‘THE RAILWAY OF DEATH’

Proverbs 18:14

The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

During W.W.2, 61,000 allied prisoners were forced to build a railroad from Thailand to Burma. Their Japanese captors were ruthless. They kept these POW’s living in abject conditions with every right of the Geneva convention denied. Hungry, beaten sick, humiliated, these prisoners had every reason to turn to the savage beast in each of them in order to survive. The price of that though, it is that if they did, they would reflect the image of the very devil that oppressed them.

One young Scottish officer who previous to the war was preparing to be a teacher recognized the issue at hand and determined to keep his dignity and pride as a human created by God, This officer started teaching and educating the other soldiers of his company away from the ‘beast’ in each of them that that demanded murderous vengeance. Using Greek classics, Shakespeare and the Bible, he revived hope and reason in the heart of those around him. He kept the ‘human’ from being overcome by the ‘beast’ in each of them. This victorious encounter of virtue against senseless brutality created ripples and waves that taught even their heathen captors about the power of God.

In the same way that the germs part of our biological structure wait for a moment of physical weakness to do their dirty work and make us sick, sin also permeates our personality. Lust, vengeance, anger, arrogance, pride, gluttony and senseless polemic are all waiting for our moment of spiritual weakness, a moment when the enemy has succeeded to break our spirit, in order to take us over and show their ugly head.

Thank God, that even though our spirit may be broken, we have His unbroken victorious Spirit to sustain us. His Spirit is the One of the Lamb Who voluntarily and meekly laid down His life, while praying for His enemies. He opened not His mouth in vengeful curses; He did not return hurt for hurt. His Spirit was stronger than the evil that oppressed Him, and therewith He conquered even death. This is the Spirit that we also own from God.

Let us who claim to be anointed by Him; let us who claim to know and hear the Voice of His Spirit; let us who declare that we have the Light of the knowledge of God, never blaspheme His Name by misrepresenting Him on earth no matter what are the conditions. Tall order? Yes. But better to die fighting to reflect His image to the world, than to submit d to the blasphemy of reflecting the image of His and our-arch-enemy: the devil.