Unintended Consequences: From Expedience To Excess

Common Sense Commentary: Expedience means, "Timely and fitting".  Excess means the opposite, "Untimely and Unfitting". So much of what we human beings do to ourselves, to others, to society and to nature, is well intended, but ends in unintended consequences; in war, collateral damage; in medicine, side effects or death. Half of the happy, young lovers eventually become bitter, resentful, hateful or murderous opponents of their former lovers.... all unintended and unanticipated, but there it is. 

Expediency: In John 18:14, "Caiaphas ... gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man (Jesus) should die for the people."  It was expedient because the people could not save themselves, forgive their own sins, cleanse their souls or raise themselves from the dead .... so Jesus did it for them.... expediently.

Excess:  Jesus said it in Matt.23:25 "Woe unto you ... hypocrites, for ... within (you) are full of extortion and excess."   Apostle Paul warned in Eph.5:18, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess...."  And Apostle Peter reflected back, "For the time past of our lives... we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess ...."  1 Pet.4:3

Conclusion:  So, the sinner, lost, without strength and without hope to save himself, is totally dependent on the expediency of Christ's sacrificial death to cover his spiritual insufficiency within himself.  Then, having been freely lifted up, delivered, and saved by the grace of God, he consumes the free gift and returns to his sins in riotous excess. "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"  Heb.10:29.  From the expediency of redemption to the excess of folly.

Likewise, there was a time, in the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl on the plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, when dry land farmers could no longer help themselves and feed their families. That awful draught with constant dust storms, lasted for several years. The Dept. of Agriculture grew out of that need.  Outside help was expedient if those farmers were to be saved.  Now, and for many years since then, the urgency passed, the expediency of depression and dust bowl programs has become excess.  Many farmers, for the 77 years since then, have been paid excessively  to let their farms lay fallow without any cultivation at all, or being subsidized financially and with guaranteed prices if they farm their land.  Expediency became excess and excess... greed.

There was also a time when workers were little more than slaves, could barely make ends meet and feed their families.  It was expedient that they organize and strike for better treatment and higher wages.  So, they organized and demanded more and then more and then more and more and more until finally, trash-collectors up north were getting $100,000 a year and unions finally broke United Airlines and now own it as well as Chrysler Dodge. Even Twinkie's Momma ... Hostess Bakery, has gone bankrupt and has had to let their union's demands die with 16,000 jobs. Expediency became excess and excess... greed. A business which does not make the investors a profit, must close it's doors and empty the jobs it employs.

Then, there was a time when so many blacks were abused and misused that it was, yes, expedient that they be relieved and gain justice.  Even that has now been carried to excess all across America. "Affirmative Action", as well as dozens of welfare programs, are terminally ill and will be dead within five years for lack of  government funds.

So, where are we now?

The once great, free enterprise, democratic Republic of the United States of America, where everybody had a job,  is mortally corrupted by expediency gone aerie, and has become an excess addict.  A little "feel good" expediency became a life controlling, bad habit, craving to be fed more and more and still more free stuff narcotics so that we are a nation of self-centered addicts selling our souls for another free-money fix.  The scene is like unto dozens, even hundreds and thousands of once pretty, young ladies and their pimps roaming the streets of America with one thing in mind, and it isn't sex, it is money, money money for another drug induced high ... at the cost of  their pride, dignity, cleanliness, health, children, parents, and life itself.  At the same time, across town, major banks and CEOs sitting atop the pyramids below them are going all out, not to make their investors a reasonable profit, but themselves wealthy, at the expense of their investors and customers.  Mammoth salaries and bonuses spew out while the company suffers and finally terminate. 

Now look down on the border where illegal aliens, from all over the world, crowd into what they still think is the American Dream... only to discover it isn't what it once was ... So, many of them join the expediency to excess to prison population which costs, for each of them, more per year than attending college... away from home.

On top of all that, abortion is also adding another layer of corruption upon corruption, excess upon excess. All of which, by lowering moral standards,  generates more  lawlessness, and every kind of excessive immorality.  It reminds me of the infectious, flesh eating bacteria, Necrotizing Fasciitis, which has been showing up recently in the U.S.  and eating people alive.  I wonder how many such plagues there are out there in the dark, damp, festering corners of our society. We shall surely find out.

If you wonder why I deal with these subjects ... I am doing what God's prophets, preachers and watchmen on the wall,  have been charged to do since the first recorded prophet, Abraham, in Gen.20:7 "... For he is a prophet...." God said.  If preachers don't stand up and tell the truth about sin, consequences and forgiveness, who will? RB