Don’t Be Silent

By Daniel Cain (David's brother)

Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” [Esther 4:13-14; NLT]

 What does God think about those who promote violence? This isn’t a hard question to answer. But it seems hard for some to listen and be willing to follow. Consider, for instance what God says in the 6^th Commandment – ‘You shall not murder’ (Ex. 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17). And, what about what Jesus says in His great sermon about peacemaking (Matthew 5:9)? There are many episodes one can encounter in reading the Bible where those who try to advance some cause through violence are opposed by God or his people. It’s not always the case that violence ends up losing, and the same is true in the world in which we live. But, that doesn’t make any difference in what our response to it should be. We should oppose use of violence, and oppose those who either advocate it openly, or suggest it or imply use of violence. (See the image here of a violent Chinese government crackdown, when it used battle tanks on its own people in Beijing in 1989.)

There is so much talk of violence in the news about the upcoming 2024 U.S. election for president and vice president in November that it’s hard to keep track of it all. I’m not suggesting that anyone try to follow all of this news—in fact, I try to avoid as much of it as possible. But there are times when I hear something, that it just seems that it must be opposed, and it feels like I’m being told, as Esther was by her older cousin Mordecai, “You shouldn’t keep quiet about this issue. Take a stand against it, because it is wrong.”  

 In the movie Patriot Games, the character Jack Ryan, portrayed by the actor Harrison Ford, is asked in one scene why he chose to act on his own against a terrorist act that was happening just meters away. His response is a personal favorite of mine: “I couldn’t just stand there and watch them shoot those people right in front of me….It was…rage. Pure rage. It just made me mad.” I think violence makes God mad as well, and he will use it in response, if that’s the road people choose to travel on.

Like I said earlier, this is not a difficult issue to understand, but it does seem like a difficult message to deliver, since there seem to be so many, even where I grew up (back in my native state of Ohio) that want to talk about having a civil war if the election doesn’t go the way they want. Violence is wrong. You don’t have to read the Bible very extensively to understand that God opposes it, and if you use violence as a means to obtain what you want, then you’re on the wrong side, and voting for the wrong people. And sometimes, if you don’t relent, you’ll get violence in response from God. And then you’ll lose for good.

 

 Information on the image of Chinese gov’t crackdown: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. Note: This only applies to original works of the Federal Government and not to the work of any individual U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, county, municipality, or any other subdivision. This template also does not apply to postage stamp designs published by the United States Postal Service since 1978. (See § 313.6(C)(1) of Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices). It also does not apply to certain US coins; see The US Mint Terms of Use.