How Should We Respond When the Foundations Are Destroyed?

I hope you love the products and resources I recommend here at Foundational. It is possible that I get a commission and collect income from the links on this page. Click here for more info.

“How can you say to me, flee like a bird to your mountain” (Psalm 11:1 NIV). “I take refuge in the Lord,” was his reply. Yet, they continued to warn David, “But, they are preparing their bows, even now they are taking aim at your heart.”

David’s reply is astounding. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

If the righteous leaders flee when the wicked are dangerously seeking to destroy them, on what foundation can the righteous build a future for the nation and a hope for their families?

A great question; it is a critical question.

It is a question that has been faced generation after generation. Some leaders have stood the test well while others have failed miserably.

The leaders in Judah are a sad testimony of not standing for truth and failing to provide righteous leadership at an hour of moral landslide.

“The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured people; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst. Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain. Her prophets plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord had not spoken. The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 22:25-31 NKJV).

The fifteenth and sixteenth century A.D. was another crisis time.

The foundations of the faith were being crushed through Aristotelian philosophy, distorted theology, greedy leadership, and  moral bankruptcy.

Into this foray came the clarion voices of John Hus, Savonarola, and the giant of the Reformation, Martin Luther.

When being faced with the threats and condemnation of a Papal Bull at the Diet of Worms, Luther stood for truth and was bold to answer.

Quoting from his own writings, he declared, “I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. God help me. Amen.” (Martin Luther, Eric Metaxas, Viking, New York: 2017, p. 216).

In the seventeenth century the Church of England was awash with distorted theology, bishops preaching politically correct sermons, and drunkenness.

Again men of God rose to the occasion proclaiming truth as the Puritan movement sought to right the Church of England.

Little known Gospel preacher, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress at this critical hour.

The holiness movement and Pentecostal outpouring of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was birthed in the heart of men and women passionately seeking revival at a time when the church was growing cold spiritually.

The pulpits of the land were teaching a dead theology.

Higher criticism or historical criticism was denouncing the infallibility of the Word of God, mocking the virgin birth and distorting the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Into the labyrinth of spiritual distortion came a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit that brought a fresh wind of spiritual life and birthed a mighty harvest of soul winning.

Again, we have come to a time when people “will not endure sound doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:3 NKJV).

They want teaching that satisfies their own desires. “[B]ecause they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NKJV).

We must have clarion voices that will lead us in these dangerous times.

If not, the foundations will be destroyed and then what can the righteous do?

How Should We Respond When the Foundations Are Destroyed?

The Apostle Paul wrote to his spiritual son Timothy, “But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust” (1Timothy 1:8-11 NKJV).

This same Gospel has been vouched safe in our hands for this generation.

It is a Gospel that clearly delineates what is moral right and wrong.

This Gospel presents without shadow the means of salvation provided by the Almighty and profoundly declares the consequences of rejecting His salvation.

Not only is murder, kidnapping, lying and perjury among the list of unrighteousness behavior, so is fornication (pre-marital sex) and sodomy (homosexuality).

Does it seem strange to you that what so clearly was part of the Gospel in the New Testament has now become blurry?

Some in this generation have even outright rejected it.

Can you feel the foundation shaking?

• Hooking up and living together is the new norm for “Christian” couples in their twenties and thirties.
• Divorced men and women in fifties and sixties are beginning to embrace the new moral standards as they reenter the dating scene.
• Strong voices in the Evangelical circles are calling for recognition of same sex marriage.
• Gender dysphoria is the new pop psychology being taught in Christian universities as if it were absolute truth.

When a voice for the true Gospel is lifted into the cacophony moral goo they are denounced as legalistic, intolerant, and unloving.

It is as if a twenty-first century higher criticism has risen denouncing the clear scriptural injunction for moral purity and holiness.

You will hear some voices saying, “Homosexuality today is not the same as it was in the Old Testament and in the time of the Apostle Paul.”

Other voices will call for grace, love, and understanding.

One leading pastor being interviewed on a nationwide news panel was asked, “So it is not a sin your church to have an abortion?” His answer was not a clear statement of right and wrong but, “We would find out your story, where you are from. People have to live their own conviction. If I have to tell you. That is such a broad question. I am going higher.”

Then he was asked, “It is not an open and shut case with you?”

His answer? “Some people would say it is. I am trying to see people who Jesus is first. Hear their story first, before I start picking and choosing what is sin in their life.”

Do you feel a troubling shaking in the foundation?

We are seeing exactly what our Lord declared about the religious leaders of Judah. “[T]hey have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean…”

Where are the spiritual leaders who will boldly, valiantly, and without compromise stand up before the politically correct, tolerance demanding public, who are “preparing their bows… taking aim at your heart” and declare “God says, ‘Be holy for I am holy’”?

There is an absolute moral right and wrong.

Scripture calls for a child of God to live “in righteousness and true holiness” because we have been born again put on the new nature.

It is time to affirm again the foundations of the true faith, “once for all delivered to the saints.”