Saying No Is Especially Important Today

Saying no to wrongdoing has never been easy, and nowadays it can be especially difficult, for we are living in what the Bible calls "the last days" of this system of things. True to bible prophecy, people enmasse have become lovers of pleasures and violence, devoid of both spirituality and morality. ( 2 Timothy 3:1-5) A Jesuit university president stated: "We had a traditional set of standards that have been challenged and found wanting or no longer fashionable. Now there don't seem to be any moral landmarks at all." In a similar vein, a superior court judge said: "Things aren't black and white anymore. Everything is gray . . . Fewer people recognize the difference between right and wrong. The sin now is getting caught, not the violation."

The apostle Paul wrote about people with such attitudes: "They are in darkness mentally, and alienated from the life that belongs to God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the insensibility of their hearts. Having come to be past all moral sense, they gave themselves over to loose conduct to work uncleanness of every sort with greediness." (Ephesians 4:L18, 19) But trouble looms for them. Isaiah declared: "Woe to those who are saying that good is bad and bad is good, those who are putting darkness for light and light for darkness." (Isaiah 5:20) Not only do these ones reap what they sow now but they will soon experience their greatest "woe" - adverse judgment from Jehovah. -Galatians 6:7.

"When the wicked ones sprout as the vegetation and all the practicers of what is hurtful blossom forth, it is that they may be annihilated forever," says Psalm 92:7. In other words, this bumper crop of wickedness will not go on indefinitely, making life unbearable for all. In fact, Jesus said that the "generation" sponsoring this wickedness will be the very one that God will do away with in a "great tribulation." (Matthew 24:3, 21, 34) So if we want to be spared through that tribulation, we need to know right from wrong according to God's standards; and, of course, we also need the moral strength to say no to wrongdoing in all its forms. Though this is not easy, Jehovah has furnished us with some encouraging examples in Bible times and today.

Next time: Learning From A Young Man Who Said No

Watchtower, 1999