Bottom line up front: Folly is inextricable from the suppression and denial of God; wisdom is linked inextricably to God and following God’s revealed will.

Illustration: I was reading the regulations for the Chaplain Corps recently and thinking of them in light of Scripture. It is uncanny how even our nation’s military reflects biblical wisdom. For example, the Army’s Chaplain Corps’ regulations include the acronym S.A.C.R.E.D. The letters denote spirituality, accountability, compassion, religious leadership, excellence, and diversity.

I thought through the characteristics listed in the regulation regarding accountability. It read, “Encourage individuals to make sound moral and ethical decisions.”

Issues: In order to make sound moral and ethical decisions, there must be an objective standard of reference for morals and ethics. That standard must be transcendent, unchanging, and holy. What worldview provides that? Is it the shifting sands of secularism? Is it popular vote? Is it force or compulsion?

In the biblical worldview, you have the fountain of all wisdom who is transcendent, unchanging, and holy. To provide some examples:

• “For I the LORD do not change” (Mal 3:6, ESV).
• “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Num 23:19a, ESV).
• “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Is 6:3, ESV).

Encouragement/takeaway: As David reminds us in the Psalter, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Ps 14:1a, ESV). Worldview is destiny. And what the biblical worldview provides is the unchanging foundation upon which objective moral values and ethics stand. Remove that and armies fall; inculcate that and discover the benediction of God.