The World’s Oldest Contest—Truth Against Error – Sunday, December 20, 1942
As we think upon the approaching Christmas, we become aware that there is much cause for disappointment, much cause for gratitude, and much cause for hope:—Disappointment because there are vacant chairs in many homes; because violence covers the face of earth; and because many causes that men have lived and died for seem to have lost much ground. But withal we are reminded that the world’s greatest cause has often seemed to be a lost cause—the cause of right against wrong.
Going back more than nineteen centuries we find this same cause then having the appearance of being lost. There was Gethsemane, and there was Calvary. There was Pilate who knew better than he did, and Judas who sold his friend and his soul, and Peter who thrice denied his Lord. And there followed gross darkness covering the earth, with the hunting and killing of those who gave allegiance to that so-called “lost cause.” But the victories of “lost causes” have been repeated times without number.
Truth has been on trial in the clouded minds of men in all ages. The struggle with error, with oppression, the struggle with evil and sin, and, perhaps most of all, the struggle with ignorance, which is at the root of all these other things, has been a struggle unceasing since before time began. The light of freedom has often grown dim. The physically strong have repeatedly walked over the weak. Liberty has often been sold for a price; vicious men have bullied and deluded people many times over. Slavery in all its forms and degrees is not new. Human passions have burst their bounds before now. But despite all this, there is only one right cause—truth; and only one wrong cause—error; and as to the final outcome of the contest between them, there is no question. That cause for which Jesus the Christ lived and died will never be a lost cause; and life becomes tragic not so much when a right cause seems to be lost, as when intelligent men and women forsake a cause they know to be right, no matter how lost it seems.
It is the growing realization of such solemn truths as these that may perhaps give to this Christmas a deeper meaning than some, more carefree but less thoughtful, which have preceded it.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Dec. 20, 1942, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1942.
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December 20, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,696