Dietrich Bonhoeffer: When Faith Costs Everything (The Pastor Who Defied Hitler)

The true story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor who left safety in America to resist Hitler in Nazi Germany (Hebrews 11:6).

In 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was safe in New York City. His American friends had arranged a teaching post at Union Theological Seminary specifically to keep him out of Hitler's reach. He lasted 26 days. Then he boarded the last passenger ship crossing the Atlantic before the war shut the ocean down and sailed back into Nazi Germany.

Two years later he was in a Gestapo prison. Two years after that, he was executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp, twenty-three days before Germany surrendered. He never saw the victory he gave his life for.

But God did. And the letters he wrote from that prison cell are still preaching eighty years later.

Today's Take 5 is the true story of Bonhoeffer's costly faith, the choice he made on a Manhattan pier, and what Hebrews 11:6, Romans 8:28, and Psalm 116:15 say to every person wondering whether following Jesus is worth the price.

Heaven comes down. Lift up your day.

Pastor Rodney Coe

Pastor Rodney Coe Ministries

Transcript

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A man stands on a Manhattan pier watching the great ocean liners come and go. He's 33 years old, he's safe, he's brilliant, he's one of the most gifted theologians in Germany, and his American friends have just arranged for him to teach at Union Theological Seminary, specifically to keep him out of Hitler's reach. And he is about to do the unthinkable. He's gonna buy a ticket back. Stick with me, there's a moment coming in this story you won't forget. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, a daily five-minute devotional, short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Coe, and today the story of the man who gave up safety to walk straight back into the fire and what he left behind still preaching 75 years later. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. By 33, he was already one of the most gifted theologians in Germany, a pastor, a professor, a man whose books were being read in seminaries across two continents. When the war drums started beating, his American friends arranged a teaching post at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. They did it specifically to keep him out of Hitler's reach. Bonhoeffer accepted. He crossed the Atlantic, he arrived in New York. He lasted 26 days. He sat down and wrote a note to his mentor. I have made a mistake, he said, in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials of this time with my people. And he booked passage on the last passenger ship crossing the Atlantic before the war shut the ocean down. He sailed back, not toward safety, toward the fire. Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer joined a group of military officers secretly plotting against Hitler. He worked in the shadows. In April of 1943, the Gestapo came for him. Two years in a Berlin cell at Tegel Prison, and here's where the story turns. Because from that prison cell in chains, under a regime that wanted him dead, Bonhoeffer became more fruitful than he ever been in freedom. He wrote letters, he wrote theology, he wrote poetry, he preached to fellow prisoners, he counseled the guards who watched him, and he put on paper words the church is still reading today. From that cell he wrote, I believe that God can and will bring good out of evil, even out of the greatest evil. That's Romans 828 with skin on it. In April 1945, Bonhoeffer was transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp. The Allied forces were weeks away. Germany was collapsing on April 9th, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was led to the gallows. The camp doctor, a man with no faith of his own, wrote this. In almost 50 years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God. Bonhoeffer was hanged on April 9th, 1945. Twenty days later, Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945. Bonhoeffer never saw it. Friend, hear me today. You may be in a season where you can't see the end of the story, where the sacrifice has cost you more than you thought it would, where you gave up the safe ship and you're standing in the middle of the storm, wondering if God noticed. He noticed. God was not absent at Flossenburg. He was present at the gallows just as he had been present at another execution on another hill two thousand years before. The cross looked like the end, but boy, it was only the beginning. Bonhoffer's death looked like defeat. It became a legacy that outlasted the Reich. Whatever storm you've sailed back into, God is writing the ending, and he is very, very good at it. And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day. If you'd like a free collection of true stories like this one, come see me at liftupyourday.com. That's liftupyourday.com. I'm Rodney Coe. See you tomorrow.