THE CRISIS

Many centuries ago, King David of Israel posed this probing question: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3).

This crisis confronts us today, as the once-strong bedrock that our people and institutions rested upon has been undermined and replaced with shifting sand (Matt. 7:24-27). Jesus Christ—the Chief Cornerstone for all sound culture and civilization—has been mocked and rejected (Isa. 28:15-29; Eph. 2:18-22; 1 Pet. 2:6-10). In God’s place, prideful man has sought to build society on his own faulty reasoning. Faith in the One True God has given way to faith in man. The results have been devastating, as families have crumbled, churches have collapsed, and civil governments have wrecked against their own destructive autonomy.

This plight has occurred due to our rebellion against the sovereign God of the universe. The bad news is that the King of Kings judges those who reject His ways, both in history and eternity (Lev. 26:14-39; Deut. 28:15-68; 32:15-43; Rev. 20:11-15). We should thus expect to encounter temporal judgments when we abandon the true faith and stray from God’s righteous decrees (1 Kings 9:6-9; 11:9-40; 14:7-16). Such we see today in our ailing land—our broken faith has led to a broken world.

The good news is that the Lord of Lords generationally blesses those who humbly fear Him, repent of their sins, believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and follow His commands (Deut. 7:9; Ps. 25:12-14; 34:9-16; 103:17-18; Prov. 8:32-35; 22:4; Isa. 66:2; Acts 3:18-19; Mark 1:14-15; John 1:12-14; 3:16; Acts 16:31; 1 John 2:3-4). It is in returning to this foundation—a reverential fear of God, true faith in Christ, and unfeigned allegiance to His Sovereign Lordship—that we can begin to rebuild in hope, amidst the cultural rubble.

True Faith and God’s Redemptive Purpose: A Look at the Big Picture

True fealty to our Maker can, indeed, only come by true faith in Him (Heb. 11:6), this faith itself being God’s unmerited gift which brings about salvation (Eph. 2:8-10), which is alone secured through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross and His triumphant resurrection from the dead on the third day (1 Cor. 15:1-8; Acts 13:26-41).

Looking at the big picture, we learn that the patriarch Abraham exercised such faith, “and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gal. 3:6; Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:1-3). He believed Christ’s true Gospel (Gal. 3:8) and became “the father of all them who believe” (Rom. 4:11).

Widening the panorama further, we learn that, from eternity past (2 Tim. 1:8-9; Titus 1:1-2), God ordained that His only begotten Son (John 1:14; 3:16-18), the Second person of the Trinity (Matt. 28:19), would condescend from heaven (Phil. 2:8; Gal. 4:4-5; Heb. 2:9) and be born of the physical offspring of Abraham (Gen. 22:18; Matt. 1:1; Luke 3:23-34; Heb. 2:16-17). While being wholly God (Heb. 1:2-3; Col. 1:13-17), Jesus Christ—the Eternal Savior and King (Ps. 110:4; Heb. 7:15-28; 1 Tim. 1:17; Ps. 45:6; 145:10-13)—would become wholly man (Matt. 1:18; John 1:14; Heb. 4:15) to serve, in history, as the mediatorial Savior of His elect, both Jew and Gentile (Matt. 1:21; John 6:37; 17:1-5; Rom. 11; 1 Cor. 1:24-31; Eph. 2; 2 Tim. 2:9-11; 1 John 4:14-15), and the mediatorial King of all mankind (Isa. 9:6-7; Mic. 5:2; Luke 1:31-33; Matt. 28:18-20; Phil. 2:6-11; Heb. 1:1-3).

He who created the world (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:16-17; Gen. 1-2:4; Ps. 102:25-27; Prov. 3:19), would—in coming to earth and becoming a blameless sacrifice for sin (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 1:18-21)—be vested by His Father with complete authority over heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18) and be “appointed heir of all things” (Heb. 1:1-3). And, now, since His death, resurrection, and ascension, He sits “on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3) and will “reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25; Ps. 110; Eph. 1:19-22). Though God’s saved elect will face seasons of apostasy and persecution before Christ’s final coming and judgment (1 Tim. 1:19-20; 2 Tim. 4:3-4; 1 John 2:19; Matt. 5:10-12; 1 Cor. 4:10-13; 2 Tim. 3:12), He will triumph through His church in history (Dan. 2:31-35, 44; 7:22; Matt. 13:31-32; Acts 13:46-47; Rom. 11), for “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

While Abraham did not see these glorious promises realized during his earthly sojourn, he was “persuaded of them, and embraced them” (Heb. 11:13). He wholeheartedly believed they would come to pass (Rom. 4; Heb. 11:8-13).

Moreover, this saint through whom “all the nations of the earth [would] be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; Gal. 3:8) modeled for believers of all time the necessity and importance of passing on the true faith, unbroken, from generation to generation. Of His servant Abraham, God Himself proclaimed: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment . . .” (Gen. 18:19).

From Abraham’s Rise to Jerusalem’s Fall: The Faith Upheld and Squandered

In the outworking of God’s redemptive plan in history, Abraham’s physical and spiritual progeny have at times excelled in upholding and passing on the true faith he modeled, and at other times have woefully squandered their heritage of faith in rebellious hypocrisy and unbelief.

Positive examples of passing on the true faith can be found in Scripture through such families as the Rechabites, who for hundreds of years faithfully served God in Judah amidst seasons of rank apostasy (Jer. 35). They can also be observed in Church history through such small but dedicated groups as the Waldensians, who, for generations, held firm to many core doctrines of Christian orthodoxy, while most of Europe had fallen prey to falsehoods advanced by the Church of Rome.

Negative examples of forsaking the true faith can be seen in Scripture in the wayward Levitical house of Eli (1 Sam. 2:12-17, 27-36; 3:11-14; 4:10-22), as well as in the idolatrous kings of Israel and Judah, whose apostasy led to God’s divine judgment and ultimately to Abraham’s descendants being dispossessed from these lands (2 Kings 17:5-18; 22:25-27; 2 Chron. 36:11-21). When repatriated Jews in Jerusalem called for and facilitated the murder of their promised Messiah (Matt. 12:14; 27:20-25), more severe judgment came as the city was laid waste by the Romans in 70 A.D., as Jesus had pointedly prophesied (Matt. 23:36-24:35). Due to their unbelief, the Apostle Paul wrote with sorrow (Rom. 9-11) that the physical seed of Abraham was to be cast aside “until the fulness of” salvation to “the Gentiles” is fulfilled (Rom. 11:25).

America’s Rise: A Vibrant Heritage of Biblical Faith

Our nation has experienced both extremes.

With the Protestant Reformation refiring the true biblical faith, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, along with Scotch-Irish, Huguenot, and other Reformed immigrants, raised a vibrant Christian witness in colonial America.

In the best of times, churches throughout the colonies contained both wheat and tares, yet sound doctrine was proclaimed from pulpit after pulpit, with God’s Word declared as the foundation for every sphere of life. The institutions of family, church, and state were thus directed to order their affairs according to the dictates of Scripture. As a result, many of the early covenants, charters, and constitutions that governed America’s colonies reflected a level of biblical fidelity rarely seen in the history of the world. Moreover, the family was upheld as God’s first institution (Gen. 2), with fathers and mothers called upon to actively train their children to embrace a full-orbed biblical worldview, and to pass the true faith on to their children and grandchildren (Deut. 4:5-9; 6:4-7; 32:46-47; Ps. 78:1-7).

Biblical doctrines of liberty and interposition led the colonies to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776, and a proper understanding of the depravity of man, among other scriptural principles, helped guide the development of the early American Republic.

America’s Fall: The Faith of Our Fathers Abandoned

Yet O how the mighty have fallen! Our nation today has, on the whole, forsaken its roots and squandered its biblical heritage.
The foundational doctrines of the sovereignty of God over all things and the sufficiency of Scripture for all of faith and practice have been abandoned in every sphere.

Sound, expositional teaching from the pulpit has been brushed aside for ear-tickling sentimentalism, and once-robust churches have become palsied with errors. Worship has become commercialized, biblical discipline ignored, and the great orthodox creeds and Reformed confessions that once guided the church, guarding it from falsehood, have been rejected in favor of man-centered objectives.

Where many American congregations once embraced a comprehensive view for discipling the nations, “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever [Christ] commanded,” as the Great Commission directs (Matt. 28:18-20), most churches in the U.S. now hold a marginalized view of the Gospel, which ignores Christ’s total lordship over heaven and earth and presiding reign as the King of Kings (Dan. 4:34-35; Matt. 28:18; Acts 2:30-36; Phil. 2:6-11; Heb. 1:1-3; Rev. 11:15).

America’s local, state, and federal governments have likewise rejected Christ’s sovereign rulership and have set themselves up as rivals to God and His law order. Claiming sovereignty they do not possess, our civil leaders have acted far beyond their legitimate jurisdiction and have supplanted the rightful roles of the family and church in the areas of education, aid to the poor and elderly, among a host of other arenas. They have called “evil good, and good evil” (Isa. 5:20), declaring the murder of innocent children in the womb as “a woman’s right to choose,” and redefining the institution of marriage to formally legitimize covenants between homosexual couples.

In most communities, the bedrock of the American family has all but been obliterated, with the Bible no longer serving as the tie that binds the hearth and home. Where fathers once led their families in worship and diligently trained their children in the faith, and mothers were committed help-meets to their husbands, viewing the home as their joyous sphere to serve, chaos has now ensued. Fatherhood is in shambles, with many men not taking any meaningful responsibility to lead their wives and children. Those who do, to a large extent, simply view their role as breadwinners, rather than as family shepherds and dominion-oriented stewards for Christ’s kingdom.

This shirking of responsibility has caused an undue burden to fall on wives and mothers, who are struggling to pick up the pieces and manage the best they know how. The onslaught of feminism has also taken its toll, as American women have been encouraged to live for themselves and seek fulfillment outside of family-centered life and the culture of the home, where they’ve been called to thrive as faithful caretakers (Prov. 14:1; 31:10-31; Tit. 2:3-5).

By and large, American parents have abdicated their biblically-mandated responsibility to train and educate their children (Deut. 6:4-7; 32:46-47; Prov. 22:6; Isa. 38:19; Eph. 6:4), ceding it to state schools, whose educational model and message is at odds with the Christian faith. Whole generations of young people are thus being discipled in an ungodly worldview and set adrift. Being ignorant of the faith of their fathers, they are unmindful of the great responsibilities they have to serve the Lord and seek first His kingdom (Luke 12:48; 1 Pet. 2:9; Matt. 6:33).

Our foundations as a people have, indeed, been undermined—and our broken faith has led to a broken world.