I was just following orders

The monsters inside us

When I think about what is going on around the world, it makes me realise that we as humans can be monsters when put under pressure. Do you know what I mean?

Have you ever thought how does a person go so far away from the love of neighbour to becoming the harbinger of death. I want to share to you a the life of Wilhelm Keitel, not sure if many of you know who this individual is, I am not here to praise or even give credit to this individual but he was a Field Marshall for Hitler.

He was the one of many who allowed and gave orders for prisoners of war and Jews to be murdered, so you can understand why I don’t give praise or even credit to this monster of a man. In his defence from his point of view, was that he did all this for the glory of Germany. He did it for the German people, but in fact, he did it for just one man and this man’s view represented Germany.

Execution of Wilhelm Keitel

On the 16th October 1946, the final hours of Keitel, a US Chaplain; Captain Henry Gerecke, entered Keitel’s cell in the book ‘Mission at Nuremberg’, both Keitel and Gereke sank to their knees and began to pray in German. Near to the end of Keitel’s prayer he began to weep and sobbed uncontrollably as he grips reality that his life will end soon. The chaplain raised his hand above Ketiel and quoted Numbers 6:24-26

Numbers 6:24–26 NKJV

24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; 26 The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’

Keitel’s last words at the gallows were:

“I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons - all for Germany”.

He one of the many soldiers who call unto God, soldiers that fought in the war and performed crimes against humanity. That doesn’t necessarily mean most German soldiers but the Allies as well. Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox and many other Christian denominations that are to be believers and followers of Jesus hurting their neighbours.

Evil in all conflict

This evil goes through all time and all conflict. These men who pray and ask protection from the Lord do heinous things to others. I was hearing this troublesome story in the Ukraine Russian conflict, I don’t know if it is true and I pray and hope it isn’t, there was a report of Russian soldiers who killed a mother and left her baby on her body and set a trap on the innocent child for the Ukrainians so when Ukrainians forces arrived and hearing a crying baby then you can guess where that led to.

Some sick person had to set that up, whether they are a believer in God or not, to think that someone would do that to a human being is the lowest of the low. The fact that anyone would harm or hurt God’s children shows to you how far we have fallen as a species and I desperately look forward to the return of Jesus, where there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, neither will there be anymore pain. For the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4), who is looking forward to that event?

Just an ordinary person...

I want you to see something here, we can collectively say that these people were evil and agents of satan. But the question must be asked, how can one ordinary person change to become some sort of mass murderer? Their excuse will always be, I was just following orders or it was my duty.

All soldiers, who pulled the trigger, were following orders from those above them, and likewise those above them was following their orders and so on and so forth until it reaches the person in charge that gave that order.

I mean, what else could these soldiers do? If they don’t follow orders then they will be punished, or something far worse. Either way, I am not excusing these people or their actions, nor am I to judge them. Conflict does horrible things to people. But, what if you were in their shoes? What if you it was you?

Aren’t you thankful that you’re not in that sort of position? That you don’t have to make that type of choice? But, do we still follow orders and whose orders are we following?

The life of Simon Peter

Before we answer this question, let’s look at the life of one of the apostles of Jesus. He was a fisherman, and one that was favoured by the Lord. His name was Simon (aka Peter).

Testimonies for the Church, Volume 4 Number Twenty-Nine—Testimony for the Church

Peter was prompt and zealous in action, bold and uncompromising; and Christ saw in him material that would be of great value to the church. He therefore connected Peter with Himself, that all which was good and valuable might be preserved, and that by His lessons and example He might soften whatever was harsh in his temper and smooth whatever was rugged in his deportment.

As you’re aware with what I shared, Peter was a brash, tactless and impudent at times, he allowed his temper to get the better of him. His mouth was 5 steps ahead of his thoughts but he was faithful to Jesus only to a point and then he would fail in that faithfulness.

Examples of Peter

Walking on water

For example, when the disciples were out on the water, who did they see in a distance walking on water?

Of course, something supernatural would have terrified them, but when they realised who it was, Peter asked Jesus to invite him to walk on water with Him.

Jesus responded ‘come’ and Peter walked initially until his faith failed as he started to hear and feel the boisterous wind at which he began to sink. Jesus eventually caught up to Peter and saved him and said “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

You are the Christ!

Another time when Jesus asked His disciples who they think He is, Peter responded:

Matthew 16:16–17 NLT

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.

Then, when Jesus proceeds to tell them of what will happen to Him, Peter thinks to rebuke Jesus and deny Jesus His sacrifice with Jesus replying to Peter.

Matthew 16:23 NLT

23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

Education The Master Teacher

The history of no one of the disciples better illustrates Christ’s method of training than does the history of Peter. Bold, aggressive, and self-confident, quick to perceive and forward to act, prompt in retaliation yet generous in forgiving, Peter often erred, and often received reproof. Nor were his warmhearted loyalty and devotion to Christ the less decidedly recognized and commended. Patiently, with discriminating love, the Saviour dealt with His impetuous disciple, seeking to check his self-confidence, and to teach him humility, obedience, and trust.

But only in part was the lesson learned. Self-assurance was not uprooted.

Self-assurance the poison of faith

Self-assurance, like many of those soldiers, and sadly and I pray that it is not true, maybe many of us, self-assurance needs to be uprooted from our lives.

What is self-assurance? It is the confidence in one’s own abilities or character, it is being sure of oneself, in being self-confident.

Is there anything wrong in being confident? Well it depends on where you place your confidence or assurances on?

Philippians 3:3 (NKJV)

3 ...have no confidence in the flesh,

We’re not going to lose!

You see, like these soldiers of war and even for many of the disciples, they believed that they were part of a winning team, their perspective was that they can’t lose or they won’t lose because their assurance on their commander that they’ll win.

So, they will do these extraordinary things like do harmful things to others or be obedient just to get points, helps build their confidence or assurances promoting them to some high ranking spot in their fellowship.

Don’t believe me? Remember what Peter does trying to defend Jesus in Gethsemane?

John 18:10 NLT

10 Then Simon Peter drew a sword and slashed off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest’s slave.

Self-assurance or self-confidence in self, makes us do harmful things to others, it brings others down and elevates ourselves above others. It makes us matter more than others. It promotes self love rather than selfless love. It’s a poison to faith!

Give up your life for life!

Jesus says:

Luke 9:23–25 NLT

23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. 24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 25 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?

The cruel secular world!

Now, comes to the main crux of my message, I asked you before, do you still follow orders and who are you following?

I know what it is like to work in the secular world, the tasks that need to be achieved at a certain deadline. We want to extraordinary things in order to gain recognition to the people above. Sometimes, our colleagues don’t matter and so we elevate ourselves and bring others down.

Maybe, work requires you to hang out with the team after work at the bar and have a drink, smoke a pack and talk vulgar. Or, maybe even work on the Sabbath for that extra recognition, extra pay (double time and a half).

Give it all to Jesus!

Self-assurance, self-confidence needs to be uprooted and your confidence to be placed on Jesus.

Ephesians 3:12 NLT

12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.

Hebrews 4:14–16 NLT

14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

The ‘monster’ in us!

My friends, there is a monster in all of us, and it is eating at everything that wants to remain faithful to Jesus. The adversary is like a roaring lion ready to consume anyone and this is why we need to stand firm in our faith in Jesus, have no confidence in the faith and take up our cross daily and follow Him.

The sin influencing the world

June is meant to be the month of pride, where the LGBTQI+ people celebrate the pride of them coming out and sadly living a life that is contrary to our faith. The world promotes and defends the actions of this community eventually absorbing the lifestyle in the workplaces.

We’ve already seen it; preferred pronouns, misgendering, forcing services that are contrary to our beliefs and so on. We look to the government for protection, but soon enough they will be in bed with Sodomy.

What are you going to do when this happens?

Do we play along?

Are you going to play along and go with the flow? Will you hide your beliefs so you can remain the company?

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller (German pastor)

Fight for faith!

I am not asking you to fight, but to stand your ground in faith ad belief, don’t be swayed but:

1 Timothy 6:12–14 NLT

12 Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses. 13 And I charge you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you obey this command without wavering. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

Whose orders will you follow when you’re on the ropes? The orders of man? Or the orders of Jesus?