Foundations Are Destroyed

Psalm 11:3“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” 

I read where the word here for “foundations” is not the usual word for, say, a building foundation. Used rarely, a better translation of this word would be “purpose,” or “basis.” The Greek word used is “shathah”, which the Strong’s Bible Dictionary translates as “basis”. The fear expressed is not that the foundations of our faith might be undermined but that we might lose our sense of purpose. These same fears were expressed at our last Board of Elders meeting at church and strategic thought is going into how to counter the humanistic culture’s sinful temptation and God-rejecting messages that are attacking our basis of faith today, distracting our focus (taking our eyes off God) and obscuring the purpose of godly living. 

One article points out that in the context of the Psalm, David was in danger of becoming demoralized by the pressures of wicked desires and evil ambitions all around him, and Christians surely have the same problem today. Why should we try to maintain high standards of doctrinal integrity, biblical ethics and moral purity when the people around us—even most Christians—seem to be occupied mostly with materialistic ambition and pursuit of pleasure? If we allow the devil, the secular humanistic world system and the sin nature of our fleshly desires to undermine the very purposes God has for our lives, wandering away from His will in favor of some temporal selfish interest with eternal consequences, then why even continue with a pretense of Christian living?

 

Leviticus 20:26 “And you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.”

David’s solution was simply to remind himself that “the LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men”. He may allow the righteous to be tried for a season, but we must not forget that “the righteous LORD loves righteousness” and that “the wicked and him that loves violence His soul hates”.

The concluding thought is that when we are tempted to wonder whether it is really worth all the effort, and when our very foundation and purpose for living seems to be crumbling, we should remember that our God is Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of all—that He still is on His throne, and that we who belong to Him have been “predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11). 

the righteous LORD loves righteousness