If you listen closely to the arguments of our modern/post-modern "enlightened" society, you may hear a lot of talk of "dignity." "Death with dignity." That the good life should be free of hardship. "This baby won't have the kind of life she deserves." Let's think it through, shall we? Camera 3.
[Turns] You're saying that the worst of all possible evils is pain and suffering. Strip it down, that's what you're saying. But this is wrong. To suffer, and to suffer well, is to hold a mirror to injustice, to make the evildoer look upon the innocence that he transgresses, to ask him if he can continue it. We'll come back to this.
No, the greatest evil is not suffering, but death itself. To die, never to live again. Even worse, to live a life unworthy of goodness, unworthy of a human being. There is good done in this world. We know it: The man who carries groceries for an elderly neighbor. The Army squad leader who falls on a grenade to save his comrades. We know it, and all the obfuscation and chatter that the meanings are arbitrary can't hide it from our hearts.
Largely, we still have a sense of evil, on a grand scale. Hitler was evil. Stalin. Too many others to name, even while quiet genocides happen right before our eyes with hardly a word of protest.
I'm going to ask you this: Could it be that acts of great love and great evil, that so easily stir us at their mere mention or recounting, be simply the footnotes to lives that begin and end in a short breath of time, and are no more? What does kindness or cruelty matter, if we are dust, and there is no one to keep the ledger? Our forefathers surely would laugh at our moral outrage at their many sins, if indeed there is no God. We will be as dead as they in time, and no one will come to our defense.
No, the greatest evil is to live unworthily, to live for oneself, to live in evil. And to never seek pardon from Him who holds life and death in His hands. Even to live well, but without Him, is to be praised by dust, who will fall silent themselves.
But He does keep a ledger; He does know. And when He judges, He will judge justly, for God shows no partiality. Christ Jesus died, taking death on Himself, our sins which carry the sentence of eternal death and suffering. When He rose,--this is the meaning--Love is greater than death. It endures. Mercy triumphs over justice. But mercy is not given where it is not sought.
No, the greatest indignity against any and every man is Death. But the reward for the life truly well-lived is given by the just Judge: eternal life, and the resurrection of the body from the dead.
[Turns] You're saying that the worst of all possible evils is pain and suffering. Strip it down, that's what you're saying. But this is wrong. To suffer, and to suffer well, is to hold a mirror to injustice, to make the evildoer look upon the innocence that he transgresses, to ask him if he can continue it. We'll come back to this.
No, the greatest evil is not suffering, but death itself. To die, never to live again. Even worse, to live a life unworthy of goodness, unworthy of a human being. There is good done in this world. We know it: The man who carries groceries for an elderly neighbor. The Army squad leader who falls on a grenade to save his comrades. We know it, and all the obfuscation and chatter that the meanings are arbitrary can't hide it from our hearts.
Largely, we still have a sense of evil, on a grand scale. Hitler was evil. Stalin. Too many others to name, even while quiet genocides happen right before our eyes with hardly a word of protest.
I'm going to ask you this: Could it be that acts of great love and great evil, that so easily stir us at their mere mention or recounting, be simply the footnotes to lives that begin and end in a short breath of time, and are no more? What does kindness or cruelty matter, if we are dust, and there is no one to keep the ledger? Our forefathers surely would laugh at our moral outrage at their many sins, if indeed there is no God. We will be as dead as they in time, and no one will come to our defense.
No, the greatest evil is to live unworthily, to live for oneself, to live in evil. And to never seek pardon from Him who holds life and death in His hands. Even to live well, but without Him, is to be praised by dust, who will fall silent themselves.
But He does keep a ledger; He does know. And when He judges, He will judge justly, for God shows no partiality. Christ Jesus died, taking death on Himself, our sins which carry the sentence of eternal death and suffering. When He rose,--this is the meaning--Love is greater than death. It endures. Mercy triumphs over justice. But mercy is not given where it is not sought.
No, the greatest indignity against any and every man is Death. But the reward for the life truly well-lived is given by the just Judge: eternal life, and the resurrection of the body from the dead.
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