Germany's Heritage and Destiny in God.

By Loren Cunningham

It was April, 1991, and I was about to speak to a meeting of European religious broadcasters in Altensteig. just prior to speaking, God's spirit suddenly came over me and I began to weep for Germany. It was a literal pain and I thought my heart would explode.

I've experienced this kind of travail in prayer over individuals before, but never for a country. The Lord spoke to me that night and said, "I'm letting you feel a little bit of My broken heart over Germany."

God has wept over Germany. He has seen the abuse and the hurt. He has seen the confusion. He has a broken heart because He loves this country so much and His original destiny for it has fallen aside.

I trust you will forgive my boldness as a foreigner to speak of your history, especially the difficult days. I have been visiting Germany since 1960, and God has given me a deep love for her. Some people have devoted a lifetime to studying German history, but I am not a historian nor a scholar. However, I have a rather unique perspective. Over the last four decades I have spent time in 273 nations, countries, and territories. That gives me a broad, although surface, view of the world and its peoples. Something like a kilometer wide and a centimeter deep!

I have observed that each nation has a distinct personality and character. Each has her own traditions, and her own values or ethos. However, out of all the nations, Germany has become one of the nations most dear to me...very precious in a spiritual way that is hard to explain. I believe Germany has a special place in the heart of God. He wants her restored to her full spiritual inheritance--to the destiny He intended when He formed Germany in the "womb of nations."

Facing the Past

History plays a great part in forming a country's personality and character, just as it does with an individual.

I was counseling with a young woman here in Germany a few years ago. She was 19 years old and deeply disturbed. I told her she was valuable to God.

"No, I'm not!" she shook her head. "I was an accident. My mother didn't want me. I don't even know who my father was. My mother was a prostitute." Tears rolled silently down her face. "I was never wanted."

"Yes, you were wanted, and I can prove it." I shared with her the verses in Psalm 139, where it says God made us in our mothers' wombs, and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I said, "Even while you were in your mother's womb, God loved you. He gifted you while He was forming you. He gave you a destiny to fulfill, different from any other person's."

We cannot live out our destiny unless we understand our history--where we have come from. That's why the Bible starts with, "In the beginning God...." Everyone's past begins with God. We must come to terms with our past. I understand you have coined a word for this in German... Vergangenheitsbeweltigung. We must face our history.

That is what I told another individual I was counseling--a seventeen-year-old in Berlin. She had tried to commit suicide five times. I asked her about her parents. She said, "I don't have any parents. They're dead."

Moments went by, as I continued to silently pray and probe for the key to her heart. After half an hour she began to cry. She said, "I lied. I do have parents. When I was a little girl, they gave me to my grandmother. My own parents didn't want me. They never even visited me once. So I decided I didn't want them either. I told everyone they were dead. Then I began to live as if they were dead."

"Don't you see," I said gently, "This is why you are trying to kill yourself. You have destroyed your roots in your mind, now you are trying to destroy yourself."

You Are Worth Celebrating

You, too, have roots. As a person, you are valuable to God. Every year your friends and family celebrate the day you were born. When they sing, "Happy Birthday to You," and give you cake and presents, you may act shy, drop your head, blush, or look up at the ceiling. But it is an important occasion because you have true value. God gave you as a gift to all of us. You are worth more than all the world's silver and gold. You are worth celebrating! And part of your value is your past--your heritage.

Jesus knew this. He didn't fear His past, even though it included things most people would try to cover up. Matthew 1 is an unflinching list of Jesus' ancestors. There were righteous men and women--Abraham, Moses, Ruth, and Hezekiah. But there were also moral failures--Rahab, a prostitute; the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba, an adulteress; David, a murderer; and Rehoboam, a wicked ruler who divided his country. Jesus was not ashamed to have these listed in His lineage. They were an undeniable part of His human heritage. They were His roots.

Nations also have roots--they have a birth, and they have a heritage. In Acts 17:26, it says that God is the One who gives birth to nations. "He made from one, every nation of mankind...having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." Each country has a destiny, but to understand that destiny, every country must look at her past.

Healing a Nation Begins with Forgiveness

On October 3, 1990, Germany was re-born as a nation. Yet there are still deep struggles, particularly among the young. A graduate student named Karin said, "You must understand that we Germans, even those of my age, have to live with the terrible burden of Germans having killed so many Jews. It's awful and I think that is why there was so little show of rampant nationalism when unification occurred." (1)

I believe God wants to change this. He doesn't want Germany to have idolatry, but He does want her to have a healthy love for herself as a country. As Germany comes to the altar of marriage with other nations in the European Community, she must know who she is in God.

This can begin when Germans do as Jesus did with His genealogy--rejoice and be grateful for the righteous heritage, and give forgiveness and receive forgiveness for the unrighteous past. Jesus didn't deny that He had a Rehoboam in His past. He didn't hide from a Rahab or a Bathsheba.

God wants you to have that same freedom to know who you are in God and become all He wants you to be, both as a person and as a people. Those before you may have hurt you and your country. Forgive them. Even if they are dead, you need to release resentment and forgive. Go on to thank God for all the good that did come through them. Then grieve with God over their lost potential for good.

It is easiest to see when we're dealing with personal history, although the same principles apply to national history. Once I was talking to a world celebrity who had become a believer.

Despite the fact that this man's father had been dead 25 years, he confided that he still struggled in his heart to forgive him. His father had been so cruel. My friend said, "You know, I'm totally dead in my spirit towards him. I feel nothing. I didn't even cry when I heard he died. I was relieved."

"You must forgive all the bad things he did to you," I said. "Even though he's been dead so many years, you must forgive him and let go of your bitterness."

We prayed together and my friend forgave his father. Then I encouraged him to take the second step, to express gratefulness to God for his father. I reminded him of the Bible verse which tells us, "in everything give thanks."

"I can't do that," the man said. "There's nothing to be thankful to my father for."

"Yes, there is. Start with the fact that he gave you life. Then thank him for his genetic gifts to you--you are a brilliant, talented man. Your father is at least partially responsible for that."

My friend took this advice to heart and prayed again, thanking God for his father, naming the good things he had received from him. The longer he prayed, the more he remembered to be grateful for. He told me later that three days after our time of prayer he finally began to cry over his father's death that had occurred 25 years before.

Forgiving Someone You Never Knew

You do not have to know someone personally to store bitterness in your heart. One time a pastor friend in the United States asked me to have breakfast with him. After we had eaten, he set his coffee cup down and said, "Loren, I've not told anyone this, but I need to tell someone."

I had no idea what was coming, but waited for some kind of confession or something.

"I woke up this morning at 2:22 a.m. That was the precise time...I have a digital clock."

I waited.

"Well anyway, I guessed immediately that the Lord had awakened me, so I asked Him what He wanted to say to me. Immediately God spoke in my mind. There is someone you need to forgive."

He took another sip of coffee and said that this came as a complete surprise. "I told God I didn't know of anyone I resented. Then you know what God said next, Loren? Adolf Hitler! You've never forgiven Adolf Hitler.

"I said, 'But God, Hitler's dead.' He said, Not in your heart. He's alive in your heart and you hate him."

Now I was beginning to squirm a little in that restaurant booth, but my friend continued. "It hit me then. It was true. Suddenly scenes from the past flashed before my eyes. I saw myself at a party recently, putting on a funny little mustache, joking around, mocking Hitler. I thought it was innocent fun, but last night God showed me that I truly hated Hitler, even though I never knew the man."

My friend went on to say how he got out of bed, went down on his knees and prayed, forgiving Hitler. Then God brought other names to his mind, including Richard Nixon, and he forgave those people, too. But I was hardly listening now. The truth of his words had penetrated my heart, convicting me! I was thinking of world leaders whom I had hated in my heart.

Mao Tse Tung was first on the list forming in my mind. He was still alive at the time. I had even prayed for Mao's conversion, though my heart attitude was far different. Actually, I wished God would strike him dead. He had killed millions of Christians, but I had to forgive Mao. I understood that only God could give eternal life to repentant sinners. My part was to rid myself of bitterness and resentment toward any person.

Hebrews 12:15 says that bitterness is the root that defiles many. Bitterness can defile a whole society. God wants us to look backwards and say, "Is there anyone in my history that I need to forgive?" Then healing can begin.

Some wait for those who have hurt them to apologize, but Jesus didn't. While on the cross He prayed, "Father, forgive them," even as they were committing evil against Him.

There Are Still Two Germanys

The Berlin Wall came down November 9, 1989--exactly fifty years to the day that Kristallnacht began this nation's darkest period, on November 9, 1939. Just as the wicked ruler Rehoboam divided his country, Hitler led this country to division and death. Fifty-five million died in those evil days, and Germany as a whole, sovereign nation ceased to exist.

On October 3, 1990, the two Germanys became one legally. However, deep spiritual divisions remain--divisions which will not be mended until individual Germans forgive and embrace their past. That will include expressing gratefulness to God for the many good people, the heroes of the past.

As my wife and I were traveling on a nationwide speaking tour of Germany in 1991, we saw the young skinheads, the neo-Nazis. Most seemed to be in the East. There are many reasons for this resurgence, but I believe one is this: The Communists trained the young generation in their schools, constantly reminding them of their evil past. "The Germans were Nazis. Don't be a German. Be part of the GDR! Be a Marxist!"

Now the GDR is gone, as well as Marxism and the Wall. But the young and disillusioned are living out what the Communists programmed into their minds: "I am a German, therefore I am a Nazi." They are believing Satan's lies about what it means to be a German. They are also searching for any heroes from the past. Any hero. Even Hitler is better to a youth than no hero at all.

God has a far different picture of Germany. It is the destiny He intended when He formed this country in the "womb of nations"...even before it was officially a nation, while it was still a group of principalities, part of the Holy Roman Empire.

You can see that destiny as you look back into German history. There is a great godly heritage to be grateful for.

Five Gifts from Germany to the World

It may be simplistic to narrow this list to five. Certainly Germany has been a gift to the nations in music, literature, statesmanship, athletics, science, industry, commerce, and much more. Most recently, Germany has been a leader in international generosity, as well as taking in many refugees from hurting countries. However, I want to focus on five things which I, as a foreign Christian, am personally indebted to Germans for. These five things reflect some of the international anointing God placed on this country--a destiny to bless all the nations of the world.

FIrst, the world must be grateful for a German named Martin Luther. It changed everything when that priest nailed 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg. Besides launching the Protestant church, and even indirectly, the corrections of the Counter-reformation, Luther and others went on to define Christian government and society. I cannot imagine my own nation, the United States, nor her Constitution, without the pioneering ideas of the reformers.

Secondly, Christians all over the world should thank a German for their most prized possession--the Bible. Every time I pick up my Bible, I Am endebted to a German. If it hadn't been for Johannes Gutenberg, and his development of the printing press in Mainz in 1451, millions and millions of Christians around the world would not have their own copy of the Word of God. Until Gutenberg, only the wealthy and the few in religious communities could actually hold a Bible in their hands. Holy Scripture was a rare work of art, its truths sealed to all but a privileged minority. Gutenberg changed that in 1451. One million Bibles were printed between 1522 and 1546, making it the bestseller of the 16th century. (3) Because of this, the roots of modern Bible societies are found in Germany. Also, Martin Luther affirmed Wycliffe's early actions to put the Bible into the language of the common man.

The next three gifts--modern missions, intercessory prayer movements for the nations of the world, and revival movements--started with a German named Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf and the refugees he took in. Let us look at the story of the Moravians of Herrnhut, because they show in microcosm the international anointing and destiny God desires for this land.

The Hidden Seed

It started in Central Europe, in the two neighboring lands of Moravia and Bohemia which today make up the Czech Republic. A man named John Hus was a reformer before the Reformation. He was burned at the stake in 1415 for bearing witness against the corruption of the Church. The Hussites continued to cry out against what they believed were unbiblical practices of the church, believing that those in the community of faith should live holy lives, help the downtrodden, and be willing to lay down their lives for one another. They formed the Moravian Brethren or Unitas Fratrum in 1457. Later, as the Reformation began, the Moravians contacted Luther, Calvin and others, to learn from them.

Perhaps no group has suffered more severe persecution than the early Moravians. Following Hus' martyrdom, for years they suffered exile, imprisonment, were put to the rack, mutilated, drowned, beheaded, and burned to death. Before they were swallowed up, a remnant escaped to the mountains. They lived in caves and pits, praying, reading their Bibles, and singing hymns by night fires.

One of this beleaguered group was John Amos Comenius. He prayed that God would protect a remnant of the Moravians as a "hidden seed." (4) Almost a century later a handful of these Moravians arrived at the estates of Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf in Saxony in 1722 seeking a place of refuge.

God had remarkably prepared Zinzendorf, both as their host and as a catalyst for a revival to touch the world. Born into an old Austrian noble family on May 26, 1700, he was sent at age ten to study in Halle, a center of Pietism. This movement was attempting a "second Reformation," emphasizing the need for personal conversion, and trying to bring new life into the Lutheran churches. The Pietists in Halle sent out the first two Protestant missionaries to India in 1705--two young German men.

Zinzendorf was deeply impressed by the missionary zeal of the Pietists. At the age of 15, while studying at Halle, Zinzendorf established the Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, dedicated to loving the whole human family, particularly the Muslims.

Rebirth of the Moravian Church

A few years later, in 1722, God brought the Moravian refugees to the young count's estates. He gave them permission to build a settlement near the village of Berthelsdorf. They named their community Herrnhut--the shelter of the Lord.

More religious refugees came to Zinzendorf's estates: Pietists, separatists from Lutheran and Reformed churches, Anabaptists and others. Unfortunately they soon became embroiled in heated religious debates. What the fires and the rack had failed to quench was now threatened by religious pride and doctrinal dissension.

Some saw the danger. Zinzendorf visited each family, urging that they sign a Brotherly Agreement, which they did in May of 1727. They agreed to be a Christian community (not just another village), to obey Jesus and love one another, and to have unity in the essentials of the Gospel while allowing freedom in the non-essentials.

Another significant development was the start of the "night watches" in May of 1727. Since God had an enemy who slept neither night nor day, they set up prayer sentinels.

In July, Zinzendorf spent time in Silesia, where he discovered more about the beliefs and practices of the old Moravians, primarily in a book by Comenius, "The Order of Discipline of the Unitas Fratrum." To his amazement, he saw how closely it mirrored the recent Brotherly Agreement they had made in Herrnhut. For the first time he realized the hand of God in bringing the Moravians to his lands. God was resurrecting this ancient church and the hidden seed that would bless the whole world.

After Zinzendorf returned, the local Lutheran pastor called all the believers to come receive the Sacraments and pray at the chapel in Berthelsdorf on August 13, 1727. Again, Zinzendorf went from door to door in Herrnhut, pleading that the brothers and sisters set aside their differences, prepare their hearts in humility, and come together to receive the Lord's Supper.

Revival and a 100-Year Prayer Vigil

They met early in the morning, on August 13. Even before they came together, some had gone to make peace with other believers. In the meeting, after the pastor preached, they knelt to pray. As prayer continued some got up quietly and went to people, asking forgiveness. Then Zinzendorf himself prayed aloud, confessing on behalf of the whole congregation, begging God to forgive them and reconcile them as a community.

As they took the Lord's Supper, something remarkable happened. Zinzendorf described it as a "day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation." It was its Pentecost. (5) Three hundred years after John Hus was martyred a new Moravian revival had begun. The hidden seed had become part of Germany's spiritual genetic code.

Now that the Herrnhut community was united, in coming weeks their prayers shifted more and more to the heathen of the world. This was unprecedented in Europe at this time, especially among Protestants. Yet this little group of 300 began to pray for such places as Turkey, North Africa, Greenland, and Lapland.

As they prayed, they began to plan how they could go to distant places. It seemed impossible. They were just a bunch of refugees with no material resources. Everyone worked hard and lived frugally, barely meeting their own needs. Yet Count von Zinzendorf told them somehow the Lord would make a way for them to become missionaries.

Five years later, the first two Moravians were sent to the African slaves of St. Thomas, in the West Indies. Their motivation was for the Lamb of God to receive the reward of His suffering.

From then on it was breathtaking how fast they chaneled missionaries into the world. They went to Greenland, to Lapland, to the Indians in North America, to Surinam, to the Ivory Coast in Africa, and to India.

After three years' missionary labor in the West Indies, working alongside the slaves and quietly spreading the Gospel, they had four converts. But the effort to win those four had cost ten Moravian lives. During the first four years of Moravian missions, 22 laid down their lives in what they called the "great death."

Still, they continued to go out. By the time Zinzendorf died in 1760, that one congregation in Herrnhut had sent out 226 missionaries! (7) Within one generation, they reached almost all the continents, working among Hottentots in Africa, slaves in the Caribbean, Eskimos in the Arctic, and Native American Indians.

The 24-hour prayer vigil continued for over 100 years without interruption, as they prayed for the Gospel to be carried to every country on earth.

The Bloody Revolution that Didn't Happen

Their influence spread to others. One young Englishman inspired by the Moravians' dedication to missionary service was William Carey, who went to India.

The Herrnhut community left its imprint on two other young men who changed the course of history in England, America and beyond: Charles and John Wesley. John Wesley was an Anglican, on his voyage to America for missionary service. During the voyage he met Moravian missionaries. A month after they set sail a storm hit in the middle of the Atlantic. It looked like they would all perish. Wesley was desperately afraid, but he saw that the Moravians faced death calmly, praising Jesus and singing hymns. Even their children were unafraid in the storm.

They survived and arrived safely in America, but Wesley couldn't forget the Moravians. He sought them out and learned more about their walk with Jesus. Augustus Spangenberg asked if he knew Jesus as his Savior. Wesley said he did, but admitted later in his journal that he didn't have this assurance of salvation.

After he returned to London, he met more Moravians. Then on May 24, 1738, while attending a meeting in Aldersgate, Wesley heard someone preach from Luther's commentary on the book of Romans. Wesley said his heart was "strangely warmed" by the Holy Spirit. Thus several from Germany had a part in Wesley's conversion--the Moravians and a man named Martin Luther. The German connection was repeated as Wesley went to Herrnhut and to Halle to learn more of the things of God.

At this time, England was corrupt and godless. No church reached out to the working class. The terrible, bloody revolution in France threatened to leap across the Channel, as hundreds of thousands suffered sub-human conditions in English factories and cities. However, instead of having a revolution, England experienced a revival--the Great Awakening.

The established church closed its doors to John Wesley, but he and his brother Charles took the Gospel to the masses in huge outdoor rallies. George Whitefield did the same, and hundreds of thousands came into the Kingdom of God.

It was a revival that truly overturned society. Out of this revival spirit came reform of labor conditions, the end of child labor, the abolition of slavery, and more revivals. The early Methodists adopted many Moravian practices, including horseback evangelism. As the United States came into being and gradually conquered the continent, Methodist circuit riding preachers came hard on the heels of the pioneers, bringing the Great Awakening all across America.

Other revivals were born out of the Wesleyan ones, including those of Charles Finney, and General William Booth and the Salvation Army. Some results of these revivals led to the emancipation of women, temperance movements, educational reform, more humane orphanages, laws to protect those in mental asylums, nursing reform, and better conditions in prisons.

The revival stream continued from the Wesleyans into the Cumberland revival, the Holiness movement, the Pentecostal revival at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the evangelical resurgence of the 1950s, the charismatic renewal in the 1960s, and the Jesus People movement in the 1970s.

All of this in some way can be traced back to a tiny place in Saxony that would one day be part of Germany, and a group called the Moravians. It is no exaggeration to say we are deeply indebted to Germany for much of God's blessings that people around the world take for granted.

German Missionary Pioneers

The Moravians weren't the only ones who went out from this land. Other German missionaries left their footprints all over the earth. I have been to remote countries where I stayed in buildings built by pioneer German missionaries. I met a young Tibetan seminarian in Korea. When I asked him how he became a Christian, he said his grandfather had been led to the Lord by German missionaries in Tibet.

A quick list of notable German missionaries would include Berthold, a Catholic traveling preacher from Bavaria in the 13th century. He preached in the open air across Bavaria, Swabia, Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. According to historical records, he preached to hundreds of thousands, leading to countless numbers of conversions.

Johann Schall von Bell from Cologne went to China in 1618, where he gained the confidence of the first Manchu emperor. Schall was an excellent astronomer. He reformed the Chinese calendar, as well as establishing Chinese congregations. He also persuaded the emperor to remove the idols from his palace.

Bartholomeus Ziegenbalg was one of those first two Germans sent to India in 1706 with the Danish-Halle mission. Although he died at only 36, he left a church of 250 members, and a school. He established a paper mill and printing press, taught them to spin wool to support themselves, and translated the New Testament into the Tamil language.

Ludwig Nommensen went to Sumatra in the 19th century, in what was then the Dutch East Indies. He learned the Batak language. Even though they tried to poison him twice, he survived and won them over. There wasn't a single believer in Sumatra when Nommensen arrived. When he died in 1918, he left a flourishing church of 180,000 Bataks. Besides this, he trained Batak pastors, established hospitals, a home for lepers, a school for industrial training, and a print shop.

Another German missionary, Christian Friedrich Schwartz, arrived in Tranquebar, India, in 1750. He was considered a model missionary of the 18th century. One of the most active, fearless, and successful missionaries since the days of the apostles, Schwartz worked for 48 years without ever returning to Germany. He made converts among Hindus and Muslims, trained national pastors, initiated food distribution, vaccination programs, and established public schools on a biblical basis. When he died in 1798, he left behind a church of 2,000 members in India.

What heroes! What pioneers of faith! What a heritage for young Germans today!

Anyone could rightly wonder how a nation that produced such blessings could have been seduced by Adolf Hitler and cooperated in such heinous crimes as the Holocaust.

Satan's Revenge

The Bible tells us that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. (8) God gifted Germany with an international anointing to influence the nations. Satan was enraged by the revival in Herrnhut and the blessed stream of missionaries that went out from Germany. He saw the dynamics of this nation and decided to destroy it. Pride comes before a fall, so the devil's counter-attack used German giftings and the intellectual pride of man to poison the earth.

One proud man he used was Friedrich Nietzsche, born in Prussia in 1844, the son of a Lutheran minister.

Nietzsche spurned traditional values, especially those represented in Christianity. He coined the phrase, "God is dead," and taught that morals had lost their power and represented a "slave mentality." Instead, new values could be created. He came up with the term "overman," a kind of superman who would create his own "master morality." He would possess the creative will to power which would set him apart from the inferior masses.

You can hear echoes of Nietzsche in every totalitarian idea that followed in the 19th and 20th centuries, from the Communists on the left to the Nazis on the right. His influence was felt by later philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, who formulated ideas which were picked up by Soren Kierkegaard, and finally, Jean-Paul Sartre, who carried them to the extremes of existentialism that we know today. This philosophy brought deep despair to our century. A "lost generation" came to believe that there were no absolute truths, therefore no meaning to life. It influenced everything from modern art to music to film to literature in our times. But the biggest tragedy was the idea that there are no absolutes, therefore no right or wrong. Traditional morality was dead, replaced by relativity of truth and situational ethics.

Even the Church of Jesus Christ was led astray. Out of Germany came such theologians as David Strauss, who said the Gospel narratives were a series of myths, and Ernst Troeltsch, who said that if a reported event such as the resurrection of Jesus had no parallel in history, then it never happened.

Troeltsch paved the way for a generation of liberal theologians who dominated Europe before World War I. Rudolf Bultmann said we had to "de-mythologize" the Bible.(13) Paul Tillich sought to incorporate existentialism into Christianity. (14)

The Stage is Set for the Death of a Nation

Johann Fichte exalted "Germanness," saying that only in the German people was the seed of human perfection. (15) Fichte was also anti-semitic. Sadly, anti-semitism had a long history in Europe. Even Martin Luther made terrible proclamations against the Jews. Richard Wagner, a friend of Nietzsche, reached back into pre-Christian Germany to produce thunderous operas glorifying the superior race of the Aryans and Teutonic gods. Wagner was also deeply anti-semitic.

While listening to Wagner's music in the Linz Opera House in 1904, young Adolf Hitler experienced a satanic calling, something he described as a mandate, a special mission. His friend Kubizek, who was with him that night, said that after the opera it seemed as if "another being spoke out of [Hitler's] body," and that "he looked almost sinister." Later Hitler would say of that night at the opera, "In that hour, it began!"

The devil used other Germans to pervert their God-given ability to influence nations. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels co-founded modern communism. No one can calculate how many hundreds of millions have languished in prisons, have been tortured, or have died as a result of their teaching. The suffering spread--from the enforced starvation of millions in the Ukraine, to the killing fields of Cambodia, to the brutal murders and mutilations in Peru at the hands of the Shining Path--men, women, and children have died because of Marx and Engels' philosophy.

The stage was set. By the beginning of the 20th century, "God was dead," the "myths" of the Bible were held in contempt, and even the idea that there could be such a thing as right and wrong was discredited. It is an incredible paradox: Even as Satan was using rationalism to destroy faith in the supernatural, he was unleashing a counterfeit supernatural through the occult! While modern theologians attacked the supernatural elements of the Christian faith, others in Europe were turning to the East for spiritual enlightenment. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europe became a cauldron of occult ferment, with various secret societies combining the pursuit of ancient mysteries with anti-semitism and the ideas of evolution in a quest to become a race of gods.

In the late 19th century a steady stream of travelers made their way from Europe to Tibet. One of these was a Russian mystic named Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who lived in England. She published revelations received from "exalted masters" in Tibet, including stories of a prehistoric Aryan race of supermen and their ancient symbol, the swastika.

Madame Blavatsky and another English mystic named Aleister Crowley, could be called the founders of the New Age. Their ideas swept through Europe, along with those of Guido von List, who called for a return to the pre-Christian gods of the Germans, and particularly to the secret knowledge of the runes. Lanz von Liebensfels advocated the breeding of a master race and the incineration of inferior races as sacrifices to Teutonic gods.

Houston S. Chamberlain has been called the spiritual father of the Third Reich. He combined the theories of Wagner and Nietzsche in his book, Foundation of the Nineteenth Century. He said Aryan Germany would fulfill its historic mission to regenerate and govern the world under the leadership of an inspired and perfectly evolved fuhrer. The amazing thing is, Chamberlain said his writings were dictated to him verbatim by demons. The familiar spirits told him he would recognize the occult messiah when he came. Before he died in 1927, an aged Chamberlain publicly recognized Adolf Hitler as that man. Thus Chamberlain served as a twisted type of John the Baptist.

The Nazi Religion

The National Socialist Party was more a religion than a political movement, with Adolf Hitler as its Messiah, Heinrich Himmler as High Priest, Richard Wagner as its hymn writer, Mein Kampf as its bible, The swastika as its cross, and the blood-drenched SS as clergy. Every day little schoolchildren sang, "Adolf Hitler is our savior, our hero....For Hitler we live, for Hitler we die. Our Hitler is our lord, who rules a brave new world."

Modern historians have largely failed to explain Hitler and the phenomenon of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. I believe this is because they have treated it in a rational way, overlooking Hitler's deep involvement in the occult, and the religious, demonic nature of Nazi rituals and beliefs. The Nazis mixed three springs of occult teaching--Teutonic myth, western gnostic traditions, and eastern mysticism--and added mis-applied science to come up with a terrifying brew.

Those who denied spiritual reality were ill-equipped to handle this phenomenon when it burst on the scene after the humiliating defeat of Germany in World War I. Even the prime minister of England, Neville Chamberlain, was fooled by Hitler. After all, Chamberlain was a Unitarian, who believed that man was ultimately good and that rationalism would prevail. However, the dark cloud that enveloped Germany and the world in the 1930s was not conceived by human reason. It was conceived in hell and born out of the womb of intellectual pride.

Why Couldn't the Church Prevent this Great Evil?

Doesn't the Word of God tell us that "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world," and that the "effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much"? Despite the modernism and spiritual death that infected so many churches, there were still dynamic groups of Christians in Germany at the beginning of this century. Why did the darkness overcome the light for a generation?

The spiritual power of Bible-believing Christians was largely neutralized because of deep divisions in the Body of Christ. As I mentioned earlier, I have traveled widely in the world. I have ministered in scores of denominations, to believers from every part of the spectrum of Christianity, in nearly every country on earth. Yet for years I never saw a more deeply divided Body of Christ than that which existed in Germany.

In August of 1987, I was speaking in Frankfurt to 8,000 at the fairgrounds auditorium. The Lord told me to declare in the meeting, "There are two Germanys, but God wants there to be one!" The media reported my words that night because it was such a politically sensitive statement to make in 1987. But it was something the Lord required me to say. Something else I was required to say that night was that Germany was divided in two because the Body of Christ was divided in two.

The Polarization Satan Wanted

It began soon after the turn of the century, when people who had experienced the Pentecostal revival in Norway brought back the teaching to Germany. Much of what happened was positive, but in Kassel they went into excess. Because the leader of the Kassel meetings, Heinrich Dallmeyer, was afraid of "quenching the Spirit," he went to the extreme of declaring that everyone who spoke in tongues was of God. Instead of trying the spirits, as the Word of God tells us to do, everything was allowed--including displays which were "fleshly" extremes, and even experiences that seemed demonic in origin.

Some in the Body of Christ were alarmed, especially when Dallmeyer later repudiated the whole experience, saying that all the spiritual gifts he had seen in Kassel were not from the Spirit of God, but rather from a lying spirit.(29) A meeting was convened and on September 15, 1909, 56 leaders reacted and swung the pendulum to the other extreme.

They signed the Berlin Accord which said the Pentecostal Movement was "not from above, but rather from below." It was "led by Satan's cunning...and demons were at work in it...to deceive the children of God...and those who were supposed to have been filled with the Spirit proved in the end to be possessed."

Christian Krust wrote later of the Berlin Accord: "No worldly judge would have been allowed to indulge in pronouncing such a horrible sentence with such inadequate proof and after such one-sided proceedings."

The early German leaders of the Pentecostal movement tried to bring reconciliation, but the fears were too great. Some sought to mediate between the two groups, but when the signers of the Berlin Accord threatened them with ostracism, the mediators backed down. The voices of unity were muted. Shouts of division prevailed.

While the Pentecostals continued their work, they were stung by rejection. later, some Pentecostals claimed that the signers of the Berlin Accord had placed a curse on them. Thus both sides of the split attributed dark motives to the other, completing the polarization Satan desired.

I believe the Spirit of God was deeply grieved, and certainly the spiritual force of the German church was sufficiently neutralized that it could not prevent the oncoming onslaught of evil. How else could we explain two World Wars in only 25 years coming out of one nation, especially since that nation had a praying church? It was because the Church had been divided and rendered powerless. (Ps. 133:3)

Holy Heroes during the Holocaust

As you read the history of the Third Reich, and particularly, accounts of it in popular culture in books and movies, you get the idea that Germany became uniformly evil when Hitler came to power. Everyone alive in Germany during the 30s and the 40s supported Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Everyone in that generation was guilty of the blood of millions of Jews. But this is simply not true! While the majority saved themselves by keeping silent and covering their eyes, a courageous minority stood tall.

Those who saved the lives of the Jews have been termed "righteous Gentiles" by modern day Israel. Righteous gentiles included rich and poor, educated and barely literate, believers and atheists. Most never planned to be rescuers...they just found themselves responding to a need.

Oskar Schindler was one rescuer, whose story has recently touched the hearts of millions in a movie by Stephen Spielberg. But there were many more rescuers. They provided false documents, helped smuggle Jews out of the country, and hid them in their homes behind double walls, in camouflaged attics or cellars, in factories, offices, nunneries, churches, hospitals, stables, cemeteries, pigsties, cowsheds, haystacks, pigeon coops and greenhouses. Small children were hidden in boxes, garbage bins, baskets, and baking stoves. (33) Rescuers knew that if they were caught hiding Jews they would be shot on the spot or hanged in a public place as a lesson to others. Yet they risked their lives and saved strangers and friends.

According to an eight-year study by Samuel and Pearl Oliner from Humboldt State University in California, rescuers may have saved 500,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

While many church leaders were deceived by Hitler, and sought to make the church conform to Nazism as so-called "German Christians," a righteous minority saw through the deception. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller and others formed the Confessing Church--200 pastors who opposed the Nazis and cried out against the crimes against Jews. Bonhoeffer gave a radio address in Berlin, warning against "turning any leader into an idol, thus mocking God." His words were cut off halfway through the broadcast.

Members of the Confessing Church had their pulpits taken away, as well as their livelihood, and many ended up in concentration camps. Bonhoeffer was executed days before the surrender of the Third Reich in May of 1945. Niemoller narrowly escaped execution and survived seven years of concentration camp, emerging after the war to help with the reconstruction of Germany.

"Those Words Saved my Life"

Most have heard of Bonhoeffer and Niemoller, but there were other lesser known heroes, too. Paul Schneider was brought to Buchenwald because of his preaching. They tortured him but they did not break his spirit. Although the camp inmates were near starvation, Schneider fasted and prayed every Friday, giving his food to others. Sometimes he shouted Scriptures in the camp. Once a despondent prisoner decided to kill himself by running up to the electric wire around the camp. Suddenly Pastor Schneider's voice bellowed from the barracks, "Jesus Christ says, 'I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.'" The despondent prisoner changed his mind and lived. After the war he said, "Those words saved my life."

Schneider was always beaten for these things, and was only given half portions of the already pitiful rations.

On Easter Sunday, 1939, Schneider shouted out of his cell to the hundreds of thousands in the camp: "This is what the Lord says, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'"

The guards interrupted him and beat him until he lost consciousness. Later his wife was notified that he had died in the camp.

Helmut Gollwitzer waged verbal war against the Nazis. They sent him to the Eastern Front. He spent time in Soviet war camps until 1949. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh was nominated as bishop but replaced by Hitler's choice for bishop. He rescued many old and handicapped people marked for extermination.

Besides those who rescued Jews and those who cried out in protest, there were thousands more who actively resisted. Carl Goerdeler, the mayor of Leipzig, traveled to England and other countries, warning them of Hitler's intentions. They ignored him. Several from the German Foreign Ministry risked their lives to warn Europe and America, begging them to stand up to Hitler so that a planned military coup would be successful. The nations didn't believe them.

Students rose up. Hans and Sophie Scholl and other university students with the White Rose movement distributed leaflets against the Nazis in 1943. They were caught and decapitated.

Within the Abwehr, or military intelligence office, resisters helped Jews escape. The chief of military intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and his chief of staff, Colonel Oster, provided forged papers, sometimes sending Jews out of the country as "intelligence agents."

Under Satanic Protection

Finally, good, honorable men who loved Germany came to the conclusion that they had to stop the murderer. A bomb was planted on Hitler's plane but it failed to go off. Then Generalmajor Henning von Treskow volunteered to carry out a suicide attack when Hitler came to inspect some captured war material. Treskow carried bombs in his pocket. But instead of lingering over the inspection that day, Hitler hurried away.

Several men volunteered to lay down their lives on various suicide missions to kill Hitler. All together, there were eleven assassination attempts, but each time he escaped. It was as if he was under satanic protection.

One regiment, the 9th Infantry led by Major Axel von dem Busche, was made up almost entirely of resisters. They had been horrified as they watched the SS kill 1,800 Jews in the Ukraine. Because of their resistance, this regiment is on record as having more officers hanged, killed, or shot by the Nazis than any other legal unit.

Eventually, Hitler's unnatural protection was taken away, but he had already destroyed the nation. By the end of 1945 there was no Germany--only Allied and Soviet territory. Hell rejoiced. They had succeeded in thwarting God's destiny for this land.

Jesus Crashes the Party

Hell probably threw a party similar to the one they had when Jesus hung on the cross and said, "It is finished." However, Jesus went down into Hell as an univited guest, and interrupted their celebration.

Satan's defeat of Germany is over, too. Just as Jesus came up out of Hell, and out of His tomb, God is resurrecting Germany out of her tomb. He is restoring her anointing and destiny. It was God's idea to re-unite East and West in 1990, and now he is saying to you that your time of grieving is over. You have been through a dark time but you're coming into the light again. It's time to return to your servant leadership and godly influence among the nations. We have missed your dedicated missionaries worldwide. It is time to return. It is time to take up your mantle again.

The redeeming of Germany's destiny has already begun. It began in the rubble of World War II, as Basilea Schlink and the Sisters of Mary were called to begin a ministry of teaching repentance and intercession. Now Basilea schlink and the Sisters of Mary are honored the world over as pioneers in the prayer movement.

Reinhard Bonnke is another German who has reclaimed the mantle of international anointing. He has seen hundreds of thousands come to Christ in Africa. Others include Dr. Gunter Krallmann, who began a ministry to isolated shepherd boys in Lesotho; and Walter Heidenreich who took a team of Germans to Mongolia and saw many conversions to Christ in that Buddhist land.

Guenther Veit is a German businessman who opened a factory in China as a way of ministering the life of Christ there. In his factory in Landsberg he has a chapel so the workers can have a Christian fellowship nearby.

I met a young YWAMer working among Tibetans in India. He has won many to the Lord, including one of the staff of the Dalai Lama. Erlo Stegen has seen tens of thousands of converts among the Zulus in South Africa.

Vera Huchzermeier is ward supervisor on board YWAM'S mercy ship, The Anastasis. She is a key person, overseeing the nurses as they deal with patients' fears. Thousands of Africans have received new hope as Vera and others have shown the love of Jesus.

Other current heroes include Herman Riefler of the Black Forest area, who has raised a flag for religious broadcasters in Germany. The director of the YMCA in Munich has been a unifier in the Body of Christ, promoting various effective evangelistic efforts in Germany. Norbert, the director of King's Kids, is training and releasing children and young teenagers into evangelism projects in Germany and in other nations.

Another hero is a Lutheran pastor who showed courage and zeal during the darkest days of the Hoenecker Regime. Despite pressure from the Communists and the Stasi, he held youth conferences and trained hundreds of young people. As my wife Darlene and I visited his valley, it seemed to radiate the light and hope of Jesus Christ.

All of these are part of a growing swell of Germans who will be going out in waves, taking up their God-given destiny again. I am asking God for 10,000 German men and women to go as missionaries. Can you imagine what effect that will have? Millions and millions of people will see these dedicated servants, full of the love of Jesus, and decide that must be what all Germany is like!

I am also asking God to stir writers and filmmakers to produce books and movies, finding the holy heroes of the past and the present. Young Germans need godly heroes.

Germany is the key to helping finish the Great Commission. Germany is also the key to peace in the Middle East. We are told to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but peace cannot come unless forgiveness is extended. Recently, Helmut Kohl went to ask Israel to forgive Germany for the Holocaust. They refused. We must all pray for Israel to have the grace to forgive Germany, because only then will she receive forgiveness and a way out of her heartache.

Germany is the key to revival in Europe. Where Satan brought death and sin abounded, grace is going to abound much more. Where the enemy came in like a flood, in that very land the Spirit of God will lift up a standard. Prayer movements are gaining momentum. Unity is growing, as evidenced in such events as the March for Jesus. The divisions of the past are being put to rest. Intellectual pride is being replaced by humility and love for one another. Evangelism is getting underway. This country with a great heart for the nations is going to once again bless the whole earth with Bibles, a new Reformation, revival movements, prayer for the nations, and missionaries to every continent.

But now take courage...all you people of the land take courage, declares the Lord, and work; for I am with you. (Hag. 2:4)

Copyright Youth With A Mission, Loren Cunningham