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“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
and to depart from evil is understanding.”
(Job 28:28)
The most encouraging development on the American political scene today
is the new effort of influential conservatives to call the country
back to its basics. The founding principles of the nation are being
reviewed and expounded over the airwaves and in best-selling books.
Our founding documents are being republished and re-read, and citizens
are being urged to study them and to understand them. One talk-show
host has called on his viewers and listeners to become “Refounders” of
the country, to make the nation over based on its original principles.
Conservatives for years have said we should go back, but now several
of them are urging us to go all the way back. And the idea is a good
one. However, there is something important missing in this
development that will be essential to making America again the bastion
of freedom it was founded to be. That missing element can be found in
the Bible, the most important of our cultural founding documents.
The five books grouped between the historic books and the prophetic
books of the Old Testament can be classified as “wisdom books.”
Originally written in poetic Hebrew form, they address the fundamental
questions of life, and answer them with both depth and clarity. They
are the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of
Solomon. They take up many issues, but Job deals primarily with the
question, “Why do the righteous suffer?” The Psalms repeatedly handle
the question, “Why do the wicked prosper?” Proverbs tells us how a
young man can become wise. Ecclesiastes explains why an old man who
knows wisdom may still be frustrated and not find fulfillment. The
Song shows us that fulfillment and joy in this life are not to be had
in finding wisdom alone, but rather in finding a love relationship
with the Savior of the World. It is an exciting adventure to study
the wisdom books of the Old Testament. When one does so, he soon
discovers what the foundation of a successful life really is. It is
something called, “the fear of the LORD” (Look up Job 28:28, Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7, and Ecclesiastes 12:13). The development of a
genuine reverence, a reasonable and loving dread, of the Most High, is
basic to the building of a good life.
“The fear of the LORD is the
beginning of wisdom…”
There is a reason why the Founding Fathers envisioned liberty, not as
the license to do evil, but as the freedom to do good. They were
committed to the kind of freedom that produces the good life, and not
the kind that leads to chaos. The Declaration of Independence and the
Articles of Confederation, as well as the Federalist Papers and the
United States Constitution, were written at a time when the American
people were still feeling the powerful influence of a national
religious revival. The “Great Awakening” (as historians, both
theological and secular, still call it) preceded the War of
Independence, and touched every facet of American life. Although the
war itself cooled the religious fervor of the awakening (as wars
always do), the fundamental doctrines of the revival still had
significant control of American thinking for many years to come.
The Founders distrusted human nature, and wrote provisions to protect
us from it into the Constitution. This healthy distrust arose out of
the Christian doctrine of depravity. Our Constitutional affirmations
of the right to private property come from the Law of God in the
Bible. Respect for human rights is produced by respect for the Royal
Law of scripture (James 2:8):
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself.”
Limits were placed on government because the Founders knew
that the salvation of man cannot be achieved by civil laws and the use
of force. Moral progress and improvement are results of the kind of
divine work in the hearts of men that Americans had seen in the
Awakening. Government has its role, but it is not the redemption of
mankind.
“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,
and unto God the things that are God’s.”
Constitutional provisions
for limiting the power of the state and separating the state from the
church came from Biblical thinking. The fear of the Lord produced by
the Great Awakening was responsible for much of the thinking that gave
us our kind of government.
“Wisdom” flows from “the fear of the Lord.” This is a very basic
truth taught in the wisdom books of the Bible. The wise man
understands how life really works, and orders his life to produce the
best outcomes, based on this understanding. In the 28th chapter of
the book of Job, a wise and righteous man sums up where this wisdom
comes from. After drawing word pictures that describe the search men
can make for real wisdom (seeking “a path which no fowl knoweth, and
which the vulture’s eye hath not seen: the lion’s whelps have not
trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it”), Job tells us that
finding the path of wisdom is actually very simple.
“The fear of the
Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
If
we can respect the God of the Bible enough to refrain from breaking
His commandments, we will be wise. And true wisdom is the sum of
American conservatism. A conservative is one who makes decisions
based on proven principles. A liberal wants to act on ideas that seem
(or feel) right to him, but have not been proven true over the years.
Some so-called liberal ideas have actually been proven untrue in
practice, but liberals still want to implement them because they want
them to be true. The success of the American experiment, politically
and otherwise, has been because it is based on valid (and Biblical)
wisdom. And the basis of such wisdom was and is the fear of the Lord.
The country will never see the “Conservative Victory” some are
predicting, or the “re-founding” of the republic others are proposing,
unless it returns to the most basic of our cultural, political, and
economic foundations: the fear of God. Unfortunately, this most basic
of the basics is the element missing in most of the conservative
crusading this year. For instance, one important element in
reverencing the Lord is respecting His wishes in our speech. Jesus
said,
“Swear not at all…But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,
nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew
5:33-37).
Any sense of respect for the Almighty has been removed from
most of the conservative radio programs by the profane language that
is used. This must also be said about at least some of the speeches
conservative politicians have made lately. The use of “hell” and
“damn” as curse words has always been a way to make light of somber
and sacred realities. The other curse words also express disregard
for the listening ears of a holy God. Some (including this writer)
think that certain styles of music express disdain for morals and
standards, and a bad attitude towards God. The creators, composers,
and performers of these styles have told us as much. The widespread
use of the music that has always been associated with the moral
degeneration of Western culture has actually undermined the
conservative message of most talk radio. Some who speak for “the
Right” openly live in disregard of Biblical morality. The concept
that God is to be feared is essential to American conservatism, and
giving it up in order to get and keep an audience is sowing seeds of
failure. Is American conservatism trying to tell the people that,
although they believe in God and in absolute truth and morality, they
are still “cool,” and don’t really live as you would expect people to
live who believe such things? If the right-wing media and their
political allies are trying to do this, they will certainly fail to
reestablish the nation on its founding principles.
The Great Awakening came before the Constitution, and in some sense
gave birth to it. It was a religious revival in the land that
established as self-evident the concepts on which our country was
built. The thing that gave us liberty was the wisdom of the ages,
based on the fear of the Lord. To go back to the basics will be to go
back to fearing God. Irreverent conservatism will not set the nation
straight.
And the involvement of religion, even orthodox and evangelical
religion, in the conservative movement has not given the movement what
is needed in regard to the fear of the Lord. In the twentieth
century, American Christianity, including most of evangelical
Christianity, became so compromised with the downward trends of
society, that it had little effect on that downward trend. In other
words, Christian voices raised in the conservative movement, even when
they invoke God and quote Scripture, have not generally revived a
sense of reverence before a holy God. It has been as though even the
servants of God have forgotten that He is holy. What is needed is a
real revival of New Testament Christianity, such as occurred here in
the Great Awakening. We need a turning to God that turns us from our
wicked ways. This is the most basic need of all human hearts, and is
essential to the rebirth (if one is to occur) of our beloved nation.
The “re-founding” of America is certainly not hopeless, but it must
certainly involve an unreserved and unashamed “re-preaching” of the
faith of our fathers. And the faith of our fathers was belief in the
God of the Bible, before Whom men must bow and toward Whom we all must
turn in repentance. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of the new
beginning our country needs.
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