Once to Every Man or Nation
Have you heard this poem? If you object that it is a hymn, well, most hymns are poems. It seems to me that it is particularly relevant to the start of a new year.
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,1
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;2
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,3
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.4
Then to side with truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just;5
Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.
By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.6
Though the cause of evil prosper,7
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;8
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:9
Yet that scaffold sways the future,10
And, behind the dim unknown,11
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above His own.12
2Co 6:2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now isthe day of salvation.)
Truth and good are perforce the same side: 2Ch 31:20 And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truthbefore the LORD his God.
Mat 12:41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
As in the Proverbs, the parallels continue: truth, good, bloom, light vs falsehood, evil, blight and darkness.
Often in history a difficult position wins the day, and then those who were too cowardly to stand with it join in.
Not because truth changes, but because it must always be used in new circumstances.
Temporarily.
A fundamental contradiction
An evil ruler is one of the greatest curses for a society
The cross and the martyrs
Now we see through a glass darkly
God keeps watch over everyone and everything, but He specifically works for the good of those he has chosen.