Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]—blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he. – Proverbs 29:18, Amplified Bible (AMP)

According to The Associated Press:

Steve Green’s faith led him to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he’s argued the nation’s new health care law and its requirement that his business provide certain types of birth control to employees violates his religious freedoms.

At the same time, the president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores is working to add the Bible to the curriculum of public high schools nationwide. His purpose, stated more clearly at some times than at others, is for students to learn its text and put America on a righteous course.

“This nation is in danger because of its ignorance of what God has taught,” Green said last year to the National Bible Association, announcing his plan for the high school course. “There are lessons from the past that we can learn from, the dangers of ignorance of this book. We need to know it, and if we don’t know it, our future is going to be very scary.”

Indeed, any nation devoid of the Word of God is a scary place. The residents of such a nation have danger as their constant friend, for not only must they contend with the continual brutality of wicked man, they must also contend with the constant threat of chastisement from their righteous Maker. If you could just ask the Israelites of the Babylonian captivity, they would tell you what happens to a nation that forgets God. They would also tell you that they would not wish that kind of life on anyone.

Steve Green recognizes that, although the Christian faith is very personal, it is also very public. From our homes to our schools to our businesses and to our governments, God expects us to earnestly contend for the faith. We have every right and every obligation to fight for God in the public square, and we should never be fooled by others into thinking that we don’t. And we should fight because history’s lesson is clear: God rewards nations that remember Him, and He punishes those which don’t. If we care about the human beings who make up the land we call home, then we will not abandon them to the consequences of ignorance of God’s Word.

Where there is no vision – no revelation of the Word of God – the people perish. Or, as French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Volume 1 of his famous work, Democracy in America:

In America, religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom.

Of course, the opposite is true as well: the failure to observe God’s divine laws leads man to slavery. Let us all have Steve Green’s courage, and let us fight to keep our fellow citizens from the slavery of humanistic thinking. As Christ said in John 8:31-32 (KJV):

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.