As we celebrate the Fourth of July what comes into people’s minds are wonderful parades, fun filled picnics, beautiful fireworks, gathering together with family and friends. There is nothing wrong with these things, in fact I enjoy them, but that is not what the Fourth of July is all about.
In fact, in the days we are living in, we are witnessing the re-writing of our history so we really don’t know what this nation was founded upon. Our ancestors came from England for the purpose of worshiping the true and living God, not the freedom to worship all kinds of gods but the freedom to practice our Christian faith without the government telling us how to worship or to make some kind of state religion. They wanted to study the Word of God by the Spirit of God as He leads. Now granted some lost sight of what they came for, but may we not lose sight of what this day is all about and what this nation was founded upon.
In this document, The Declaration of Independence, we were declaring our independence from another nation, that they no longer would govern our affairs. And as you listen to what the early leaders of this great nation said, their views were Biblical, their salvation based upon the saving work of Jesus Christ, cleansing them from their sins. And it is under those beliefs that they established this nation and the form of government we have.
If that is true, then why does our government try to separate itself from Christianity, from our Biblical religious beliefs? Because they have twisted the laws, re-wrote our history and today, as you look at our nation, we are being told it was secular in nature, it was a secular nation when it was established, and thus, it must remain that way!
Some of you may be wondering if you are in a history class or church? Hang in there because I believe this is important. We should know our roots, our heritage because as we move farther and farther from it, our morality tumbles downward also. Thus, please turn in your Bibles this morning to Proverbs 14:34 and let’s read what Solomon has to say. He said, “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”
I know, it seems simplistic, it seems obvious and yet that is the reality. Why do we see so much wickedness in our nation today? Because we are unrighteous! “No, not me! How can that be?” Here is the reality, righteousness comes from God and our own righteousness apart from God is like filthy rags! Isaiah made that point as he said, “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.” Isaiah 64:6.
Some may argue, “That’s the Old Testament, we are living in the New Testament!” Okay, Paul said, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:10, 23. Do you know what the Greek word for “none” means? It means that none, absolutely none are righteous before God on their own. Do you know what the Greek word for “all” means? It means that all have sinned, every one of us, no one can approach God in their own righteousness.
So a people, a nation that has moved away from God will also be unrighteous. You see, Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” It is God’s righteousness that has been imputed into our lives by faith that allows us to stand before a holy and righteous God!
If you have any doubt, just read the Scriptures, God tells it like it is and when people turn from Him they don’t get better but deteriorate in their morality. The book of Judges is a prime example as we are told in Judges 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” After the death of Joshua and that generation that walked with God, the people moved away from God and their practices were evil, they were wicked, they were like any nation that has moved away from God!
Now as you talk with people today, they may see some of the problems we have in this nation, but they don’t think we are that bad. And yet, Proverbs 30:12 tells us, “There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness.” We have moved towards this idea of moral relativism where everything is okay, nothing is wrong, nothing is really bad and yet the Lord tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12.
I do realize that saying that this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian beliefs is offensive to some people. I am sorry but do we change history to make something less offensive? Think about all that Hitler did, maybe we should water it down some, he didn’t really kill 6 million Jewish people and many millions more people, he just got mad and kicked his dog. Ridiculous, you bet and yet that is what is being done with the history of this nation and even though it might make someone feel better, they might not be as offended, it doesn’t make it right!
With the remainder of our time this morning I would like to look at three areas and then conclude with what we need to do. We are going to be looking at Our Nations History, The Re-Writing Of Our History, and then The Results Of Revisionism On Our Society. And then we will tie this all up and see how this all applies to us, what we need to do!
1. OUR NATIONS HISTORY
When you look at this nations history and the system of government our Founding Fathers gave to us, we have so much to be thankful for. We have the world’s longest on-going Constitutional Republic! Over two hundred years under the same document and one form of government is unprecedented. If you look at France, they have gone through seven completely different forms of government; Italy is on their 51st! We are still on our first!
What insight did our Founding Fathers have when they were writing the Constitution, where did they get their ideas? A group of political science professors from the University of Houston felt that if they could see whom the Founders were quoting they could determine the source of their ideas. They looked at 15,000 writings of that era, taking them 10 years to complete their work and they found that 34 percent of the direct quotes in the political writings of the Founding era were from the Bible! They formed this government by looking at God’s Word and applying it!
Let me give you some examples of what some of the charter’s of America’s first colonies were like and you will see it was not a secular document. Keep in mind that today if any state had the nerve to make these statements the ACLU would be all over them telling them it is unconstitutional, but it was not unconstitutional in the past, when this nation got its start!
1606 Charter for a Colony in Virginia:
[T]o make habitation . . . and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of America commonly called Virginia . . . in propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness.
1680-1681 Charter for Pennsylvania:
William Penn . . . out of a commendable desire to . . . [convert] the savage natives by gentle and just manners to the love of civil society and Christian religion, hath humbly besought leave of us to transport an ample colony unto a certain country . . . in the parts of America not yet cultivated and planted.
The Colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Plymouth, and New Haven, back in 1643, joined together to form the New England Confederation and this is what the document said:
[W]e all came into these parts of America with one and the same end and aim, namely to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How often do you hear that taught in the school system? Today in our public school system we have removed prayer, Bible studies, even the 10 Commandments from its walls. But Christianity and education were inseparable. Listen to the 1636 rules of Harvard. They declared:
Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17.3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2, 3). Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein.
In 1699, Yale was founded by ten ministers in order to:
[T]o plant, and under the Divine blessing, to propagate in this wilderness the blessed reformed Protestant religion.
What was America’s educational philosophy? Listen to what George Washington said as chiefs from the Delaware Indian tribe brought him three Indian youths to be trained in American schools. First Washington assured the chiefs that “Congress … will look upon them as their own children.” And then he commended the chiefs for their decision by telling them:
You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.
The New England Primer was the first textbook ever printed in America. It was introduced in Boston in 1690 and for two centuries many in America learned to read from this book. After learning the Alphabet and putting one, two, and three-letter syllables together and learning how to put them together to make words, after about a fourth of the way through this textbook it returns to the alphabet and attaches phrases to the letter for them to memorize. Let me give you a few examples:
A – A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
B – Better is little with fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.
C – Come unto Christ all ye that labor and are heavy laden and He will give you rest.
D – Do not the abominable thing which I hate saith the Lord.
E – Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Do you think that would be allowed even for a day in our schools today? Not at all and yet it was used in our schools to teach children how to read and it is part of our history!
And before we move on to our next section, let me show you just a few quotes from our Founding Fathers and you see if they are secular or not. We are told:
Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration:
Principally and first of all, I recommend my soul to that Almighty Being who gave it and my body I commit to the dust, relying upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.
Charles Carroll, Signer of the Declaration:
On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation and on his merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to his precepts.
Noah Webster:
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed . . . No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
John Jay, the original Chief Justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court and one of the three men most responsible for the
Constitution:
Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty – as well as the privilege and interest – of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
I can go on and show you quote after quote supporting that this nation was a Christian nation, that we were governed by Christian men, that this nation was born and grew with Christianity as its cornerstone. But what happened, what changed things so now it is illegal to speak our faith in school and even in the courtroom and the government? We will quickly look at what took place, how our history has been re-written.
2. THE RE-WRITING OF OUR HISTORY
Historical revisionists ignore what they don’t like and over emphasize what the do like. They like to vilify those historic figures who disagree with their position. This is not something new but it is truly growing very quickly today as they have the ability with television, radio, and the Internet to get this false information out.
Back in the 1880’s and 1890’s, Robert Ingersoll, who was a well-known political lecturer, made this untrue statement:
[O]ur forefathers retired God from politics . . . The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others . . . Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world.
In the 1920’s we see W. E. Woodward, who was a revisionist, declare:
The name of Jesus Christ is not mentioned even once in the vast collection of Washington’s published letters.
As we have seen, that is untrue but it doesn’t stop them because the louder and longer they proclaim a lie, an untruth, the more people will begin to believe it!
In the court system we see the courts make laws, rewriting the intent of what the law says to fit their agenda, completely ignoring what the Founding Fathers were saying. More power has been given to the Judicial system then our Founding Fathers gave them and with the rise of moral relativism, or “legal positivism” when applied to the law, it is a mess! According to constitutional scholar and law professor John Eidsmoe, this philosophy is characterized by the following five major theses:
1. There are no objective, God-given standards of law, or if there are, they are irrelevant to the modern legal system.
2. Since God is not the author of law, the author of law must be man; in other words, the law is law simply because the highest human authority, the state, has said it is law and is able to back it up.
3. Since man and society evolve, therefore law must evolve as well.
4. Judges, through their decisions, guide the evolution of law.
5. To study law, get at the original sources of law – the decisions of judges.
Thus, everything is in a state of flux, and what was law years ago has changed today and not for the better. It is true that Christianity doesn’t make perfect men but what would this country, what would this world be like without Christians. Ben Franklin reminded religious critic Thomas Paine:
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?
That is what we are going to look at next, the results of revisionism on our morality in this country. And keep in mind, there is so much more we can look at regarding how our history has been re-written, we have just scratched the surface. If you would like to look at this more in-depth, I would suggest the book by David Barton, Original Intent, for it covers this area masterfully!
3. THE RESULTS OF REVISIONISM ON OUR SOCIETY
President John Adams made this very true statement:
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Quincy Adams said:
[T]hree points of doctrine, the belief of which, forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of a God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark; the laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
Patrick Henry said:
Righteousness alone can exalt them [America] as a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others. [T]he great pillars of all government and of social life: I mean virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible.
And John Witherspoon said:
[V]irtue and piety are inseparably connected; then to promote true religion is the best and most effectual way of making a virtuous and regular people. Love to God and love to man is the substance of religion; when these prevail, civil laws will have little to do.
And Robert Winthrop, a contemporary of John Quincy
Adams and Daniel Webster, and a speaker of the U.S. House said:
Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.
You see, by taking the true and living God out of the heart of our nation we now have a gaping hole that is filled with all kinds of wickedness. As you move away from God, as you negate His principles, you open the door for all kinds of immoral behavior! Let me show you what I mean. In the 1980 court case Stone v. Graham, dealing with the posting of the Ten Commandments on the walls of a school in Kentucky, this is what the court said, and listen to how bizarre it is, but that is truly what happens when a nation or people are not governed by God! We are told:
If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments.
The Court therefore concluded:
[This] . . . is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause . . . [T]he mere posting of the copies . . . the Establishment Clause prohibits.
Now that is interesting because the Founding Fathers would have vehemently disagreed and don’t you think they would have understood the laws better, since they were the ones who wrote them? Of course and this is what some had to say:
John Adams:
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect, it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou Shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable [firm] precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
And James Mchenry, Signer of the Constitution said:
[T]he Holy Scriptures . . . can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments [protections] around our institutions.
That is what we see today as the courts removed God from the school system in 1963. You can look at the statistics and they are overwhelming that once this happened, things got out of control. We can see that morality went spiraling downward, violence increased, a huge increase in the birth rates for unwed girls ages 15 to 19 years, a huge increase of STD’s for ages 10-14 years, to a decrease in the SAT scores from an average of 980 in 1963 to a low of 890 in 1978. And the list goes on, but you can see, removing God, not only from our schools but from our nation has had detrimental effects on us!
It is as Benjamin Rush, a Signer of the Declaration,
said:
Without this [religion] there can be no true virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages.
His words turned out to be very prophetic in nature, for we see it happening today all around us and we try to find solutions, but we are looking for them in all the wrong places. Let’s get back to where we began. We have seen that this nation was founded upon, established upon the Judeo-Christian faith and our leaders spoke openly about their faith, it was important to them, it was taught in our schools, and it made a positive influence upon our society.
Then came the revisionists who have been re-writing our history because it goes against what they believe, what they want to do. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or not, they speak it forth boldly and people believe their lies. Also, our courts are re-writing the laws, interpreting them to fit their agenda. Thus, what we see today is just a shadow of what this nation was founded upon. And the results of that are clearly seen, no one knows what is right, everyone does what is right in their own eyes, there is no fear of God because God is not on the throne of their hearts, and this nation’s light is slowly going out!
What can be done to rectify this problem? Instead of blaming people and pointing your finger at this group or that group, let’s rise up and be responsible to make a difference, to find the solution. May we get back to the basics. In Nehemiah 8:1-12, listen to how revival broke out. We are told:
“Now
all the people gathered together as one man in the open square
that was in front of the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe
to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded
Israel. So Ezra the
priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and
all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the
seventh month. Then he read from it in the open square that was
in front of the Water Gate from morning until midday, before the
men and women and those who could understand; and the ears of
all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.
So Ezra the scribe stood on a platform of wood which they
had made for the purpose; and beside him, at his right hand, stood
Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Urijah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah; and
at his left hand Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbadana,
Zechariah, and Meshullam.
And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people,
for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it,
all the people stood up.
And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. Then all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’
while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped
the LORD with their faces to the ground.
Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai,
Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and
the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law; and the
people stood in their place . . .
. . . So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn nor weep.’ For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.’ So the Levites quieted all the people, saying, ‘Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved.’ And all the people went their way to eat and drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that were declared to them.”
You see, as the Word of God was taught it cut to the heart of the matter, they were broken. We don’t need programs, we need faithful men who will teach the Word of God; read it, explain it and then apply it to the lives of the people! Simplistic, yes, but if it works, and it does, what else do you need? The Lord said in II Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
May we do that, humble ourselves before God, seek His face and pray for God to stir the hearts of the people of this community and this nation! God is not looking for talented people, rich people but available people who desire to be used by Him, may we be those people! You see, on this July 4th, a Day of Independence, may we make it into a day of interdependence upon God, committing our lives fully to Him and see what He can do in a few people who are available for Him to use for His glory!
As I close, listen to what Daniel Webster said as he cautioned our nation and we need to heed his words. He said:
I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. The prospect of a war with any powerful nation is too remote to be a matter of calculation. Besides, there is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence.
May our hearts be stirred, may we go forward with the Good News of Jesus Christ as our Founding Fathers did, to bring the light of God to this dark nation once again! Remember, “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”