Some years ago I was asked to teach a high school Sunday School class. I had just recently started attending that church and knew very few people. I had recently done my own study of John the Baptist and found it fascinating. As I was talking with God about what to teach, I said to Him, “I’ll teach them about what I’ve learned about John the Baptist!” I immediately saw (in my mind’s eye) a large structure like a pavilion with a large load of snow on top and I heard the Lord say, “No. The weight of that teaching is too heavy. It will collapse.” Then I saw the pavilion collapse.

I didn’t really understand why He was telling me that so I argued with Him about how great a teaching I thought that would be because they’re the future generation, and there are so many parallels to John the Baptist and those awaiting Christ’s return in present generations. He told me again the weight of that teaching would collapse the structure, and that I must first lay a foundation. He said the kids didn’t have a foundation under them to carry such a weight. I argued again (sigh), and He said, “Okay, ask them.”

So that Sunday I asked the high school aged kids who built the ark, who was considered the patriarch of the faith, who was sold by his brothers into slavery, who was Nicodemus, and a number of other basic tenets of Christianity including who was John the Baptist. To my great shock and surprise, they maybe answered ten percent of those questions correctly. I was truly surprised. Most of those kids had been raised in Christian homes and spent considerable time in the church.

I then backed out. I got a piece of butcher block paper and hung it on the wall, and we started from the beginning. We started in the Garden and moved through the chronological history of the basics of the faith. It took us months to get to the birth of Christ.

What an apt description of America today. We have a majority of the population with no solid foundation of anything of real importance really. They don’t understand the premise of the Revolutionary War, the function of government, the threat of tyranny, or any other number of things that establish a plumb line for truth. They think freedom and hedonism are synonymous, and they disregard the personal responsibility of human conduct.

They are slaves of emotions and the whim of popular opinion. They lack conviction connected to truth and righteousness, and instead rage against standards of righteousness and truth with no understanding of WHY such standards have existed for millennia. They are easily deceived, easily ensnared in folly, and pawns of a regime and system intent on using and discarding them for the sake of the system being set up.

The intricacies of the current system we’re entrenched in are nearly impossible to teach on or elaborate upon with the lack of foundation under the status quo. How do you expound upon the perils of trans-humanism to a generation raised by video games and virtual reality? They think it’s just another step to an exciting superhero mentality. They have no foundation under them for understanding the profound greatness of our humanity in its creation. They’ve been programmed to despise the frailties of humanity and the design of its Creator.

I haven’t decided if we’re in the era of 1984, Brave New World, or Atlas Shrugged. But it feels to me like a combination of all of them. Do you remember George Orwell’s last recorded interview? He described the future as a “boot stamping on a human face forever”. When asked what he would advise future generations, he simply said, “Don’t let it happen.”

And yet here we are.

At the same time as I lament the lack of foundation of truth and understanding of the status quo, I remember that scene in The Princess Bride where Wesley has been mostly dead (from the torture machine), and was brought out of it and they needed to rescue the Princess. When he wanted to be brought up to speed on the current setting, he was told, “Let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up.” I feel as though we are perpetually under time restraints, where we must sum up because explanations are too long. Presently the need for action is imminent but there is not enough time to bring people to a fuller understanding.

Regardless, we must try.

When I first fell in love with God, felt the enormity of His goodness, His love, His salvation, I wanted to know Him but didn’t know where to start. A wise woman bought me a yearly Bible (a Bible divided into 365 readings to read it through in a year). She told me to just read it. Just read it. So I did.

I didn’t realize in that year what I was reading. Much of it I had no context for, no real understanding. But it was a starting point. It laid a foundation of sorts that could be built upon. I would go on to read the Bible completely through several more times. Each time there was more I understood. If I read it through again in 2024, I will learn even more. There is no end to the knowledge contained in its pages.

Recently a dear friend reminded me of this passage in Daniel 2….

“He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding….”

And it reminds me of when Christ gave the parable of the talents and he says, “For to everyone who has, more shall be given and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does not have shall be taken away.”

So I guess the point I’m trying to make is we must make effort to understand the foundations, to build upon the solid foundations. There are things in our world that don’t make sense without a foundation of knowledge, understanding, wisdom. I don’t think it’s too late (though I do think time is running out) to learn the ancient paths, to seek knowledge and wisdom, to put beneath us foundations we can build upon, and foundations that enable us to discern fallacies and deceptions.

You don’t understand calculus without learning basic arithmetic. You can’t comprehend literary classics without grasping language concepts. You can’t foresee economical crisis without understanding basic economic concepts. You can’t discern propaganda without knowledge of political agendas. The list goes on and on. The sleeping world would not have been bamboozled into poisonous medical injections had they understood basic (real) science and biology, and they would have rejected the propaganda had they learned of the pharmaceutical mafia and its agenda. Imagine how many other dangers and ills that could be thwarted if we would just seek foundational knowledge and truths.

I didn’t understand “covid-19” when it first came out, but my discernment indicated it was not as it appeared. I spent untold of hours trying to bring myself up to speed on all sorts of things like viruses, contagions (and what that even means), past historical examples, etc. I didn’t have a foundation yet to make a decision on whether to comply with the public narrative, so I suspended judgment and action until I had time to gain a foundation of truth. There were others who already had such a foundation which enabled them to make quick decisions.

I had to find sources of truth that were foundational and not sensational. I had to pray a lot that God lead me to truth, and I had to silence the loud voices of fear and manipulation. There’s a process to laying a foundation. There’s a slow, steady process of laying layer upon layer, line upon line, precept upon precept. Then there’s the quik-crete process of crash studying, little sleep, disallowing distractions, focused and intent learning in a short span of time, etc. Covid-19 was a crash course for me. Other things I don’t have to “study” for because I already have a foundation for that has been laid over longer periods of time and testing.

The point is to lay solid foundations, whether through a time enhanced process, or a quicker crash course. Reject the spoon-fed answers and seek the paths of truth that lead to understanding and ultimately, wisdom. We cannot possibly learn all we need to know in the limited time and resources we have on earth, but we can still be set on the right paths.

A new year is upon us. Maybe it’s a good time to lay down the superfluous activities of the current systems that are trying to create dystopic futures, and instead use the talents given us to invest in lasting investments of knowledge that lead to understanding, which ultimately leads to wisdom. There’s a very exciting future in front of us where indeed the purposes of God are made manifest in the face of the deceptive darkness trying to project its agendum.

I’m going to write about some things in the coming days that are easier to understand with some foundational truths. I pray they will be laid upon foundations of truth that can bear the weight. This is not to imply I have some superior knowledge; it’s just to elucidate wisdom and understanding are usually found within the foundations laid by truth. In the meantime, may you seek the Living God and His truth before all else. In many ways, it is the most exciting time to be alive on earth.