Silence of the righteous men

By Allen Mandishona

One of the sayings of David as recorded in the book of psalms says’ if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? If I may paraphrase that portion, it would be like’ if the foundations be destroyed, what are the righteous doing?

In other words, during a time when foundations are destroyed, there is some contribution to it by the righteous. But the question is, what can that contribution be? That portion of scripture, just as it has a question mark at the end of it, left me with question marks for a long time.

Thank God the comforter who inspired the written word, is present in us for illumination so that when we submit to Him as we read and study His word, we have an understanding of the actual intended meaning of scripture as it was inspired to the writers.

To me, the above scripture is as if the destroying of foundations is simply because the righteous are reluctant or silent about the whole thing. Why? When we try to interpret the above scripture in the context of its historical occurrence and contextual meaning, we discover that it was written at a time when law and order were under attack in Israel.

When we read from verse 1 in Psalms11, we discover that this was during a time when David was being advised to flee away from those that were rising up against him (perhaps when Absalom tried to usurp his kingdom). David asks a fundamental question in verse 1, he says’ how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird, to your mountain…’.

The answer for the advice to flee is found in verse two which says it was because the wicked were bent on shooting the upright. Then verse 3 talks of the foundations being destroyed. That suggests that the shooting of the upright by the wicked, is the destroying of foundations.

That also points to the fact that when there is lack of Godliness, law and order, then the foundations are being destroyed. The portion that really touches my heart is that which says ‘ what can the righteous do?

In fact, the question comes clear in the amplified bible which says,’ ..what can the unyielding righteous do or what has he(the righteous one) wrought or accomplished? The fundamental of that question seems to suggest that the righteous are doing something that sort of pacifies the destroying of foundations.

Now, when we talk of the righteous, we know they do not partake in the destroying of foundations. When the amplified asks what the righteous men has done or accomplished, that suggests that their action is like ‘permitting’ the wicked to destroy foundations. But how do they permit such? By their silence!

So just because of the silence of the righteous, things can go very wrong in this world. That reminds me of another scripture, just to show the importance of Godly men in terms of restraining wickedness in the world. When we read 2Thes2v7, it says ,’only he who now letteth will, until he is taken away’.

That portion of scripture talks about the work of the anti Christ already manifesting, but says the full manifestation of that lawless one, the antichrist will only come in when he that restrains is taken away. Whoever that is who is restraining is a subject for another day.

Suffice it for now for me to say, as one school of thought has said, that that restrainer should be the Holy Spirit operating in the church who will restrain the antichrist from dominating during the church age time until the Holy Spirit is taken away when the church is snatched away from this world on rapture.

What am I saying? The evil that dominates this world is partly because the righteous are doing nothing about it. Thank God for the Holy Spirit because He is restraining the antichrist from all sorts of havoc and a more deep measure of wickedness this world could have been subjected to.

Going back to our issue of the righteousness and their right standing with God yet in a period when foundations are being destroyed, it makes me think the righteous needs to take a lesson or two from how our God operates, He never wants or never wanted, the righteous and wickedness to co-exist.

When Sodom and Gomorrah had become very wicked, God took away the righteous Lot before destroying it. Before the flood, God took Noah and his household into the ark. Even before the flood, God also took away Enock so he could be separated from the wicked. Someone will now ask? What exactly are you trying to say sir?

I answer, Just as God separates the righteous from the wicked, He asks Noah to separate from Sodom and Gomorrah, He asks Noah to separate from the rest by building an ark, the righteous must take a step of separation of the present wickedness. come out of them!! Come out of that wicked generation!!

One thing that really touches my heart, is that, the worse thing is that this is slowly coming into the church itself. Certain foundations, certain fundamentals, certain truths are being destroyed yet we see the righteous ones keeping their silence.

We see a lot of diversion from the sacred truth, from the established Christ doctrine, from the fundamentals through which we were purged from sin, and a promotion and veneration of the lesser in place of the greater.

We see a diversion of the focus of many from the true foundation of our beloved Christian faith, issues like salvation, faith, holiness, the coming of Christ, preparation of the bride for the coming groom, separation from the world and sin and we hear a lot that is pleasant to hear yet it all takes away our focus from our captain of salvation!

It is one thing for the church to be attacked from outside, it is quite another when that attack comes from other ‘believers’ or from within and all that in the name of ‘religion’. We see a lot of internal attack of the Christian faith, not so much from outside, but more painfully from within.

When certain things are heard of concerning the church, that were never an issue, it must get us to our knees and cry to our master.

One condition must be present for such to happen, the silence of the righteous men. My own thinking on resolving this is two way, that we have an uprising against the devil and his wickedness and that the righteous may speak out against evil.

An uprising against evil, I take it from1 Chronicles 12 when men aligned themselves to David when he was attacked by Saul. Saul had become so wicked that he sought to kill David yet David, even when he had the opportunity to kill Saul, did not dare to kill him. His heart smote him just because he cut Saul’s garment. Why?

David was righteous while Saul was wicked. So the righteous men, should as an army, come together to fight wickedness. One group that captures my mind on all that aligned themselves to David is that of the tribe of Issachar. 1Chro12v32 says:

‘And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel what Israel ought to do’.

This tribe had men who knew how to interpret time. When many were still aligning themselves to Saul, this group that understood the times, knew that at such a time, it is best to rise against Saul because of his wickedness and follow David, the man after God’s heart.

We need that generation in our time!! A generation that understands the time we are living in, a generation that is conscious of the present wickedness and that tells people what the church ought to do, to run away from wickedness and join David the righteous man!!

I have no doubt in my mind that even as scripture say we must be able to redeem the time, we need that generation now more than ever before!

We need those that have understanding of the times to such high magnitudes they can tell all that this is wickedness even when it is done on the pulpit and that a generation must come out of that and fight that wickedness alongside David.

The issue of the silence of the righteous reminds me of two great men in church history, George Whitefield and John Wesley. With all due respect to these generals, there is a statement that I like that was said by George Whitefield to John Wesley. He said he had been ‘ sinfully silent’.

What that means to me is that, while sometimes we may say silence is golden, there are times when silence is sinful, especially when that silence is at a time when the wicked are destroying foundations. We see a lot of foundations of the Christian faith being destroyed yet some righteous men keep their silence.

To me that touches my heart so much. Just think of it that during the early church, when the church was being attacked from outside and inside, many large volumes of works were written in defence of the true doctrine yet we have today so many attacks on the foundations and no men makes effort to stop the destroying of foundations.

In as much as God fights for His cause, He also requires his righteous, his workmanship, to also partake of this war against wickedness, just as Elijah took it upon himself to fight baal worship. Even in new testament times, we hear a lot of defence of the truth from Paul and Peter when the church was being subjected to many false doctrines, such doctrines as Gnosticism, worship of angels and many other.

Even Jude, the Lord’s brother, having initially purposed in his heart to write about salvation, he ended up writing against false teachings in his time. Why? False teachings and wickedness are dangerous yeast that can cause damage to the whole lump.

I feel the righteous have been silent for too long as wicked men destroy foundations and that time is now for an uprising against that wickedness, against false teachings, against falsehoods even some upon pulpits.

As one man of God would say ,’Let the church be the church’, let us shun wickedness and rise up against it to safeguard our foundations.