Are you all surprised with all this news? The question is how many rather than 'why' this happened.
The following message posted earlier told us what is to come after the casinos open...so all these suicides, family breakdowns should not be a surprised! In fact, what may surprise other is that why it took longer than expected.
Please stay away from gambling...God Bless
Today’s Scripture Reading [February 14, 2010]
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. [1 Timothy 6:10. KJV]
The first Singapore casino opens today in Sentosa and with the Lunar New Year season, gambling fever is getting dangerously hot. Based on the experience of some advanced countries like the U.S., the sad news is that usually the people who gambled the most are those who can least afford it. From the number of harassments by loan-sharks reported in the newspaper recently, I believe we are not too different. Many gamblers borrowed from loan-sharks are living in 3 or 4-bedroom apartments in the heartland public residential areas where mostly lower and middle income wage earners live.
In 2005, Singapore legalized casino. In anticipation of serious negative consequences that are likely to occur when the two casinos are in full operations, the government has established new institutions in the hope they can help to bring these negative consequences within ‘acceptable’ limit. But this gives no comfort to the nation at large because, knowingly or unknowingly, the establishment of these institutions is synonymous with a very grim and somber warning to the people: “The Bet Is On – Be Prepared For The Worst!”
I have since been trying to recall our success story as a nation. Outside Japan, Singapore has the highest standard of living in Asia and our per capita income is one of the highest in the world. I was very proud of our early founding fathers. Against all odds, they had achieved unmatchable success when they turned Singapore from a poor third-world country into an admired industrialized country in less than one generation. After World War II from mid-1940 to the late 1960s Singapore faced insurmountable problems – zero foreign reserve, widespread unemployment, frequent student and labour unrest, British withdrawals threatening the already-widespread unemployment, racial and communal riots, economic confrontation and trade embargo by Indonesian government, merger and separation from Malaysia threatened greater racial tension. But our founding fathers didn’t give up. On the contrary, they took a tough stand to build Singapore without compromising the social ill and well-being of the people. Many of the policies that our founding fathers implemented could be related to the teaching of the Ten Commandments. For example, they refused to legalize casinos and the famous words “Over my dead body" was how a senior founding father, once put it, rejecting gambling as an affront to the Singaporean ethic of hard work and clean living. Besides casino, the government also rejected unhealthy sports like motor racing because, according to this senior founding father, “he could not understand the allure of such events, driving around and then going into the pits; after that, changing the tyres and revving out again ... makes no sense to him." Motor racing was then banned from Singapore in 1973. The sudden return of motor racing, the F1 Grand Prix, really puzzled me because the chances for racers now “to go into the pits, changing the tyres and revving out again” couldn’t be any different from the races of 1970s. In fact, it is even more dangerous now!
I can only guess that the prologue to all these changes of legalizing casinos and bringing back motor racing is purely for economic reasons. “In Singapore, if you are out of business, you are out of food” so goes another quote by this founding father of Singapore when he was interviewed recently.
In my younger days, I was extremely proud of the achievements made by our founding fathers who believed strongly in hard-work and clean living. The swampy land in Jurong that has been miraculously transformed into world class industrial estate has undoubtedly testified their honest belief of ethnic of hard work and clean living. Just like any good and responsible citizen, I too was eager to make contribution for Singapore. However, my very humble education could not bring me too far to make any significant contribution. Nevertheless, I took every opportunity to share with my overseas friends and colleagues how blessed our was and all because of our founding fathers’ belief system. I was acting like a self-proclaimed but unpaid goodwill-ambassador ‘selling’ Singapore which I was more than willing to partake. I spent more than 30 years working mostly for American companies though holding insignificant and unimportant positions but was given opportunities to travel many times to U.S. and U.K. My most pleasurable social interaction was to ‘trick’ my overseas friends into asking me questions like “How come Singapore is so blessed and so successful and yet without major vices like casino? Can you tell us more about your government, your people?” These were the questions I couldn’t wait for them to ask because I couldn’t equally wait to tell them my favourite punch-line: “We believe in hard-work, we believe in clean living and we believe in building a healthy nation with the least possible vices.” My second favourite and proudest punch-line was: “So long the old man is alive, Singapore will never have a casino!”
Sadly, I now have to eat my humble pie. In the next few weeks, we are going to have, not one, but two casinos! Instead of proudly sitting with my overseas friends to ‘trick’ them to ask me questions pertaining to our success, I now have to avoid them because I would rather eat the humble pie on my own accord than be forced to eat it!
But is gambling really that bad? Why can’t we gamble? Bible does not specifically forbid it, so what’s the problem? What’s the big deal?”
Yes. It is! And not just a problem but a very big problem for families and for the nation! Let me share with you that there are at least five biblical reasons why gambling is wrong and as children of God, we must avoid it at all cost.
(1) Love your neigbours as yourself (Matthew 22:39).
No gambler desires the best for his friends. Instead, he wants his gambling friends to lose as much so that he could win. This is selfishness. The Bible has instructed us to pray for others (James 5:16), not prey on them.
(2) Let him labour, working with his hands and what is good that he may share with those in need (Ephesians 4:28).
Gambling violates the simple law of exchange because it produces nothing to benefit others. The only thing that happened in the gambling tables is money just changed hands from one person to another. The business of gaming does not increase gross national products. On the contrary, tax-payers have to finance the law enforcement agencies to police this kind of business because, inevitably, it will also attract other vices like money laundering, extortions, loan-sharking, prostitutions, mafia.
(3) Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow (Proverbs 13:11).
God's rule for prosperity is simple: Make all you can, save all you can, and give all you can, and this must be gradually done with patience and perseverance. In gambling, people are looking for the big-pie-in-the-sky. They want to hit it big right away.
(4) Do not covet (Deuteronomy 5:21).
In The Tenth Commandment, it says, "You shall not covet...You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land...or anything that belongs to your neighbor." Hence, a gambler breaks the Tenth Commandment the moment he sat down at the gamble table. Gambling is based totally on coveting what belongs to others. When you sat down at the gambling table, you will think of nothing but just desiring the money that are placed in front of the fellow gamblers and wish that they could be yours.
(5) We can be enslaved and addicted by the destructive habit (2 Peter 2:19).
Gambling is very addictive and this addiction will ruin families and wreck other people's financial security because participating in gambling will germinate bad spiritual fruit – anger, hatred, greed and even murder. Losers who are in debt will think of ways and means to borrow, steal or rob so that he or she can continue to gamble in the hope of recouping the loses. To a gambling addict, the well-being of others including their family members is the last thing on his or her mind. You may have read or even known of good people turn into thieves all because of the uncontrollable urge to gamble. The latest case was a woman law clerk who misappropriated over $1.5 million from her company to feed her gambling habit is another sad reminder of the destructive consequences of gambling (the Straits Times Feb 12, 2010). Furthermore, many people, even though they are not Christians, know that gambling is very un-Christlike. If we, as children of God, gamble, we may never be able to lead them to Christ which is one of our highest callings by God.
With the above scriptural verses and with my humble short exhortations, I pray that you are now convinced that gambling is forbid by God. The bet is already on and there is nothing we can do to change it. The grim and somber warning that we must “Be Prepared For The Worst” is not going to take us by surprise because we all know that nothing good can come out from gambling. But as an individual, as a child of God, we can and we must flee from all sins, not just gambling. For example, avoid, if possible, those people who are causing you anger without any good reasons; avoid movies that are causing you to imagine those things that God forbids. Don’t play around with sin. While we can’t do anything to change things and because temptations are everywhere, we can, as children of God - when tempted, just flee! (1 Timothy 6:11). Together, we can have frequent close fellowship among Christian friends and sharing of God’s Word because the Word of God and the Blood of Jesus have tremendous cleansing power to for us to flee all temptations.
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