Praise the LORD for He can be trusted! – God can be trusted and is just and righteous. In Exodus 23, God sent His angel to guard His people. God said to the Israelites in Exodus 23:24-26 “Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and his blessings will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.” The Life Application Study Bible states, “If you’re in the furnace, it’s easy to catch fire”. Societies and neighbors around the world have different cultures and believes, many of these being formed by history events, religion and politics. The following passage appeared in “Shelley: The Pursuit” by Richard Holmes about the UK society: “The decade (1798) saw revolutionary activities as diverse as the idealism of Bristol Pantisocracy, illicit leveller associations like the Spencean Society, and the LCS working movement for popular education and democratic rights which led to the Treason Trials of Hardy, Tooke and Thelwall. The newspapers and the taverns throughout the land were full of talk of French informers and blood-thirsty Jacobins who wishes to destroy the whole fabric of society, and the cartoonist drew huge guillotines dripping with gore and grotesque figures with mad eyes and red caps of liberty. For the first time in English history, an institution at Whitehall called the Home Office began to develop a nationwide network of surveillance, and throughout the nineties there was a steady extension of judicial controls and civilian spy systems among the ordinary people. Directed first by William Pitt, and later by his successor to the premiership Lord Liverpool, there was an increasingly rigid imposition of political religious censorship in the courts: the two great instruments of the Lord Chancellor in this respect being the twin laws of Seditious and Blasphemous Libel. One of the first things you will hear in the UK when you speak to somebody about another is the question “Can you trust him or her?” It takes many years in the UK to convince people that they can trust you. It is clear from the passage quoted above from the book “Shelley: The Pursuit” that there was an attempt to destroy the whole fabric of society in the UK and today the distrust is apparent. Many other things has happened to inflame the distrust between people, for example the closing of coal mines where father and son has turned against each other and UK children being taken away from poor families about 60 years ago and sent to Australia. The Christian life-style should be different and in contrast to the norm, different from paganism. To love our neighbor is a central value and belief of a Christian, however skew and self-centered our Christian thinking may be. We must be aware and alert to not catching the anti-social distrust ‘virus’ but reach out to our neighbor. Try to convince people that to restore the fabric of society to something wholesome and effective we need to trust each other, trying to create a big inclusive society where it is not necessary to wait patiently years and even decades to be trusted and included within the social structures. Christian lives should show that we are turning away from hypocrisy towards neighborly love, that we hate exclusiveness and the class system, and seen to be God obeying trustworthy people ready to take on a role as a moral mentor. In Deuteronomy 2:4 – 6 God said the following: “Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’” There is no question that God wants Christians to deal wisely and justly with other people and set the example. These types of actions will generate trust amongst people, societies and nations. A society where people do not trust each other is a broken one and we, as Christians need to look at the reasons for that and make adjustments to our way of life. Churches and Government to reflect an all inclusive institution, one based on vested and new morals and ideas, fair procedures, respect, humanity and trust, all free of nepotism, racism, and exploitation. These principles are lacking in many societies, making people distrust each other. This will not change unless people accept that they are sinful, distrustful, imperfect and need God and His morals and integrity to change themselves and the current work ethics of harsh and inappropriate social modus operandi. If we ignore this it will be at our own peril as well as our neighbors. Keep the faith.
