Wake Up, Look Up

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hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach

wrock and today's episode we're talking

about getting away with mass murder this

is not a how-to episode wouldn't want

you to think we're endorsing that this

is actually prompted by something I read

in the Atlantic this week about a

fascinating story about a Polish

journalist I I cannot possibly say his

first name I'll just call him Cass

salowitz who ended up in lith Lithuania

in the early 1940s so right as the rise

of the Nazis was really reaching its

fruition in that part of the country and

he was a journalist but at the time

because of the economy wasn't working as

a journalist he was doing odd jobs

around town but he was also secretly

keeping a very detailed and descriptive

diary of the events happening in

Lithuania at the time including the mass

murder of the Jewish population there uh

recently his diary was just published

and so it's been uh kind of in the news

lately his writing and there are some

harrowing counts I mean two stories that

stand out to me the the first is he

talks about one day where 200 Jews were

taken into the woods and shot the next

day 300 Jews were taken and shot and

Cass goes on to say that for the next

week every day hundreds of Jews were

taken out into the woods and shot you

see the town he was in in Lithuania was

on a railroad line so they would bring

them in on the trains March them into

the forest and shoot them every day for

one week he tells another story where

there was a time where he was at the

train station and they were unloading

Jewish people and walking them into the

forest he talks about a crowd of women

and children that was so big that it

took 15 minutes for the crowd to pass

wholly in front of him from start to

finish he describes it as as they're

walking into the woods the women are

looking at him knowing what's coming and

asking him to save them which of course

he was powerless to do eventually that

entire crowd was shot by the Nazis it is

gripping stuff heartbreaking tragic

stuff it's also stuff we wouldn't have

known about at least not in particular

if he had not written about it which

brings up an interesting spiritual point

you see at the time this is happening at

a remote town in Lithuania later on we

would come to know that the Nazis were

evil we would come to know about

concentration camp in a variety of other

ways that they murdered people but

probably we would have never known about

what they were doing in Lithuania except

for this one guy that wrote it down it

made me think that all these Nazi

soldiers perpet perpetuating this mass

murder committing these heinous

atrocities probably thought at least to

some degree that they were getting away

with it that no one really knew what

they were doing and therefore there were

no moral repercussions but of course one

guy did know and he was writing about it

and now his writing is being published

so for all of history everyone will know

what they were doing but of course more

than that God knows you see the idea

that a journalist was secretly recording

so that their crimes were being captured

is a great metaphor for the idea that we

all think from time to time we are

getting away with something but the

Bible makes sure that we know that that

isn't true for any of us us I think in

particular here of Psalm 11 where it

says that the Lord's eyes are always

searching and he sees everyone have you

ever thought about that you see the one

thing that is certain because God sees

everything is that judgment is coming

for us all for these soldiers it comes

now in the form of History judging them

as we modern people look back at what

they did and recognize how awful it is

but that pales in comparison to the

Judgment that is waiting for all of us

can you imagine what it would be like to

stand in front of a God who knows

everything you've ever done everything

you didn't do everything you said and

left unsaid every thought that was in

your brain that should sober us up no

one gets away with anything no act goes

unseen unheard or unnoticed that should

also of course prompt us to lean into

the grace of Jesus Christ without which

none of us would have any hope the the

only way to stand before a God who sees

and knows everything is to have his son

his righteous life and his death speak

on our behalf stories like this are a

great reminder judgment is Certain

Justice is certain but so thankfully is

forgiveness because of Jesus hey thanks

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