When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psa. 11:3)

"THE FACTS OF THE MATTER"

"A weekly letter of encouragement to business and professional men and women"

Good Morning!

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psa. 11:3)

You and I are observing the erosion of the foundations of our civilization; a corrosion that threatens the very basis of the good life we have so enjoyed. Dostoevsky once wrote that if God did not exist, everything would be permitted. As you look around, it seems that much of our Western world has lost the awareness that God exists, and thus believes that anything is permitted. It often appears that the only spirit that we recognize is our own.

St. Paul, in looking out over the people of his age made this disturbing parallel observation: “…In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power…” (2 Tim. 3:1b-5a).

C. S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man viewed Western civilization’s disintegration with ever increasing catastrophic consequences. “We are in the process of losing our humanity. It happens that men and women who once were human are simply no longer so. They have become nothing but minds and matter, brains and bodies, computers and consumers, calculators and copulates, constructers and cloners, who believe that they are free and powerful but in fact are being destroyed by the very ‘Nature’ that they wish to conquer as they are enslaved to an oligarchy of ‘Conditioners’ who are themselves enslaved and destroyed by their insane strivings to defile, design, manage, and manipulate a world and a humanity bereft of the God who boundlessly loves them.” 1

As we experience this tsunami that is sweeping away our spiritual foundations, consider the following injunctions from the Scriptures for us to hold steady:

· "You shall not follow the masses in doing evil…” (Ex. 23:2a).

· “…You shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations [around you]” (Deut. 18:9b).

· “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould…” (Rom. 12:2a – Philips Trans.).

· “…Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (Jms. 4:4b).”

· “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance” (I Pet. 1:14).

· “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (I Jn. 2:15, 16).

QUESTION: Are you more than hungry for God? Starving? When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed on the husks. But when he was starving, he went to his father. So, my friend, let me ask you, are you hard after God, or just dabbling at it? I hope it is the former, because only that kind of desperate passion for God will keep you and me from succumbing to the crumbling spiritual foundations that surround us.

1 (First Things, Page 72, December 2007)

This week may you experience His grace, peace and protection!


R. Dwight Hill


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