THE
PUBLIC TESTIMONY TO CONSCIENCE BEFORE GOD.
MILITARY SERVICE, 1914-1918 AND 1939-1945.
TRADE UNIONISM.
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THE introduction during the two world wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945
of compulsory military service in the British Empire and America, where
previously such service had been voluntary, and the rapid development,
especially since the end of the second of those wars, of trade unionism,
have brought to the fore the question of the paramount rights of God
over the believer, and the consequent necessity that the believer should
maintain a good conscience before Him in all that he does.
In Great
Britain and most parts of the British Empire, and also in America, provision
was made by law enabling an application for exemption from military
service, or from combatant military service, to be made by anyone otherwise
liable to such service who objected to it on conscientious grounds,
and, as a result, a way was made in the mercy of God for every instructed
believer, rightly feeling that he could not with a good conscience take
life, to preserve his conscience and at the same time accord to the
authorities whom God has placed over him the subjection that the will
of God requires. The exercise resulting from this was twofold. In the
first place it helped to make clear the distinction between “the
world” as a system lying in the wicked one from which the believer
is to keep himself unspotted, and the authorities, ordained of God,
and ministers of God to us for good, to which the believer is to render
subjection “for conscience sake” (Romans 13:5). In the second
place, the application for exemption imposed on each applicant the necessity
to determine at what point his general responsibility to obey the requirements
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of the law as to military service was modified by his responsibility,
as a matter of conscience before God, to do nothing inconsistent with
the testimony to God as a Saviour God made known in the one Mediator,
Who gave Himself a ransom for all. Each application had therefore to
be a matter of genuine conscience, and not something to be taken up
in the hope of avoiding what was uncongenial. The testimony rendered
before the tribunals by those who appealed as exercised believers served
to bring to the notice of the authorities, time after time, that there
were those whose first concern was to please God in all things, and
to maintain what was due to Him, and in their confession the name of
the Lord Jesus was publicly honoured, while the fact that many who were
not true believers at all claimed exemption on various “conscientious”
grounds, but frequently, either by their conduct or by the absence of
sound principle in their claims, failed to commend themselves, only
served, by contrast, to bear further testimony to the truth.
Of recent
years trade unionism has greatly increased in power, and, in its declared
policy of endeavouring to embrace every worker, has adopted arbitrary
and murderous methods of enforcing its will. Many unions have, under
threat of strikes, forced employers to dismiss from their employment
any worker who is not a member of the union, and they have no compunction,
whatever be the reason for non-membership, about robbing a non-member
of his means of livelihood. It is clear from Scripture that a believer,
on account of conscience before God, cannot be a member of a trade union.
“Be not diversely yoked with unbelievers; for what participation
is there between righteousness and lawlessness?... Wherefore come out
from the midst of them, and be separated, saith the Lord, and touch
not what is unclean, and I will receive you; and I will be to you
for a Father, and
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ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,”
2 Corinthians 6:14-18. “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent
not. If they say, Come with us,... cast in thy lot among us; we will
all have one purse: my son, walk not in the way with them, keep back
thy foot from their path; for their feet run to evil, and they make
haste to shed blood,” Proverbs 1:10-16.
Against this
aggressive spirit of unionism, which seeks by intimidation to force
a believer into unholy associations, and as a result to deprive him
of his liberty Godward and thus to rob God of His portion in His saints,
the Lord has raised up a standard in many individual believers who have
refused to belong to unions, preferring to suffer rather than to surrender
what is due to God, and their action has forced on the attention of
Governments, municipal authorities, employers of labour, trade union
officials, and the public generally the fact that God has paramount
rights, and supports those who stand for them. The path for those who
desire to be faithful is one of faith, and often entails suffering and
loss circumstantially, but it is one in which the truth of what God
said to Abraham is verified, “Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield,
thy exceeding great reward.”
This forcing
on the attention of authorities and of men generally of the question
of the rights of God, which has resulted from military service and trade
unionism and is still taking place, seems to be consistent with the
good confession witnessed by Christ Jesus before Pontius Pilate (1 Timothy
6:13); namely, “I have been born for this, and for this I have
come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth.
Every one that is of the truth hears my voice,” John 18 37.
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