“In January of 1776 at the start of the Revolutionary War Virginia Pastor John Peter Muhlenberg after preaching a sermon to his congregation from the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 declared:
“There is a time to fight, and that time has now come!”
As he had taken off his clerical robes, he revealed the uniform of a military officer and began to lead close to 300 men from his church to defend their liberties. These bold, brave men would go on to become the 8th Virginia Brigade and Rev. Muhlenberg went on to become a Major General under George Washington and was later elected to the first federal Congress where he helped frame the Bill of Rights.
A preacher was involved in framing the Bill of Rights in case you didn’t know that. There’s your fun history fact for the day.
Winston Churchill- “A nation that forgets its past has no future”.
When we look at America today, do we recognize her from what she was 100 years ago? 50 years ago? 10? 5? 2 months ago?! Yesterday?!
Our Constitution is being shredded every single day with each passing law while it is applauded and cheered by those who do not know what it says or means which is a large portion of the people today because we refuse to wake up and refuse to choose fact and reason over emotion.
The more advanced we say we are becoming the less freedom we actually have. We live in a society where truth is relative and we do what feels right according to our own heart and mind which means that just about anything and anyone can be justified to be “right.”
When we become our own gods and become the judge, jury, and executioner on every single issue because we “feel” we are entitled to that opinion, we have absolute chaos and truth, fact, and reason become meaningless. Right and wrong have become relative.
When we threw out God’s Word and half of the people decided on a national level to reject the Bible as the infallible, absolute truth and standard in which our society is based and has always been based we lost our footing, our soul, our way, our vision of what ultimately has made truly great.
It’s never been her economic might, her military might, her political might but what has always set America apart from the rest of the world has always been the fact she was founded upon Judeo-Christian values and principles. She was founded upon the Word of God.
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Endowed means “provided or equipped with”
How have we strayed so far from our founding principles? I can tell you what the answer is not and you may not like my answer.
It’s not the Democrats. Its not the Republicans. Its not the media. Its not Woodrow Wilson (As much as I think he has been one of the worst if not the worst President we have ever had). Its not the millennials. It’s not Bernie Sanders and Socialism. Its not the ‘Pro-Choice” crowd.
It’s the indifference of the Pastors and Christians over the last century that have allowed our freedoms and liberties to be slowly stripped one right at a time by standing idly by, remaining inside the comfort of the 4 walls of their church while losing that fire and passion for lost souls that the early church was built upon.
We have forgotten our role in civil government because we have secluded ourselves to the shadows and surrendered the good fight of faith on the civil scene. Since the Scopes Trials of 1922 when God went on trial in America we have allowed:
- Evolution to be implemented in school textbooks
- Prayer officially taken out of schools
- The Bible taken out as a required textbook
- Abortion made legal
- Same sex marriage made legal and widely accepted now among churches
- Megachurches have arisen with a feel-good message, a false gospel based upon emotion with no depth of theology
- More legalism inside the church translates to less Holy Spirit inside the Church
So, what is our role in civil government? Retreat and ignore? Or Stand fast and take action?
The Church has largely forgotten its role in the civil arena here in America and the crucial part that the church played in our founding.
Some say that Christians have never been involved nor should they be.
Some Christians believe that they should be allowed to express their faith and values inside the church, in their home, but show restraint when it comes to the public.
The teachings that are in the Word of God simply reject a compartmentalized approach to our faith and living our faith the public arena.
For many Generations before, Christians have embraced a much different stance.
What we have been conditioned to believe and what we have been taught in our textbooks for many decades now has been that the tipping point for many of the early colonists going to War with Great Britain was “taxation without representation.”
While it was one of 27 grievances that the Colonists had with King George it was not the first or the second. It wasn’t even listed in the top 10 grievances but rather it was listed all the way down at number 17. Taxation without Representation was grievance number 17 in the Declaration of Independence.
Our Founders had listed several other complaints more often than taxation without representation:
The Abuse of Representative Powers 11 times more
Abuse of Military Powers 7 times more
Abuse of Judicial Powers 4 times more
Stirring up Domestic Insurrection 2 times more
All of these were listed alongside Great Britain’s interference with foreign trade and immigration
Why aren’t most Americans familiar with the rest of the 27 grievances but seem to be taught grievance number 17 more than any other of the 27 grievances?
Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom in America 