Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching)

by Philip Quenby

  Even the pagan king acknowledged that Lord has been at work. The result was glory for God and honour for his faithful servants: “Then Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.’ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.” (Daniel 3:28-30). Nebuchadnezzar remained to the end a cruel despot with only the faintest glimmer of spiritual understanding. The decree with which the story ends is as harsh as any that he has hitherto pronounced against the people of God, yet despite himself the man who formerly trampled the name of the God of Israel ended up raising that name on high. This is what we can expect to happen when we remain true and faithful witnesses to our Lord.

  Conclusion.

  The England of Bendigo’s day was a furnace. She was the workshop of the world, a place of fire and smoke billowing from foundries. She was also the crucible of a new kind of living, as towns gathered ever more people from the countryside to feed burgeoning factories and people adjusted to new working practices, to the rhythm of the shift and the clock instead of that of the seasons. She was a place where old certainties and old ways of doing things no longer applied. We, too, live in a land where the ground is shifting under our feet. When the environment is uncertain and potentially hostile, it is all the more important to know when we can safely compromise with the society in which we live and when we cannot.

  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego provide an example of how to be faithful to God in an unbelieving environment. The pagan king put it thus: they “trusted in God ... defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their God.” (Daniel 3:28). To defy the command of the rightful ruler or to disobey the law of the land is something we should only do as a last resort. The Bible teaches us that we are to “obey [our] earthly masters” (Colossians 3:22, Ephesians 6:5). On the other hand, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). We must not “serve or worship any god except [the one true] God.” (Daniel 3:28). The men who stood up to Nebuchadnezzar had fire in their hearts. We need to kindle the same fire in ourselves and in England. Or, more correctly, we need God to fan us into flame through the activity of his Spirit. This can only happen if we call on him and if we make ourselves available for his service. Bendigo did precisely that and fought for God with the same fire that he fought in the ring. With only a little of the same glow, we can be instruments through which God will transform our nation.

  37. Sisters of mercy

  Ruth 2.

  Key word: favour.

  Attitudes changed greatly between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The religious revival begun in the days of Wesley and Whitefield spread gradually throughout the land, bringing with it a new seriousness. By the 1850s many households had revived family prayers and a strict Sunday routine. Emphasis was placed on hard work and eagerness to acquire knowledge. Within the Church of England the influence of evangelicals such as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury (author of the Factory Acts, which restricted the hours of work for women and children) increased. Such people believed in austere living, works of charity, in the importance of personal faith and of the individual conscience. With the Bible as their ultimate source of authority, they attached correspondingly less weight to the sacraments and to priestly ministrations. Women as well as men worked to improve conditions. Two in particular stand out for their fearless efforts on behalf of different types of outcast: criminals and prostitutes.

  Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) was born into a Quaker family. In 1813 she visited Newgate gaol. Horrified by what she saw, she set out champion prison reform and an association was established under her guidance. She agitated for more humane treatment of women prisoners and of convicts transported to Australia. She was also involved in attempts to improve working conditions for nurses and facilities for women’s education. Largely in response to her work (and that of her predecessor John Howard in the eighteenth century) Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel took steps to reform the larger prisons: female prisoners were no longer supervised by male warders and gaolers were paid instead of living on fees from prisoners.

  Josephine Butler (1828-1906) championed a group even less likely to elicit sympathy amongst those hunkered in well-to-do respectability. She worked first alongside vagrant women in the Brownlow Hill Workhouse in Liverpool and took prostitutes into her home to care for them there. The more she discovered about prostitution, however, the more she realised that it was not merely a matter of reclaiming individuals. She began to tackle the double standards which held women entirely to blame for the evils of that profession and excused the conduct of men, together with the economic conditions that forced so many to sell their bodies in the first place. In doing so, she confronted the ugly underbelly of life in Victorian England. She came increasingly to the view that the entire position of women in society needed to be changed and as such she was a precursor to later generations of feminists.

  Her campaigns for raising the age of consent and for repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act (which effectively allowed any woman to be subjected to forcible examination for venereal disease), were without precedent and courageous in the extreme. Many times she addressed public meetings of men on a subject about which most then considered that a woman of good repute should be wholly ignorant, and of which a lady most certainly should not speak. The audiences were often bawdy or hostile. The medical profession and the Establishment (each almost exclusively male) were against her. The Anglican Church and the Liberal Party, both of which might have been thought natural allies, were unhelpful. There was no quick victory. The campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act began in 1869. Not until seventeen years later was a Repeal Bill passed.

  Favour in tragedy.

  Josephine Butler was born to privilege amongst a family of landowners in Northumberland. She was related to Lord Grey, who was Prime Minister (1830-43) when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire and the Great Reform Act passed.[91] She might easily have passed her life in comfort and obscurity had not one of her daughters died in a childhood accident. This tragedy was a spur to action rather than self-pity. Of it she wrote:

  • “I felt possessed with an irresistible desire to go forth, and find some pain keener than my own – to meet with people more unhappy than myself (for I knew that there were thousands of such). I did not exaggerate my own trial; I knew only that my heart ached night and day, and that the only solace would seem to be to find other hearts which ached night and day.”

  The book of Ruth describes a time of tragedy: “In the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in the land” (Ruth 1:1). Despite moving to Moab to save her family, Naomi loses her husband and two sons: “Now Ehimelech, Naomi’s husband, died ... after they had lived [in Moab] about ten years, both Mahlon and Killion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.” (Ruth 1:3). Naomi’s reaction to her loss was rather different from that of Josephine Butler, but is one with which anyone can sympathise: “‘Don’t call me Naomi,’ she told them. ‘Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune on me.’” (Ruth 1:20-21).[92] To blame God when things go wrong is a very human reaction. Rarely are we able to see good things at such times, nor to consider that God might in fact be showing his favour both during our tragedies and even through them. Yet the book of Ruth describes precisely that: God’s favour shown through one human being (Boaz) to another (Ruth) and, through her, to yet another (Naomi). Ultimately this f
avour extends to all mankind, for Boaz and Ruth became great-grandparents to King David and thus ancestors of Jesus: see Ruth 4:21-22.

  Our reaction to tragedy is of critical importance, for every human life contains heartache. This can crush us and turn us from God, or it can increase our understanding of and sympathy for others. Instead of sitting on our hands feeling sorry for ourselves, we need to react as did Ruth, one of Naomi’s two daughters-in-law, who stayed beside her mother-in-law throughout all the trials to come: “And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, ‘Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.’” (Ruth 2:2). Josephine Butler went into the fields and picked up leftovers, the young women spurned and rejected by the society that spawned and used them. Perhaps God spoke to her words similar to those spoken to Ruth by Boaz, her kinsman-redeemer[93]: “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.” (Ruth 2:8).

  Favour in hardship.

  Ruth is shown favour: “At mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.’ When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, ‘Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her. Rather, pull out some of stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.’” (Ruth 2:14-16). Blessing is pronounced upon her: “May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” (Ruth 2:12).

  Neither favour nor blessing means that life is easy for Ruth, nor are her troubles over in an instant. Gleaning is hard labour. It is work for those at the very bottom of the heap, the destitute and the outcast. The Law of Moses required landowners to leave what had not been gathered during harvesting so that the poor, the alien, the widowed and the fatherless could glean and thereby provide for their needs: see Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22, Deuteronomy 24:19. Ruth “worked steadily from morning ... except for a short rest in the shelter” (Ruth 2:7). After a full day’s toil in the fields there was more for her to do when she got home: “So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered.” (Ruth 2:17-18).

  Ruth “left [her] father and mother and [her] homeland and came to live with a people [she] did not know before.” (Ruth 2:11). Often, we are called to do the same, in a metaphorical if not a literal sense. When Josephine Butler went to minister amongst the prostitutes of Liverpool she entered a world as different from her own as if it had been a foreign country. The fields in which she worked were places of hard labour. There was no ease or softness for her there and her family suffered by reason of what she did. Her husband had to resign his position as Principal of Liverpool College. Her eldest son found his career at the Bar untenable. Doubtless her other children also faced disapproval and rejection. At such times we need great sense of purpose and we need great faith to remind ourselves of God’s favour and blessing. It can be hard for us to recognise that God might be showing us these things even in times of hardship. Yet paradoxically, it is often precisely when the going is toughest that God’s favour and blessing is greatest.

  Favour in suffering.

  Naomi and Ruth faced not merely hardship but real suffering. Quite apart from having lost those nearest and dearest to them, life for a woman without an adult male to protect and provide for her was precarious and dangerous: “Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, ‘It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his [Boaz’] girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.’” (Ruth 2:22). The days of the judges were lawless, for “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges 21:25). Ruth was both a widow and a foreigner, hence doubly vulnerable. Yet without its being apparent straightaway, God is in fact protecting and providing. He does so through:

  • Place: “As it turned out, [Ruth] found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz” (Ruth 2:3).

  • Timing: “Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters” (Ruth 2:4).

  • Repute: “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband” (Ruth 2:11).

  • People: “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz” (Ruth 2:19).

  • Opportunity: “So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.” (Ruth 2:23).

  In the same way, the Lord protects and provides for us. He enables us, moreover, to be protectors and providers for others, as Boaz is for Ruth: “Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.” (Ruth 2:9). We therefore need to make sure that we search out the place that God allocates to us for our work, are sensitive to God’s timing, build a reputation that will bring honour, are alert to the people that God has placed in our path and thereby take full advantage of the opportunities that God gives. If we do all this, we will find favour even as Ruth did.

  Like Ruth, Josephine Butler suffered greatly – not just through the untimely death of her daughter but also as a result of the awful things that she confronted during her campaigns. Of her suffering she said:

  “[As] we get nearer to God, all prayer resolves itself into communion. To the Holy of Holies, face to face with Jesus, all perplexities vanish. No difficulties can live. If I may dare to tell a little of what He has taught me, even in days and weeks of bodily suffering, it is this; that in prayer I am still, silent, waiting for the Spirit and the Spirit is granted, so that He prompts every request.”

  We, too, need to be still and silent so that we allow God’s Spirit to work in our lives.

  Conclusion.

  Josephine Butler set out to reclaim individuals but found herself trying to reclaim a nation. Through the Ladies’ National Association she oversaw the first effective political campaigning movement led by women. The tasks are as pressing now as they were then. Though we try to fool ourselves into thinking otherwise, we are no less prone to double standards than the Victorians. Our society has no lack of abuses and victims. It does not want for tragedy or brutality. The difference between present and past is that once large numbers of English men and women were prepared to do something about it in the name of Almighty God.

  We are called to be the instruments of God’s favour to our fellow men. Unbelief and false belief grow because of our failings, nothing more or less. It is we who give the message that Christianity is a lukewarm confection of the fabulous and the irrelevant, a bland mess of meaningless stories. It is because of us that our countrymen regard it as indistinguishable from any other faith and lacking in power. If we wish to experience divine favour for ourselves and for our land, we need to take refuge under the wings of the God of Israel. We need to work in his power and tell forth his Word. We need to stop wallowing in self-pity and self-absorption and instead “go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes [we] find favour.” (Ruth 2:2).

  38. The Great Game

  Ecclesiastes 9:11-18.

  Key word: remembrance.

  In the heart of central Asia lies a city that once was deservedly called the Noble. She sits astride the old Silk Route from China and amongst the memories of her former greatness, an oasis town that on every side is compassed by desert. She was and remains a place of palaces and monuments, of bath-houses and pleasure gardens. Her story also has a darker side. Here on 24 June 1842 two figures were dragged from the dungeon where they had been held captive. Filthy and half-starved, their bodies covered with sores and their hair infested with lice, they were ordered to
dig their own graves. To the sound of drums and reed pipes from atop the citadel wall, a crowd watched as they were then beheaded.

  Such executions normally attracted scant attention, being all too commonplace in Bokhara under its despotic emir Nasrullah Khan. The victims in this case were unusual, however, for they were British officers. Colonel Charles Stoddart had arrived three years earlier on a mission to reassure the emir about British intentions following their invasion of Afghanistan and to seek his alliance against the Russians, who were daily advancing further east. The notoriously depraved ruler, who had ascended the throne in 1826 by killing his brothers and 28 other relatives, promptly threw the Englishman in gaol. When Captain Arthur Conolly arrived in 1841 to negotiate Stoddart’s release, he was similarly treated. The officers were kept in a dark, stinking pit beneath the citadel, alive with rats and other vermin. Eventually, British withdrawal from Afghanistan convinced Nasrullah that he could kill them with impunity: “As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so [they were] trapped by evil times that fell unexpectedly on them.” (Ecclesiastes 9:12).

  These largely forgotten heroes were victims of what the British called the Great Game and the Russians the Tournament of Shadows. It was a game for high stakes, a contest of lofty principle and low cunning, of daring and deceit. The British aim was the protection of the jewel in the crown of their Empire: India. Whether or not the Russians were really aiming at the subcontinent is open to debate, but certainly their appetite for conquest in Asia was insatiable. It is conservatively estimated that between 1683 and 1914 the territory of their empire was expanding at an average of 55 square miles per day. For over a century the two powers squared off across a steadily shrinking no-man’s-land. In the event, a developing threat from Germany turned rivals into allies before the game was fully played out. The Tournament of Shadows officially ended with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, to resume in another form during the Cold War.