Part 5

Part 5

Rev.1:5 There, as we read in Revelation, the blood of Christ

Rev. 7:14 can cleanse us.

From a letter: I have heard your desperate cry for help, and I have great understanding for you. Your thoughts frighten you so much that they gain power over you. You must turn from this fear. Through it you yourself suggest these thoughts into your heart, and then even more desperate and terrible fears, anxieties, and needs enter you.

Don't let your fears shake you. If you can drop them and trust in God, many things will become different. Never doubt in God's help and intervention. I assure

you that he loves you and that he is much closer to you than you know.

Mt. 28:20 Jesus promises us that he will be with us always, until the end of all days. But we should not underestimate the dark powers of impurity, mammonism, murder, hatred, and unforgiveness surrounding us, which at­ tack brothers and sisters in the church. Jesus must have foreseen that the church would be attacked by the

Mt. 16:18 powers of hell, because he told Peter that these powers would not overcome it. We need to watch and pray all the time.

Together with the rest of suffering humankind, we long that the demonic net that still covers the earth be rent – even if it means great turmoil. We believe it will be removed in God's time through the breaking in of his kingdom.

The Fight

The invisible powers that surround us men on earth can bring either great suffering or great joy. There are powers of God that bring peace, justice, joy, forgive­ ness of sins, and community. These powers are embod­ ied in Jesus Christ. But there are also dark powers of murder, envy, ambition, and injustice. They, too, are invisible, but once they take hold of a person's soul, they drive him to commit visible deeds of evil.

We must grasp that the powers we are talking about are not abstract just because they are invisible. We are dealing with something absolutely real – not with a philosophy or a teaching, but with powers of darkness and light, good and evil, destruction and unity; with powers that want to kill and powers that want to make us alive.

When Jesus drove out devils from people who were possessed, he healed their souls and hearts. His ene­ mies said, "He drives out the devil with a greater dev­ il." But Jesus answered, "If I were to drive out the devil with a greater devil, his kingdom would be divided and would collapse." The devil's army is very disciplined: it

Lk. 11:15

Lk. 11:17:18

knows how to attack a soul, a united group of people, or even a nation.

We know from the Gospel that the whole earth is a battlefield for God and the devil, and so is every hu­ man heart. We simply have to reckon with it that the devil will be furious when two or three or more are completely united in Jesus.

There was never a fiercer battle between God and Satan than that fought by Jesus at Golgotha. It even seemed to Jesus that God had forsaken him. But in spite of this, he laid his soul and spirit into the hands of the Father in trust. Then the victory was won, not only for this earth but for all powers, principalities, and angels.

From a letter: Our fight is not against flesh and blood, not against people; it is a fight for the atmosphere of the true church –for the atmosphere of God in each of our communities and in the heart of each brother and sister. All of us go through pain and judgment, but this should not be the end; judgment is only the beginning of new joy, hope, and the victory of redemption. It should free us for love, for service, and for God.

The atmosphere at each Bruderhof must continually be renewed to become an atmosphere of love, purity, and everything else Jesus represented. Only then can love stream out from us to all people. For this we must pray and fight again and again.

The idea that Jesus brought a new philosophy or founded a religion is completely false. His person, his spirit, his cause, his healing, is not a philosophy like that of the Greeks or Egyptians. He was and is a person, and it is he himself who meets us. I love the words, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and

Jn. 6:53 drink his blood, you have no life in you." That is not the philosophy of some great man; it is Jesus himself.

No one can be indifferent to Jesus. One must de­ cide for him or against him. The fact that we are sin­ ful does not hinder us from coming to Jesus. Being tempted will not hinder us from coming to him either. Even if the Evil One torments us, that will not hinder us. But we cannot tolerate indifference to Jesus, and neither can we tolerate any human effort to interpret him. If we experience –not in our minds but in our

Jn. 1:29 hearts –the meaning of the words "This is the Lamb of God, who carries the sins of the world" or "For the

Heb. 9:15 forgiveness of sins he took this death upon himself," we will see that it is not a philosophy, but life.

We need to experience Jesus in his height and depth and breadth. And we must understand the cross, which stood firm and still stands, in a spiritual sense. It reaches up into heaven, to the throne of God, and its outstretched arms are still there for a lost humankind.

From a letter: Brothers and sisters, let us be wide awake, because whenever God wants to do something

good among men, the devil makes every effort to destroy it. Think of the temptation of Jesus after his baptism: he was tempted by the devil because his heart was so pure, and because he belonged completely to God.

Nothing is more annoying to the prince of this world than a church in its first love. In Revelation,

Rev. 2-3 we can read how already in John's time the devil suc­ ceeded in harming the church. This happened to such an extent that Jesus had to tell one congregation that it

Rev. 3:1 only had the name of being alive, but was in fact dead. Yet even then he gave that church a chance to wake up, to change, and to return to a true and genuine love.

I believe –if I dare speak from my deepest heart – that Jesus wants to come to us as intimately as if his blood were our blood, to cleanse us completely.

From a letter: I protest against the idea that it is wrong to react with strong emotion or excitement when God is attacked, when brothers and sisters are mistreated, or when the church is harmed. I do not think Jesus was calm and collected when he drove the money changers out of the temple, where God's honor was at stake. I will protest my whole life long against cool soberness in the face of cruelty or anything else that destroys God's work.

In our concern for God's work, the tendency to judge men in a theoretical way is one of the gravest tempta­

tions. We need such an outpouring of the spirit of God upon us that everything in us and among us is revealed. Following this, clarity and decisiveness will come of themselves. We must beseech God most ear­ nestly for this love to Christ so that all darkness and evil in our household is revealed.

If we give ourselves over in faith to God and to Jesus, we will be cleansed. In his farewell words, Jesus says,

Jn. 15:5 "I am the true vine; you are the branches." He says

Jn. 5:1-2 that if we are to bear fruit, we will need to be cleansed, and the knife of the gardener will need to cut into our hearts. As disciples of Jesus we need this cleansing, this knife, this sharpness in our hearts and our lives. If we reject the gardener who cleanses us, we are unfaith­ ful in the eyes of God, and we will not be able to bear fruit.

Are we ready to have Christ's Word cut deeply into us, or will we repeatedly protect and harden ourselves against it? We do not realize how often we stand in God's way. But we can ask him in his mercy and love to cut us with his Word – even if it hurts.

We should put our whole trust in God alone. Yet we also need to trust one another. We cannot live without

trusting one another, even though we know that men can and do fail. Peter denied Jesus three times, yet he was one of the most trusted apostles. He failed, but then he went away and wept bitterly. There is no other way for us either, than to repent as deeply and to weep as bitterly as he did.

Jn. 18:15-27

Even if we have to recognize that we have failed, we must not see everything as black –or think the founda­ tion has been taken away from under our lives. God's judgment is God's goodness; it cannot be separated from his mercy and compassion. If we repent deeply and become humble before God, we will become nothing, and then Christ can live in us.

It is certainly sinful to use God's working in us to build up our own pride. But it is also sinful to deny God's working when we fail him. Our failures should lead us to humility and to God.

Perhaps the worst thing that can be said against a church is what was written to the church at Sardis: "Though you have the name of being alive, you are dead." If a church is dead, it is like the salt spoken of in the Sermon on the Mount, which has lost its taste and will be thrown away and trodden upon. Every church is in danger of going to sleep, of losing its life. Yet Jesus says that if he finds life even in a few, he will have patience and give them time to repent.

Rev. 3:1

In the short history of our Bruderhof we have known the struggle for purity in our church. We have

known the struggle against deadness and against being a church that has the name of being alive but is in ac­ tual fact dead. Yet each time Jesus chastises us, he gives us time to repent, as a church and as individuals.

One passage in the Gospel has become very clear to us: we must be salt. We have realized with a shudder how dangerous it is for the church if the flavor and power of its salt is lost. Salt gives taste to something tasteless, and salt wards off decay. Our age needs salt.

Mt. 5:13

We are guilty of having tolerated false spirits for too long. Jesus warns us very sharply against false prophets and against those who speak of peace where there is no peace, or of love where there is no love.

From a letter: We must find the way to follow Jesus' command to forgive others just as he forgives us, but at the same time we must be clear and let no darkness come into the church. This is sometimes a great ten­ sion for me. In Colossians 3:12–17, Paul says that we should have understanding, forgiveness, and kindness in our hearts toward our brother. These we must have. Still, the spiritual struggle we are in makes it ade­ quately clear that we cannot allow anything dark into the life of the church. May God help us to find his – and only his–way out of this tension.

Col. 3:12-17

When God alone rules in every heart we will have a healthy community, full of joy, full of dedication, and full of love. Everyone will feel this in the atmosphere. Each member will go to another and ask forgiveness for where he has caused hurt or harmed love in the past. And this will be done not because someone has said it should be done but out of an inner urge.

Every church needs voices that dare to speak for Christ, even when this is painful for the person speak­ ing as well as for other members. But speaking out must always be done in the love of Christ, otherwise it is a sin.

1 Jn. 3:8 Jesus came to earth to destroy the works of the devil, and he has millions of angels of God at his disposal to help him in this spiritual struggle. But Satan also has many angels–evil spirits, devils, and demons–at his disposal.

This spiritual struggle shows itself like this: the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of Jesus, helps us to find God and to give us his thoughts and his love. This spirit helps us to overcome all evil and impure emo­ tions. At the same time, the devil works in our hearts, giving us thoughts of evil, impurity, murder, envy, mistrust, and the desire for power. Yet all of us have guardian angels who will protect us if we follow what is good.

Christ must come to the deepest depths of our inner being, deeper than our conscious thoughts, deeper than our usual feelings –to the uttermost depths. Every per­ son who knows something of deep inner struggles has an inkling of this. Through Christ he can find courage to believe against all unbelief, even where there was never any hope for belief, and strength to hope against all hope of finding love in another person.

From a letter: It is understandable that you are afraid of what others think of you. But even if it is under­ standable, it is a sin. When we are completely depen­ dent on God, we will have the courage to stand up to anyone who violates our own conscience or that of anyone else, or to anyone who mistreats another. It is a sin to be silent out of fear. I have committed this sin many times in my life, but I have also seen the bitter fruit it brought to myself and to the whole church.

All of us know the struggles of the human heart, yet we have to see beyond them. We have to see the struggle of the whole church against darkness. It is an enormous struggle. And ultimately, we have to see it all in relation to the much greater struggle of the whole universe, which is led by God with his armies of thou­ sands and thousands of angels and his stars of light, music, and harmony.

Mt. 5:13 You are salt to the world. And if salt becomes tasteless, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is good for noth­ ing but to be thrown away and trodden underfoot." If we are to be salt we cannot be diplomats who agree with the arguments of evil; we cannot be "fair." We must be completely and wholly one-sided in our loy­ alty to God and to Jesus.

From a letter: We have to make a decision for Christ,

Mt. 12:30 otherwise we will turn against him. The world situ­ ation impels us to take a stand for Christ–a stand against violence, injustice, hatred, and impurity. We must witness to this not only in words but in deeds. Our lives must prove that there is a better way.

From the Covenant of the Lord's Supper * We declare ourselves in unity under God's judgment

and mercy. We vow that we want to live in reverence for God, for

Christ, and for his Holy Spirit. The cross, where the forgiveness of sins can be found,

is the center of our life. We declare war against all irreverence toward God, his

Christ, and his church.

* The Covenant of the Lord's Supper was written by Heinrich Arnold and signed by all baptized members of the Bruderhof on December 30, 1975, after a year of intense struggle, to clarify the position of the brotherhood on several important issues.

We declare war against the misuse of the name of God,

of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit. We declare war against all irreverence toward the child­

like spirit of Jesus as it lives in children, and we want to fight for those older children in whom the childlike spirit has been partly lost. We declare war against all emotional or physical

cruelty toward children. We declare war against the search for power over the

souls of other people, including children. We seek the atmosphere of the church and of the angels of God. We vow to pray for the light of Jesus so that all who

are in bondage or tormented by evil thoughts may be freed, and so that all those who serve darkness may be revealed and called to repentance. We declare war against the spirit of mammon and all

false love connected with mammon. We declare war against all human greatness and all

forms of vanity. We declare war against all pride, including collective

pride. We declare war against the spirit of unforgiveness, en­

vy, and hatred. We vow to lay down before the cross our own power

and our own "greatness." We declare war against any degrading of others,

including those who have fallen into sin. We declare war against all cruelty to anyone, even if he

has sinned.

We declare war against all forms of magic or curiosity

about satanic darkness. We ask for the courage to rejoice in suffering and

persecution for the cause of right. We ask for forgiveness of our sins, because without

Jesus our hearts and our actions cannot be pure. We pray to live for the world as Jesus expressed it in

Jn. 17:21 John 17: that we may all be one as Christ is one with the Father, so that the world may believe that Christ was sent by the Father. With Christ we ask not to be taken out of this world but to be protect­ ed from the power of evil. We ask Christ to consecrate our brotherhood through

his truth. Christ's Word is the truth. We ask that he may send us out to be a light in this world.

World Suffering

1 Tim. 6:10 If we look for the roots of suffering, we will find them in possessiveness and the spirit of mammon. This

Jn. 8:44 spirit is of Satan, who is a murderer from the begin­ ning, as Jesus said. It brings darkness and death. Many who serve it try to hide behind marvelous ideals. But despite these ideals the fruits of this spirit are injustice and death, and these are the cause of the suffering of our time and of all times. If we look at world suffering honestly, we will see how closely it is connected with our own guilt and the guilt of all men today, and we will also recognize that since this suffering is all one, we are part of it and must suffer with all others who suffer.

There is so much pain on the earth! If we are filled with God's love, we will experience this pain ourselves; we will feel something of the need of children, the elderly, the mentally disturbed, the unwanted, and the starving. But if we see only the suffering of the world, our view is completely one-sided. For God's sake we must recognize and proclaim the fact that suffering is

a fruit of the great sin and guilt of the world, a fruit of man's rebellion against God.

Only God knows how much of the world's need is sin and how much of it is suffering. It has been said that if one were to put the evil of the world on one side of a scale and its suffering on the other, the scale would bal­ ance. I do not know if this is true, but it is quite clear that sin and suffering go together. War, for example, is sin, but it also involves enormous suffering. God sees both the sin and the suffering.

We believe in God's indescribable longing to save hu­ mankind not only from its need but also from its sin. It is irreverent to talk of world need without seeing the hurt done to God by world sin, which is also our sin.

If it were not for God's longing to seek men through Jesus, there would be nothing but inner and physical death on earth. Jesus is the Lamb of God who carries the sins of the world. He is the answer – the only answer to all sin and need.

When we see the world's churches as they are today, where money has so much power and there is so little compassion for the poor, we should feel challenged to reach out more. We know that the first believers in the church at Rome fed their own poor and the poor

of the whole city.* They lived in the first love of Jesus, and that is where we are found wanting. The hour de­ mands that we return to this first love.

Mt. 25 From a letter: In Matthew 25 Jesus speaks of those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, and in prison. We, too, are concerned about these people, about the hunger and want of the world. But what should we do? We live too well. We should eat less and do with less, so as to share with the poor. The early Christians fasted for one or two days a week so as to give food to the hungry. We are not doing enough by sharing just among our own brothers and sisters. We should appoint at least one brother from each of our communities to seek out people in need, to bring them food and clothing, and to see that they have adequate heating, and so on.

From a letter: You say that the poor have no longing for God, that they are completely dull and indifferent, that you yourself have spent time in a boarding house for tramps, and that they wanted nothing else than to get to the top themselves, to oppress others, and so on. You even say that there is no point in trying to help such people – they want nothing else anyway.

Dear brother, this is not the spirit of the love of Jesus. It is true that many people are inwardly dull, but

* Eberhard Arnold, ed. The Early Christians (Rifton, NY: Plough, 1970), pp. 17-19

this apathy is an expression of their need. It is a sign – probably the worst sign – of how strongly Satan, the enemy of Jesus and the murderer from the beginning, still rules over people. Don't you realize how deeply it must grieve Jesus when we talk about the need of our fellowmen in such a cold and superior way?

Do you think Jesus had this attitude? Do you believe he would have died for us if he had felt this way? We cannot talk like this about the poor and op­ pressed – no, we are called to love our fellowmen, and especially those who are so badly off that they can no longer see the way ahead.

From a letter: To offer a night's lodging to a home­ less person has always been a fundamental principle of the Bruderhof. The police have sometimes brought us homeless people, even families with children, in the middle of the night, and we have always found a way of giving them a place to sleep.

Under Hitler's regime the German secret police forbade the Bruderhof to take in any guests. But we informed them that we would never refuse a night's lodging to anyone, even if the police disapproved of it; we would never close the door to a homeless person.

We would lose our whole witness if we were not even willing to give a night's lodging to a person in need. But the main thing is love. Paul says that even

1 Cor. 13:3 if we give all our possessions to the poor but have no love, it will be of no use.

In the first years of the Bruderhof, whenever an unwed mother came to our house in search of a place to stay, my father would invite her for at least two or three nights. Several of these women had been thrown out of their homes, so they stayed on, and some had their ba­ bies while with us. We also had drunkards, thieves, and people who were wanted by the police. Once a mur­ derer who had served more than twenty years in prison lived with us. My parents were not worried about the possible repercussions of exposing us children to such situations. But we were never exposed to sexual impu­ rity. If there was indecent behavior on the part of those we took in, my father did not tolerate it.

None of these people joined us, and I don't think any of them had any interest in us as a church; they were just homeless. But my father never refused any of them a roof. The Bible says that by giving shelter to Heb. 13:2

strangers, many have entertained angels without know­ ing it.

In these days of violent upheaval in our country, the extreme right is very active.* At the same time, others with high ideals who speak out for righteousness and justice among men and nations are also very active. We cannot stand aside. If people go to prison and give their lives for their beliefs, we can have only the deep­ est respect and reverence for it. But we should also

* Written June 13, 1964

long and strive for a righteousness deeper than one based on the rights of men.

I am concerned about an incident that has occurred locally, and I don't know how we should respond.* A man from our neighborhood was beaten –struck over the head twice–because he removed anti-Semitic post­ ers that had been displayed publicly. How should we protest such violence, and how should we witness to love and justice? On the one hand, there is a danger of getting too involved in politics; it isn't our task. On the other hand, we cannot be silent about injustice in our own neighborhood; we cannot simply be complacent and say that it isn't our business. Having lived in Ger­ many in the 1930s, I know what it means when people are silent in such matters. Hitler was able to take over Germany only because so many people did not dare to protest or get involved.

The world is heading in a serious direction; the arms race has men preparing for mass murder such as the world has never seen. In Vietnam people are being tortured, wounded, and killed daily.† What is our re­ sponsibility? We must ask ourselves this question quite openly. We have done very little. We have joined the marches against racial injustice in the South, and we

* Written April 12, 1964 † Written August 22, 1965

have spoken out against the war in Vietnam. We have visited our senators and representatives to tell them of our concern, but all this is very little.

We know that the past, the present, and the future lie in God's hands, and if we give ourselves to God we must be ready to suffer and even die. Men like Michael Schwerner* died for their belief that love among men must be strengthened. We, too, should be ready to suf­ fer and to die if God asks it of us.

Our hearts are small –I know it of myself –but we will find an answer to the question of our responsibil­ ity if we let ourselves be moved by God. Any other way will fail. If God's love moves our hearts, our lives will take on new depths and heights, and he will lead us to take the right action. But we must ask him to move our hearts today, tomorrow, and every day.

To be complacent in the face of injustice is a terrible sin, and therefore we have great respect for the Civil Rights Movement. Many people in it are making sac­ rifices for righteousness, and some have even sacrificed their lives. But the fight for civil rights itself will not bring about the kingdom of God, and we must not lose sight of this, in spite of our respect for those who sacrifice everything for it. Something much greater must come into being, something we ourselves cannot make: the powerful atmosphere of the spirit of Jesus, which must penetrate into all the world.

* Young civil rights activist murdered in Mississippi in 1964.

As injustice continues to increase, let us hold on to our hope in the kingdom of God and seek to live ac­ cording to it, to show the world a new righteousness that includes love even to the enemy. This is the an­ swer to the great need of our time in the world at large, but especially on the political and racial scene here in America.

Daniel and all the other prophets –as well as John in his Book of Revelation –speak of the "last days" before the kingdom of God comes, when humankind will have to face heavy judgment. The famines and pes­ tilences of every century, the persecution of our Ana­ baptist forefathers and countless other small groups, the Thirty Years' War, and the wiping out of the American Indians are all examples of enormous suffer­ ing that already fulfill many prophecies of judgment. So are the First and Second World Wars, which held perhaps the greatest horrors humankind has ever seen. The last days have already begun.

There is such endless need on earth – much more than we can ever know. Some of it is economic need, and some of it is social need, but in a deeper way it is all inner need brought into men's lives by the dark pow­ ers of injustice, murder, and unfaithfulness. Some of us used to believe that through political or social measures radical changes could take place in our soci­

ety–changes that would answer this need. But as we have seen again and again, the leaders of today's world always get caught in their own lies and webs of dishon­ esty; the cold dollar rules, and impurity and unfaith­ fulness are everywhere.

We know that our few Bruderhof communities will not change the world. But Christ will, and we want to give ourselves voluntarily to him. He demands our whole personality and our whole life. He came to save the world, and we believe that he, not any human leader, will one day govern the earth. For him we live and give our utmost, and for him we are willing to die.

Mission

It is our deep longing as a brotherhood that we may reach out to other seeking people. But this does not mean that we should all drive off and talk to people about our faith. Mission has to be given by God in a burning, genuine way so that we are led to those who want to hear. We cannot just preach to people. We seek an inner, personal relationship with them – some­ thing that cannot be made by men. Only God can give us the right word at the right time for the right person.

We are not interested in making members for the Bruderhof, as people sometimes think. Our movement would collapse if that were our motive. We want to gather because Jesus tells us to gather. When my broth­ er Hardy was studying at Tübingen University in the 1930s, my father asked him to arrange some public lectures there. Hardy had large posters put up, an­ nouncing that Dr. Eberhard Arnold would speak about the Bruderhof. But my father said, "I certainly won't do that. I will speak about God's cause. I won't men­ tion the Bruderhof." The cause of God should be our main concern.

cf. Mt. 12:30

cf. Mt. 23:37

We long to have contact with more people, but all our wishes and longings must come under one desire: that at any hour, in any place, not our will but God's will be done. We must willingly submit to this. The last few years have shown us –or should have shown us– our incapability, our sinfulness, and our powerless­ ness. Mission depends on whether our faith is a living faith.

Let us watch that we do not go out on mission in hu­ man strength. There is enough preaching in the world; so many people go out of their own accord and preach. I am all for mission, but only if it is God's will that moves us, and not our own egos.

In the early church, where true mission was alive in a special way, there were two important conditions: the believers were of one heart, mind, and soul, and they were repentant. We must find this oneness of heart, mind, and soul, and we must find the humility and repentance of Paul.

We cannot escape the command of mission. For a church to remain alive, missionaries must be sent out, two by two perhaps, as in the early church or among the Anabaptists of the 16th century. The city must stand on a hill, and the light must shine out. Does the world really recognize through today's church that the

Father sent Jesus Christ into the world? Do we not have an enormous responsibility? Jesus' last words to his disciples were, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

Mk. 16:15-16

It is unlikely that there will be another Pentecost where thousands are baptized in one day. But we long that the seeds of Jesus might be planted in our corrupt soci­ ety, even if we must leave it to God whether the seeds become plants and bear fruit. The twelve apostles ac­ complished much, but they were sent with the author­ ity of Christ. Nothing like it has happened again since.

I know mission cannot be forced, but I have an enormous longing that the seed is sown, that men awaken and love Jesus and keep his words. Then he will come to them and dwell with them.

Let us pray that whenever we mention the name of the Lord and proclaim the Gospel, it is with the fire of the Holy Spirit. That is the need of our age, the need of our poor earth, which was visited by the Son of God and has not been forgotten by him.

The cross is deeply implanted into the earth. It points to heaven, but its outstretched arms express the

Jn. 12:32 hunger and thirst of Jesus for all men. Christ said, "I shall draw all men to myself when I am lifted up from the earth."

Our life seems to have a certain contradiction. On the one hand, we would like to embrace the whole of humankind. If it were possible, we would like to convince thousands and millions of people to live as brothers and sisters in Christ. We want as many as pos­ sible to come to us so we can share with them. And we long that our missionary urge might grow even stron­ ger. On the other hand, we would rather have only two or three members who are wholly dedicated, than hundreds and hundreds of people who are not. We do not want the salt of our witness to be lost. We would rather be a group of only a few, with real love and real faith in Christ, than a mass movement where there is hatred and jealousy.

Mt. 28:19

Mk. 16:15 According to the first three Gospels, the twelve apos-

Lk. 24:47 tles were sent on mission with the words, "Go out into all the world and make disciples of all nations, and

Jn. 17:21 baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of another form of mission: "May they all be one, Father, as thou art in me and I in thee. May they also be one in us so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

This is so important for us today. Here Jesus does not put the emphasis on preaching the Gospel to win people from the world, but on unity: "May they all be one, so that the world will believe that thou hast sent me." In this prayer, mission consists in the unity of the disciples.

Unity costs a fight; it costs church discipline and suffering; it costs renewed forgiveness, trust, and love over and over to the same people who have hurt us. If unity is strong among us, it will shine out into the world. We do not know how, but it will.

We must long for more and more love to stream out from our circle so that we can send people out on mis­ sion from a united church. Until we can do this we are not yet living for love alone. When we do not have the strength for mission, it is a sign that our church is not fully dedicated to love, and this should humble us.

We live in community because we want to be broth­ ers and sisters. That is our first calling: to be brothers, also to the humblest people, so that no one is looked down upon and no one's need is forgotten. We are here to take care of our children, our brothers and sisters, our old people, widows, and orphans. It is not our main calling to seek out people from the slums and the like; that could even destroy us. If everyone were to scatter, things would go to pieces and the Bruderhof

would become like any other organization set up to do social work.

If we look at our discipleship in the light of Jesus' words about raising the dead and casting out devils, we will see that we are a very poor church spiritually. This should make us humble, but it should not make us resigned.

Mt. 10:8

Mk. 16:15-18

In my father's last letter he wrote, "We [the Bruder­ hof] have not yet arrived at true mission, but it is more and more urgent to pray for it." I know he hoped for this kind of mission – raising the dead and casting out demons–to be given again in our time. It was not important to him whether it would be given to him personally or to the Bruderhof, but that it would be given somewhere.

From a letter: I long for apostolic mission–to go to the roadsides and fences and invite men to the great festival of the kingdom of God. But every day lived in true unity is mission too. Read John 17, where Je­ sus says that by the unity and love of the disciples the world will recognize that the Father sent him. There is no greater vision than that. If only we fight our way through to this unity, God will give us the strength to carry out both forms of mission, and every member will take part.

Jn. 17

From a letter: The sharpness of Jesus as a part of the Gospel is no longer preached in Christendom today. John the Baptist began his message with the words, "You generation of vipers! Who told you that you Mt. 3:7-9

could escape the judgment that is to come? Then show the fruits that are in accord with a change of heart! And don't think you can get anywhere by thinking, 'Abraham is our father.'"

I consider it my inner calling and duty to proclaim the Gospel with the same sharpness, though also with the same kindness and compassion that is found in the New Testament.

Lk. 10:3 Jesus sent out his apostles under the sign of the Lamb. Anyone who has been put under pressure, especially religious pressure, will know why he did this. It be­ comes even clearer if one thinks of the dove, which is the symbol of the spirit of God. The Spirit came upon Jesus like a dove: without any force, pressure, or evil, unable to attack, and without overriding his free will. This is the character of apostolic mission: no coercion, no pressure, no persuasion. The stronger personality must never override the weaker; it must be harmless as a dove. Yet along with Jesus' words, "Be innocent as doves," he says, "Be wise as serpents." Mt. 10:16

In our corrupt time it is the responsibility of the church to call men to a life in God and in Jesus. If we

look at society today, we can see that humankind is wholly corrupt; it is not at all reconciled with God. Reconciliation with God is possible only through the cross. Without Jesus and his suffering and death, no one can find God.

Many of us long for our church to carry out apos­ tolic mission, and I am thankful that this longing is alive. But unless we are sent by God as Paul was sent we will never be able to do mission, even in a humbler form. At the time of Paul's conversion Jesus told him,

Acts 26:18 "I send you to open men's eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan to God, so that by trust in me they may obtain forgive­ ness of sins and a place with those whom God has made his own." That is the purpose of mission. It is clear that mission can never be a human undertaking. We are incapable of it –absolutely incapable–without a deep inner relationship to God, to Jesus, and to the church.

With regard to participating in today's various movements of social protest, I hope we are given the sensitivity both to recognize what is God-given and en­ courage it, and to reject what is not good. We must be open to receive, but at the same time we must witness to true brotherhood.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God

Jesus...................................................................237 The Cross ..........................................................254 Salvation ............................................................261 The Kingdom of God........................................269

Jesus

Jesus was the suffering servant. His life went from birth in a lowly stable to death on a cross between two criminals for the sake of pure love alone. He was a true man, yet God; he was the Word that became flesh; he was the Son of God but also called himself the Son of Man.

Jesus Christ is the redeemer who comes to us weak and sinful men. He frees us from sin and demonic powers. He makes us true men. He is the healer who heals for nothing. He is the true vine, the living tree. He is the same yesterday, today, and in all eternity. Jesus is the soul of compassion, the friend of man, the caller to new life. He is the true and good shepherd, the king of God's kingdom. He is called the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, and prince of peace.

Christ is the gathering power: "How often have I

Lk. 13:34 wanted to gather you like a hen her chicks, and you would not." His last prayer was for unity and love among his disciples. His new life overcomes separa­ tion, leads to community, and makes men of one heart and one soul. He is the revelation of God's love and kingdom.

We must experience Jesus in our hearts and souls. Yet still more is demanded: we must experience him as Lord over all things, king over all principalities and worlds of God. We must concentrate our hearts, minds, and souls on the vision of his kingdom and on him, the coming One.

From a letter: I know you have difficulties with certain biblical concepts of Christ. But if you do not want the whole Christ, even the part that you do accept will slip through your fingers, and you will be left with noth­ ing. I lay this on your heart with love and concern.

Ultimately, it is a question of whether you accept Jesus Christ, who was born of the virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit. All power in heaven and on earth is

Col. 1:20 given to him, and he came into this world to reconcile the whole universe to himself, making peace through the shedding of his blood upon the cross.

Faith in Christ means the willingness to believe in mysteries that we can neither see, feel, nor understand with our stupid intellect.

I often wonder whether we have the whole Christ suf­ ficiently in mind. For any Christian –for individuals as well as for churches –there is a danger of experienc­ ing only a part of Christ –accepting only a part of his message–and being faithful to that. We must find and serve the whole Christ. I am not able to proclaim,

"Here, this is the whole Christ." Even if we learned the entire Gospel by heart, we could not say we have the whole Christ. Only the Holy Spirit is able to bring him to us.

Jesus sees the evil in a person so sharply and clearly that it is as if he had no love; yet he sees hope for a person so strongly that it is as if there were no evil in him. In the New Testament we find the sharpest words of eternal condemnation and, at the same time, the most tender love.

We have to love everything in Jesus –his sharpness and his compassion. If we love his sharpness, then our hearts will be purified and pruned; but we could not live if his love, compassion, and mercy were not still greater.

It is a mistake to think that Jesus was only brave and

2 Cor. 13:4 strong. He was crucified in weakness, and that is a deep mystery. He became weak for our sake, for the sins of the world, and to bring reconciliation and the victory of God into earth and heaven. This is why we love him.

Jesus was crucified in weakness, but he now lives in the power of God. We, too, are weak, as he was, yet through God's power we can become one with him and full of life.

If we are proud we cannot live through God's pow­ er, for when we are strong and great in spirit, we stand in his way. But if we are weak, that is no hindrance.

Jn. 15 In John 15, Jesus speaks from the depth of his heart about the unity of his followers. He speaks of himself as a vine and his Father as a vine-dresser who cuts away every branch that fails to bear fruit and prunes those that bear fruit so that they may bear still more.

The Savior does not cut us off completely to wither away; rather, he cleanses us and binds us afresh to his vine. We must undergo this experience of punish­ ment and judgment, for Jesus says that whoever bears fruit, he cleanses. When a vinedresser cleans branches, he uses a knife. We must pray that the knife may cut deeply into our hearts, no matter how much it hurts, so that cleansed by him we may be grafted to the one Vine.

Jn. 15:4, 7 Our Savior says, "Dwell in me, and I shall dwell in you." I have the deep longing that we all may dwell in him, and he in us. There is nothing greater, nothing more wonderful, nothing more joyful than unity with Jesus Christ.

When the angels appeared to the shepherds they said,

Lk. 2:11 "Unto you a child is born. Unto you a son is given." We must take that to heart: to you a child is born. It is not just a matter of believing that a child is born in

Bethlehem, but that a child is born to you. We must believe this quite personally: Jesus came for each of us.

Jesus' life began in a stable and ended on the cross be­ tween two criminals. The Apostle Paul said he wanted

1 Cor. 2:2 to proclaim nothing but this crucified Christ. We, too, have nothing to hold to except this Christ. We must ask ourselves again and again: Are we willing to go his way, from the stable to the cross? As disciples we are not promised comfortable and good times. Jesus says we must deny ourselves and suffer with him and for him. That is the only way to follow him, but behind it lies the glory of life –the glowing love of God, which is so much greater than our hearts and our lives.

From a letter: Jesus was a strong man in a new way. He was at once very weak and very strong. He was

Mt. 23:37 not ashamed to shed tears over Jerusalem, whom he wanted to gather like a hen her chicks; he was not

Jn. 11:35 afraid to weep publicly at the raising of Lazarus; and he was not afraid to show his agony in Gethsemane. All this did not make for a "strong" man in the worldly sense. Yet Jesus' love was so strong that he was able to

Lk. 22:44 suffer the most terrible pain and godforsakenness, and in this strength he completed the task given him by his Father.

In true weakness we become powerless, and in true powerlessness we find strength. That is the secret.

Each of us must have a personal relationship to Jesus. As a young man, I could not understand why the feel­ ing of joy and love I had in the first weeks after my conversion did not last. I was very troubled and asked my father about it. He said, "You can't base your Chris­ tianity on feelings. There are times when one simply has to follow without deep feelings."

Paul compares the relationship of Christ and his church to marriage, which sometimes brings joy, and sometimes sorrow. The main thing is faithfulness to the relationship; one's feelings will not always be the same. When we are called back to the first love, it can give us a tremendous feeling of joy, which is a gift from God. This feeling will not last a lifetime. But if we are faithful, our relationship with Christ will remain even when we go through times of pain and tears, sorrow and emptiness.

Eph. 5:22-33

Jn. 14:23 Jesus says, "He who loves me heeds what I say, and I will come with the Father and dwell in him." There is nothing more intimate than dwelling in another's heart.

Jesus also says, "He who does not drink my blood and eat my flesh cannot belong to me." It is a Gospel of complete oneness; it excludes the possibility of half­ heartedness. Jesus prefers the ice-cold heart to the luke­ warm.

Jn. 6:53-56

Rev. 3:15

If we love someone, we want to know his innermost being. We are not satisfied with simply knowing him outwardly. So it is with our love to God. If we give ourselves to him, we will learn to know his innermost being and heart, his character and his love. It is not enough just to speak of God. We seek his revelation. The Bible says that those whom God loves he chas­ tises. So we should thank God if we are punished and chastised, for it is a sign of his love. We cannot experi­ ence the complete liberation brought about by the forgiveness of sins if we do not accept Jesus' sharpness. Only then will we also be able to experience his good­ ness, his compassion, and his ultimate love.

Heb. 12:6

There is a certain subjectivity in man's relationship with Jesus that we reject because it forgets the great­ ness of God and the church –as if only my soul and my salvation were important. But to reject one's inner relationship to Jesus as subjective in itself would be wrong. We do have to experience his love, his death on the cross, and his forgiveness in a personal way.

Everything we need in order to find God is given to us in Christ. But it does not help to grasp that with our brains. Nor does it help to learn the Bible or recite prayers by heart. Jesus must touch our hearts to the depths so that we are moved by his person. He com­ pares this experience to eating his flesh and drinking

Mt. 26:26-28

his blood. That is the opposite of a merely intellectual experience. It is an experience from the depths of the heart.

True discipleship demands that we love Jesus so deeply that all other love –even our love to wife and children –is small in comparison. We must love him so much that even the smallest part of his Gospel is of greatest importance to us. We must love everything in him: his death, his resurrection, his judgment, and his future eternal kingdom. But most of all we must love his inner life, insofar as he has revealed it to us in his life and death. This inner life is the spirit of God. The greatest task of a Christian is to love Jesus, to recognize him, and to learn to understand him in his innermost being.

Jesus wants us to love everything in him –his deeds, his parables, his rejection of mammon and worldly goods, his pureness of heart and faithfulness in rela­ tionships, his sorrow and suffering over injustice, his death with criminals–but most of all him personally, his heart and his blood.

The Jews found it very hard to accept the idea of drinking Jesus' blood and eating his flesh, for it was forbidden by the law of Moses to drink blood. But Jesus wanted to show his disciples a unity and com­ munity which he could compare only with flesh and

blood. He is actually speaking about eternal commu­ nity with him in the kingdom of God.

Jesus came as a physician for the sick and a shepherd for the lost–not only for the just and righteous. He is God's love at work on earth. If we really understand this, we will realize that following Jesus means suffer­ ing. It cannot be a comfortable way.

Mt. 9:12

Jn. 10:14

From a letter: Dedicate yourself daily to the person of Jesus. Then it will be possible to burn for him and to give up all self-concern.

When Jesus lived on earth, he promised that he would come again to found the kingdom of God, a kingdom of peace and love. In the parable of the ten virgins, five of them were ready, but five had no oil – no burning love to God and men. Even though the five foolish ones had the outer form of the lamp, their inner fire was gone. Jesus said he did not know them, and they could not take part in the kingdom.

Mt. 25:1-13

This parable speaks to our time, because it is almost two thousand years since Jesus lived on earth, and we have gotten used to waiting. The world goes on as before. But the time will come when we will wish we had oil.

If we want to be disciples of Christ we must be pre­ pared to bear everything in faith and give up every­ thing as he did. The total surrender of the crucified Christ must be proclaimed over and over again in the church to every new generation.

From a letter: I thank God that you feel an inkling of the reality of Jesus in your life. Nourish this small flame and let it grow. Jesus can come into your heart only insofar as it is emptied of other things. If a bucket of water is full, you cannot add to it; but if it is emp­ tied, it can be refilled. You must become empty. Jesus will touch you even if there is only a little room for him.

From a letter: Never forget that your heart must be empty and poor in spirit for Jesus to rule in it –no hidden corners can be kept for yourself. See everything from Jesus' outlook and not from your point of view. What you think and feel is not important. It is Jesus' will that is important. When you submit to him, all your feelings will change.

From a letter: If you really want to serve Jesus alone, show this in practical ways: in the way you bring up your children, in your attitude to your husband, and

in your attitude to the church. It is not true that you are a poor person, as you write. I wish you were, for

Mt. 5:3 Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." You are sometimes very rich, rich in opinions and full of selfrecognition and self-esteem. Become a poor person in truth.

From a letter: I know God has given you a loving heart, but your old nature must die so that you can receive his love. Then he can use you as he made you. Dying with Christ does not mean being extinguished. But it does mean pouring out our innermost being before him, bringing our sins to the cross, and becom­ ing one with him who died for us.

Jn. 12:24 When a grain of wheat is laid in the earth, it dies. It no longer remains a grain, but through death it brings forth fruit. This is the way of true Christianity. It is the way Jesus went when he died on the cross for each of us. If we want our lives to be fruits of Christ's death on the cross, we cannot remain individual grains. We must be ready to die too.

Have Christ before you in everything so that you are able to die for him! Long to come nearer to him. Live in one spirit–in service to him –so that the grace of God may always be with you. Then, even when the

day comes that your blood must be shed for him, you will be joyful. It will be nothing but victory!

Jn. 14:21 Jesus says that if we love him and fulfill his command­ ments, he will love us and disclose himself to us. This is not a question of a theology or a teaching but a question of life, of receiving Jesus as a real person, as the Son of Man who wants to love us and reveal him­ self to us. When we dwell in Jesus, he will dwell in us,

Gal. 2:20 and we can say like Paul the Apostle, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

The way God sent his Son into the world is not to

Jn. 1:14 be explained or understood. John simply says that the Word became flesh. This Word is his love, and he poured it out through the Holy Spirit in Mary. Only in this sense can we begin to understand the mystery of the virgin birth.

It is our prayer that we may see the real Christ. We pray that he be revealed to us first as he was –a baby born in a stable at Bethlehem, and then a condemned man hanging on the cross between two criminals at Golgotha; as he is today –the head of all things, es-

Eph. 5:23 pecially of his church; and as he will be at the end of time – the one who judges the quick and the dead, the Bridegroom of the great festival in the kingdom of God.

Are we willing to go the same way of suffering that Jesus went on earth? Are we willing to give ourselves so completely to him that we are ready to be persecuted, beaten, or even killed for his sake?

Jesus Christ! He must remain the center at all times. The church cannot be our center, for a body without a head is dead. We need constant renewal from within, and by that I mean that we need new encounters with God and Christ again and again. This must happen in communal worship meetings as well as in each indi­ vidual heart. Rebirth means the indwelling of the Father, and it takes place through the Holy Spirit.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." The Word is the personal expression of God. He became flesh and dwelt among us as a human being who was and is Christ. God speaks with his Word to the hearts of men and judges them, and when they receive the Word and repent –when they feel great pain and remorse for their injustice and un­ righteousness, their lying, murder, impurity, and dark­ ness–then the kingdom will come.

The Living

Word

Jn. 1:1,3

Nothing at all can help us–nothing except the Word of God. By the Word we do not mean the dead letters

of the Bible. It is true that since the Bible contains the sayings of Jesus and the prophets in written form, it is the holiest book that exists. But the Bible itself is not the Word; it is only a witness to it. When we read the Bible and feel God speaking directly into our hearts, when something in our hearts starts to burn, that is the living Word. The Spirit brings life, but the dead letter kills.

2 Cor. 3:6

The dead letter of the Old and New Testaments is the weapon of the Antichrist. He always comes with the Bible in hand. When the Roman Catholics perse­ cuted the Anabaptist believers of Reformation times, they came with Bibles in hand to drown, burn, be­ head, or hang them.

As regards the Word, it does not matter what we feel or think, nor what we memorize –even if we know all the words of Jesus as written in the New Testament – but that his words are burned into our hearts by God himself. That is the Gospel.

Are we willing to hear God's Word, which cuts more keenly than a two-edged sword? Paul's letter to the He­ brews says, "The Word of God is alive...and to him we must give account." He also speaks of the sharpness that cuts and divides joints and marrow. But then he says that in Jesus we have one who has sympathy for our weakness, fears, and inner need – one who under­

Heb. 4:12-13

Heb. 4:15

stands. If we are willing to give our hearts to this sharp sword, we will find Jesus. But if we reject him, we will also be rejected.

Mt. 4:4 Jesus says that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. We do not have a silent God. The Word is not rigid, as if cast in iron into one form or contained in a book –not even when that book is the Bible. The Word never con­ tradicts the prophets of the Old Testament, nor does it contradict the New Testament, but it is spoken again and again from the mouth of God into the hearts of men. It continually brings us new revelations and makes everything alive for us. We cannot live without the living Word of God.

From a letter: I rejoice that the Bible has become alive for you. That is so important: not the dead letter but the living Jesus. May he burn in our hearts and lives. Then we will no longer be so concerned with our out­ er activities that our inner life suffers. When Jesus is the center of our lives, our inner life will become like a flame that burns for him.

The Holy The Holy Spirit is like water, which seeks the lowest

Spirit place. He comes only to the broken and humble heart.

The great event of Pentecost –the founding of a living church through the coming down of the Holy Spirit – is a challenge for us all. Through it we see that when the Spirit is poured out on a group of expectant disci­ ples, something happens that affects the whole world. The expectation of the believers in Jerusalem was so great that three thousand others were added to their number in one day.

Acts 2:41

Today more than ever, when there are so many evil spirits at work –spirits of impurity and destruction, injustice, rebellion, and murder –we need the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whenever we are together, whether in our work, our worship, our singing, or our silence, we must await the Spirit. But we should expect it not only for ourselves –we must think in much greater terms. Let us pray for God's spirit to break in over the god­ lessness of the whole earth.

Eph. 4:4 The experience of the Holy Spirit can never remain an individual experience: it leads to community. When the Holy Spirit came over the disciples in Jerusalem, they became of one heart and soul; they were so filled with love that they could no longer live for themselves. That is the greatest gift: to experience unity with Jesus Christ in community with others.

From a letter: There is hardly anything more wonder­ ful than what took place at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out over Christ's disciples. The love

Acts 4:32 among them was so great that they were of one heart and one soul and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ even though they knew they would have to suffer for it. Let us implore the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts, too, with flames of fire, so that we may work in a suffering world for Christ's sake.

Mt. 3:16 In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is compared to a dove. A dove is gentle; it will harm no one, and it will not force itself on anyone. It flees before birds of prey. Through the fall of man we are all birds of prey, and we have all driven the Holy Spirit away without know­ ing it. If the Spirit is resisted, he disappears. He comes only to the lowly, the broken, and those who seek him.

The Cross

The fact that Jesus' blood was shed for the forgive­ ness of sins is a mystery. Many people say, "God is so great, so mighty, that he could have saved humankind without the cross." But that is not true. We should remember that God is not only one hundred percent love –which might have allowed him to forgive our sins without the cross. He is also one hundred percent justice. God's love and God's justice had to be revealed to the world of angels, because there are evil angels as well as holy angels.

To kill the Son of God was the most evil deed ever done. But it was just through that deed that God showed his greatest love and gave everyone the possi­ bility of finding peace with him and the forgiveness of sins.

From a letter: We constantly need the crucified Christ within us. To receive him we must become silent before God again and again. Christ wants to live in our hearts so that we are able to conquer all things. Through him everything receives its true meaning.

There is no other foundation for true peace of heart than unity with him. Only Christ can bring us to full trust in God. In him we find the sharpest judgment of wrath over all evil, but also the revelation of his loving grace.

If we do not believe in the power of evil, we can­ not fully understand Jesus. It cannot be denied that he came to save men. But unless we understand that the main reason for his coming was to join the fight between God and Satan –to destroy the works of Sa­ tan–we cannot fully understand the need for an atone­ ment-death on the cross.

The thought that God is all-loving can insulate us from the power of his touch. People know that God forgives sin, but they forget that he judges it too. There is something in modern thinking which rebels against the Atonement. Perhaps our idea of an all-loving God keeps us from wanting to face judgment. We think that love and forgiveness is all that is needed, yet that is not the whole Gospel –it makes God too human.

It is of crucial importance that the cross of Jesus Christ is in the center of our hearts –central to our calling, and central to our mission. The Lamb of God on the

Rev. 5:6 cross stands before the throne of God. The cross is the

center of the universe. We must experience its mean­ ing in its height, depth, and breadth as a mystical revelation through the Holy Spirit. It is not enough to believe it; we must ask God that we may be allowed to experience it in a living way.

The cross is the only place where we can find purifi­ cation – not only from sexual impurity, but from any­ thing which defiles the soul: deceit, murder, hypocrisy, lovelessness, and envy. We can find purification only if we find the crucified One.

From a letter: To have the cross as the center of our lives means to love nothing more than the cross – when we get up in the morning, throughout the day, and in every situation. At a wedding two people prom­ ise to love one another until death parts them. But our love to the cross must go through death into eternal life.

If a man is confronted by a criminal, he will either judge him or show him mercy. Only God can do both in the same moment: judge him and flood him with compassion and mercy.

If we desire help in our distress –and we do experience distress –we should not cry to God first about our own

suffering; we should go back in our minds and hearts to where the suffering of the world began. If we come before God with only our own inner burdens, we do him an injustice. But if we see how God has suffered since Adam's fall –especially through Christ's death on the cross –then we can ask him to free us from our own distress.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and sickness and death are works of the devil. God allows them, but in Christ he also takes them upon himself. Christ's seven last words begin with "My Father, if it is

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