Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 2-1-2023: Schindler’s List & The Tribulation

The Nazi takeover of post-Weimar Germany in the 1930s and into the 1940s that resulted in World War 2 revealed three significant aspects of the nature of mankind:

1. There are those who are purely evil and will lead society into committing great atrocities
2. Many people will go along to get along; they may or may not see the wickedness being perpetrated, but they won’t oppose an evil regime
3. A few will resist and buck the system, often placing themselves in harm’s way, yet acting for the good of others even to their own detriment

The 1983 book by Thomas Keneally and subsequent 1993 movie Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg exposes these characteristics of humanity in a dramatic way.  Both works follow German industrialist Oskar Schindler as he observes what the National Socialists, led by Adolf Hitler, do to the Jewish people and his response to that.  Having just finished reading the book, I’ll refer to that for my comments today.

In a prior Prophecy Update, I mentioned an article by Leo Hohmann titled Lovers of Truth and Lovers of Lies: Seeing new lessons for today in Mel Gibson’s iconic portrayal of ‘The Patriot’ for how Hohmann classified people.  Leo mentioned that in the face of adversity, about 97% of the population doesn’t act, whether from ignorance or apathy.  Only about 3% of the people in dire situations do take action, perhaps either from principle or having been awakened in some manner.  We pretty much see this in looking at what happened in the past through the lens of a book like Schindler’s List.

I think it’s possible that what is recounted in the book, which expounds on the history of this previous era, may be a foreshadowing of what is to come in the upcoming Tribulation.  As a result, we’ll examine what Schindler did and how that same type of response may play out in times to come.

Transcript:

The Nazi takeover of post-Weimar Germany in the 1930s and into the 1940s that resulted in World War 2 revealed three significant aspects of the nature of mankind:

1. There are those who are purely evil and will lead society into committing great atrocities
2. Many people will go along to get along; they may or may not see the wickedness being perpetrated, but they won’t oppose an evil regime
3. A few will resist and buck the system, often placing themselves in harm’s way, yet acting for the good of others even to their own detriment

The 1983 book by Thomas Keneally and subsequent 1993 movie Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg exposes these characteristics of humanity in a dramatic way.  Both works follow German industrialist Oskar Schindler as he observes what the National Socialists, led by Adolf Hitler, do to the Jewish people and his response to that.  Having just finished reading the book, I’ll refer to that for my comments today.

In a prior Prophecy Update, I mentioned an article by Leo Hohmann titled Lovers of Truth and Lovers of Lies: Seeing new lessons for today in Mel Gibson’s iconic portrayal of ‘The Patriot’ for how Hohmann classified people.  Leo mentioned that in the face of adversity, about 97% of the population doesn’t act, whether from ignorance or apathy.  Only about 3% of the people in dire situations do take action, perhaps either from principle or having been awakened in some manner.  We pretty much see this in looking at what happened in the past through the lens of a book like Schindler’s List.

I think it’s possible that what is recounted in the book, which expounds on the history of this previous era, may be a foreshadowing of what is to come in the upcoming Tribulation.  As a result, we’ll examine what Schindler did and how that same type of response may play out in times to come.

First we’ll pray, read from God’s Word, and see what we’ve got in this regard.

<PRAY>

Scripture

Isaiah 58:6

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Schindler’s List & The Tribulation

• In reading this book, I couldn’t help but shake my head time after time at the hatred of the Nazis – their moral vacuum – and the love expressed by Oskar Schindler toward the Jews
• Most of us who are not holocaust deniers – which is perhaps a subject for another time – acknowledge the atrocities committed by Germany toward the Jews
• We see what was done and recoil in horror
• Hitler’s pureblood Aryan beliefs caused him and his followers to look down upon those who they demeaned as having tainted, less-than-human characteristics
• The thinking behind this was a mixture of Darwinianism, corrupted Christianity, and occult, satanic influences
• These aren’t discussed in the book, but were factors behind the Nazi barbarism
• If you’re of a certain age, it’s difficult to imagine that you haven’t seen pictures or videos of the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps
• They were nothing but skin and bone – literally walking skeletons
• No doubt you’ve also seen the heaps of human bodies – the result of the mass exterminations
• Again, the remains of these poor people show flesh and bones – discarded corpses of those the Nazis determined were of no more value than rats or cockroaches
• This is the prophetic picture from Ezekiel 37:1-2:

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.

• In this chapter, God has Ezekiel prophesy to these dead and wasted bones of the future – his people who have been left to the vultures with no hope
• Yet in God there is always hope
• Ezekiel reveals this through the prophetic Word God has him speak
• To these dry and useless bones, Ezekiel declares God’s promise of renewal
• What was dead and gone will rise again
• Indeed, we know this prophecy is in the midst of fulfillment
• God brought Israel together as a nation in 1948 – only 3 years following the discovery of these horrors in the death camps
• Today, Israel is prosperous and flourishing just as God promised
• She is surrounded on all sides by her enemies, yet they fear her for the might that God provides as her strength
• Much more is to come in the saga of Israel, and what is today a nation – a people – whose lives have been restored – yet is still without the spirit of God animating them
• They are secular and for that God still has work to do among them
• But this is all yet to come
• Let’s go back to this era in WW2 when the Jews lost seemingly everything
• One of the key figures in the book is a Nazi named Amon Goeth who was the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland
• I can look at the account of this man and say without equivocation that he was demonically possessed
• On a whim he would decide to kill someone
• He might come out on his balcony in the morning overlooking the Jewish work camp
• He’d be in his robe, have a cup of coffee in his hand, and his pistol at his side
• If he saw anyone that he thought was slacking in his work – as though he was swatting at a gnat – he would simply shoot the man
• Then he’d finish his coffee as if nothing had happened
• Walking among the men and women in the camp, if the looks of someone displeased him, he’d shoot them point blank and carry on as others around the dead person froze in horror
• This was a man who loved his creature comforts – liquor, food, women, and perhaps even men at times
• Amon Goeth was simply the tip of the iceberg of those within the Nazi regime who were all in when it came to the mindset that denigrated the Jews and approved of exterminating them
• One of the interest phenomena among such people as Goeth was that they had a blind spot
• Often they would observe fellow Germans who had a softness toward the Jews
• These Germans didn’t have the killing instinct of the Nazis like Goeth, yet were tolerated
• The thinking was that the Jews communicated something like an infectious disease toward these more merciful people
• In other words, they couldn’t help themselves because of the Jews they’d been around
• This allowed such people to work against the purposes of the Nazis regime which was intent on total eradication of what it perceived as vermin
• Oskar Schindler was among the few fitting this description of those supposedly infected by the Jewish disease
• He was among the 3%
• He was also a very shrewd man when it came to dealing with people such as Amon Goeth and many others
• Schindler was an industrialist and an opportunist
• Early on in the war effort he determined to capitalize on one of the needs of the German army
• He started an enamel factory and basically made pots, pans, and eating utensils that were a necessary component of army existence
• As it’s been said: An army marches on its stomach
• Later in his factory, Schindler agreed to manufacture some munitions for German weapons – although purposefully, he kept that part of his business to an absolute minimum
• Over time, as the Jews were placed in densely packed ghettoes within cities and then subsequently transported to concentration camps via cattle cars packed so tight with humanity that the people had to stand for days of travel and were forced to perform their bodily functions in the place they stood – Schindler saw their horrific treatment and had compassion
• What was also happening was that the Jewish workers in his factory were often detained daily in the ghetto for no reason other than harassment, and they were being shipped off so that he lost workers
• Schindler used this situation to his advantage
• He was a man well liked among the Nazis because he was always congenial and had the knack for making them like him because of the liquor and gifts he provided
• He gave parties that the German officers loved to attend because he fed them well, they enjoyed the music provided, and they drank to their heart’s content
• Despite his outward façade of camaraderie with these men, inwardly Schindler despised them because of their inhumanity
• Amon Goeth liked Schindler immensely and humorously put up with his tenderness toward the Jews that Goeth despised
• More than that, because Goeth was such an important part of what Schindler intended, he plied the man with many good things that he got on the black market – thus not readily available
• What Schindler did was to propose that in his factory, he would house his Jewish workers
• He had very influential contacts and was able to manipulate these men higher up in the regime by arguing that when his workers were detained or sent elsewhere, the war effort was being hindered
• Because of his many presents and parties and glad-handling of the Nazi officer ranks, they believed him, and allowed him to build quarters to keep the Jews on his premises
• During all this, he had extremely good relations with many of the Jewish leaders and even the common Jewish men and women
• He even made promises to them that he would protect them from death
• Many believed, but naturally a goodly number were also skeptical
• What could one man do against the Nazi killing machine?
• Over the years of these events, Schindler spent the equivalent of many tens of thousand of dollars from his own pocket
• He provided the food for his workers at his factory
• He used his own funds to bribe the Nazis and shower them with good things to retain his relations with them
• Whatever money it took, Schindler spent his own money with no reservations
• There were times when in some manner money came to the Jews from foreign sources
• Schindler could have kept some portion of that to reimburse himself
• From every account, he never did
• He spent his own money in this effort to protect the Jews and keep them alive
• The author of the book – Thomas Keneally – stated that he made every effort not to make the account of Schindler a hagiography
• A hagiography is a story that makes a saint out of someone
• Keneally worked hard to reject writing in that manner – because Oskar Schindler was far from a saint
• What a man of great complexity when we look at him in the entirety!
• He was married and was a womanizer
• If anyone was a saint, per se, it was probably his wife
• She knew of his many affairs and simply endured them
• The interesting thing about Schindler was that he apparently had this innocence – in a way – toward his moral failings
• The women he was with – probably knowing of the others – seemingly never got jealous or had hard feelings toward him or the other women
• It’s very odd, but Schindler had that effect on people
• He was also a prodigious drinker, yet never suffered the next day for it
• Thus, he could basically drink the Nazis he was working on under the table and operate the next day with no ill effects
• Conversely, his German companions would definitely be the worse for wear
• Where the title of the book comes in is that toward the latter part of the war, Schindler had about 1000 Jewish workers that he was responsible for at his factory and whom he’d promised to protect from the Nazi death camps
• It was being on this list of names that became someone’s golden ticket – as much as anyone could believe that Schindler would actually come through on his promises
• Ultimately, he was able to save all of these Jews plus more
• He’d been working throughout the war effort toward this end – particularly when he saw early on the evil intent of those in charge and literally executing their will
• Capping it off, when the Nuremburg trials were underway, Schindler testified against those Nazis he knew were instrumental in committing atrocities

• Let’s go back to the Bible verse I read earlier – Isaiah 58:6:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

• Consider Oskar Schindler in this light
• What is a holy fast to the Lord?
• to loose the bonds of wickedness
  • Did Schindler work toward that end in opposing the Nazi killing machine?
• to undo the straps of the yoke
  • Did Schindler make every effort to make life easier for the Jews by housing them, feeding, them, keeping them from undue harassment, by manipulating the people in charge and their evil system to prevent Jews from needless death?
• to let the oppressed go free
  • Did Schindler keep his promises so that at the end of the war, those he protected could find life once more?
• to break every yoke
  • Did Schindler complete the loop of bringing justice by detailing how so many died – thus leading to the execution of those who’d taken part in this ethnic cleansing horror?

• To all these questions, I would say yes
• Now, let’s consider something that Jesus said
• Often throughout the Gospels, Jesus speaks of persecution and those who are merciful in this situation
• Matthew 10:40-42 says:

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

• What does it mean to give a disciple a cup of cold water?
• What is the reward of righteousness?

• How about Matthew 7:15-23?

 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

• Obviously, this is about false prophets, but might it also apply to others who bear either good fruit or bad?
• What is the Father’s will?
• Isn’t it what we saw in the Isaiah verse – namely helping those in need?
• One other passage to ponder is Matthew 25:31-40:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

• This speaks of the judgment of nations – the separating of the sheep and the goats
• Who are the sheep?
• Are they not those who were merciful and gave of themselves in helping others?
• Did Schindler do this?
• Did he see the hungry and feed them?
• Did he clothe the poor and needy?
• Did he do such acts of kindness to those he barely knew?
• Consider what the passage says. . .
• Those who welcomed Christ through showing mercy toward others in need are blessed and will inherit the kingdom of God
• Now here’s the quandary. . .
• This is all a no-brainier if someone is a follower of Jesus Christ
• Schindler was a nominal – very nominal – Catholic
• He was a man who sinned regularly
• Like I said, his moral failings were legend – his sexual peccadilloes were the epitome of sexual immorality
• He drank, he smoked, he was not a follower of Jesus Christ in any way, shape, or form
• Yet what he did. . .
• Does it not meet the definition that Jesus gives in His parable about doing good to the least of His brothers?
• I find it fascinating to come across a situation like this that one could certainly speculate is an exception to the rule
• What’s the rule?
• One must know Jesus Christ as Savior to enter the kingdom of heaven
• That description doesn’t fit Oskar Schindler
• I don’t pretend to know how God will judge such people and such circumstances
• All I can do is look at these various Bible passages in light of the sacrifices Schindler made for a people who weren’t even his own
• He wasn’t a Jew
• He was born in the Czech Republic and was considered German
• He had no spiritual life that is at all apparent
• Despite this, God put on his heart something that few men or women in history have acted upon
• For his heroic salvation of the Jewish people, the Jews and Israel ended up honoring him immensely
• He’s remembered at Yad Vashem in Israel, which is the Holocaust Museum, by being named a Righteous Gentile
• What is he to God?
• How will God honor him?
• What a fascinating question!

• There’s one last related aspect to Schindler I want to discuss
• Will there be any Schindlers during the Tribulation?
• If so, what might they look like?
• I happen to believe that Islam will essentially be wiped out as an influential religion through the combination of the psalm 83 War and the Gog-Magog War
• Even if you don’t hold to a Psalm 83 War like I do, when we see the aftermath of Ezekiel 38-39 by itself, it’s apparent that the nations attacking Israel – the majority being Muslim – will be wiped out
• Just from that, Allah will lose face
• He will be seen as a feckless god with no power
• Islam will lose many followers
• From this, it’s doubtful that Islam will be part of the covenant agreement brokered by Antichrist to begin the Tribulation
• In fact, I believe that once the pre-Tribulation Rapture occurs that the Catholic church will rise up in its ecumenical fervor and bring the various religions of the world under its umbrella
• It’ll be a combination religion of Catholicism, earth worship, other religious practices, and the occult
• It will be through this religious power that those who reject it and choose to follow Christ instead are severely persecuted
• We know there will be many Tribulation saints during this period
• It’s impossible for us to know how many thousands – perhaps millions – of people are killed by the terrible Harlot – the One World Religion – that will be prominent in the first 3 1/2 years of the Tribulation
• During this time, will there be among the 3%, who don’t fall in line to follow the Catholic ecumenical embrace, some who don’t turn to Christ, yet exhibit His compassion for those being hunted down?
• Might there be a Schindler who sees with mercy those who are the targets of an insane rage? . . .
• Namely a person who believes that if someone doesn’t submit to the Catholic church with its many false teachings doesn’t deserve to die?
• We know there are already numerous FEMA camps throughout America that have been prepared for supposed quarantine of COVID-infected people
• Will they be used during the Catholic purge – the new Inquisition – whose purpose is to confront and destroy heresy – so that the sacrilegious Christians can be gathered and executed?
• Will a Schindler in this era work to keep people from the inevitable fate of torture or beheading – even gas chambers?
• We really don’t know how the mass murders of these martyrs will happen, but I think it’ll need to be efficient for the numbers involved
• We’re all aware of the hype of a Christian revival holding back the forces of darkness – the hope and prayer of many that America will repent and turn back to God
• Nothing Biblically indicates that
• However, the revival will occur during the Tribulation
• There will also be something that marks these new Christian believers
• Maybe it’s their own evangelistic fervor in which they cannot help speaking of what Christ has done for them – thus marking them very visibly among the masses
• Perhaps it will be that God uses them mightily through the display of signs and wonders – the healing of illnesses and casting out of demons
• After all, it will be an extremely supernatural time as Satan exhibits his counterfeit works
• One way or another, these people will be recognized and hunted down
• Could a brave Schindler-type find a means of keeping them safe – perhaps even to the end of the Tribulation so that they are ones who enter the Millennium in their human bodies?
• And how might such a Schindler be seen by God – particularly such a person who didn’t confess Him as Lord and Savior, yet protected His little ones and gave them water, food, and shelter?
• This is obviously all speculation that a person like this might arise, but human nature being what it is, I think the possibility exists
• The one thing we can conclude is that the Nazi era showed very graphically man’s inhumanity to man
• This will be amplified on steroids during the Tribulation
• For those of us who know Jesus Christ personally and have placed our trust in Him, we know that He will keep us from this terrible hour of trial coming upon the whole earth
• If there is anyone watching this video who hasn’t yet confessed Jesus as Savior and Lord, time is running out
• Don’t harden your heart
• Today is the day of your salvation
• If you’ll only repent and give your heart to Jesus
• I’m so thankful that the Lord sacrificed for me and all my brothers and sisters in Christ
• What an astounding – eternal – gift!