In the little book of Habakkuk, the prophet describes the stupidity of worshiping idols. Men carved idols from wood and overlaid them with precious metals. They chiseled mute stones into objects of worship. Then, those who had created the idols began speaking to these lifeless objects and worshiping them as though they could teach. The last verse of Habakkuk 2 draws a contrast with God since He is the opposite of lifeless idols. He speaks, and we listen. There are times we speak with and for God, and other times when we are to be silent before Him. Listen to Habakkuk 2:20 (NKJV):
“But the Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
The idol makers create silent gods and speak to them, as in the case of the Baal prophets of Mt. Carmel. God, on the other hand, creates people and speaks to us. He instructs, guides, comforts, and counsels. We lift our voices in praise to Him, but when He speaks, we reverently silence our voices to hear.
Daniel Webster, on June 17, 1843, at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charleston, Massachusetts, spoke these stirring words about our forefathers’ reverence for the Bible:
The Bible came with them. And it is not to be doubted, that to free and universal reading of the Bible, in that age, men were much indebted for right views of civil liberty.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow-man.
Habakkuk observed the wickedness of his country, Judah, which confused him. We have a righteous God. Why does He allow evil? Why doesn’t He act? Sound familiar? Listen to the opening of the book, Habakkuk 1:1-4 (NKJV):
The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
O Lord, how long shall I cry,
And You will not hear?
Even cry out to You, “Violence!”
And You will not save.
3 Why do You show me iniquity,
And cause me to see trouble?
For plundering and violence are before me;
There is strife, and contention arises.
4 Therefore, the law is powerless,
And justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
We have stopped listening to God – by design. Marxist insurrectionists know that God is their problem in conquering America. If people follow God, they will cherish our God-given inalienable rights, such as liberty, and would be willing to fight to keep them. The Marxist solution is to remove God and rule the masses.
Our Founders knew the possibility of tyrannical rule and the means to accomplish it. Here are two quotes.
It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. Samuel Adams
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation of free men. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. Patrick Henry
Marxists and Marxist sympathizers began to nefariously dismantle our republic by taking God out of the classroom. Americans learned scripture and biblical principles in public school for generations. Teachers employed the New England Primer and McGuffey’s Reader to educate AND mold their students’ character.
William McGuffey was a professor and college president who published the first edition of his “McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers” in 1836. This may have been the most popular series of public school textbooks in our history. He revised the series until 1901. In the third edition preface, McGuffey wrote:
. . . From no source has the author drawn more capriciously than from the Sacred Scriptures. . . . This certainly apprehends no censure. In a Christian country, the man is to be pitied, who, at this day, can honestly object to imbuing the minds of youth with the language and spirit of the word of God.[1]
McGuffey was the product of the work of our Founders and Framers. He emphasized that America was a Christian nation and that the word of God is essential to the well-being of our students AND nation. After all, as Abraham Lincoln purportedly said:
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
Our nation has fallen apart because its people have. We lost our direction when we chose to stop taking God at His word and allowed the government to usurp its authority and remove prayer and Bible from our schools. Then we dare cry, “God, don’t you see?” “Why don’t you do something?”
God’s response to us is, “Why don’t YOU do something? You let evil in. Now act to get it out.”
God sees and acts. We cannot mock God or be apathetic to Him and His word and expect to get away with it. We reap what we sow. God crushed the wickedness of Judah with the Babylonian army after repeated warnings from the prophets. The Jews went into captivity for seventy years and came out with a new resolve to destroy idolatry. Don’t you wonder what He has in store for America?
None of us wants to go through the dramatic hardships of Judah. We can avert catastrophe by silencing our distractions to hear and heed God. When we repent of our idolatry and apathy and genuinely acknowledge God, He promises to restore us (2 Chronicles 7:14). Acknowledging God means actively pursuing His will to save and direct all people.
Keep The Light of Reverent Silence Before God Burning!
[1] Cummings, Brad, and Lance Wubbels, editors. The Founders’ Bible. Newbury Park, CA, Shiloh Road Publishers, 2012, pp. 1931-1962.