Right, wrong, and national repentance

Mar 29, 2024 Letters

Dear Editor,

I don’t see everything. So, when people, instead of asking me as they used to do, “How are you?” now ask me more fashionably, “How’s everything?” I often answer, “I don’t know; better ask God; He is supposed to know.” Since they usually never really want to listen to a commentary on everything, they usually smile and get down quickly to the matter at hand.

I see things that are right and things that are wrong. Others see the same things, but their judgement of what is right and wrong does not necessarily correspond to mine. The world is made up of people like us, and some can be quite insistent on their version of right and wrong, even violent. So how can we know what is right and what is wrong? The logical answer is to ask God, who knows everything, to tell us what is right and what is wrong, for His prophet Isaiah said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” [Is 5:20].

However, recourse to the pronouncements of God in His scriptures also produce different results. Every scripture has its interpreters: sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong. In this confusion, many give up, become atheists or agnostics, create their own standards of right and wrong, and add to the confusion: the personal feeling of what is right replaces God. This is where the world is heading, and it is being allowed, because it is fashionable, to infiltrate all Godly religion and blur the distinction between good and evil.

When the fault lies in the interpreter, he either does it to justify his own sin, or fails to humble himself to the appropriate level. For example, charging interest on a loan to a fellow Christian used to be deemed a sin by the Church in past centuries, but this has now been justified by referring to unfair competition in business with non-Christians. Those who choose this level for the sake of their business should not expect the full Christian reward of dwelling in the House of the Lord forever. This short life is given for us to demonstrate our qualification for status in the next.

Going back further, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth used to be allowed by God. The Israelis certainly think it still applies to them. Even Muslims are permitted this, though Allah has a higher reward for those who return evil with good [Surah 13:22]. Hindus have a choice of three levels (gunas) of quality (nothing here saying it is easy for everybody). But for Christians, retaliation is strictly forbidden. When Christ was pointing to the evidence of His innocence He was slapped, but though His word sustains the universe [Heb 1:3] He only asked why He was slapped [John 18:21-24], He did not fight for His earthly life. That is why genuine Christians have to endure persecution without violent retaliation, though not without educating the persecutors.

The Jews in the former days inhabiting the Kingdom of Judah were enjoined to repent, and enjoyed God’s favour when they did. And even warmongers like the people of Nineveh were spared the wrath of God when they repented. Lent and Ramadan are seasons for repentance, and Phagwah culminates a season of cultivating virtue to triumph over (especially one’s own) evil.

But what about national repentance by leaders? Past and present politicians must be educated that there is a supernatural justice, something that required the death of Jesus to qualify to be saved from it. Unless there is repentance there is no qualification for His free forgiveness, and monsters and demons are created to deal out punishments similar to what were inflicted. We have seen in our short history that rigging elections created a resentment in those who were unjustly deprived of the reins of government for a long time. Public repentance will remove the justification for that monster to exist and spare the people from continuous affliction, for it is the people who suffer in this life who will gain their position in the next. The meek will inherit the Earth.

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