I started Elie Wiesel’s “Night” a few days ago.

I haven’t gotten very far. I read ahead and came across some scenes I’m not sure I want to read in detail.

The Nazi’s treatment of prisoners is sickening. Haunting.

The images his story, and others like his, create don’t dismiss easily from my mind.

Hubby read an account of a 13-yearold Pakistani girl who was gang rapped then married to one of the rapist who then poured battery acid down her throat because she wasn’t a virgin at their wedding.

The image haunts him.

When I was 14 I discovered my father’s WW2 history books and read pages and pages about the Nazi concentration camps, their experimental hospitals, and their over all distain for life.

It has never left me. Only fades into the back of my soul.

So as I read about Wiesel, a devout Jew as a young teen, who studied the Talmud and fasted for the revelation of the Messiah, being carted off to a concentration camp, I wondered if he would ever come to the knowledge of the truth.

He wonders why he survived the camp. He claimed he was weak and in the opening of the book, he exemplifies his “weakness” by telling how he refused to comfort his dying father for fear of the SS.

So why did he survive?

Could it be for his fasting and seeking the Messiah? That he lived to discover the Messiah? I don’t know… Just musing.

But as I ended reading for the day, I wondered aloud to God, “Why did You allow it?” (The Holocaust.)

All those Jews, and other “undesirables” in Nazi estimation, summary killed, starved, tortured, treated so inhumanely… all those innocents…

Since the way of salvation for all mankind is the Jewish God-Man Jesus, the Christ, (John 3:16) what about those who didn’t know? Or never heard of Jesus?

Paul writes that the Jews are blinded for the “time of the Gentiles?”

I said to God, “Why? I don’t understand.”

Hear: “Will you let this sort of thing happen to me?” (Doesn’t life always boil down to me and mine?)

I don’t fear death. I know where I’m going. I have a relationship with the Redeemer. I know Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. I put my faith in Him!

But I don’t want to be carted off to a camp, starved to death or beaten.

Fear. Such an enemy of love. But that’s for another blog post.

As I drove home this morning from an errand. I asked the Lord again, “Help me understand.”

I know He’s holy. And His ways are above me but I believe He loves to reveal Himself to us.

This thought returned to me on the edge of my question.

“You think that they are innocent…”

Ah, right. A bit of understanding dawned.

We, in our weak human frame, want to believe we’re all innocent and basically good. I do not think God sent the Jews to the death camps.

I don’t. But there’s a clear case that He allowed it.

Or perhaps “we” allowed it. People. Believers even. We didn’t speak up. We were not in a place of prayer to understand the times in which we lived.

The German and European Christians did not recognize Hitler’s character until it was too late.

Hubby spoke on wisdom this past Sunday. He referenced Daniel, who “recognized” the end of the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah because he’d been a man of prayer and the Word. He studied. Sought.

Oh, I said to Hubby later, may we be a Daniel generation. Seeking. Understanding. Praying.

But as to our innocence before God, no matter how we live or die, Scripture assures us only One was and is innocent. Jesus the Christ.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

We are all guilty!

This year I’ve been thinking that no one will be able to stand before the Lord and say, “Yeah, well, You owe me.”

He’s not going to owe truth, knowledge, redemption to anyone!

When we stand before the judgment seat, (2 Cor 5:10) it will be to account for ourselves. Not God accounting for Himself to us.

Talk about haunting.

I came across this article as I searched for collaboration on my thinking.

From Christian Post.

What about the innocent native in Africa who has never heard about God? How can God hold him accountable for what he didn’t even know?

These are some of the questions Pastor J. D. Greear of The Summit church in Durham, N.C. has received.

His response: “The innocent native in Africa doesn’t exist.”

“There are two ways that every human being everywhere has been made aware of God: the first is the glory and beauty of creation that teaches us that there is a Creator … We look up instinctively and we know that we don’t come from nowhere,” he preached that Sunday.

Second, people know innately that there’s a sense of right and wrong and that’s a strong indication that there is a Lawgiver to whom everyone will ultimately answer to.

With that, Greear continued, all people know about God. But they suppress the truth.

“No one is righteous,” the N.C. pastor stated. “We reject God’s rule; … we resent Him; we want to make the rules, not submit to Him.

“All people are guilty before God … We are not condemned because we haven’t heard about Jesus … but because we have rejected the rule of God.”

The wrath of God only comes on people because of the suppression of truth so in the case of babies and the mentally challenged, there is no knowledge of truth and thus there can be no suppression, and thus no condemnation, he noted.

To be honest, I’m not sure “suppression of knowledge” is a plumb line for condemnation, but I’m not going to trust the faithful Creator in doing what is right. 1 Peter 4:19.

I know God is just. With all men, women and children.

This I know… despot the horrors of the world (which should waken up everyone to the reality of people are NOT basically good. If they were, why so many horrors? Where did the horror come from?) God is love. 1 John 4:8.

God is good. Mark 10:8. “And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.”

Psalm 53:1 “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God,” They are corrupt, and have committed abominable injustice; There is no one who does good.”

So when I’m questioning and wondering, not understanding I remember two core things: God is love and God is good.

I can trust Him.

And I know I am not innocent? Not by a long shot. But the God of love and goodness gave me a way of escape through Jesus. I believe.

And I pray to be a light to a dark world starting with my neighbors, my community.

I don’t pretend to understand all of His ways and I will never say emphatically His treatment of those who have no knowledge of the truth, but I DO have the knowledge.

And I must live accordingly. I must share the Good News.

What about you?

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