Sinking Into "Unthinkable Depths of Cruelty"

A truth not to be underrated is that evil not only accosts its victims, it also squeezes the life out of it's adherents. Evil is not a force to be trivialized simply because it's not at our front door. By the time it arrives on our door-step, it is too late to do anything about it.

The desire of the treacherous is for violence (Proverbs 13:3b). Evil men delight in their atrocities. Richard Wurmbrand, former 14 year prisoner in Romania, who founded "Voice of the Martyrs," said of his captors: "What the Communists have done to Christians surpasses any possibility of human understanding. I have seen Communists whose faces while torturing believers shone with rapturous joy. The cried out while torturing the Christians, 'We are the devil.'" They did not respond to any basic objection to torture. As Wurmbrand puts it, "For them nothing besides matter exists and to them a man is like wood, like and eggshell. With this belief they sink to unthinkable depths of cruelty." But, the way of the treacherous is their ruin (13:15b). Well, some of them were ruined right away, for the communists were no friends to anyone. Often, according Wurmbrand, those who were the perpetrators of torture became themselves objects of torture. So, there is absolutely no grace in these kinds of evil men. 

God designed us to know and to love Him, and to be loved by Him. What a stark contrast to the loneliness faced in prisons. What palpable isolation faces every sinner. Regarding God's intention for the human race, Tozer says, 

God was saying to Abraham, "You may have some other idea about the design and purpose for your life, but you are wrong! You were created in My image to worship Me and to glorify Me. If you do not honor this purpose, your life will degenerate into shallow, selfish, humanistic pursuits. 

Is this not what happened to the communists, and to those like them? They "degenerated into shallow, selfish, humanistic spirits." This is what happens to us all when we ignore the living Bread, Jesus Christ. Death fills the soul, Satan lives freely in there and the result is the unbelievable hatred for all life, and the willing torture of God's creation. Satan incarnate. From such men, Lord deliver us. More importantly, from such a willing denial of your beauty, Lord, please also deliver us! For want of worship, man reduces himself to a piece of bread. God's intention is much higher, much nobler. Seek that.