The title of this article comes from Psalms 11:3, which states, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Excellent question, especially, in our day. It seems our Biblical and Constitutional foundations are slowly, but surely, being destroyed with each passing day. Our ancient landmarks of Biblical morality, ethics and true Christianity are being removed from the public life of our nation.

American citizens are turning liberty into a license to sin, while the federal government increases its size, scope, and control. We are in a moral free fall and spinning out of control. Good has become evil and evil, good. In fact, evil has been codified into law. The sword of civil government that is to wield justice and punish evildoers is now being used to protect abominations, which compels our government to penalize the righteous.

Proverbs 23:10 warns, “Do not remove the ancient landmark, nor enter the fields of the fatherless.” We not only removed every moral boundary and entered the field of the fatherless, our nation for the last 42 years has murdered the fatherless. Of course, we do it all in the name of a woman’s so-called right to choose. What can the righteous do in such a time as this?

Jeremiah had a grand idea. He pointed the way out. The question is, “Does America have the courage, humility, and determination to follow his instructions?” Jeremiah 6:16 states, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls.”

Isaiah concurs, “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; For I called him alone, and blessed him and increased him.”

It appears from God’s word that our answers do not lie in the future, they are discovered in the past. What can the righteous do, when foundations are destroyed? Perhaps, we can get back the blueprint and rebuild our sinking sand foundations. We can restructure our nation based upon the solid rock of God’s word (Matthew 7:24-27).

There are silver linings in our desperate condition. First, the church has faced greater challenges in our history. The church has gone from terror to triumph throughout redemptive history. Eventually, God arises to judge His enemies and rescue His people. This Biblical and historical pattern will remain true, though we may be in for a bumpy ride.

Second, some of God’s greatest treasures were forged in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48:10 affirms, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Trials, tribulations, persecutions, and other assorted afflictions have and will test God’s people. Our faith will be put on trial. The prosecution, at times, will be intense. Once the authenticity of our faith rises to the top, however, God’s people comes forth as gold (1 Peter 1:7).

Third, according to Isaiah, “Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people.” Just like a fine jeweler, God has used the backdrop of darkness to highlight the jewels of his Kingdom and His great salvation. They shine forth to bless men and nations groping in the darkness.

Lastly, as our foundations are being destroyed, it has forced Christians back to the word of God and Americans back to our founding documents. It was this process that gave rise to the New Testament canon in 400 AD. It gave rise to the historical church creeds and statements of faith. Why? Because persecution, darkness, and heresies were attacking the church. It compelled God’s people to seek Him and His word for answers. Our time is no different.

In our Thomas Nation home school, the University of Righteousness, we not only study God’s word, but we study the English Magna Carta, the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath, Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex, Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. This author would encourage all American families to emulate this discipline.

What are the lessons learned? If you do not know what you had, you cannot comprehend what you are losing. If you do not know where you came from, you have no idea where you are going. The rudder of the boat is in the rear. It helps steer the boat in the right direction.

In his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, Patrick Henry reminds us, “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.” In this, we must remember that history is His-story. God moves history forward through his covenant people according to His redemptive plan.

Three-Fold Plan to Reform the Church and Restore America

Just like in the time of Nehemiah, America’s walls are down and our gates are being burned under our watch. Walls and gates represent the security of our nation. We are vulnerable by traitors from within our own American household and foreign enemies from without. Together, they are conspiring to demoralize, undermine, and threaten our future. The roots of our sin are producing the fruits of tyranny, injustice, weakened economy, demoralized military, treason by our civil officials, and a host of other maladies. What can the righteous do? Well, most of these perilous situations are outside of our control. There are, however, some things within our control. This is where we need to concentrate. First, I would encourage every born-again child of God to pray globally, but act locally.

First Phase: Go to the Gates

Look around your city. Where is the enemy of your souls at work? Are there evil strongholds? Do you have abortion mills, porno shops, a gay community, or the threat of sharia law, etc? Go to the exposed areas with the blessed hope of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Do the things that you do in church, except come out of your buildings and engage the culture with the claims of Christ and the truth of His word.

The Gospel still has the power to save (Romans 1:16). Hold on to the promise of God that He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail (Matthew 16:18). Go to the gates in your city in the name of Jesus. Pray that the gates be lifted up, so the King of glory may come marching back in to restore our gates in righteousness, justice, and mercy. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle (Psalms 24:7, 8). Go as the praying, praising, and proclaiming people of God. Being salt and light in our darkened, morally decayed culture is critical to secure a future and a hope for our nation.

If we remain silent and inactive, we only end up granting silent consent to the forces of darkness that are savaging our nation. God forbid we remain in this passive state as our nation is on the primrose path to destruction. This is part of what the righteous can do, when foundations are being destroyed.

Second Phase: Work to Restore Family

Theodore Roosevelt, in his famous Strenuous Life speech, had this to say about family life in America:

In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. The man must be glad to do a man’s work, to dare and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children. In one of Daudet’s powerful and melancholy books he speaks of “the fear of maternity, the haunting terror of the young wife of the present day.” When such words can be truthfully written of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart’s core. When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and brave and high-minded.

This sounds so foreign to us today. Most consider it laughable and archaic, yet, most of what he warned of, has taken place in our modern age. It highlights an old adage, “As goes the man, so goes the family, as goes the family, so goes the church, and as goes the church, so goes your nation.”

Tragically, our nation is in the process of destroying the major building blocks that support a healthy society and a strong nation. We are currently redefining the God-ordained institution of marriage with the advent of the gay marriage debacle. We also continue to murder our sons and daughters through the sin and crime of abortion. We have become quite adept at turning moral wrongs into civil rights. We blindly seek to make straight what God has called crooked (Ecclesiastes 7:13). We violate God’s holy commandments and in a state of delusion, still expect to thrive as a people. The Bible and history prove this is a fool’s paradise that collapses under the weight of its own sin.

What can the righteous do? Get married (to a person of the opposite sex) and stay faithful in marriage till death do you part. God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). He knows the destruction that comes to families in its devastating wake. If you are divorced and remarried based upon unbiblical grounds, repent, and stay faithful to your current vows.

In times past, Americans did a lot better in keeping the marriage covenant. It is not because they were necessarily more righteous than us today. The same sins that afflict families today were present within American families in times past. They did, however, have a different value system. If family relations broke, their first instinct was not to throw it away and look for another. No, they attempted to fix it. They tried to work things out. Why? Because some things are worth the sacrifice. Our microwave generation that taps its toe at modern conveniences does not appear to have the same faith, patience, and grit as those who came before us. God help us to regain those values in our day in Jesus’ name.

Third, once you are married, trust God for the size of your family. The former mighty Christian West has adopted anti-child policies that has had a disastrous impact. While Europe and America pop birth control pills and place our children on conveyer belts that leads our sons and daughters to the slaughter through abortion, the adherents of the “religion of peace” are multiplying. What Islam could not accomplish through the sword, they are now accomplishing through immigration and population. Ideas have consequences and they are jumping up to bite us.

America is not in agreement with God’s assessment on children. Sex has become a recreational sport. He with the most conquests wins. One of the major reasons for the marriage covenant is found in the book of Malachi. God’s word states, “But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth” (Malachi 2:15).

Our human bodies and sexual design were created to reproduce. Though God made it pleasurable for his creatures to enjoy, there are huge consequences anytime man seeks to tinker and tamper with God’s creative order. Take the so called “Gay Marriage” debate from a purely physiological standpoint. Can two male ends of electrical plugs connect to produce electricity? Can two female outlets connect and produce electricity? No, only a male part and a female part can produce electricity.

The same holds true in human sexuality. Only those who support homosexuality think that they can take two male parts and two female parts and still expect to create a spark that leads to life. Tragically, they are gravely mistaken. It will lead them to death, both physical and spiritual (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). The average life span of practicing homosexuals are cut in half compared to those who practice sexuality as God designed.

Obviously, the practice of homosexuality cannot produce children and thus forfeits any future legacy. This is why the homosexual agenda must convince children of heterosexuals to join them to keep their agenda alive. The agenda acts as a pied piper that touts, “This is the new cool, the civil rights struggle of our age.” To this point, it appears to be working. Eventually, however, this burning out of man and civilization will convince the future to end this madness. Will it be too little, too late for America? Only God knows.

The wages of sin is indeed death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). I pray those enslaved by homosexual lust experience the latter rather than the former reality.

As it stands, America is in major disagreement with God’s design for marriage, family, and children. Marriage was to reflect the loving and holy relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31, 32). God considers children blessings, gifts, heritage, and a reward (Psalms 127:3-5). Though the majority of Americans reject this revelation, it is vital to know that the future belongs to those who honor their marriage vows, have plenty of children, and raise them in the fear and admonishment of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). This is part of what the righteous can do as our foundations are being destroyed.

Third Phase: Godly Education

Moses gave Israel the meaning of life in the book of Deuteronomy. Note carefully his admonishment. Deuteronomy 32:45-47 states:

Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel, and he said to them: “Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe—all the words of this law. For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess.”

Education, in the Latin, means to pour in and to draw out. With our public schools’ secular agenda, what is being poured into our children? As a result, what is being drawn out? Before you answer, keep in mind that Jesus taught we would discern the nature of things by the fruit it produces (Matthew 7:20).

One just has to look at the condition of our public schools to realize there is a major problem. Our schools have become veritable war zones filled with gangs, violent behavior, sexual immorality, pagan philosophy, gross vulgarity, and incredible disrespect for parental authority. This begs the question. What are public schools pouring into our unsuspecting children and what is the fruit being produced?

There is a principle that nature abhors a vacuum. Whenever the knowledge of God is removed from the public life of a nation, violence and perversion always replaces it. This is the inescapable lesson that preceded Noah’s deluge (Genesis 6). America officially banished God from the classroom in the 1960s and into the void rushed every kind of evil to replace Him. Yet, Christians still insist on sending their lambs to be educated by wolves.

Potentially, many of their young suffer physical, mental, and worst of all, spiritual harm. Their bodies may still be in our Christian homes and churches, but their minds and hearts belong to another. Most Christian young people in public schools are walking in goose step with the spirit of the age. Their worldview is not being shaped by their faith or the Bible, it is being forged by the Anti-Christ, pagan, philosophies sponsored by our government, tax supported, indoctrination centers. They are being taught what to think, not how to think. This creates a passive citizenry that will gladly submit to tyranny as long as they can play with their social media gadgets.

Martin Luther warned:

I am very much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advice no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt.

Look at the corruption of our nation. Has Luther’s warning come to pass? What can the righteous do? For one thing, we can quit feeding the federal beast our children that are being recruited to help promote its godless agendas. Part of getting back to the blueprint of God’s word is obeying the Lord in our children’s education.

This is not just a learning issue. It is a jurisdictional one. God has clearly laid out in His word the four main governments to glorify Him and benefit us, His creatures. These delegated authorities are self-government, which is the key to liberty, family government, church government, and civil government.  Each has its jurisdiction, authority, and sphere of influence.

There is nowhere in Scripture that God ordains the state to teach our children. Our children are not wards of the state to be educated by a government nanny. This violation of jurisdictions has promoted governmental idolatry, a dumbed down citizenry, and a generation of politically correct robots that actually grow up to hate their own nation. And do not forget, we are paying for this by our tax dollars.

The last phase to reform the church in the hopes of restoring America is for parents to remove their children from our corrupt government educational system and educate them at home. According to Moses, this is not a futile thing, “It is your life.” This is also what the righteous can do, when are foundations are being destroyed. May God grant us the grace and conviction to do it in Jesus’ name!

 

“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle (1 Corinthians 14:8)?”

Biblically, there were many functions associated with the blast of trumpets. They were used to call God’s people to assemble in certain places designated by the Lord. They blasted God’s Jubilee that proclaimed liberty throughout the land (Leviticus 25:9). They called leaders to assemble with the purpose of seeking God for national direction. They were used to prepare God’s people for battle. They sounded to alert God’s people of the proper time to embark on great journeys. They were blown as a cry for God to deliver them from their enemies.

Numbers 10:9 states, “When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.”

Trumpets signaled important announcements from appointed dignitaries. They were sounded to cease hostilities and usher in peace. They were instruments of praise that were used to inspire the high praises of God. They indicated the call to honor feast days, holy convocations, solemn assemblies, and official times of fasting. They blew to warn God’s people of danger or even divine judgment in their midst. At Mount Sinai, the blast of trumpets prepared for the unveiling of the Ten Commandments.

Hebrews 12:18-21 declares:

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.  (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.”  And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)

In the New Testament, heavenly trumpets blasted to prepare the way for powerful eschatological events. The Apostle John received much of the Revelation after the heavenly trumpets sounded. This list is not exhaustive, but it provides a cursory view of the importance of trumpets as defined by God’s Word.

The Apostle Paul, in our opening Scripture, teaches the critical nature of correctly handling the trumpet and the sound it produces. I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that with all the purposes associated with the trumpet, it is vital to give a clear, distinct sound. The length of the blast, the cadence, and other nuances were vital to lead God’s people to follow the Lord’s directives.

If the sound was uncertain, however, the message could become garbled, murky, and confusing. This would have a devastating effect upon God’s people. They would inevitably become paralyzed, neutralized, and incapacitated to follow the Lord in humble obedience. Recent decades of church history could attest to this dilemma. Especially, in times that tend to try the church with overwhelming pressure to succumb and be conformed to the Spirit of the Age.

Case in point is the homosexual agenda. It appears sodomites have captured the sword of civil government to do their bidding against the church. Christians who hold to the Bible’s teaching concerning sexual immorality are now being persecuted. Our nation is making a conscious decision to deny Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech to Christians in order to promote that which God considers an abomination.

As licentiousness amongst American citizens and the acquisition of power by our civil government steadily increases, it is important to ascertain the condition of the Lord’s trumpet in the pulpits of America. First of all, is the trumpet even being sounded today? In times past, the pulpits in America blew God’s trumpet (Proclamation of God’s Word) loud and clear.

Alexis De Tocqueville, French historian, came to America to discover our blessedness. He looked for the greatness of America in our harbors and rivers, fertile fields, boundless forests, mines and other natural resources. He studied America’s schools, Congress, and our matchless Constitution without comprehending America’s power. Not, until he went into the churches of America and heard pulpits “aflame with righteousness” did he understand the secret of our genius and strength. De Tocqueville returned to France and wrote: “America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

We need to trumpet a Gentle Revolution in our day by means of pulpits fanning the flames of righteousness once again. We must remember, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Isaiah the prophet declared, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins (Isaiah 58:1).” Unfortunately, if men of God did this today, they would be considered not Christ-like.

Perhaps, many do not have a clue what Christ is truly like. Read the Gospels, but first take off your American Gospel Enterprise glasses before you do. Maybe, the true Jesus will expose the counterfeit. The Apostle Paul warned of “another gospel,” “another Jesus,” and a “different spirit” (Galatians 1:6, 7; 2 Corinthians 11:4). It is these counterfeits that are blowing the uncertain sound that keeps much of the church weak in the battle for the souls of men, the lives of children, and the future of our nation.

If there is a faint blast sounding from a pulpit here and there, is it clear and distinct? Does it rally, mobilize, and call God’s people to be like the children of Issachar who knew the times and knew what God’s people should do in the midst of our troubling times (1 Chronicles 12:32). Where is the prophetic call to reform our ways and doings before God (Jeremiah 23:22)? Who will arise to apply God’s tourniquet to stop the hemorrhaging of the bloodlust and perversion that threatens our national security? Who has the courage to pour salt into the deadly wounds of our moral rot? Do we perceive our sins have reached heaven and that we are vulnerable to God’s increasing judgments? Can we not discern the onslaught of our enemies from without and the wicked agenda foisted upon us from foes within our own national household?

Charles Finney had this to say to the churchmen of his era. Keep in mind that the evil of his day was slavery. Finney stated:

Brethren, our preaching will bear its legitimate fruits. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discrimination, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart, and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of this nation.

Certainly the time demands that a clarion call go forth from the pulpits of America in the hopes it will resonate amongst the people. Men of God need to place the trumpet of the Lord to their mouths and sound the alarm. Our message needs to recapture the church to be God’s instrument of reform, renewal, restoration, and reconciliation if our nation is to recover.

The church must regain her prophetic voice. We must break out of our self-imposed, spiritual ghettos and reenter the public square. We must engage in the marketplace of ideas with the claims of Christ and the truth of God’s Word. We must rise to provide moral guidance and help tenderize our national conscience that has been seared by our national sins, such as abortion, homosexuality, and other idolatrous abominations.

In short, it is time to trumpet a GENTLE REVOLUTION. Not a revolution of guns, bombs, and carnal weapons, but a spiritual, moral, and godly revolution. To help define what I’m advocating, it would be prudent for the church to take a lesson from the turbulent times associated with the 1960s. It was this decade that produced a major paradigm shift that rejected America’s godly heritage in exchange for the brutal darkness of paganism that ill-affects us to this day.

There is no question that the radicals of the sixties perceived some hypocrisy enshrined within the hallowed institutions of America, such as the family, the church, the state, and our educational systems. They struggled with certain aspects of the gates of our land that they believed didn’t ring true. Whether they were true in their assessments or not, I’ll let others decide. One thing is sure, instead of being young reformers that worked to restore these important pillars of our nation, they simply rebelled and trashed them. The treacherous course they blazed now sets the agenda that makes our nation vulnerable in the midst of this dangerous, fallen world.

The sixties generation created a rebellious sub-culture that eventually became the corrupt establishment that we contend with today. Our nation, through their ungodly influence, now finds itself in the pathetic state described by Isaiah the prophet. He declared:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him (Isaiah 5:20-23)!

This is why if one seeks to be a rebel today, one must live a godly life. The mores of our nation are in direct conflict with the Commandments of God. In the midst of this darkness, God calls his people to live out Romans 12:1, 2, which states:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

We need this generation of Christians to arise and trumpet a Gentle Revolution. If we fail, I cringe to think of the alternative that awaits our nation. We can no longer remain silent, indifferent, and inactive as our nation is ripe for judgment. May we repent and give God a reason to show mercy in Jesus’ name!