Text: "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work." (Exodus 20:9)
The "Strike" Syndrome is driving America to her knees. America is literally on the verge of economic chaos. While the single greatest contributing factor is what Timothy Dwight called "That enormous evil, a depreciating currency," yet the second greatest factor is the loss of the work ethic. If these United States are to avoid complete economic collapse, there will have to be a return to the Biblical concept of the Dignity of Work. This loss is owing to some grave misconceptions.
The first of these great errors is that there is unimportant work. This is the argument most often advanced by the educated. However, all lawful work is important whether it be that done by the farmer, the maid or the physician. The only requirements are that we be honest and diligent. When a man does slipshod work he is a thief if he accepts the wages for good work. If he sells a product, he is commanded by God to sell a full measure and to use a just weight. If he "witholdeth corn (for obvious purpose of creating a shortage and thereby raising the price), the people shall curse him." (Proverbs 11:26) If he offers a sample, he is bound by the law of God to offer a true sample, and if he promises service under a warranty, he will answer to God if he fails to give promised service.
A man who offers a good work should be paid a wage that will enable him to live reasonably whether he be a butcher, a baker, or a garbage collector. How economically sick is that society that expects husband and wife to work to support the family.
If all work is lawful work then how arrogant it is for the educated to snub their noses at the mechanic!
A second error has flourished among the uneducated: that he is not entitled to be classified as a working man who does not labor with his hands. God Himself in His Word has declared that "much study is a weariness to the flesh." (Ecclesiastes 12:12) It is not only important but necessary that among the sons of men some should labor with the works the learned have left behind.
However, the error that has wreaked the greatest damage to the present American philosophy of work is that a job is only a means of making a living. This single attitude has spawned the most corruption in the American work force by single-handedly giving birth to the numerous kinds of fraud so prevalent in the market place. Under the excuse of "making a living" men have been willing to engage in unlawful work—work that will injure the morals of their neighbor or that will physically threaten him.
A fourth error being propagated is that the employer is the born enemy of the employee. This concept has resulted in the formation of a multitude of unions, which while they have legislated some good for the working conditions of the employee, they have nonetheless economically crippled our nation by appealing to the covetous nature of man. They have organized strikes for less work, fewer hours, while demanding more pay, but History fails to record a strike for better work. As a result of unions, work is done without conscience and without honor. Yet it is a basic concept of the Gospel that we are to be "content with our wages." (Luke 3:14b) What business then does a Christian have of using the coercion of a strike upon his employer whom the Scriptures term his "master?" And, where is the justice of a mechanic charging $20 dollars an hour for his needed services, or the hospital charging $100 a day for a room vastly inferior to a motel room that can be rented for $18 a day, when a host of hard-working people earn $4 an hour?
America stands at the same crossroads England did one hundred and fifty years ago. At that time the people of Great Britain believed they had hit upon an idea that would make all its people rich: they would cheapen their products. Unscrupulous English merchants loaded their cotton with china clay, starch, magnesium and zinc. Mildew grew upon the starch and the cotton became discolored and unusable. China, therefore, ceased to import English cotton and became an open market for American cotton. India ceased to import English cotton and began to grow her own. China, however, found revenge against English merchants by selling silk laden with water and tea that was mixed with iron filings!
For a while it appeared as though all British men were rapidly becoming rich. They did not dream there could be an end to it! But as England lost the cotton market to China and India, so she lost the small engine market to France and Belgium. First came the oppressive laws. Then the laborers struck for higher wages. They limited production and demanded fewer hours. They awakened all too late to the Depression they had caused. Then no number of strikes could stave off the economic calamity.
Strikes are ruinous to a nation’s economy, yet are extremely profitable to foreign nations who pick up the business the strikers voluntarily laid aside. So today, America depends to a large degree upon the imports of those great imitators—the Japanese. How absurd that the automobile industry in the country of Henry Ford should be threatened by automobile imports from foreign countries! Yet one hundred years ago, American drill makers threatened to drive English drill makers out of business even though American drills sold for 40% more in England than English made drills. Experience has shown people will buy a more expensive product if it is a better product.
England was able to pull out of her economic woes only after English people returned to honorable work and began giving a day’s work for a day’s pay. The theory of "work as little as you can and demand the highest possible wages" entirely demoralizes labor, and causes the laborer to become idle, inefficient and disloyal. America must return to the Biblical concept of the Dignity of Work or she will not recover from her economic woes as England did one hundred years ago.
3, 1775--Massachusetts. Monday, and George Washington rides from his quarters at Cambridge and under an elm tree on the common, assumes command of the Continental Army. Colonel Joseph Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut writes him, Now be strong, and courageous; may the God of the armies of Israel give you wisdom and fortitude, cover your head in the day of battle and danger, and convince our enemies that all their attempts to deprive these colonies of their rights and liberties are vain."
3, 1897 --Scotland. At Aberdeen, David Brown dies. He has been a co-worker with Mr. R. Jamieson and Mr. A. R. Fausset in the commentary that bears their names." He has submitted the work On the Gospels, Acts, and Romans.
He has served as director of the National Bible Society of Scotland and has opposed the "Higher Criticism" of Mr. W. Robertson-Smith, the result of which has brought the dismissal of the latter from his professorship at Aberdeen College.
11, 1779 --Scotland. Mr. Andrew Mitchell Thomson is born. He will incite the "Apocrypha Controversy" in 1827 giving up his membership in the British and Foreign Bible Society assailing that organization for binding the Apocrypha with the Scriptures.
19, 1374—France. Francesco Petrarch is found dead in his library. His head is resting on an "open book, his pen is fallen from his hand. The University of Paris has hailed him as "the finest poet in the Christian world," but he is known as the "Father of Humanism." "Humanism," he has said is the preparing of a man for this life." But then, is not this the life of an animal?