Morality, Civilization, and the Bible

In an earlier devotion on government and the Bible I quoted President John Adams who shared: “Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God … What a Utopia, what a Paradise would this region be.”1

I believe President Adams understood, in contrast to many in our society today who believe that there are no moral absolutes, that we indeed have an absolute moral law giver – Jesus Christ. Sadly, we have jettisoned this concept of an absolute law giver in favor of the principle that the truth of morality is relative. Thus, in America today we justify homosexuality, abortion, adultery and a host of other immoral decisions by what society says it right and not because of any absolute standard of right or wrong.

But the Bible makes no bones about right conduct and what is morally right. In fact history is replete with many civilizations that have come and gone because they have chosen to abandon biblical principles.

Let’s look at our own country. Since the early 1960’s when the Bible was taken out of our American school system, we have seen a massive collapse in our social fabric. Since this event we have seen the following: Abortion was legalized, child abuse has become rampant, gay marriages are now perfectly fine, pornography has become a billion-dollar business, and sadly the Bible has been marginalized. I strongly believe that there is a direct correlation between shunning the Bible and its moral principles, and all of these alarming trends in our society. Could it be that our very civilization and way of life stand in jeopardy if we continue on this path – only time will tell.

In biblical times when a civilization became morally bankrupt, after a while God’s wrath became evident, and many of these societies were wiped out by Him. The great Babylonian, Assyrian, and Canaanite civilizations are classic examples of how God was instrumental in causing them to vanish completely because of the moral evil they continually perpetrated. I believe, if we in America continue on the moral path we are travelling, that God’s judgment may not be far away. Daniel Webster said it well when he proclaimed: “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering.”2 But the flip side is also true. If we as a society continue to thumb our noses at the teachings of the Scriptures prosperity may soon become a thing of the past for America.

Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer, editor and political writer, who has been called the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” understood the importance of relying on the Bible, for any society that wants to thrive, when he said: “The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from — vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war — proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”3

One final comment from former President Dwight Eisenhower I pray will leave you believing that there is still hope for America if we only turn back to the Bible and its moral principles:

“The Bible is endorsed by the ages. Our civilization is built upon its words. In no other Book is there such a collection of inspired wisdom, reality, and hope.”4 “It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a super-natural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it. But there cannot be ignored the influence of conscience, the respect we feel for Moral Law, the mystery of first life…or the marvelous order in which the universe moves about us on this earth. All these evidence the handiwork of the beneficent Deity…That Deity is the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ, His Son.”5

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1 Ray Comfort, Scientific Facts in the Bible. (Newberry, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2001), p. 57.

2 Ibid, p. 58.

3 Ibid, p. 58.

4 Ibid, p. 58.

5 Ibid, p. 58-59.