The Wise Man Built His House Upon a Rock

In Primary we sing a song about the wise man building his house on a rock. We have visited a house actually built on a giant red rock in Moab, Utah. It felt awfully solid. Here at SoL we try to build all of our beliefs and information on solid truth. That's why it's astounding when we get comments, not criticizing our facts but criticizing us personally. These detractors apparently think that because we are offering an opposing worldview about a certain huge issue in our culture today we need professional help.This reaction says more about them than us.

There are innumerable issues one can learn about, be passionate about, write about, speak about, meet about, converse about, even lend one's personal resources to. Governments and individuals give their precious time, energy, and money to innumerable causes, from saving the whales to researching shrimps running on treadmills. Why is the truth about homosexuality the one issue people must be "sick" to care about? It's an issue now wildly public which has forced its deceptive and false ideology against the people's will into changing and demeaning every aspect of life including law, public policy, health, education, religion, marriage and family, even freedom of speech and religion! As such, decent citizens are obligated to discuss it with wisdom and an open mind free of cultural trends and political correctness.

What causes certain young people (we figure our most vocal detractors are under 30) to take on an entire culture? What causes them to demonize people who wish to share their deeply-held, life-long, generational, God-based belief systems regarding sexual morality? What causes them to wish to silence and punish people for expressing these religious convictions as per human rights guaranteed by the Constitution? What makes them think moral, religious people want their children exposed and indoctrinated toward homosexualism and transgenderism in school?  What made them build their house on sand?

These young people (and plenty of older people are going along with them) have exceeded the normal limits of  youthful know-it-allism. In a prosperous culture that foolishly worships, indulges, and spoils youth, many  have been pretty much brainwashed into thinking this generation is somehow smarter and better than the generations before, that they should be able to ignore, attack, and vilify the wisdom of the ages, biological reality, and God Himself and get away with it. What brashness is this? What arrogance? What ignorance? 

We submit that our sophomoric detractors, young and older, are products of an age of distorted values, propaganda, and meaninglessness. Trained to give up their agency to others and untrained in the power to think critically and be personally converted (which comes with effort from the Spirit of the Lord), they have been unthinking followers all their lives and as such are primed to take up with any shiny cause that comes along. This is the sort of house that sooner or later washes away. 

No wonder so many people today are so miserable that they escape into dark, self-destructive paths, never feeling true peace or lasting comfort. They are ignorant of history, truth, wisdom, knowledge, good vs. evil, the real Christ, and real human nature. They don't have a modicum of understanding of the condition of mankind, what mankind has done and will always do, of mankind's need for a Savior. Therefore they are thrown for a loop at every turn, surprised, disillusioned, despairing, yearning, angry, bitter, arrogant, and wanting others to share in their misery.

What they need is a little humility, which would include some real education, that is, knowledge. Here at SoL, Janice, and Steve along with her, became an autodidact years ago when she realized in mid-life that her formal education had huge gaping holes in it. She tried going back to school, but found much of university "education" today is taught by those described in the above paragraph, and consists of distorted material appealing to arbitrary rules and human pride and emotions rather than transmitting actual knowledge, besides being discriminatory against critical thinking. She did, however, appreciate the very few professors who stuck to knowledge and sense. Taking her education upon herself, she got a book called The Lifetime Reading Plan (Fadiman and Major), essentially a long book list and chronological guide to classic world literature, for her outline, taking some from other book lists and guides as well. She began with Homer (800 B.C.) and is now up to reading from the 17th century: Bunyan, Locke, Defoe, Swift, Voltaire. And when she finally completes reading through this formal list, she'll begin it again; it quickly becomes obvious that only one reading of the works of Euripides, St. Augustine, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Descartes, Milton, Pascal, etc., is not nearly enough.What a feast of human experience and thought! Of battles, of quests, of sacrifice and of selfishness, of beauty and of ugliness, of faith and of unbelief, of right and of wrong, of consequences, of gained wisdom, of oftentimes painful truth, and of hearts that change.

And let's not forget the literary and educational value of the best-selling book in the world, the Bible, and the glorious Book of Mormon, which she includes in her list. (The Koran, Buddhist, and Hindu writings are also on the list; we found they could not in any way compete with the Bible and Book of Mormon.) In the midst of this classical reading marathon Janice and Steve found that Holy Scripture blows everything else out of the water. Not only is it full of stunning literature and transcendent truth, it supplies the greatest education on human nature and, of course, God. The word of God gives a person essential knowledge, perspective, humility, purpose, and truth, if those things are what one seeks, which in turn ground and comfort. No longer is that person tossed to and fro by every personal anxiety or need, or this or that philosophy, trend, or travesty. One learns to trust solely in the Lord rather than focusing on their own feelings or their own understanding of a given situation, even if those feelings are warranted or that understanding is sadly correct.

This is the difference between ignorance and wisdom, bitterness and peace, building on sand or on rock. Mankind is always only one generation away from destroying itself. The way things are rapidly degrading, it appears that the current rising generation is indeed that self-destructive generation. As Robert Bork warned (along with all prophets of God), the only thing that will save our society is if the people as one body rise up in a huge revival of religion and morality, or in other words, mass repentance.

Because mankind is sinful, and because Christ will redeem all who will come to him in humility, and because Christ is the author of all that is true and right and good, the original author of the wisdom of the ages we here at SoL have been enjoying getting acquainted with, and because the world is intent on building on sand and threatens to wash us, our loved ones, and all of civilization away with it, we keep this scripture in mind:

"And now my sons, remember, remember, that it is upon the rock of our redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation, that when the devil shall send forth his mighty wind, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless woe, because of the foundation upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation upon which if men build they cannot fall." Helaman 5:12