Your Foundation Is Secure

This week I came across an article posted on the Drudge Report. It was a September 15, 2014 op-ed piece by Roger Cohen entitled, “The Great Unraveling,” published in the New York Times. I was intrigued by the idea of unraveling.

Unraveling conveys the idea of coming apart. The object that always amazed me, as it unraveled with use, was a baseball. The ball as it was first thrown into the game was covered in cream colored leather with red stitching. After being hit enough the thread holding the cover on would begin to unravel and with further use the cover would eventually come off completely.

Our society, like a well-used baseball, seems to be unraveling. What indicates unraveling is taking place?

• It is a time of beheadings. Beheadings filmed and spread worldwide on the internet. The message: We of Islam are coming for all you in your comfortable homes in the West.
• A time of aggression. The world’s largest country takes over part of a neighboring country and then incites a war in order to take over the remainder of that country.
• It is a time of break-ups. The most successful union of nations in history narrowly averted a dissolution. Other break-ups loom in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, and Germany to name a few.
• It was a time of weakness. The most powerful nation on earth dithered concerning what to do about an existential threat to the Western world.
• It was a time of hatred. Anti-Semitic slogans and attacks becoming more commonplace on the continent where six million Jews were murdered in a most organized way. Apparently “Never again!” seems to have no relevance.
• It was a time of fever. People in West Africa bled from the eyes and nations began to marshal their forces to try to contain the contagion.

These are just a few of the events unfolding at this time. They represent unraveling.

As I read this article, I also happened to be reading through the Psalms. One verse seemed especially applicable to God’s people in a time of unraveling.

The verse Psalm 11:3 “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” In other words, as the world unravels and the foundations, the things in which we might have had confidence, crumble, what are the righteous to do?

The answer is found in the next two verse: Psalm 11:4-5, “The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.” The foundations of the world apart from God may crumble. They have many times. All we have to do is look at Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece or Rome. Their foundations crumbled and they fell.

But God is still in His holy temple on His throne. God’s foundation will never crumble. We can put our confidence in that foundation at all times.

Jesus Christ addressed the issue of foundations in the Sermon on the Mount. He tells us on what foundation we build determines whether we will weather the great unraveling that is now going on.

Matthew 7:24-27, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

"But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The righteous can build their foundation on the sure foundation of God.

Have a most pleasant Sabbath evening secured in the knowledge that in Christ your foundation is secure.

Gary Smith