 PEACE IN OUR TIME As he got off the plane to the flash of cameras and the shouts of reporters, he held a paper aloft and grinned with delight. He was Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the document he held was a treaty signed by Adolph Hitler. The Newspapers all over the world ran the headline: PEACE IN OUR TIME There was a small problem, though. The treaty wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. He had attempted to negotiate with evil. The fact of evil and the nature of how to confront it has always been a contentious issue. We have, in our series of messages based on the Book of Nehemiah, come to the place where the wall has been rebuilt, and the enemies attempt to draw Nehemiah away from the work to "meet with" them. In a twist of irony, the place they proposed was the plain of ONO. I think it was the late columnist, Sidney Harris, who observed, "Have you ever noticed that once we deem something to be a ‘necessary evil,’ that it soon becomes more and more necessary and less and less ‘evil?’" When we are in a battle with the enemy, it is not time to reason or guess what to do. Nehemiah handled it exactly right, "and I sent messengers unto them saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease whilst I come down to you?" It was literally an "off the wall" remark that was handled correctly. Pastor Jim |
