If The Foundations Be Destroyed..

Allow me to rephrase this for our current consideration: If the foundations of civil society be destroyed, what can the righteous do? I will explain why.

Religion and Politics

The old adage "religion and politics don't mix" no longer fits. At one time, it may have been polite for the saints to bite their tongues and not ruffle anyone's feathers. However, in the current social climate, politics is exactly where the ungodly is making his most ardent and divisive attack. The foundations of civil society are being destroyed; being nearly destroyed what is left that the righteous can do?

In kjv@Psalm:11 we see the wicked "bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart". Let there be no mistake that it is at the upright he is pointing his bow. It is to such an uncomfortable point that the saint's soul might be tempted to say "Flee as a bird to your mountain". This psalm is not about what the wicked are doing however, no it is the saint on which this psalm focuses.

The mountain is a tempting place for us to flee. After all what matter is it of ours what this society chooses for itself to be? What matters is that "the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright". Therefore, "The LORD trieth the righteous". Like as with precious metals, HE puts them to the test in a foundry to separate us from the dross and prove to us HIS righteousness's worth. This separation is not to be sought from atop some distant mountain top. It comes only from being in the boil and tumult of the cauldron's hottest flames. Dangerous and unfamiliar grounds for us no doubt, so much so that must be said "In the LORD" that the saint must put his/her trust.

Before we run out onto the political and social battlefield shooting at whatever targets are seen fit, let's better consider verse 4 at the heart of this psalm:

1. "The LORD is in his holy temple" (God's Holiness)
   

Our LORD is much different from the lords of the rest of this world. This LORD alone is holy. It is not for this LORD to rule only as we see fit. Who are we? Are we holy in the same sense? Not unless we allow HIS reign to have its effect upon us to such an extent that we reflect nothing but HIS holiness. Sadly, this is something that in our haste we often neglect to maintain.


There have been plenty of similar occasions we have raced unto the battlefield with our thoughts and bias, our beliefs, our strict legalism, our own insistence, and our way of fixing things, only to shoot our selves or our brothers in the foot. And by our inept misrepresentations of Christ, the person and purposes of Christ has been ill presented.


2. "the LORD'S throne is in heaven" (God's reign and judgment)
   

The view of the battlefield that this LORD has from above is much different from ours here in the trenches. What is right in our own eye so often is not the correct place from which such strategic judgments should be made. Countless times we have foolishly played right into our enemy's stronger hand. No, this is a different kind of war, fought with different kinds of weapons, not the weapons we bring in from home on our own.


3. "his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men" (the inescapable watching of God's eye)
   

As saints, we should never think that this LORD's critical eye is not upon us as well. HIS eye beholds all the children of men. If anything certain can be said of the scriptures, it is that this LORD's eye is more upon HIS saints, more than any others. "The wicked and him that loveth violence" this righteous LORD may "hateth", but "the LORD trieth" with a keen loving interest those whom HE has chosen and imputed HIS righteousness covering over, desiring from them a willing and constant improving compliance.

The Search for Answers

It is quite natural for the world at large to neglect these crucial political and social foundations: (God's holiness/God's reign and judgment/the inescapable watching of God's eye). This is how they end up with this unruly and divisive climate that they have trapped us into. They ask "what can be done" and answer it "radicalize what we've been doing and cram down the peaceable and law-abiding citizen's moral conscience". These masses have become easy prey for the wicked to take full advantage of for much more wicked hidden purposes. They have been made to feel disenfranchised, victimized, systematically oppressed, made to covet what they do not have themselves, become inflamed, led by the snoot of their social compassion upside-down where upright and civil society rather not go.

It is quite inexcusable however when the congregation of saints personally neglects these pillars of sanity as well. That is how the saints end up in the unenviable and indefensible position of having allowed these societal ills to fester unattended for far too long. Instead we are labeled the neanderthal, we are the archaic, we are the racist and insensitive and bigot. We ponder how it all came to this? What is left that we might do? Well there is not much of anything left to do when we've already allowed the foundations to collapse in all around us. That is unless the LORD Himself is willing to do something about it through us.

Some saints might ask "what is it that is different about this particular age?". Let's observe.

Today, there is the talk of "cutting the tree down at the trunk" Marxism in this country like there has never been here before. In Marxism there will be no space afforded for this LORD we freely today speak of here, nor will there be place for these foundations; not even the thought of HIM. What do we do then? The Marxist doctrine plans to use Socialism as the blowtorch to clear and level the field for this "inevitable" (they say) "stateless society". No one is served by this wicked ideology in the end, not the disenfranchised, nor the victim, nor the impoverished, not even those foot soldiers fighting for it, nor the elite, nor intellectual, not even the socially compassionate. By that time, these all will have been proven to have been "useful idiots"; as will have the saint. This truth has been proven numerous times in the previous century. Is it time for us to be proven it again?

For Country? Yes and No

The psalmist nearly pleads for us to sing forth in unison "In the LORD put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?". A good many of us I believe are being guided by the scripture such as the Psalms and by the Holy Spirit to replenish the front-line as a test of this generation's metal. It is not that this country is morally superior and worth the extra fight. It is not that this country does not have massive problems needing to be addressed. It is that the "righteous LORD loveth righteousness" and the LORD is our foundation bedrock no matter what the country. If the godless have made it close to impossible socially and politically for the upright to operate in, and attack us politically and socially ever increasingly, then it is time for the foundations to be upheld and spoken out; not for us to once again flee.

We have only to make sure that we are upholding the foundations of our LORD's righteousness in fact and not just what we see as right in our own eye!

"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Randy Pritts is the author of the "Back to the Psalms Series" audio project and the upcoming 2020 book "Foundations Of The Like Precious Faith Series". Follow Randy at his website likepreciousfaith.us which features a wide variety of original and classic Christian content, bible translations, dictionaries, indexes, and other public domain resources for the modern "like precious faith" believer's ongoing edification.