I want to talk about America for a minute. Who we actually are as a country. I’m not talking about the lunatic Left in our country because I don’t believe the modern progressive movement reflects who America is at its core, and let’s be honest, that’s not who we are. Not even close.
I’m talking about something deeper. Something baked into the DNA of every American baby born in this country to American citizens. Not the kids dropped here by parents who snuck across the border. Real, red-blooded Americans whose families have roots here, no matter where they came from legally.
Let me explain this with a story. It’s one of my favorites from the Bible, actually, and it comes from Exodus.
So there’s this Egyptian Pharaoh, this king, a potentate if you will, and he orders a group of midwives to kill every newborn Jewish baby. Brutal stuff. Now here’s the thing, he almost certainly picked non-Jewish midwives to do this, because no Jewish midwife would ever turn around and murder her own people.
And if you know the story, you already know what happens. These midwives, against all odds, refuse. They don’t kill a single baby. Not one.
So the Pharaoh has them hauled in front of him and demands an answer. Why didn’t you follow my orders?
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELAnd their answer is the whole point of this story. It’s something that, frankly, got written into the American character centuries later.
The Bible doesn’t say they spared the babies because they couldn’t stomach the violence. It doesn’t say they did it out of love for God either. What it says is that they did it because “they feared God.”
Now stick with me here, because this is where it gets interesting.
Fear of God, when that God is the moral God of the Old Testament, the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who commanded “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is necessary to make a society of moral individuals. Of course, there are moral atheists, just as there were moral pagans, and moral individuals in even the worst cultures. But you cannot build a good world with a handful of individuals who happen to be good people. You need a universal moral code from a universal God who is the source of that moral code, and this God must judge all people accordingly. Consequently, “fear of God” is as inevitable as it is necessary. If God judges how moral we are, of course, there will be fear of Him, just as there is of a human judge. Conversely, if God does not judge people, there is no reason to fear Him.
Here’s the wild part. It was that fear of God that actually freed the midwives from their fear of the Egyptian tyrant standing right in front of them. People miss this constantly. Fear of God isn’t a cage. It’s a release valve.
A lot of folks hear “fear of God” and think it sounds heavy, oppressive even. But it’s the opposite. It’s liberating. It frees you from being paralyzed by fear of powerful, evil people.
That fear is exactly what gave those midwives the courage to pull off what might be the first recorded act of civil disobedience in human history. And it’s no coincidence that throughout history, a huge number of dissidents standing up to totalitarian regimes have been believers.
America itself was built on a Judeo-Christian foundation, and that fear of God is what gave Americans the backbone to challenge their own leaders whenever those leaders crossed the line into injustice.
These days, we’re split on this. And I think it comes down to people redefining morality to fit whatever political fight is in front of them.
Take immigration. When the government sends agents to arrest and deport violent criminals who came here illegally and hurt American citizens, that’s a moral act. Straightforward. But somehow the conversation gets flipped, and now the violent offender is the victim, just someone caught up in a “brutal” system of agents trying to remove people who only wanted a better life.
And here’s the problem. A lot of good, decent Americans don’t know how to push back on that argument anymore. Why? Because God has been stripped out of daily life for millions of people. They’ve lost the framework that tells you when it’s actually moral to challenge your leaders and when you’re just rationalizing.
Once you start swapping who the good guys and bad guys are, depending on which side benefits, you’ve broken something fundamental. At that point, people on opposite sides of this aren’t even arguing from the same moral universe anymore.
And look, standing up to a tyrant takes guts. Even a lot of Christians today fear angering the wrong people more than they fear God. Courage might be the rarest virtue there is. Plenty of people are kind. Plenty are honest. Courage is the one that’s in short supply. And in a real fight against something evil, none of those other good qualities mean much without it.
The fear of God once gave Americans the courage to stand up to tyrants, challenge injustice, and defend what’s right. What happens when a nation loses that moral foundation is exactly what the progressive Left have been fighting for all this time.
#fearofgod #americanvalues #christianworldview
