crime that had taken over the culture, by promising to restore them back into being something,

[00:28:57] but they never promised to restore them back to God. They had always planned, the Nazis had always planned to use the church as just one part of it, but they were also in the process of creating their own mythos as well

[00:29:10] and a renewed kind of renewed vision of the world. Bonhoeffer saw through this. Bonhoeffer might've been tempted. I'll be honest, I think any of us could be tempted to go, man, these guys are going to clean up the streets and make things better. This is really good.

[00:29:22] We need that. But Bonhoeffer didn't go in with the Nazis on this. He didn't see this as a return. He saw what their vision for the world was. He saw that Nazism was rooted in an even worse world than the one that he was already in.

[00:29:35] He saw the consequences of Hitler's rise to power. And even though he may have promised and sounded good on paper, he saw that what was going to come from that was something even worse than what they were already seeing. Bonhoeffer stood strong

[00:29:48] when so many other in the church at the time caved and gave in. And now you can listen to this first sermon of his, the very first sermon he gave after Hitler came to power. And you can see that in this sermon, he's rejecting what's coming.

[00:30:12] Judges chapter six, verse 15 through 16. Chapter seven, verse two. And chapter eight, verse 23. Gideon said to them, And who wants to be ridiculed? Who can think of anything more humiliating than being made a laughing stock by the lord of the world? The Bible often speaks of God in heaven

[00:31:55] making fun of our human hustle and bustle, of God's laughter at the vain creatures he has made. Here is the powerful, sovereign one whose strength is unrivaled, the living lord who carries on this way with his creatures. For him who has all power in his hands,

[00:32:13] who speaks a word and it is done, who breathes out his spirit and the world lives or takes it away and the world perishes, who dashes entire nations to pieces like potter's vessels. For this God, human beings are not heroes, not heroic, but rather creatures

[00:32:30] who are meant to do his will and obey him. So that's why we have Gideon and not Siegfried, because this doubter mocked by God has learned his faith in the school of hard knocks. In the church we have only one altar, the altar of the most high,

[00:32:47] the one and only, the almighty, the lord, to whom alone be honor and praise, the creator before whom all creation bows down, before whom even the most powerful are but dust. We don't have any side altars at which to worship human beings.

[00:33:03] The worship of God and not of humankind is what takes place at the altar of our church. Anyone who wants to do otherwise should stay away and cannot come with us into God's house. Anyone who wants to build an altar to himself

[00:33:18] or to any other human is mocking God, and God will not allow such mockery. To be in the church means to have the courage to be alone with God as lord, to worship God and not any human person. And it does take courage.

[00:33:35] The thing that most hinders us from letting God be lord, that is, from believing in God, is our cowardice. That is why we have Gideon, because he comes with us to the altar of the most high, the almighty, and falls on his knees to this God alone.

[00:33:52] In the church we also have only one pulpit from which faith in God is preached and not any other faith, not even with the best intentions. This again is why we have Gideon, because he himself, his life story is a living sermon about this faith.

[00:34:09] We have Gideon because we don't want always to be speaking of our faith in abstract, otherworldly, unreal or general terms to which people may be glad to listen, but which they don't really take any note of. Because it is good once in a while actually

[00:34:26] to see faith in action, not just hear what it should be like, but see how it just happens in the midst of someone's life, in the story of a human being. Only here does faith become, for everyone, not just a children's game, but rather something highly dangerous,

[00:34:43] even terrifying. Here is a story of a person being treated without considerations or conditions or allowances. He has to bow to what is being asked or he will be broken. This is why the image of a person, of faith, is so often that of someone

[00:35:01] who is not beautiful in human terms, not a harmonious picture, but rather that of someone who has been torn to shreds. The picture of someone who has learned to have faith has a peculiar quality of always pointing away from the person's own self

[00:35:17] toward the one in whose power, in whose captivity and bondage he or she is. So we have Gideon, because his story is a story of God glorified, of the human being humbled. Here is Gideon, one person, no different from a thousand others, but out of that thousand,

[00:35:37] he is the one whom God comes to meet, who is called into God's service, is called to act. Why is he the one? Or why is it you or I? Is it because God wants to make fun of me and coming to talk with me?

[00:35:53] Is it God's grace which makes a mockery of all our understanding? But what are we asking here? Isn't God entitled to call whomever God chooses, you or me, the highly placed or the lowly, strong or powerless, rich or poor,

[00:36:09] without our being entitled to start arguing about it straight away? Is there anything we can do here other than hear and obey? Gideon is supposed to liberate Israel from its bondage at the hands of the Midianites, an enemy nation with superior power.

[00:36:25] He, who is just like any of the thousand others, is called upon to do a phenomenal deed. He looks at himself and his own strength and then at the unconquerable might of the opposing side. He has nothing on his side. The enemy has it all. He responded,

[00:36:45] Lord, how can I deliver Israel? How am I supposed to accomplish this thing that you have called me to do? Lord, it's too big a job. Don't be cruel. Take it back or let me see some help. Give me armies, weapons, riches.

[00:37:02] God, you don't realize how wretched we really are. Look at the starving, weakened people. See how homelessness and lack of bread makes them doubt you. Look how they bow down to other gods and not to you. How can I deliver Israel?

[00:37:19] This Gideon is someone we know, isn't he? He has suddenly become very much alive for us in our day. Gideon, we recognize your voice only too well. You sound just the same today as you did then. The call comes to our Protestant Church,

[00:37:37] just one like many others in the world. You are to redeem Israel. You are to set the people free from the chains of fear and cowardice and evil that bind them. This call startles the Church and troubles it profoundly, this Church without influence, powerless, undistinguished in every way.

[00:37:55] Why is it the one to be burdened with this call? It looks at the hopelessness of its proclamation. It looks at the apathy and the misery of those who are supposed to be listening and recognizes it is not equal to the task.

[00:38:11] It looks upon its own inner emptiness and barrenness and it says fearfully and reproachfully, with what am I supposed to redeem these people? How am I supposed to do this phenomenal thing? And then suddenly the call comes to us.

[00:38:27] Put an end to the bondage in which you are living. Put an end to the mortal fear that gnaws at you, to the power of human desire that is burning you up, to your tormented and self-satisfied keeping to yourself.

[00:38:43] Put an end to your fear of other people and your vanity. Set yourself free. Who would be willing to say that he or she has never heard this call and has never answered, as Gideon did? Lord, with what am I supposed to do such great things?

[00:39:00] But then Gideon is silenced. Today, as just as in those days, he's told to shut up. You're asking, with what? Haven't you realized what it means that this is God talking to you? Isn't the call of God enough for you? If you listen properly, doesn't it drown out

[00:39:19] all your with what questions? I will be with you. That means you are not asked to do this with any other help. It is I who have called you. I will be with you. I will be doing it too. Do you hear that, Gideon of yesterday and today?

[00:39:35] God has called you, and that is enough. Do you hear that, individual, doubting Christian, asking and doubting yourself? Oh, Christian, God has plans for you, and that does mean you. Be ready and see to it. Never forget, even when your own powerlessness

[00:39:53] is grinding you down to the ground, that God has phenomenal, immeasurable great plans for you. He says, I will be with you. What does Gideon do? He goes out and has the trumpets blown, calls up an army from all the tribes,

[00:40:08] gathers around him whatever fighting forces he can find. Compared to the superior forces of the enemy, it is still only a small army, and Gideon hesitates to go into battle. Then, just as he is pitching his tents opposite those of the enemy,

[00:40:23] there comes God again, blocking his path. Gideon, what have you done? Gideon, where is your faith? Look at this army of yours. Why, isn't it just too big? Gideon, it was fear and doubt that made you call up this army.

[00:40:40] The troops with you are too many for me. I am not going to give you the victory this way. Then you would only take the credit for yourselves and say, we have delivered ourselves, we have gained the victory, but I will have none of it.

[00:40:54] Fall down before your God and let God be your Lord. Know that only God can save you. This is God's promise, and the word of God is more powerful than all the armies in the world. Here, the crucial question has been put.

[00:41:09] Gideon, do you seriously believe in God your Lord, even here, face to face with this terrifyingly dangerous enemy? Then, Gideon, send your massive army home. You don't need it. God is with you. The victory belongs to God and not to your army. What a phenomenal thing to ask.

[00:41:32] What a confusing encounter with the living God. There stands Gideon with his little army, hesitating to go out against the enemy's superior forces. And then God comes and laughs rudely in his face and makes fun of him. Gideon, the troops with you are too many for me.

[00:41:50] Instead of bringing on huge amounts of weapons and armies, he calls for a disarmament, meaning faith, true faith. Send your armies home. How cruelly God makes fun of all human might. It's the bitterest of all tests of faith

[00:42:08] and makes God an incomprehensible master and tyrant over the world when he tries our faith like this. Isn't it crazy? Wouldn't Gideon have been torn apart inwardly to have to give up the only forces that, from a human standpoint,

[00:42:23] he could count on here in the face of such a large enemy? What kind of wild God is this, zealous for his own honor, always standing in human beings' way and frustrating their plans? Why does God frustrate us? Because God is opposed to the proud.

[00:42:43] Because humans keep getting it wrong, however they may try to do it. Why do we always get it wrong? Because we are always trying for our own credit and don't want to believe in God. But Gideon believed and obeyed. He let his troops go home,

[00:43:00] and with every man who left, his faith grew in this God who had made fun of him. And when they had all gone, except for a tiny remnant, the victory was given into his hands. He believed, he obeyed, he gave God the glory.

[00:43:17] He renounced the honor for himself, and God kept the promise made. Isn't this just a tall tale? Anyone who says so has failed to understand that Gideon is still with us, that the old story of Gideon is being played out in Christendom every day, all around with us.

[00:43:35] Every day, all around us. I will be with you in the face of the enemy. What does Gideon do? What do we do? We gather up all our forces. We reach out for every means of help. We calculate, we weigh, we count.

[00:43:53] We arm ourselves with offensive and defensive weapons. Until then, suddenly and unexpectedly, nobody knows the hour. The living God is there and assaults us again. If you have faith, lay down your weapons. I am your weapon. Take off your armor. I am your armor. Put away your pride.

[00:44:17] I am your pride. Do you hear that, Church of Gideon? Leave God alone for this task. Let the Word and the sacraments and the commandment of God be your weapons. Don't look around for other help. Don't be frightened. God is with you.

[00:44:34] Let my grace be sufficient for you. Don't try to be strong, mighty, famous, respected. But let God alone be your strength, your fame and honor. Or don't you believe in God? It does seem crazy, doesn't it, that the Church should not defend itself by every means possible

[00:44:55] in the face of the terrible threats coming at it from every side. What madness brought this Gideon into the world? But all this is only the foolishness of the Christian faith itself. That is what this story is about. It's not about the particular command that was given.

[00:45:12] It's not that which is valid for all the ages, but rather the foolishness, the stumbling block of living faith, which confesses, with our might it cannot be done. Soon were our losses effected. And you as an individual, you who have heard the call to free yourself from bondage,

[00:45:34] to loosen its chains and the grip of fear, you are already right back into acting from lack of faith. You think that by straining to exert all your energies you can do it yourself by putting all you have into it because you want to control your own destiny.

[00:45:50] Then suddenly there is God standing in your path, and there go all your fine plans again. Lay down your weapons, for I am your weapon, and a thousand of your weapons are not equal to one of mine. Let me do what you cannot do.

[00:46:07] You want the honor of saying, I have delivered myself, but this is not for you. Give me the honor and the glory. Believe in me. Let my grace be sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Gideon's warriors must have been flabbergasted.

[00:46:26] They must have shuddered when he gave them the order to go home. The church is always astounded and shudders when it hears the voice of the one who commands it to renounce power and honor, to let go of all its calculations and let God alone do God's work.

[00:46:42] We shake our heads and are scandalized as we watch many a Gideon going his way among us. But how can that confound us who see in the midst of our church the cross, which is the sign of powerlessness, dishonor, defenselessness, hopelessness, meaningless?

[00:47:02] And yet is always where we find divine power, honor, defense, hope, meaning, glory, life, victory? Do we now see their direct line from Gideon to the cross? Do we see that the name of this line in a word is faith? Gideon conquers, the church conquers, we conquer

[00:47:29] because faith conquers, because faith alone conquers. But the victory belongs not to Gideon, the church, or ourselves, but to God. And God's victory means our defeat, our humiliation. It means God's derision and wrath at all human pretensions of might, at humans puffing themselves up

[00:47:54] and thinking they are somebodies themselves. It means the world and its shouting is silenced, that all our ideas and plans are frustrated. It means the cross, the cross over the world. That means that human beings, even the most noble,

[00:48:12] go down to dust whether it suits them or not, and with them all the gods and idols and lords of this world. The cross of Jesus Christ, that means God's bitter mockery of all human grandeur and God's bitter suffering in all human misery.

[00:48:29] God's lordship over all the world. The people approach the victorious Gideon with the final trial, the final temptation. Be our Lord, rule over us. But Gideon has not forgotten his own history nor the history of his people.

[00:48:46] The Lord will rule over you, and you will have no other lord. At this word all the altars of gods and idols fall down, all worship of human beings and human self-idolization. They are all judged, condemned, counseled out, crucified, and toppled into the dust

[00:49:05] before the one who alone is Lord. Beside us kneels Gideon, who was brought through fear and doubt to faith before the altar of the one and only God. And with us Gideon prays, Lord on the cross, be our only Lord. Amen.

[00:49:35] An important piece of context for this sermon that we actually hadn't mentioned, and I learned this from researching this sermon, was that at the time in Germany there was this mythos idea that the Nazis were trying to create. They were trying to create their own mythology

[00:49:49] of a man named Siegfried. He was an unconquerable Germanic hero from an era before, and the Nazi propaganda everywhere in the Nazi propaganda was basically like, we're going to get our students, our kids, our people to be Siegfrieds again. We're going to make Siegfried a thing.

[00:50:06] This young hero of the German people, this kind of King Arthur-like legendary figure is going to take over, and the Nazis are going to bring you Siegfrieds again. Bonhoeffer's first sermon after Hitler officially takes power, he goes through and he picks a passage from the Old Testament,

[00:50:25] Gideon, about a young man who's afraid, terrified in fact. He's up against armies that are completely outnumbering him, and God is commanding him to go and fight, even though there's no chance on paper, not a chance in a million years, that on paper Gideon could win that battle,

[00:50:45] and yet God is still saying go, and he will win the battle for him. It's not a coincidence that in a world where everywhere Bonhoeffer was looking in Berlin, cathedrals, churches, every building would have been waving that Nazi swastika, and he would have probably looked around him,

[00:51:02] and if he was counting his enemies, much like young Gideon, he would have probably been like, the numbers are too big, there's no way we can win, and he would have heard all this Nazi propaganda about how the Siegfried is here, how we're going to do it,

[00:51:14] and yet Bonhoeffer picks a different young man, one from the Old Testament, one who was outnumbered just like they were at that time, a Gideon, and says we have to be like Gideon. We have to be bold and brave, though our armies completely outnumber us,

[00:51:28] haven't they always outnumbered us? And then very powerfully, and this isn't included in the sermon, he ended it on the hymn, the service would have ended on the hymn, Martin Luther's hymn, a mighty fortress is our God, and as a German people,

[00:51:44] they would have known the significance of that. Martin Luther himself was once a German who was up against the entire world, who was completely outnumbered, there's no way he could have won that battle, yet trusting in God, he won. I think that it just,

[00:52:00] as much as I wish I could, I don't think we can just truly capture how powerful that message Bonhoeffer sent to his congregation after Hitler came to power was. I don't think you can really replicate what he was saying. He was saying, we're outnumbered,

[00:52:16] we can't win, but we're gonna try anyway. And remember the last time we German Christians were outnumbered, Martin Luther, well he did it too, and guess what? The whole world changed, we're gonna try it again. That's, that's courage, that takes something that a lot of us,

[00:52:30] I don't think, I don't know that I could do what he did. So it's a great sermon, powerfully preached at just the right time. This sermon was read by a friend of mine, Joel Lahnbeck. He was able to read this, he's a friend in the community,

[00:52:54] we had his family over, it was a great time. I'm really appreciative of him reading this sermon for us and he's just a wonderful guy, has a great heart for God. And so we're really grateful that he was able to help bring this sermon

[00:53:05] back to life for us. So thank you so much, Joel, for reading this one for us. If you are listening to this episode of Revived Thoughts and you're enjoying what you hear, you've learned some maybe new things and hopefully walked away from the sermon

[00:53:18] feeling a little bit more encouraged, we encourage you, please, share this episode with, from friends, tell some people about what you learned here today. Maybe share it with somebody who needs a little hope, needs a little encouragement. Maybe they're looking at the situation in the world today

[00:53:30] and they're a little bit worried, send this sermon to them and say, hey, be bold, be courageous. This is not the first time we felt some struggles, we as Christians can see it through, but share it around, tell others about what we're doing here at Revived Thoughts

[00:53:42] so that more people can learn about the history and what God has been doing for the last 2000 years throughout his church. This is Troy and Joel and this is Revived Thoughts. Someone who can make your wishes come true

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