Bible Text: Daniel 3:17-18 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3:17-18

The term “unwed mother” has practically vanished from our vocabulary. Your children are being taught that love should be “inclusive,” that two people of the same sex should have the same marriage ceremony that you and your spouse did, and that gender is a fluid concept.

If you decide to talk to your child’s teacher, you will likely be met with hostility and challenged, “How could you be so bigoted? So hateful?” You feel like you stand alone. Nobody else seems to be bothered by what is happening. When you talk to other parents, they shrug their shoulders and say, “Not much we can do about it; that’s the way things are today.”

You can’t afford to send your children to a private school or home school so you feel trapped. Long ago Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” What are your options and what can you do?

First, notice that when offensive or immoral concepts are challenged, there are stages of opposition, each of which escalates the battle.

Stage #1: Ridicule. More than one person has backed out of a fight at the slightest objection by a teacher, school administrator, or school board official.

Stage #2: Confrontation. That’s when others confront you, striving to intimidate you, attempting to push you into a corner. Many people are silenced when the first volley of ridicule hits them with a splat! “How can you be so bigoted?” Direct hit. Or you are labeled with pejorative terms—homophobic, rigid, weird, and a host of other terms cause you to recoil and feel like turning and giving up your opposition.

Stage #3: Isolation. Ridicule doesn’t work, and you refuse to back down, standing your ground, so the next phase of opposition is to isolate you—silence your voice, keep you marginalized, or refuse to let you speak to whomever is in control. The person you want to talk with is never available. Your phone messages are unheeded. You are treated as a leper, avoided, ignored as a non-person.

Stage #4: Repression. That is the final attempt to cause you to stand down from a battle, and it is often when laws are enacted to silence the dissenter—something that is growing stronger year by year.

How do you respond to situations you feel are morally wrong? How can you be strong enough to make a difference when you think you stand alone? First, strive to remember that there are others who feel just as you do. Remember when Elijah complained about being the only one who didn’t bow his knee to Baal, God reminded him that there were 7,000 others just like him?

When someone voices opposition to wrongdoing, others will rally to the cause, looking for a leader to follow. I never cease to be amazed at the stories of ordinary people—often women who seem to have more grit than most men—who say, “Enough is enough!” and voice dissent to wrongdoing—no matter what it is.

When you are voicing support for moral and spiritual truths, you stand in the company of godly men and women who found that though few stood with them, they were on God’s side.

When I was a young man, protesting a moral cause and we lost the battle, an older, much wiser, brother said, “Our cause is not in vain. Though we failed, often God uses this to bring others into the fight that will ultimately prevail.” He was right. Better to lose in a cause that will ultimately win than to win in a cause that will ultimately fail. Just don’t give up.

Resource reading: Daniel 3