Yesterday
afternoon, I decided to relax and watch some TV. After some looking
around, I decided to watch a rerun of The Star Trek Deep Space Nine
series, with the title above (minus the English explanation). The
story line goes something like this: A doctor on a distant space
station is recruited by a rogue government agency to manipulate a
foreign government. He contacts his superior and is ordered to go
along with whatever plans they might have.
As a
result, people are tortured and some die. The doctor, realizing that
Star Fleet (the legal government) was complicit in all this from the
start, confronts his superior (An admiral) and the admiral quotes the
ancient Roman orator Cicero.
“In
times of war, the law falls silent”, is something I had not heard
before. Its been over fifty years since I had my single course in
Latin, so I had to do a little research to understand it. Basically,
the statement refers to government ignoring law (s) that will impede
their ability to wage war. There is a single word that comes to mind
when I think of this: Expediency. Many different nations have
practiced this when in danger, Russians sent dissidents to Siberia
and during World War II, America sent thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens to “interment camps”.
Expediency
is not limited to just war. People will often do things “The easy
way” just to obtain their goals. Here is an example from the Gospel
of John..
John
11 ( World English
Bible )
[47] The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a
council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many
signs. [48] If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in
him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our
nation.” [49] But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high
priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, [50] nor
do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should
die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” [51] Now
he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he
prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, [52] and not for the
nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the
children of God who are scattered abroad. [53] So from that
day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death.
Caiaphas
was high priest; he should have upheld the teachings of The Old
Testament, but instead he advocated murdering someone – Jesus.
Jesus was in fact unlawfully put to death. Pilate, the chief priests,
the Jewish people, Barabbas and the Roman soldiers all had their
parts in this travesty. But God works everything out according to HIS
will and so it was with HIS only son. The result was that those who
follow and obey Jesus will be saved from their sins. There is an old
French proverb which says: Man proposes, but God disposes. I wonder
how long it will be before all humans realize that ultimately God is
control of everything? Expediency is a waste of time.