THE CRIME OF NEGLIGENCEProverbs 24:

THE CRIME OF NEGLIGENCE

Proverbs 24:11 - Proverbs 24:12.

What is called the missionary spirit is nothing else than the Christian church working in a particular direction. If a man has a conviction, the health of his own soul, his reverence for the truth he has learnt to love, his necessary connection with other men, make it a duty, a necessity, and a joy to tell what he has heard, and to speak what he believes. On these common grounds rests the whole obligation of Christ’s followers to speak the Gospel which they have received; only the obligation presses on them with greater force because of the higher worth of the word and the deeper misery of men without it. The text contains nothing specially bearing on Christian missions, but it deals with the fault which besets us all in our relations and in life: and the wholesome truths which it utters apply to our duties in regard to Christian missions because they apply to our duties in regard to every misery within our reach. They speak of the murderous cruelty and black sin of negligence to save any whom we can help from any sort of misery which threatens them. They appear to me to suggest four thoughts which I would now deal with:-

I. The crime of negligence.

Not to use any power is a sin; to omit to do anything that we can do is a crime: to withhold a help that we can render is to participate in the authorship of all the misery that we have failed to relieve. He who neglects to save a life, kills. There are more murderers than those who lift violent hands with malice aforethought against a hated life. Rulers or communities who leave people uncared for to die, who suffer swarming millions to live where the air is poison and the light is murky, and first the soul and then the body, are dwarfed and die; the incompetent men in high places, and the indolent ones in low, whose selfishness brings, and whose blundering blindness allows to continue, the conditions that are fatal to life-on these the guilt of blood lies. Violence slays its thousands, but supine negligence slays its tens of thousands.

And when we pass from these merely physical conditions to think of the world and of the Church in the world, where shall we find words weighty and burning enough to tell what fatal cruelty lies in the unthinking negligence so characteristic of large portions of Christ’s professed followers? There is nothing which the ordinary type of Christian, so called, more needs than to be aroused to a living sense of personal responsibility for all the unalleviated misery of the world. For every one who has laid the sorrows of humanity on his heart, and has felt them in any measure as his own, there are a hundred to whom these make no appeal and give no pang. Within ear-shot of our churches and chapels there are squalid aggregations of stunted and festering manhood, of whom it is only too true that they are ‘drawn unto death’ and ‘ready to be slain,’ and yet it would be an exaggeration to say that the bulk of our congregations cast even a languid eye of compassion upon those, to say nothing of stretching out a hand to help. It needs to be dinned, far more than it is at present, into every professing Christian that each of us has an obligation which cannot be ignored or shuffled off, to acquaint ourselves with the glaring facts that force themselves upon all thoughtful men, and that the measure of our power is the measure of our obligation. The question, Has the church done its best to deliver these? needs to be sharpened to the point of ‘Have I done my best?’ And the vision of multitudes perishing in the slums of a great city needs to be expanded into the vision of dim millions perishing in the wide world.

II. The excuse of negligence.

The shuffling plea, ‘Behold we knew it not,’ is a cowardly lie. It admits the responsibility to knowledge and pretends an ignorance which it knows to be partly a false excuse, and in so far as it is true, to be our own fault. We are bound to know, and the most ignorant of us does know, and cannot help knowing, enough to condemn our negligence. How many of us have ever tried to find out how the pariahs of civilisation live who live beside us? Our ignorance so far as it is real is the result of a sinful indolence. And there is a sadder form of it in an ignorance which is the result of familiarity. We all know how custom dulls our impressions. It is well that it should be so, for a surgeon would be fit for little if he trembled and was shaken at the sight of the tumour he had to work to remove, as we should be; but his familiarity with misery does not harden him, because he seeks to remove the suffering with which he has become familiar. But that same familiarity does harden and injure the whole nature of the onlooker who does nothing to alleviate it. Then there is an ignorance of other suffering which is the result of selfish absorption in one’s own concerns. The man who is caring for himself only, and whose thoughts and feelings all flow in the di

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

KEJAHATAN KELALAIANAmsal 24:11 - Amsal 24:12.Apa yang disebut Roh misionaris adalah tidak lain daripada jemaat Kristian yang bekerja dalam arah tertentu. Jika seorang mempunyai keyakinan, kesehatan jiwa-nya sendiri, nya penghormatan terhadap kebenaran yang dia telah belajar untuk mencintai, nya kaitan yang penting dengan pria lain, membuat tugas, kebutuhan, dan sukacita untuk memberitahu apa yang ia telah mendengar, dan berbicara apa yang dia percaya. Landasan ini berpijak seluruh kewajiban pengikut Kristus berbicara Injil yang telah mereka terima; hanya kewajiban menekan mereka dengan kekuatan yang lebih besar karena nilai tinggi kata dan lebih dalam kesengsaraan manusia tanpa itu. Teks tidak mengandung apapun yang khusus bantalan pada misi-misi Kristen, tetapi berhubungan dengan kesalahan yang besets kita semua dalam hubungan kami dan dalam kehidupan: dan kebenaran yang sehat yang mengucapkan itu berlaku untuk tugas-tugas kami mengenai misi Kristen karena mereka berlaku untuk tugas-tugas kami dalam setiap penderitaan dalam jangkauan kami. Mereka berbicara pembunuh kekejaman dan hitam dosa dari kelalaian untuk menyimpan setiap siapa kami dapat membantu dari segala macam penderitaan yang mengancam mereka. Mereka muncul untuk saya menyarankan empat pikiran yang saya sekarang akan berurusan dengan:-I. kejahatan kelalaian.Untuk tidak menggunakan kekuasaan adalah dosa; untuk menghilangkan lakukan apa-apa yang dapat kita lakukan adalah kejahatan: untuk menahan bantuan yang kita dapat membuat adalah untuk berpartisipasi dalam Matius sebagai penulis dari segala penderitaan yang kita telah gagal untuk meringankan. Dia yang mengabaikan untuk save a life, membunuh. Ada lebih pembunuh daripada mereka yang mengangkat tangan kekerasan dengan kebencian aforethought terhadap kehidupan yang dibenci. Penguasa atau masyarakat yang meninggalkan terpelihara untuk mati, orang-orang yang menderita mengerumuni jutaan untuk hidup mana udara racun dan cahaya keruh, dan pertama jiwa dan tubuh, yang kerdil dan mati; Laki-laki tidak kompeten di tempat-tempat tinggi, dan yang malas di rendah, keegoisan yang membawa, dan kebutaan blundering yang memungkinkan untuk melanjutkan, kondisi yang fatal pada kehidupan ini kesalahan darah terletak. Kekerasan membunuh ribuan, tetapi membunuh kelalaian telentang dengan puluhan ribu.And when we pass from these merely physical conditions to think of the world and of the Church in the world, where shall we find words weighty and burning enough to tell what fatal cruelty lies in the unthinking negligence so characteristic of large portions of Christ’s professed followers? There is nothing which the ordinary type of Christian, so called, more needs than to be aroused to a living sense of personal responsibility for all the unalleviated misery of the world. For every one who has laid the sorrows of humanity on his heart, and has felt them in any measure as his own, there are a hundred to whom these make no appeal and give no pang. Within ear-shot of our churches and chapels there are squalid aggregations of stunted and festering manhood, of whom it is only too true that they are ‘drawn unto death’ and ‘ready to be slain,’ and yet it would be an exaggeration to say that the bulk of our congregations cast even a languid eye of compassion upon those, to say nothing of stretching out a hand to help. It needs to be dinned, far more than it is at present, into every professing Christian that each of us has an obligation which cannot be ignored or shuffled off, to acquaint ourselves with the glaring facts that force themselves upon all thoughtful men, and that the measure of our power is the measure of our obligation. The question, Has the church done its best to deliver these? needs to be sharpened to the point of ‘Have I done my best?’ And the vision of multitudes perishing in the slums of a great city needs to be expanded into the vision of dim millions perishing in the wide world.II. alasan kelalaian.Permohonan menyeret, 'Sesungguhnya kami tahu itu tidak,' adalah dusta pengecut. Ini mengakui tanggung jawab untuk pengetahuan dan berpura-pura kejahilan yang tahu harus sebagian alasan, dan sejauh memang benar, menjadi kesalahan kita sendiri. Kita terikat untuk mengetahui, dan paling bodoh dari kita tahu, dan tidak bisa membantu mengetahui, cukup untuk mengutuk kelalaian kami. Berapa banyak dari kita pernah memiliki mencoba untuk mengetahui bagaimana sampah peradaban hidup yang tinggal samping kami? Ketidaktahuan kita sejauh yang nyata adalah hasil dari kelembapan berdosa. Dan ada bentuk sedih itu dalam ketidaktahuan yang merupakan hasil keakraban. Kita semua tahu bagaimana custom menumpulkan tayangan kami. Ini baik bahwa itu harus Jadi, bagi seorang ahli bedah akan cocok untuk sedikit jika dia gemetar dan terguncang melihat tumor ia harus bekerja untuk menghapus, seperti yang kita harus; tapi nya keakraban dengan kesengsaraan apakah tidak mengeras dia, karena ia berusaha untuk menghilangkan penderitaan yang ia telah menjadi akrab. Tapi itu sama keakraban mengeras dan melukai sifat seluruh penonton yang tidak apa-apa untuk mengurangi itu. Lalu ada kejahilan tentang penderitaan lain yang merupakan hasil dari egois penyerapan dalam masalah sendiri. Orang yang adalah peduli untuk dirinya, dan pikiran dan perasaan yang semua mengalir dalam di