How Did We Come To This? (Part Two/Final)

The grim reality of our unstoppable immorality

Khen Lim




Image source: advindicate.com

Unchangeable and permanently irreversible?

This is the kind of hope that the world can no longer depend on. Immorality has virtually come to stay. In the twenty-four fairly detailed areas we have described, the reader may begin to understand the depth of problem we are under throughout the world but these only scratch the surface. We certainly have not talked about many of the other examples of serious immorality including the following:

-         One-sided reporting and silencing of truth by mainstream media where the liberal press ignores politics on the right in order to advance their political interests at the cost of sacrificing journalistic neutrality

-         Kerbing of all things to do with Christianity by the government including Christmas where businesses are discouraged from talking about or celebrating the birth of Christ and neutering it to become nothing but another seasonal holiday

-         Muting the voice of Christians in deference to appeasement of Muslims through censorship and threats of lawsuit in order to silence dissenters and advance skewed political agenda

-         Media deliberation to deny conservatives their right to air their views by cutting off all possible opportunities and access channels, and then demeaning and publicly mocking them into submission

-         Prejudice and bias by social networking media to silence conservatives and dilute their influence through deliberate filtering of available news that prominently promote the liberal position

-         Liberal intolerance over conservatives’ right to their opinions, branding them haters and racists in an effort to compel compliance in the workplace including law enforcement agencies for fear of public backlash and loss of employment

-         Spiteful gays and their deep hatred for the conventional marriage and family values in which attempts have been made – with government in support – to publicly denounce those with conservative viewpoints by way of mass persecution

-         Government ignorance of public cries for protection against Muslim minority violence resulting in deliberately undocumented crimes and cataloguing crimes not attributed to religious motivation so that Islam is protected

-         Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and how the government uses different ways to incite black minorities to hate whites as well as the police force resulting in growth of massive social unrests amounting to brutal killings, burning of private property and all other forms of public violence

-         Shaming of Christians and Christian values by atheist lecturers in colleges and universities who then threaten them with academic failure if they do not comply with their views

-         Deliberate rewriting of schoolbooks so that historical truths are concealed from and not taught to schoolchildren who are then led to believe in the propagated lies designed and perpetuated by the government

-         Threats by government and government agencies to desist from talking about God including praying, sharing or discussion of any passages from Scripture or displaying of the cross anywhere within the area of the school

Even this list is nowhere exhaustive. The spread of immorality is so comprehensive today that it has infiltrated all walks of life, penetrated every pillar of society, contaminated every aspect of private and public life, infested and corrupted all forms of small and large businesses. Immorality is so powerful and resilient that it would take more than Herculean force to overcome it and revert society back to upright moral code of behaviour.

The Thessalonian lesson

When Paul decided to write his letter to the church in Thessaloniki, he was of the understanding that the Thessalonians were struggling in certain areas of their faith but then again, that is understandable because they were new to the faith and therefore might require further guidance and instructions. Like anyone with baby faith, the Thessalonians could be said to have gaps in their understanding of Christianity. The fact that those gaps had to do with the End Times makes it interesting but pressing for Paul to deal with.

All that doesn’t mean that the Thessalonians were in the dark about the End Times. They knew their eschatology. They were aware that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, their Lord and Saviour, will be coming back for them and soon. They knew that His Second Coming isn’t going to be anywhere near as discrete or humbling as His birth in a little manger in Bethlehem. 

This time, Christ would come in the most spectacular fashion and the Thessalonians had full trust that He will emerge from the sky charioted by clouds and together with a phalanx of angels, the strike force would be more formidable than anything humanly possible (Mt 25:30-31).

The Thessalonians were so sure that Christ would come back for them this soon because they believed they saw enough of what Jesus had described in quite some detail of the signs of the ‘last days’ (Mt 24:3). 

They include the following: Deception (vv4-5), wars and war mongering (v6), famines and earthquakes (v7), arrests, persecutions and killings (v9), backsliding and anarchy (v10), false prophecies (v11,23-24), and rampant sinning and lovelessness (v12). However we are also told that “the end won’t follow immediately” (v6) and yet, because the Thessalonians checked every box, they believed that Jesus would be back any day now.

This invariably led to some poor decision-making. We are told that the Thessalonian Christians quit their day jobs and whiled away their time merely sitting around and waiting for Jesus to come. In other words, they did nothing productive but chewed fat and waited for as long as it would take and for that, Paul took them to task:

“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live and you will not need to depend on others” (1 Thess 4:11-12).

Paul did away with the diplomacy and became blunter here:

“Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: ‘Those unwilling to work will not get to eat’” (2 Thess 3:10).

Both verses still carry the same weight and significance today as they did back then. While Scripture doesn’t reveal how long the Thessalonians continued to wait but they certainly waited long enough to feel Paul’s wrath. Days would have turned into weeks and weeks into months. Yet no sign of Jesus arriving. And they would’ve wondered why. With some fellow believers having died along the way, the waiting has now raised more questions than they did in answering them and with each question, they also worried. 

Would these dead believers be lost or forgotten on Judgement Day? Would Christ remember those who died waiting? So many questions and so much more to worry over. Instead of the excitement in waiting for Christ to come, the Thessalonian Christians were by now grieving and dreading.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (NLT), Paul responded:

“And now, dear brothers and sisters we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.”

And his answer came in verses 15-18:

“We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet Him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then together with them we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.”

Paul’s answer isn’t difficult to understand. However some things are notable. When Paul uses the term ‘dear brothers and sisters,’ suggesting a family. His choice of words tells us we are family, God’s family. In the later verses, he used ‘we’ to the same effect, that as family, we stick together, standing behind one another and supporting each other. And because we are a family in Christ, the bonds that hold us together are infinitely stronger than whatever genealogical DNA or blood type. By faith then, our blood is Jesus’.

And so in our family, God is our Father and as such, how probable is it that He would forget us on Judgement Day? How likely would it be that He would sidestep us, ignore us or find us surplus to His plan? It is ludicrous to suggest that God would leave us out when the day of reckoning comes. The promise He spoke through Isaiah still stands for all of us:

“Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” (Isa 49:15, NLT)

In tying up Paul’s lesson to the grim reality of our immorality, it is that many Christians are doing what the Thessalonians did, which earned the apostle’s rebuke. Many of us are simply saying, “Well, we’re in the End Times, aren’t we?” or “There’s nothing we can do. All the signs of the End Times are there” or even “We can’t change what the End Times will bring.”

The Sin of Doing Nothing

The problem with sitting and waiting for the sky to fall is we do nothing. The Thessalonian Christians were complicit in this because their foreknowledge of the End Times did not equip them to gear up but instead, they were all convinced to quit their jobs and then sit and wait. The fact that they did nothing productive was the sin Paul spoke about.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus spoke of the Parable of the Talents* (Mt 25:14-30), which tells of a master who was leaving the house to travel and, prior to his departure, he entrusted his property to his three servants. One servant received five talents, the second two talents and the third one talent. All told, the property entrusted to his servants was eight talents.

Upon his return, after a long absence, the master assesses his servants’ stewardship. He evaluates them according to how faithful each of them was in wisely investing his goods to obtain a profit. It is clear that the master had sought some profit from the servants’ oversight. In that sense, a gain or a good yield indicated faithfulness on the servant’s part and hence, he rewards him accordingly. In the parable, the master judges two servants to be ‘faithful’ and gives them a positive reward but to the single unfaithful servant who ‘played it safe,’ a negative compensation is given.

* Some translations call it differently. The NLT refers to it as ‘The Parable of the Three Servants’ while some others may call it ‘The Parable of the Minas.’

In the parable, the first and second servants explain that they each put their talents to work, and have doubled the value of the property with which they were entrusted and hence, each of them was duly rewarded:

“The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now, I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’” (Mt 25:23, NLT)

On the other hand, the third servant, had merely hidden his talent. He had it buried in the ground and was punished by his master.

“Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hit it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’ But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’ Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’.” (Mt 25:24-30, NLT)

The word ‘talent’ is derived from the Koine Greek word τάλαντον (talanton), which means ‘scale’ or ‘balance.’ A talent was a measure of weight equivalent to today’s 36 metric kilograms (or 30 imperial pounds) and according to William Ridgeway (see endnotes), when used as currency, it was treated the same as the weight of silver. 

Back then, a talent is said to be worth 6,000 denarii and a denarius is what a worker was paid for a day’s work. For a six-day week of paid work, which is the same as a 50-week year, 6,000 denarii would cover twenty years of labour. If we consider the minimum wage in Malaysia based on the allocation of the 2016 Budget is MYR900 per month, the value of a talent would be MYR216,000 over twenty years or MYR10,800 per year pro rata.

The one important aspect about the Parable of the Talents that many don’t talk often enough about is that it is an eschatological warning. The theme here is End Time events and it is a cautionary note to all of us to be watching and to be equipped in readiness for the coming of Christ. When Jesus spoke of the Parable of the Talents, He did it in the open among a large gathered crowd. Apparently Zacchaeus had already just converted and the Lord had acknowledged his salvation. Now, it seems, the crowd was seeking Jesus to set up His kingdom.

Jesus told this parable for two important reasons. Firstly, He was already nearing Jerusalem. Hence, the end was nigh and the message became even more important for His disciples to understand. Secondly, Jesus’ disciples thought the Kingdom of God would appear immediately just as the Thessalonian Christians did. Therefore Jesus’ aim was to teach that being productive by manner of investing or trading in the absence of the master was to counter the presumed expectations of the immediate appearance of God’s kingdom.

Traditional Bible studies teach that the Parable of the Talents is a call to Jesus’ disciples – and to all of us – to make good and productive use of the gifts that God has given us in His service and to take risks for the sake of His Kingdom. In case we’re unconversant with what these gifts may be, they include our personal abilities (‘talents’ in every sense of the word) as well as personal wealth. According to the parable, failure to exploit these gifts will result in judgement (Hultgren, 2002).

In fact the Parable of the Talents can be said to teach us the following:

-         The journey the master made to another place and return from (Mt 25:14,15,19, Lk 19:12,15) parallels with Christ’s ascension to Heaven and then His eventual return at a time when He said He would come again

-         Christ’s reliance on His servants to take care of His possessions while away on His journey speaks of His gifts and certain possessions (‘capital’) He invests in His church with the expectation that they would spiritually yield profitably for Him and to the glory of the Kingdom of God. In other words, while He is away, He anticipates that His believers would ‘invest this for me while I am gone’ (Lk 19:13).

-         The master’s evaluation of the business conducted by his servants in his absence occurs after he has returned (Mt 25:19, Lk 19:15) and is consistent with the view of the Judgement Seat of Christ in which believers are evaluated on their stewardship.

-         The fact that the parable speaks of positive rewards for the two servants reflects their faithfulness in properly using what Christ has asked of them to steward. This is a description of how believers are rewarded for their faith in serving Christ and the way they manage their stewardship productively for the Kingdom of God.

-         On the other hand, it also speaks of the negative reward for the third servant who showed little to no faith in stewarding what Christ has entrusted him with. It reflects a negative dealing by Christ with an unfaithful believer.

In all of this, every one of us is entrusted with the gifts and possessions to not sit around and do nothing while the world around us is crumbling. In other words, we should not behave like the third servant who did not turn out to be the kind of steward that God expects us to be so that He can commit to our trust. 

Not all of us are given five or two talents and in that respect perhaps, we aren’t the equal of people like Edison or Einstein or da Vinci who are so richly gifted. Instead we are more like the one-talented servant in whom God is watching intently to see what we would do with the gift He has given us. And in that sense, we should pay close attention at three things about the one-talented men that most of us are: the immorality of doing nothing, the price we pay in doing nothing and the folly in doing nothing.

Immorality of doing nothing

Remember that with the first and second servants, the master said, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Mt 25:21,23). However the tone changes when he addressed the third servant to whom he said, “You wicked and lazy servant!” The word ‘wicked’ means ‘evil or morally wrong.’ Other equivalent words include ‘wrongful,’ ‘iniquitous,’ ‘corrupt,’ ‘base,’ ‘vile,’ and ‘immoral.’ 

Found only sixteen times in all of the twenty-seven books, it is one of the strongest denunciations you will find in the New Testament. Jesus used it eight times while the apostles Paul and John used it four and three times respectively. I believe the reason why the word is not commonly used is because of its acerbic potential. It is not a word we tend to use frivolously because it carries tremendous negative effect.

For Jesus to call such a person wicked when he is neither a thief nor a murderer may be astounding on first impression. He is a man in which the talent he is in custody of was not stolen but entrusted upon him. Neither is there evidence that he went bragging around about the talent being his to own because it isn’t. The talent was his to look after and not possess because it wasn’t his to begin with. 

Even so, as we now know, a talent is a pretty huge sum of money, equalling twenty years of income. In Malaysia, that is no less than MYR216,000 worth of savings assuming a base monthly wage of MYR900. With that amount of money, the servant entrusted with the one talent could have completely squandered all of it. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how corrupted people can do if they are entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in which they can then go paint the town unchecked.

The servant wasn’t a liar as well. When asked by his master, he was truthful in terms of how he thought and what he felt was the best thing he could do with the one talent. He didn’t blame anyone else. He didn’t concoct any stories just to make him look good. He could have said anything just to appear impressive before his master but he didn’t. His honesty was not in question.

And if he isn’t a thief or a murderer or a liar, the label ‘wicked’ cannot be because he stole or murdered or lied. He was called a “wicked and lazy servant” because he did nothing with the talent he was given. Instead of thinking up something productive he could have done with it, he simply buried it in the earth and left it there until he was asked to produce it. In all that time, he refused to do anything positive with it.

In modern society, we are told to be silent and not do a thing even if it seems plausible that something needs to be done to correct a problem. There are a myriad maladies around the world and we could easily choose one to act on but people keep saying that idleness is a virtue but here is a parable in which Jesus tells us that refusing to do anything is wicked. 

We also see this in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 in which a traveller was stripped, beaten and left for dead along a road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest came by and then a Levite and both chose to walk on the opposite side of the road, ignoring the man in need. It took a Samaritan who came by and responded in helping him. Samaritans are known to be despised by Jews but this parable outlines how one person, whose culture was so maligned by the others was willing to do something positive while his own kind walked past.

Here is a story not about the bashing that the man suffered. Instead it is to underline the wickedness or immorality in doing absolutely nothing. The priest and the Levite were basically happy to let the man die of his wounds. Their sinfulness meant they preferred to do nothing. Staying out of trouble, it seems, was more important to the two but not to the Samaritan whose quality of response would put them to shame and revealed their immorality.

Scripture tells us to, “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (Jm 4:17). For those who is familiar with the poetry of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) would do well to remember the first line of her poem called ‘Protest,’ which says, “To sin by silence, when we should protest makes cowards out of men.”

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Price of doing nothing

In Matthew 25:28-29 (NLT), Jesus said in the parable, “Take the money from this servant and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. To those who use well what they are given even more will be given and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.”

These two verses run contra to this world of immorality where liberalism tells the people to take from the rich and hard-earned and give it to those who have nothing and did not work for it. Jesus says to take the talent from the servant and give it to his peer who already has ten talents. He did not say the opposite as much as liberal thinkers in a welfare state would want us to believe today.

And because of this, many find these verses difficult to understand and a struggle to accept but they aren’t. In the simplest possible way of understanding, if you have what you’re given but you’re not going to make good use of it, it’s better to cede it to someone who will be far more productive with it. In other words, don’t waste it. 

Don’t let your gift rot inside you because you are too foolish to know to use it. Don’t allow God’s gift to look bad. If you have a car and you intend to let it sit there and rust away, let someone else use it instead. Let someone else put it to excellent use. Not only will he be more productive but he’ll do you a favour and keep the car running well for you.

Man is actually in his most self-destructive mode when he doesn’t do anything but instead sit and wallow or stare into blank space while the world around him destroys everything including all that he owns and cherishes. Immorality in not doing anything is an area of human relationship that we are familiar with. 

It tells us that man doesn’t have to do anything to destroy the very things he cherishes. All he needs to do is to ignore what needs to be done. Don’t maintain relationships. Don’t bother with anything. Don’t do anything even when asked. Don’t respond to anything anyone says. Don’t express or articulate your feelings. Don’t show appreciation or gratitude. Just live as if there is no one around you.

By not doing anything, the world around us will be destroyed. Just like a gardener who ignores his garden, weeds will grow and insects will come and attack the plants and trees. In the end, he will not have a garden anymore because everything will be destroyed. To do nothing in any area of life will cost us and the price we pay will be far beyond what we can afford. That is why Jesus said, “Take the money from this servant” (v28a). Instead He gave it to “the one with the ten bags of silver” (v28b) because Jesus knew this other servant would do wonderful things with it.

However the price of not doing anything isn’t just that we lose the gift. The price is actually far costlier than a mere loss. In verse 30, Jesus said, “Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (NLT). In this one sentence alone, we can learn much about the horrible repercussions of doing nothing.

Firstly, Jesus will also label us ‘useless,’ which means we have no value to His Father’s Kingdom and therefore we are not fit to inherit it. We are about as useful and in demand as weeds in our garden. 

Jesus says in the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds (Mt 13:24-43, NLT) in verse 29, “I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles and burn them…” He further explains in verses 38-39, saying, “The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil.” In verse 40, He says, “Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world.”

Secondly we will be hurled into ‘outer darkness,’ which many Bible scholars would agree to being a place conditioned by great sorrow, loss and woe. This is a place of eternal punishment and therefore, to liken it to hell or a lake of fire (Mt 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 25:23) is not inappropriate. It is a place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” in which the former – “weeping” – means extreme sadness, pain and anguish. This is pain in our innermost parts of our heart, mind and soul. “Gnashing of teeth” simply refers to an outward pain of the body.

Therefore when taken together, “outer darkness” is a place of indescribable spiritual agony and ceaseless physical pain (Lk 16:23-28), a place of agony, heartache, grief and intolerable suffering. In Matthew 13:42, Jesus refers to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth as the “fiery furnace.” There is no doubt that this is the same horrible place mentioned in the Parable of the Talents.

Folly in doing nothing

When you dig a little deeper in this parable, you might take note of the third servant’s statement of defence which goes like this: “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. I was afraid…” (Mt 25:24-25a)

To say the least, it is a weird defence. Given the way he explained it, it might be more plausible to expect the servant to say, “I was afraid and so I decided to knuckle down and work harder and triple what you gave me.” Instead he said, “I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth…” (v25), which is both stupefying and exceedingly foolish. 

So here is the servant who stood before his master who has returned, saying that he basically did nothing with the money. Instead he buried it in the earth. If it were a seed, it would have germinated and yielded growth. Money does nothing in the earth. It neither grows nor flourishes. It is a simple sign of stupidity and ungratefulness for when it comes to gifts from God, our appreciation comes from meeting His expectations of what positive things we can do with them.

The problem with the one-talented man might be the same one we have and that is, our collective failure in understanding why God would give us gifts in the first place. And before we even bother to ask why, some of us have already decided not to make use of them no matter the circumstances. It doesn’t matter if the church is in dire straits and needed his assistance, knowing that he has what it takes to help out. What the person has may not necessarily be money. His gift may be in his encouragement, counselling or some talent that the church would do well to be able to tap into.

The servant basically said, “I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth” (v25). That’s the same as saying he knew the situation but he chose to do nothing positive with it. Here are some scenarios that might make some sense to some of us:

-         I knew the office badly needed me back to help out but I chose not to do anything

-         I was aware that there were people coming to rob my house but I chose not to do anything

-         I heard that my exam paper was going to cover the new chapters but I chose not to do anything

-         There was evidence of corruption by the management but I chose not to do anything

-         Although there was so much immorality around in our lives, I chose not to do anything

We know that Jesus died on the cross for the remission of the sins of you and I and the whole world. We also know that He had commissioned us to take His story of redeeming love to as many as possible and to as far flung places as we can throughout the world. We know all this and yet we still want to bury our talents and do nothing? How does that make sense? Better still, will it make sense for us to say that standing before the Judgement Seat of Christ?

One common excuse we hear among our one-talented people is, “I can’t do very much; so I’d better not start doing anything” but some of us have also heard this one, “I might be good at doing something but I don’t want to get involved.” In either case, it is a deplorable attitude. Many of us have this idea that we need the eloquence of Paul in order to testify for Christ or that we need the might of Joshua to move for Christ or that unless we have the wisdom of Solomon, we can act for Christ. As a matter of fact, we don’t. 

All we need to witness for Christ, God has already given us. In small or large measure, that is not important. God has always given us enough for us to work with and if that amount doesn’t seem a lot to you, that is because He will move with us to achieve the goal. And when that amount seems ridiculously small, that would only make you do even more amazing things that bring even greater glory than you can imagine to His Kingdom!

So whether you can sell sand to an Arab or you think all you can do is stutter and stammer your way through, think of Moses. Here’s a man who can hardly be called eloquent. In fact, the Bible remembers him as a man with a speech problem (Ex 4:10) and yet, as we know, he did remarkably well for God. And if you think you need to be physically impressive to be able to do all the heavy lifting for Christ, think about young Joshua. 

Remember when Goliath cast his eyes on little David, all he saw in him was a youth ruddy in appearance (1 Sam 17:42) yet only a kid by any measure. And yet God used him in magnificent ways. The apostle Paul was a despicable persecutor of Christians who was much hated by the believers of the day but God also used him in the most unpredictable but incredible ways. 

And the same can also be said of Matthew and Zacchaeus, the two repugnant tax collectors whom Christ transformed to be His witnesses. In the case of Zacchaeus, he earned so much from the tax collections that he willingly gave back four times as much as he took.

These people did something. They didn’t sit around but instead, with what little they had, they brought glory to Christ through what little things they did to advance the Kingdom. They understood that if God gave them the ability, then He would also have given them the responsibility. And so, in whatever gift that He gives us, He does expects us to do our part in the best possible way to minister to others.

The one thing all of us keep on missing the point is that the church was not built on those with five and two talents but instead on the backs of the one-talented men and women in all of history. These are the people who are like us in so many ways. They lack nothing but they had very little too. But what little they possessed, they did their all for Christ. They all knew of the troubled world they lived in but they did not hold back and did nothing. They did not sit around, waiting for the End Times to come. They did not linger around and become worthless.

Here is an excerpt from Our Daily Bread (August 2004) of an article called, ‘We Cut the Coal,’ which I think drives home the point very nicely:

“Winston Churchill knew that people who work behind the scenes don’t always get the credit they deserve. During World War II, many of England’s coalminers wanted to enlist and fight on the front lines. Churchill acknowledged their patriotism but reminded them of how valuable their work was to the cause of the war.

“‘Some must stay in the pits,’ he said, ‘and others must stay in the army. Both are equally needed, and for both, there is equal credit.’

“Looking ahead to when children would ask their parents what they did in the war, Churchill said, ‘One will say, ‘I was a fighter pilot’; another will say, ‘I was in the submarine service’;… and you in your turn will say with equal pride and with equal right, ‘We cut the coal.’”

For the full article, go here.

Do something

Going back to the topic of immorality, how did we come to all this? Where and when did we go wrong? It’s tempting to say that it began with Adam and Eve and the original manifestation of sin but this doesn’t help us to understand our very own part in why the world is so immoral today. 

While sin has been tainting civilisations over the ages, the modern world has opened wide its gates in welcoming immorality in all its ways and fashion with billions to trillions of us over time mainly sitting and watching while only a few thought to do something purposeful with their lives. 

These were people who made the difference, who became inspirational and who continue to teach us the valuable lesson of doing our part and in so many ways, they are no different to us for they were also one-talented people. The key difference, however, was that they did not let the one talent hold them back.

If we continue to do nothing, we will be lost for eternity. It would be immoral should it come to that. It would also be the priciest mistake we will ever make and to our utter folly. People may advise us that the little parts we do are not likely to stop the march of immorality and they may be right but what they have no knowledge of is the Kingdom of God that awaits those who do as much as they could with what little they have been given to attain the most out of their salvation.

And that is what we can do even in the face of immorality.

I leave you with a poem entitled, ‘Protest’ written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) found from her collection called ‘Poems of Problems’ (1914, pages 154-155). It goes like this:

To sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.

The human race has climbed on protest.

Had no voice been raised against injustice, ignorance and lust, the inquisition yet would serve the law, and guillotines decide our least disputes.

The few who dare, must speak and speak again to right the wrongs of many.

Speech, thank God, no vested power in this great day and land can gag or throttle.

Press and voice may cry loud disapproval of existing ills; may criticise oppression and condemn the lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws that let the children and childbearers toil to purchase ease for idle millionaires.

Therefore I do protest against the boast of independence in this mighty land.

Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.

Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.

Until the manacled slim wrists of babes are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee, until the mother bears no burden, save the precious one beneath her heart, until God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed and given back to labour let no man call this the land of freedom.

Notes

Ridgeway, William. Measures and Weights in ‘A Companion to Greek Studies,’ Whibley, Leonard (ed), Cambridge University Press, 1905.

Hultgren, Arland J, The Parable of Jesus: A Commentary, Eerdmans Publishing, 2002 pp.271-281