The Hunter and the Bear
Justifying Wrong Behavior
Amaziah
Lack of Opposition
How Does Compromise Occur
Arbitration
Branding
Kneeling to Pray
99 Percent
The Hunter and the Bear
Public Confession
Soliciting Alms
Changing the Question
Sexist
Exacting Baseball Schedule
Movie Rights
Resources
Topic : Compromise
Income Tax
When the federal income tax was signed into law in 1913, a senator speaking in opposition to the bill stated: “If we allow this 1 percent foot-in-the-door, at some future date it might rise to 5 percent.”
The Hunter and the Bear
Winter was coming on and a hunter went out into the forest to shoot a bear out of which he planned to make a warm coat. By and by he saw a bear coming toward him and raised his gun and took aim.
“Wait,” said the bear, “why do you want to shoot me?”
“Because I am cold,” said the hunter.
“But I am hungry,” the bear replied, “so maybe we can reach an agreement.”
In the end, the hunter was well enveloped with the bear’s fur and the bear had eaten his dinner. We always lose out when we try to compromise with sin. It will consume us in the end.
Justifying Wrong Behavior
When a person tries to justify his wrong behavior by pointing to the conduct of others, he isn’t aiming high enough. This is also true if he patterns himself after someone who gives the Lord only partial obedience. A college student learned this lesson when he was reprimanded by the school president for misbehavior. The young fellow offered this lame excuse for his questionable conduct:
“But, Sir, you’d find it difficult to locate 10 men in this school who wouldn’t have done as I did if they had been in my circumstances.”
The president replied, “Has it ever occurred to you that you could have been one of those 10?”
Amaziah
Amaziah was a good king. He worshiped the true God and showed mercy to the children of some who had conspired against him. Apparently he set a good moral example. But he foolishly led his troops into a shameful defeat and was finally executed by a group of rebels. In 2 Kings 14:3, we are told why Amaziah did not experience the full blessing of the Lord. The text says, “And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like David.” He followed the example of his father Joash and failed to put a stop to the semipagan worship conducted on hills throughout the land. He should have patterned himself after his forefather David. He simply didn’t aim high enough.
Lack of Opposition
Joseph Lewis Preston, of the Free Thinkers of America, told an Associated Press reporter, “Organized interest in atheism has lagged because the opposition isn’t as strong as it used to be. There has been considerable liberalizing of religion and the lines of conflict aren’t nearly as strong.” Charles Smith, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, reported that the lack of opposition was the cause of the decline of atheism. “We don’t have the old repressive religion that stimulates atheism, and they don’t preach hell-fire and Jonah in the whale anymore. They go in for this cheer-them-up religion. That’s not the old-time religion. It may be that this new sort is not so bad but they don’t let it interfere with their lives. They spent more time in the old days pleasing God. Now they try to please their fellow men.”
How Does Compromise Occur
Sherman and Hendricks have a seven-step process that, if left unrecognized, could lead to moral compromise:
1. A failure to commit ahead of time to do the right thing.
2. Underestimating evil and flirting with dangerous temptations, thus being exposed to far more powerful evils.
3. A failure to recognize the numerous forms of compromise lurking at every corner of life.
4. A failure to recognize the smooth flatteries and enticing fantasies of temptations. For example, overstating expenses on your expense report. After all, you company has a large budget and you’ve been a loyal employee who works overtime.
5. Succumbing to slick rationalizations. I have a Christian acquaintance who is proud of the fact that through the process of bartering he can avoid paying additional income tax, even though this is illegal.
6. A sudden, deliberate choice to give in to sin.
7. A failure to consider the costly consequences of sin.
Arbitration
Two men had an argument. To settle the matter, they went to a Sufi judge for arbitration. The plaintiff made his case. He was very eloquent and persuasive in his reasoning. When he finished, the judge nodded in approval and said, “That’s right, that’s right.”
On hearing this, the defendant jumped up and said, “Wait a second, judge, you haven’t even heard my side of the case yet.” So the judge told the defendant to state his case. And he, too, was very persuasive and eloquent. When he finished, the judge said, “That’s right, that’s right.”
When the clerk of court heard this, he jumped up and said, “Judge, they both can’t be right.” The judge looked at the clerk of court and said, “That’s right, that’s right.”
Branding
A New York family bought a ranch out West where they intended to raise cattle. Friends visited and asked if the ranch had a name.
“Well,” said the would-be cattleman, “I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one son liked the Flying-W, and the other wanted the Lazy-Y. So we’re calling it the Bar-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y.”
“But where are all your cattle?” the friends asked.
“None survived the branding.” - D.A.C. News
Kneeling to Pray
A young man enlisted, and was sent to his regiment. The first night he was in the barracks with about fifteen other young men, who passed the time playing cards and gambling. Before retiring, he fell on his knees and prayed, and they began to curse him and jeer at him and throw boots at him. So it went on the next night and the next, and finally the young man went and told the chaplain what had taken place, and asked what he should do.
“Well,” said the chaplain, “you are not at home now, and the other men have just as much right to the barracks as you have. It makes them mad to hear you pray, and the Lord will hear you just as well if you say your prayers in bed and don’t provoke them.”
For weeks after the chaplain did not see the young man again, but one day he met him, and asked —”By the way, did you take my advice?”
“I did, for two or three nights.”
“How did it work?”
“Well,” said the young man, “I felt like a whipped hound and the third night I got out of bed, knelt down and prayed.”
“Well,” asked the chaplain, “How did that work?”
The young soldier answered: “We have a prayer meeting there now every night, and three have been converted, and we are praying for the rest.”
Oh, friends, I am so tired of weak Christianity. Let us be out and out for Christ; let us give no uncertain sound. If the world wants to call us fools, let them to it. It is only a little while; the crowning day is coming. Thank God for the privilege we have of confessing Christ.
99 Percent
What you’d get if 99% were good enough:
- No phone service for 15 minutes each day.
- 1.7 million pieces of first class mail lost each day.
- 35,000 newborn babies dropped by doctors or nurses each year
- 200,000 people getting the wrong drug prescriptions each year
- Unsafe drinking water three days a year.
- Three misspelled words on the average page of type.
- 2 million people would die from food poisoning each year.
The Hunter and the Bear
Winter was coming on and a hunter went out into the forest to shoot a bear out of which he planned to make a warm coat. By and by he saw a bear coming toward him and raised his gun and took aim.
“Wait,” said the bear, “why do you want to shoot me?”
“Because I am cold,” said the hunter.
“But I am hungry,” the bear replied, “so maybe we can reach an agreement.”
In the end, the hunter was well enveloped with the bear’s fur and the bear had eaten his dinner. We always lose out when we try to compromise with sin. It will consume us in the end.
Public Confession
During WWI one of my predecessors at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Donald Grey Barnhouse, led the son of a prominent American family to the Lord. He was in the service, but he showed the reality of his conversion by immediately professing Christ before the soldiers of his military company. The war ended. The day came when he was to return to his pre-war life in the wealthy suburb of a large American city. He talked to Barnhouse about life with his family and expressed fear that he might soon slip back into his old habits. He was afraid that love for parents, brothers, sisters, and friends might turn him from following after Jesus Christ.
Barnhouse told him that if he was careful to make public confession of his faith in Christ, he would not have to worry. He would not have to give improper friends up. The would give him up. As a result of this conversation the young man agreed to tell the first ten people of his old set whom he encountered that he had become a Christian.
The soldier went home. Almost immediately—in fact, while he was still on the platform of the suburban station at the end of his return trip—he met a girl whom he had known socially. She was delighted to see him and asked how he was doing. He told her, “The greatest thing that could possibly happen to me has happened.”
“You’re engaged to be married,” she exclaimed.
“No,” he told her. “It’s even better than that. I’ve taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior.”
The girls’ expression froze. She mumbled a few polite words and went on her way. A short time later the new Christian met a young man whom he had known before going into the service. “It’s good to see you back,” he declared. “We’ll have some great parties now that you’ve returned.”
“I’ve just become a Christian,” the soldier said. He was thinking, That’s two! Again it was a case of a frozen smile and a quick change of conversation.
After this the same circumstances were repeated with a young couple and with two more old friends. By this time word had got around, and soon some of his friends stopped seeing him. He had become peculiar, religious, and—who knows!—they may even have called him crazy! What had he done? Nothing but confess Christ. The same confession that had aligned him with Christ had separated him from those who did not want Jesus Christ as Savior and who, in fact, did not even want to hear about Him.
Soliciting Alms
The Little Sisters of the Poor were going from door to door in a French city, soliciting alms for old people. One nun called at the house of a rich free-thinker who said he would give 1000 francs if she would have a glass of champagne with him. It was an embarrassing situation for the nun, and she hesitated. But the hesitation was short—after all, 1000 francs meant many loaves of bread.
A servant brought the bottle and poured, and the brave little nun emptied the glass. And then she said, “And now, sir, another glass, please, at the same price.” She got it.
Changing the Question
Compromise is simply changing the question to fit the answer.
Sexist
I once lived in a messy apartment, and I realize it’s sexist to assume that just because a woman wasn’t there it was messy. So I went downstairs to borrow an iron, and I realize it’s sexist to assume that just because there wasn’t a woman there, there wasn’t an iron there. And I came back up and didn’t have an ironing board. I realize it’s sexist to have anybody assume that of course I wouldn’t have an ironing board, but I didn’t. So I was ironing my shirt on the floor, and there was this little crunch, and I picked up the shirt and I had ironed a roach right on it.
And the point of this is there are some things that just can’t be ironed out.
Exacting Baseball Schedule
Royt Blount, quoted by Karin Winegar in Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune When Ralph Houk was manager of the New York Yankees, baseball schedules were even more exacting than they are now, with double-headers almost every week. Occasionally a player would get sick of the grind and approach Houk, asking for permission to sit out a game.
“I know how you feel,” the manager would say genially. “Sure, take the day off, But do me a favor. You’re in the starting lineup. Just play one inning. Then skip the rest of the game.”
The player would honor Houk’s request—and almost invariably get caught up in the spirit of the game and play it out to the end.
Movie Rights
Back in 1931, Irving Thalberg of MGM decided he wanted to buy the film rights to Tarzan, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. so Thalberg sent Sam Marx to negotiate with Burroughs, telling Marx not to spend more than $100,000, an extraordinarily large sum in those days. Marx contacted Burroughs and asked how much he wanted for the film rights.
“$100,000,” said Burroughs.
When Marx offered him $25,000, Burroughs walked out of the meeting. However, Marx and Burroughs continued to negotiate throughout the summer. Burroughs eventually settled for $40,000. After signing the contract, Burroughs admitted that he had wanted MGM and Thalberg to make the picture so badly, they could have had it for nothing if they had insisted.
“Mr. Burroughs,” replied Marx, “If you had held out, you would have gotten $100,000!”
Resources
- C. Swindoll, Growing Strong, p. 244
- Wake Up Calls, Ron Hutchcraft, Moody, 1990, p.74.
