If the Foundations are Being Destroyed...

David asked, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” I often wonder what the Founding Fathers would think about the nation they birthed 250 years ago. In many ways they would be awestruck with our progress and technology, but I wonder what they’d think about our taxation, our endless squabbles, and our moral status. As we approach the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I’m afraid that in many ways we’ve signed our own declaration of independence from God.

This morning I started my time in the Psalms with Psalm 11. In this Psalm David gives us two choices. Verse 3 is the driving question of the entire Psalm. David often writes while he is in the midst of the greatest trials. We are not sure of the exact occasion, but everything was crumbling around him…just as it seems to be crumbling around us. What can we do? The first choice is found in verse 1, we can run. Look at what he says in the second part of verse 1 and verse 2, “How can you say to my soul, ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain, for behold the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.”

David’s so-called friends saw the foundations crumbling and said, “run!” Plummer said, “If they were friends, they were much like Job’s wife.” Remember her…the foundations crumbled for Job and she said, “Curse God and die.”

I think the temptation to run is great, but how would we describe the run? It can be escapism. If we are not careful we can let the dangers of the world so mortify us that we try to escape from the world—we build walls around us, try to protect our children from all negative influences, we try to surround ourselves with Christian people, we try to escape from the world, but if all Christian people pull out of the world—how will we ever reach it?

I know God calls people to put their children in Christian schools or to homeschool them and I am not saying that is a bad idea, but let me ask you—if all Christian teachers, Christian administrations, Christian parents, and Christian students pull out of the public schools who will be light in the midst of darkness? Kim and I have homeschooled two of our children for one year at a time, but we also felt God leading us to teach our children to be positive witnesses in their surroundings. Please hear me—I am not saying that is the only way, and I am not accusing anyone of escapism because God calls them to Christian schools or homeschooling, but we can’t do anything out of an escapist mentality. We must be salt and light.

You could apply that to any area—if we never worked out with lost people, if we never went to grocery stores with lost people, if we never lived near lost people…how will we carry on our mission mandate? How will we fulfill the Great Commission? We must be salt and light and we can’t run from the world and accomplish our mission.

Others will avoid escapism and instead embrace humanism. I found this simple definition of humanism this week, “an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.” What I mean when I say we embrace humanism to run is we turn to our own ingenuity.

We somehow think we have what it takes in an of ourselves to face the world. We don’t need advice, we don’t need help, we have all that it takes to fight our battles…there is great danger in that because it thinks way too highly of ourselves and way to lowly of God. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”

Escapism can lead us to treat the world as a monk—shutting ourselves off from everyone and everything, but humanism can lead us to act like the proverbial knight in shining armor able to do it all in our own power. Both will lead us to defeat because both ignore the power of the enemy and the call of God. Some will tell us to run, but that’s only one option. Tomorrow we will look at the second.