Give Me Liberty
Dr. Dennis Corle
Dr. Corle is the Editor and Publisher of Revival Fires
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” (Psalm 33:12)
That word ‘blessed’ means happy; it also means approved of God. What meets God’s approval makes man happy. What does not meet God’s approval promises, but it never delivers true happiness. It cannot make man happy. Blessed equals approved of God. There is one more definition of the word blessed – it means to be supernaturally prospered.
God said, blessed, happy, approved of God, and supernaturally prospered is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for His own inheritance. Now, we know who the people are that God chose for His own inheritance. “And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the LORD your God;” (Ezekiel 20:5) God chose Israel.
The Founding Fathers of America chose the God of the Bible and the Bible itself for the governing principles of this nation to frame the documents that govern us, and we intentionally chose the God of Heaven. I am not telling you we are prophetically mentioned, but I am telling you that we fit the description of a blessed nation because of the choices those who founded this nation made in its beginnings.
I know we, as a nation, have loosed our moorings and we are adrift spiritually, and far from what we were founded to be. It grieves my heart because the truth is that this generation alive today, my children and grandchildren, they do not live in the America that I grew up in. It has dramatically changed already, and if we are not careful, it soon won’t exist at all.
But he tells us blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he had chosen for His own inheritance. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34) He said the more sin there is, the more reproach there is, the less blessing of God there is, and the more trouble that nation is in; so, he says, righteousness exalteth a nation. In Psalm 2, the Bible gives us the sentiment of the heathen, the left wingers, these rulers who want to be the final authority -- the highest authority. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” (Psalm 2:1) The answer is in the question. They rage because they are godless. That is what the word heathen means. It is not a derogatory term. It is talking about those who are without the God of the Bible. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:2,3) You say, “What does that mean, preacher?”
When I was a boy, we baled a lot of hay. You had to have cord in the binder, and if you didn’t have binder twine, you didn’t make any bales of hay. The cords held things together. The cords restricted things. They say, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
What are you getting at preacher? I am talking about the moral standards of the Bible. They promote every ungodly thing today. We have sodomite rulers. Now, explain to me why they would be for church. Explain to me why they would want Bible-believing Christians to have any influence. Everything we stand for they stand against, and the truth is that they don’t want there to be an authority higher than them, not even God and the Bible. It is offensive to these rulers for Peter or anybody like him to say, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” There is an authority that exceeds your power. There is the authority of Almighty God, and we honor Him. He has the preeminent spot!
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17) The last time I checked, if you are going to forget God, you first had to know him. Iraq didn’t forget the God of the Bible. Iran didn’t forget the God of the Bible. But when Israel did, they went into captivity, and America is forgetting God today. By the way, the word ‘forget’ does not always mean to be absent minded. According to Webster’s Dictionary, sometimes it means to put out of mind intentionally or to refuse to consider. So, to forget God is to put Him out of mind. He is not part of the equation. I refuse to consider Him. That is about where we are at in America today.
Every state charter mentions the God of the Bible -- all 50 of them. In Pennsylvania when William Penn founded the state, in order to hold office you had to profess faith in Jesus Christ. Today, that is viewed as a stigma or something that should keep you from holding office, because you believe in God or you are a born-again Christian. They launch an attack based on that.
Did you notice in these verses that God is a nationalist, not a globalist? God deals with nations. In Genesis chapter 10, you have the Table of Nations. The Bible tells us that God deals with individual sinners and God deals with nations. He said the wicked should be turned into Hell and all the nations that forget God. We are in jeopardy tonight as a nation, and we are in trouble with Almighty God because He is being pushed to the side.
Somehow, we think that Liberty is an American thing. Liberty is not an American thing, it is a Biblical thing. Leviticus 25:10, which is embossed on the Liberty Bell says, “...proclaim liberty throughout all the land...” “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (II Corinthians 3:17) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
When God makes reference to this book, the Bible, in James 1:25, He describes it as the Law of Liberty. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” (James 1:25) I read something about being blessed a little while, ago didn’t I? Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. This Book does not oppress, it liberates. Liberty is the result of the principles of the Bible. America has been free because our Founding Fathers were wise enough to apply Biblical principle. The First Amendment!
By the way, John Roberts is about as bad a turncoat if he ever, ever was a conservative. He is about as bad as they come. In the California case, he compared churches to theaters. He said, “We are not discriminating against churches. Theaters are still closed.” I hate to tell you this, but in the First Amendment, there was no reference to theaters, but the very first thing that is mentioned is that Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise! What is more fundamental to a church than assembling? What else is more fundamental to a church than disseminating the Gospel? The Great Commission, going soulwinning, getting the message out.
By the way, I went soulwinning last week. We had three people saved that day. We went door to door soulwinning. People still get saved. One guy said something to me about a mask. I self-identify as having a mask on. Since I self-identify, don’t you dare mess with my delusions! It’s okay when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it? What about whenever somebody turns the tables? If you can self-identify and pretend to be a different gender, I can certainly self-identify and pretend that I have a mask.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1) He did not make me free to sin. He made me free FROM sin. You get down to about verse 12, and he said, brethren you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh. Don’t abuse that wonderful doctrine in that manner. I am trying to tell you that God is the Author of liberty. Government is not. God gave liberty to all men. Governments oppress and take it away.
I can tell you this, if you put your feet under their table, they are going to run your life. If the government finances your food and housing and everything that you do, then they are going to control your life. Are you sure you want that? Everybody is worrying about getting out of debt. Well they create that debt intentionally, like student loans, then they give you solutions that are unconstitutional to solve it, and everybody who is in distress thinks, “Well I need this, I can’t help it.” Better be careful because your education won’t be worth 10 cents if you destroy liberty. With socialism, excelling and having education (unless you are part of that 2% that governs) it doesn’t benefit you. You can get 14 degrees and be the smartest guy in the class. You can be the hardest worker, but being a hard worker in socialism does not pay.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights does not grant liberty. Liberty is not a government entitlement. The Constitution and Bill of Rights limits government so that they will not intrude upon our God given liberty. Thomas Jefferson said, “The two enemies of the people’s liberties are criminals and government. Let us bind the second with the chains of the Constitution, lest the second become the legalized version of the first.” We have seen that happen before our eyes. Maybe we should know a little more history.
Liberty has never been free. The liberty that we have from sin in Christ Jesus cost Him His life’s blood, and the liberty that you and I have as Americans cost the founders everything. They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, and for most of them, it cost them and their families everything. Some of you served in the military and watched comrades fall who were fighting for the same liberty around the world, and we better not abandon it at home!
When the Revolutionary War was looming, there were dissenters who were worried about King George and their economic status and afraid that it would harm them financially. They came to Samuel Adams with complaint and dissent. Samuel Adams response to them was this, “If you love wealth better than liberty, servitude better than freedom, then go home from us. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains be set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen!” Strong words! Yes, a true patriot speaks strong words. They believe this stuff with conviction. This is not some minor thing. If you ever get to where there is no liberty, you will yearn for it! You will find it is more valuable than all the wealth of the world.
Patrick Henry said, “Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased with chains and slavery? forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others shall take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” That is not the only great statement that Patrick Henry every made. He also said this repeatedly. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians. It was not built on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” Why? Because true Christianity does not make converts with the sword. They make converts with the love of Christ, the Gospel message, one sinner at a time! It is those of us, independent Baptists, that are so fond of the Bible doctrine of soul liberty. We embrace that and we always have, and it is vital.
George Washington in his farewell speech, and by the way, for 170 years Washington’s farewell speech was considered the most significant political speech that had ever been delivered. After 170 years, they pulled it out of the history books because suddenly it is not politically correct. He said this in his farewell speech. “There are only two foundations on which political prosperity in America are built. Number one, is religion.” He was not talking about generic religion, but on Bible religion. I have at least 100 of his recorded prayers, and they all end in the name of Jesus Christ.
He also said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” Bible Christianity! When these Founding Fathers talked about religion, they were talking about Christianity my friend, and they came here to escape persecution of true Christianity. They were being persecuted in Europe.
He said the second pillar is morality. That would be Bible morality. You know, things like, “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery.” Some of the most amazingly crazy decisions come out of the Supreme Court. They decided that they couldn’t put the Ten Commandments up in public schools, and here was the rendering. They said, ‘Well if they display the Ten Commandments like they have throughout the history of America’s public schools, the children might read them. And if they read them, they might believe them, and if they believe them, they might attempt to practice them.’ Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery! That would be a travesty, wouldn’t it? How dangerous would that be?
This amoral stuff is insanity. Everybody decides for themselves, and you mark my words along with this self-identifying in genders, it won’t be long until some pedophile comes along and says, “I am a nine-year-old boy trapped in a 60-year-old body. I am not a pedophile. I self-identify as a nine year old.” You tell me how you can draw the line on that and say, “Well you can go this far, but not this far.” They have opened Pandora’s Box, and America is in trouble! Better wake up and realize it.
By the way, in that same speech, Washington is talking about Christian religion and Bible morality. Listen to this. No wonder they took the statement out of the history books. He said in that same speech, “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism that would labor to subvert these two great pillars.” In essence, he said, “Anybody who undermines the Christian religion and Bible morality cannot claim the tribute of patriotism. You can’t destroy the foundations on which something rests and be a hero of it.” If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Biblical principles are the foundations of this nation.
John Adams said, “The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” John Quincy Adams said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this, that it connected in one indissoluble bond...” (and I hope he is right, that it is indissoluble) “...the principles of Christianity with the principles of civil government.” You know what he said? We didn’t get a state religion or a national denomination, but we have a government that was based on Christian principles, therefore, a government that honors God, a government that promotes the principles that are holy.
By the way, Daniel Webster said, “The principles of all genuine liberty and all wise laws and administrations are drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority.” Did you get that? They are sustained by its authority. He said, “The man who therefore weakens or destroys the divine authority of that Book (speaking of the Bible) may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.” Tragically in this day and hour, we even have preachers in the pulpit who undermine the authority of the word of God, so sad and heart-rending. The church is supposed to be the pillar and ground of truth, a place where truth is upheld and supported, a sanctuary that is set apart for truth, a safe place where truth never comes under attack. But we have religious leaders as well as political leaders who constantly undermine and malign the authority of God and His principles.
Where did our Founding Fathers get the idea for this form of government? They examined 15,000 pieces of literature that were written by the framers, and most of it was in correspondence to each other. Do you think 15,000 pieces of correspondence and writing is a pretty good body of evidence to examine? When they examined it, do you know what they learned? Thirty-four percent of everything that the framers wrote was a direct quote from the Bible. But they paint them today to be a bunch of infidels and godless heathens who were materialists that came here for money, and that is a lie.
They continued and found that another 60% of everything the framers wrote was a quote from one of three men, all of whom drew their conclusions from the Bible. That would be William Blackstone who wrote the Commentaries on Common Law that were used for many years as the basis of law. By the way, Charles Finney got saved reading Blackstone’s Law Commentary. He would read, and he noticed that every time Blackstone stated a law, beneath that he would give at least one and maybe a dozen scriptures to substantiate that law. He fell under conviction reading that law book, and all the scripture it contained. The second fella with the name of Montesquieu, and a third was John Locke. All these men were Bible believers and drew their conclusions from the word of God. That is 34% direct quotes from the Bible, 60% quotes from people who use nothing but the Bible to get to their conclusions, which equals 94%. Then, there are words like: Or, nor, for, but, George, Thomas, that made up the rest of the percentage.
I am telling you that we have allowed history to escape us! John Jay was the original Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, (much better than John Roberts, who has been a turncoat on every major issue; anything that counts he is on the wrong side. He was the deciding vote against truth and against righteousness, on abortion, on sodomy, on closing churches.) John Jay, original Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and one of the three men most responsible for the Constitution, said this, “Providence (that refers to the overruling hand of Almighty God,) has given to our people the choice of their leaders, and it is the duty as well as the privilege of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians as its rulers.” (Notice he also said America is a Christian nation.)
How is it that the most vile people on the planet end up in leadership in this day and hour? How in God’s name can we go to the polls and vote for a devil, people who stand for everything the Bible is against? People do it all the time. Then they say that you can’t mix religion and politics. That is the dumbest statement I ever heard in my life. You can’t separate them!
How do I separate my moral values, things that I believe are absolutely necessary to having a decent society, from who I vote for and what they are going to do? Oh, I see, you have divided your life into secular and sacred so you can justify voting for devils and then coming to church and tell us how much you love God while you vote for everything contrary. I hate to tell you this folks, but there is a real God in Heaven, and you will face him over what you are doing to liberty and what you are doing to the nation that has sent more missionaries around the world than any nation, and that will be ended when socialism takes over. This nation is on the verge, and some of it has to do with turncoat Christians. Go ahead and get mad at me and suck your thumb, but when you face God, I will be mild compared to what He has to say about this stuff.
Fifty-three of the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were professing evangelical Christians. You say, “Well you don’t know they were saved.” I don’t know that you are saved either. I know I am saved. I will have to take your word for it, but 53 of the 56 senators were professing evangelical Christians. None were atheists. None were Muslim. None were Hindu. There was a little Jewish influence because Haym Salomon, a Jewish man, loaned George Washington and the Continental Army $100,000 to finance the war. Do you know how much $100,000 was in that day? Haym Salomon was arrested as a spy in 1776 by the British Government and imprisoned for his contribution to the Continental Army.
Where did the Founding Fathers get the idea for the three branches of government? They got that out of Isaiah 33:22. “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22) That is the judicial branch, and who is at the head of it? The Lord! The Lord is our judge. It also says that the Lord is our lawgiver. There is the legislative branch. Who is at the head of that branch? The Lord. The Lord is our King. That is the executive branch, Who is at the head of that branch? They wanted a government that honored God and acknowledged the Person of God. He was at the head of every area.
I will be honest with you, I am weary of all the rhetoric about separation of church and state. There is a certain element of the truth to that if it is properly interpreted. But if you ask the average person, even the average lawyer today, to quote you the First Amendment, I am afraid that many of them would say ‘separation of church and state.’ They have no clue what it really says.
You realize it says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That meant two things. Number one, Congress was not to set up one denomination of Christianity above another. That happened in England with the Anglican church, so that the government and that church were joined. The second thing was that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. In other words, religious organizations are self-governed by the Bible under God, and government needs to let the church govern itself. It is not their responsibility to tell us who to hire and what our message is allowed to be. He goes on and says, ‘nor prohibit the free exercise thereof,’ and if they are not prohibiting the free exercise of the church right now, somebody explain to me what you call it. If closing churches is not a clear violation of what the Constitution says, somebody instruct me more perfectly.
He goes on and says, “or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Did you notice that the press is number three? They claim the First Amendment like it was written for them, as if Christians are just trying to squeeze in on what they had prepared for them. By the way, the press never was supposed to be sanctioned to lie. Reporting news is one thing; reporting lies and propaganda is another that is not protected by the first amendment. Creating news instead of reporting news. Propagating an agenda.
It goes on and says, “Nor the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievance.” Maybe I could help the Governor of New York’s brother on CNN who asked the question, “Whoever said that protests were supposed to be peaceful?” That happens to be in the First Amendment! You might ought to get familiar with it there Dumbo before you get up on national television and make stupid statements like that! It is right there!
You say, “Well preacher, if that is not what it says, where did they get the idea of separation of church and state?” They got that from a letter that was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. In 1801, the Danbury Baptists, a bunch of Baptist preachers, wrote Thomas Jefferson a letter of protest because they heard a rumor that Jefferson was going to establish the congregational church as the official church of America. In 1802, he wrote back and said, “Gentlemen, if the rumor you heard was true, you would have plenty of reason for complaint. However, it is nothing more than a rumor.” He continued and said, “There is a high wall of separation between church and state that shall not be breached.” He continued in the rest of the letter and said, “We will; however, continue to moderate our behavior and govern the people of this country by Biblical principles.” He didn’t say we are going to cut Christianity off, and it is not allowed to have an influence. He said we will still moderate our personal behavior and govern the people based on Biblical principle.
He said, “Don’t worry, I am not going to set up one denomination of Christianity over another.” If you see the early renderings before they settled on the wording of the First Amendment, you will find out that was one of the things they were most concerned about. They weren’t worried about Islam. It was a non-factor, but they were worried about one denomination being elevated above another and becoming the state church and them being oppressed like they were under King George in the Anglican church of England. He gave them clear statements that this is not a separation where church is to stay out of government, but rather that government won’t establish one denomination over another, to intrude upon your liberties.
By the way, this was understood, the true rendering of that statement and the spirit of his letter, though it was not a legal document. It is not part of the Constitution, but even the understanding of the letter in its entirety was used in court for 170 years to prove the true meaning.
That is where the statement came from ‘high wall of separation between church and state’. The same statement they are using today to try to disenfranchise Christianity, shove it out the door, keep it out of public life, keep it in the church building, and keep it off of public property. The last time I checked, I pay taxes like the rest of the public. Public property is common property that belongs to the public (all of us) regardless of our beliefs, but in 1878 that case, US vs Lenig, the letter was used in its entirety to prove that the government would not establish a denomination, but they would use religious or Christian principles for conduct and behavior, even in the realm of government.
In 1962, suddenly all of that changed. In 1962, in a case Engel vs Vitale, the Supreme Court redefined the meaning of those few words in that letter. They totally ignored the context and the spirit of the letter. They ignored who it was written to! A bunch of Baptist preachers. They ignored all of that and isolated the few words of ‘separation of church and state,’ and they redefined that statement to mean ‘no religious expression on government property or public property.’ That was the first time it was ever interpreted to mean that. That is when they took prayer and Bible reading out of the schools, and if you check the education system since then in the public school realm, it has disintegrated. Check the crime, it has escalated. You check the teen pregnancy rate, and it has escalated. Everything negative has gone along with this; so, it is a real problem, but somehow, we have just conceded that’s the way it is. It’s not the way it was and not the way it is. How could this happen? In America, how could something that drastic change on a dime.
We get a pretty good idea when you hear a fella by the name of Justice Holmes. In 1908 when he was being sworn in to the Supreme Court, he said this in his acceptance speech, and you see the arrogance of his statement. You know what he said? “The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means.” In other words, there is no spirit of the Constitution. It is not our job to discern what the Founding Fathers meant, and rule in that way. We will decide what it means.” Now, we have had judges like Ginsburg and others who want to bring in international law. We are a sovereign nation! We are not governed by international law. You are supposed to uphold the Constitution. You swore to do that. So did every public official. So did every man in the military. So did every police officer. Holmes made that statement and basically what they were saying is that we ARE the law.
Samuel Rutherford nearly lost his head to King George when he wrote a document titled “Lex Rex” that is Latin for ‘the law is king.’ What he was telling the king is, ‘the King is not law, the law is king. You are not above the law.’ You heard all the leftists screaming, “President Trump is not above the law.” He is not the one violating the Constitution, but they think they are the law; so if you disagree with them, you are trying to operate above their authority, and do you know how important they are? About as important as a tree stump.
Before Holmes made this statement, just 16 years before, in 1892, the Supreme Court deemed it necessary to put something on public record to prove that America is a Christian nation. There was nobody refuting that at the time, but they thought it ought to be on public record. They gave 87 historical precedents to prove that America is a Christian nation. The decision was 9 to nothing. Try getting one of those decisions today.
Here is the statement of the court after they examined all the evidence and gave their rendering. They said, “It is impossible for it to be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” It didn’t say religious. It didn’t just say moral. It said they are Christian. They gave 87 precedents to prove it. Do you know how many precedents they gave in 1962 when they changed the meaning? Zero! There was no previous precedent in their favor. None!
Daniel Webster said, “Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens.” Then he said this, “Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion... They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society and diffuse its influence through all their institutions civil, political, or literary.”
Let me give you a few illustrations. How many of you have ever heard of the American Tract Society? Do you know who started that? The same guys that forged the Constitution. Guys like John Jay and Francis Scott Key wrote gospel tracts to spread the message of salvation. They weren’t the only ones. Have you ever heard of the American Bible Society? You know who started that? Our Founding Fathers. How about the Philadelphia Bible Society? By the way, the Capital was there for a short time? Founding Fathers.
Do you know why the Founding Fathers wanted to have an educational system? Benjamin Rush was front and center on this, but in essence he said, “We have to have an educational system because if people cannot read, they can’t read the Bible. If they can’t read the Bible, they will be immoral. If they are immoral, they can’t be free.” He said, “We want a free people. We need people to learn to read so that they can be moral and free.” Everything they did was to establish Biblical authority in the lives of people and get people acquainted with Bible truth.
Patrick Henry stated, “Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation of free men.” That means we are headed to tyranny and oppression. He also said, “It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. He said, “A vitiated state of morals and a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.” I’d say we are in trouble, and most people don’t even realize it.
John Adams said, “Our Constitution is made only for a law abiding and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to govern any other.” What is he saying? He is saying if I won’t assume responsibility for myself, and I won’t temper my conduct personally, it requires more government to do that. By the way, that is a Bible principle too, you know. “For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.” (Proverbs 28:2) That means that the more transgression you have, the less self-control you have, and the more government you require. Does that make you wonder at all why the liberals and the left wingers, the socialists, the globalists, why they promote anarchy in the street? Why they promote hate? They have got everybody hating each other and while everybody is hating each other they are destroying both groups, but they distracted the attention away from themselves, so we are all hating each other.
Liberals divide and conquer, but they promote immorality. They promote things that destroy the home because the home is a Bible-based Christian institution. Parents rearing children is Christian. Church is Christian. Those are things that are ordained of God, and they get in the way of the socialistic crowd trying to take control. If Christianity is the root of liberty and salvation is the source of Christianity, then people must be born again. I am going to tell you something folks, if you let them lock you in your house during all this stuff, they haven’t slowed down their agenda, they just stopped yours. They stopped you from going to church. You stay out of church for about two months and you will be so backslidden you won’t want to come back because you’ve got flesh like I have got flesh. You will get comfortable. They will stop you from winning a soul while they are converting people right and left to socialism with the media. They haven’t slowed down their agenda. They are diverting young people right and left, convincing them how terrible America is, how awful it is.
I am going to tell you something pal, before you swallow that, you better go around the world and check some of these countries out. If you have to kneel to disrespect the American Flag, you show me the one you can stand for. If the flag divides us instead of unites us, tell me what unites us? A house divided against itself cannot stand, and those are the very words of Jesus. The leftists keep dividing and conquering.
Thomas Jefferson was like a prophet. That guy said some things that sounds like he’s here today and knew exactly what would happen. He said, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” That is a Bible principle too. If you get hungry enough, you will work. I am not talking about people who are incapable. We are supposed to care for people who can’t work. But there are second and third generation welfare people that never hit a lick in their life, and they are telling you how oppressed they are. I have been paying their way forever. You have been paying their way forever. My tax money buys everything you eat, and you are oppressed?
Jefferson also said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” I don’t want a government to take care of me. I will take care of myself. I will feed and clothe myself. I will generate my own income. I will work as hard as I need to. I want them to just watch the borders and protect me from enemies, foreign and domestic, just do their job and quit tampering with me.
I don’t want the government’s protection from a virus. Government, at least a republic like we live in, was never ever intended to be a cow to be milked. It is supposed to be a watchdog to protect liberty. When it becomes a cow to be milked, we are in major trouble, and that is where we are today. We have so many government programs that you can’t finance all of them. It is unsustainable. The Green New Deal??? The brain-dead new deal! If you had all the money in the world you couldn’t finance that thing. Are you kidding? Do you think money just falls out of the sky? You think that you just keep printing paper and it is not going to destroy the value of the dollar worldwide?
Jefferson also said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.” That is not what we want. I mentioned earlier that socialism promises equality, and by the way, it delivers. The problem is that the people who buy in never do examine what kind of equality it produces. I have been all over the world. I preached in Russia in the 90s when they started to let folks come in. I preached in Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine. They were in dire poverty.
I stayed in a preacher’s home in Russia. He lived in government housing, like everybody did. A little concrete cubicle, a couple of rooms for parents and a bunch of kids. Government provides the housing and they decide what you get. When I was down in the Ukraine, the great blessing was that we had hot water every third day from the central government boiler. Oh, but socialism is wonderful, and America is awful, right? Only people that have never been anywhere else are dumb enough to believe that.
I talked to a man in Russia, and I said to him, “It looks to me like you have all the same natural resources in Russia that we have in America. Why does everybody live in abject poverty?” He smiled, and through the interpreter he said, “Oh, that is easy. Over here, the government owns everything. We all work for the government.” Then he smiled and said, “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” You know what he was telling me? There is no incentive to excel.
Doesn’t it sound wonderful? We are going to make everybody equal -- equally poor. That means if you work 80 hours a week you can’t excel and get ahead. That wouldn’t be fair. You ought to be equal with the couch potato. That is what socialism does. Why would a couch potato ever get off the couch and do anything if you are going to give him the same amount of money for laying there, and why would a hardworking man keep working hard when you are going to take everything he works for and give it to somebody else and you refuse to let him excel when he has earned it? People today are not thinking straight.
Jefferson went on and said this, “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is both sinful and tyrannical.” He is talking about taxation without representation, them taking my money and using it to propagate ideas that I disbelieve. How about family planning where about two-thirds of the money goes to murdering babies? Take my tax money and pour it into that without my consent. How about abortion itself? How about the sodomite causes that they are promoting? How about sending billions of dollars to Muslim countries that would like to slit my throat and yours? I don’t want to finance that. How about training atheists and evolutionists in the public schools and using my tax money to do it?
The same people who cry about poverty in this country, if they quit sending it to Muslim countries and used it in the society here, there wouldn’t be much poverty. Some people are going to be in poverty because they are in sin. You got that? Sin produces poverty. There are people who can’t hold down a job because they are in a state of addiction. They are dysfunctional. I am for trying to reach them, help them, restore them, but it is not society’s fault, it is not the church’s fault, and it is not the government’s fault that somebody has an addiction problem that has destroyed their ability to hold a job. We can have compassion, but we better not use foolishness as a cure. We will encourage it rather than discouraging it.
We live in the days of Isaiah 5:20. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Everything is the exact opposite of what it really is. Now they tell us that sodomites are normal. It is just a preferred lifestyle. And those of us that are appalled at that perversion, they say we are sick. We have homophobia, and I have a bad case of it. I may be terminal! I am certainly incurable! I hate to break your hearts, guys, but I have never seen a good-looking man. If I ever see a good-looking man, I am going for shots, glasses, and a few other things. God help us! I am so weary of this insanity. I am not just sitting back silently and letting them influence our children to believe that this is the norm. This is not normal. This is wild perversion being justified.
Listen folks, for 170 years or longer, sodomy was on the books as a felony in virtually every state in the United States. George Washington had a man by the name of Tupper who attempted an act of sodomy. He had him fifed and drummed out of camp in infamy, kicked out of the Army. Maybe we ought to catch up with a little history.
“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” (Isaiah 1:4-6) What do you mean when you say somebody is sick in the head? God said, the whole head is sick. He is talking about insanity. Their decisions are so unsound and unbiblical and so much in reverse to reality, and if you listen to them, everything they say is the opposite of what it really is. The whole head is sick.
The whole heart is faint. Judaism is the heart of Israel. If the heart stops, guess what happens to the body? It dies. Christianity is the heart of America, and the heart is faint. Church, we need revival. The heart is faint. If the heart stops, America dies, and there is no America without Christianity. I am not talking about the places where they turn the church into a theater and everything is contemporary and they don’t have a Bible and they play rock music, dress down, or don’t bother to dress at all.
Today America has sodomite parades, riots in the street, and the mayors and governors are involved in it. Tell me, how do all these ball bats and bricks get delivered to where the riot just happens to erupt? I’m talking about pallets of bricks and ball bats. You ought to find the guy that delivered them, and string him up by his ears. Foolishness. They never do get to the bottom of this stuff because it would be incriminating, I am afraid, for a bunch of leaders in this country.
Jefferson also said, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes, a principle that, if acted upon, would save half the wars of the world.” If every generation would pay its own bills and they didn’t stack debt upon debt. He goes on and says this. “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered.” How much worse is it that the Federal Reserve is not even an entity of the United States? Dictating the value of the dollar and the interest rate and everything else.
Ronald Reagan said, “Government is like a baby. It has an alimentary canal with a huge appetite on one end and no sense of responsibility on the other end.” How true that statement is? He also said, “If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will just be a nation gone under.” We are one nation under God, and if we ever forget that, then ‘the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God’ -- we are done.
I am telling you that we, as a nation, are on the cusp of destruction. We must wake up. Hear me and hear me well. Salvation and Bible Christianity is the solution. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14) Is there anybody here that thinks this the land doesn’t need a healing from God? Quit pointing fingers and say, “It’s me, it’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” Humble ourselves and pray. Prayer is getting into the presence of God and obtaining an answer.
Did he instruct us to seek God’s hand? Oh no! We do that every day. “Lord, do this, give me that.” No, we need to seek God’s face, His person. God provides with His hand, but we are supposed to seek His person, His favor. We are supposed to seek Him, not just what He can do. Seek God’s face and turn from OUR wicked ways. Don’t look at me like you don’t have any of those. Turn from our wicked ways, then will He hear from Heaven, and He will forgive our sin and heal our land.
Folks listen to me, if we are the cure, then we are also the problem. If we will have revival, God said he will heal the land. That means we are the cure. America is in the shape that its in because there are dead flies in the ointment of the apothecary. He didn’t say dead elephants. It’s those dead flies that you figure out a way to justify. It is about time that we cleanse the ointment of the apothecary. It is about time that we humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways. It is about time that we realize that we are either going to have revival or destruction nationally. Hear me, if liberty goes, persecution comes. Don’t you think that you are just going to come to church when you please and they are going to let you alone once constitutional liberty is destroyed. Everything is on the line right now.
We need revival desperately, and revival has to start with me, and it has to start with you. Are we going to have any of that right now, or are we going to wait until it is too late, and say, “I didn’t think this would ever happen in America?” If we don’t have revival, we are going to lose our liberty and experience persecution and have more problems than you can imagine.
We need revival now, not later. We need to draw a circle on the floor, kneel inside the circle and say, “Oh God, please send a revival inside this circle.” I am not concerning myself about what is wrong with everybody else. It is me, and I need to get right, and I need to get clean, and I need to be filled with the Spirit of God. I want to be used of God. I want personal revival. If we have it, revival is contagious. If anybody gets it, it will affect other people. I plead with you to look at the gravity of the moment and realize what is at stake and what the cure is and do your part as an individual believer.
That word ‘blessed’ means happy; it also means approved of God. What meets God’s approval makes man happy. What does not meet God’s approval promises, but it never delivers true happiness. It cannot make man happy. Blessed equals approved of God. There is one more definition of the word blessed – it means to be supernaturally prospered.
God said, blessed, happy, approved of God, and supernaturally prospered is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for His own inheritance. Now, we know who the people are that God chose for His own inheritance. “And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the LORD your God;” (Ezekiel 20:5) God chose Israel.
The Founding Fathers of America chose the God of the Bible and the Bible itself for the governing principles of this nation to frame the documents that govern us, and we intentionally chose the God of Heaven. I am not telling you we are prophetically mentioned, but I am telling you that we fit the description of a blessed nation because of the choices those who founded this nation made in its beginnings.
I know we, as a nation, have loosed our moorings and we are adrift spiritually, and far from what we were founded to be. It grieves my heart because the truth is that this generation alive today, my children and grandchildren, they do not live in the America that I grew up in. It has dramatically changed already, and if we are not careful, it soon won’t exist at all.
But he tells us blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he had chosen for His own inheritance. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34) He said the more sin there is, the more reproach there is, the less blessing of God there is, and the more trouble that nation is in; so, he says, righteousness exalteth a nation. In Psalm 2, the Bible gives us the sentiment of the heathen, the left wingers, these rulers who want to be the final authority -- the highest authority. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” (Psalm 2:1) The answer is in the question. They rage because they are godless. That is what the word heathen means. It is not a derogatory term. It is talking about those who are without the God of the Bible. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:2,3) You say, “What does that mean, preacher?”
When I was a boy, we baled a lot of hay. You had to have cord in the binder, and if you didn’t have binder twine, you didn’t make any bales of hay. The cords held things together. The cords restricted things. They say, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
What are you getting at preacher? I am talking about the moral standards of the Bible. They promote every ungodly thing today. We have sodomite rulers. Now, explain to me why they would be for church. Explain to me why they would want Bible-believing Christians to have any influence. Everything we stand for they stand against, and the truth is that they don’t want there to be an authority higher than them, not even God and the Bible. It is offensive to these rulers for Peter or anybody like him to say, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” There is an authority that exceeds your power. There is the authority of Almighty God, and we honor Him. He has the preeminent spot!
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17) The last time I checked, if you are going to forget God, you first had to know him. Iraq didn’t forget the God of the Bible. Iran didn’t forget the God of the Bible. But when Israel did, they went into captivity, and America is forgetting God today. By the way, the word ‘forget’ does not always mean to be absent minded. According to Webster’s Dictionary, sometimes it means to put out of mind intentionally or to refuse to consider. So, to forget God is to put Him out of mind. He is not part of the equation. I refuse to consider Him. That is about where we are at in America today.
Every state charter mentions the God of the Bible -- all 50 of them. In Pennsylvania when William Penn founded the state, in order to hold office you had to profess faith in Jesus Christ. Today, that is viewed as a stigma or something that should keep you from holding office, because you believe in God or you are a born-again Christian. They launch an attack based on that.
Did you notice in these verses that God is a nationalist, not a globalist? God deals with nations. In Genesis chapter 10, you have the Table of Nations. The Bible tells us that God deals with individual sinners and God deals with nations. He said the wicked should be turned into Hell and all the nations that forget God. We are in jeopardy tonight as a nation, and we are in trouble with Almighty God because He is being pushed to the side.
Somehow, we think that Liberty is an American thing. Liberty is not an American thing, it is a Biblical thing. Leviticus 25:10, which is embossed on the Liberty Bell says, “...proclaim liberty throughout all the land...” “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (II Corinthians 3:17) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
When God makes reference to this book, the Bible, in James 1:25, He describes it as the Law of Liberty. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” (James 1:25) I read something about being blessed a little while, ago didn’t I? Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. This Book does not oppress, it liberates. Liberty is the result of the principles of the Bible. America has been free because our Founding Fathers were wise enough to apply Biblical principle. The First Amendment!
By the way, John Roberts is about as bad a turncoat if he ever, ever was a conservative. He is about as bad as they come. In the California case, he compared churches to theaters. He said, “We are not discriminating against churches. Theaters are still closed.” I hate to tell you this, but in the First Amendment, there was no reference to theaters, but the very first thing that is mentioned is that Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise! What is more fundamental to a church than assembling? What else is more fundamental to a church than disseminating the Gospel? The Great Commission, going soulwinning, getting the message out.
By the way, I went soulwinning last week. We had three people saved that day. We went door to door soulwinning. People still get saved. One guy said something to me about a mask. I self-identify as having a mask on. Since I self-identify, don’t you dare mess with my delusions! It’s okay when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it? What about whenever somebody turns the tables? If you can self-identify and pretend to be a different gender, I can certainly self-identify and pretend that I have a mask.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1) He did not make me free to sin. He made me free FROM sin. You get down to about verse 12, and he said, brethren you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh. Don’t abuse that wonderful doctrine in that manner. I am trying to tell you that God is the Author of liberty. Government is not. God gave liberty to all men. Governments oppress and take it away.
I can tell you this, if you put your feet under their table, they are going to run your life. If the government finances your food and housing and everything that you do, then they are going to control your life. Are you sure you want that? Everybody is worrying about getting out of debt. Well they create that debt intentionally, like student loans, then they give you solutions that are unconstitutional to solve it, and everybody who is in distress thinks, “Well I need this, I can’t help it.” Better be careful because your education won’t be worth 10 cents if you destroy liberty. With socialism, excelling and having education (unless you are part of that 2% that governs) it doesn’t benefit you. You can get 14 degrees and be the smartest guy in the class. You can be the hardest worker, but being a hard worker in socialism does not pay.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights does not grant liberty. Liberty is not a government entitlement. The Constitution and Bill of Rights limits government so that they will not intrude upon our God given liberty. Thomas Jefferson said, “The two enemies of the people’s liberties are criminals and government. Let us bind the second with the chains of the Constitution, lest the second become the legalized version of the first.” We have seen that happen before our eyes. Maybe we should know a little more history.
Liberty has never been free. The liberty that we have from sin in Christ Jesus cost Him His life’s blood, and the liberty that you and I have as Americans cost the founders everything. They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, and for most of them, it cost them and their families everything. Some of you served in the military and watched comrades fall who were fighting for the same liberty around the world, and we better not abandon it at home!
When the Revolutionary War was looming, there were dissenters who were worried about King George and their economic status and afraid that it would harm them financially. They came to Samuel Adams with complaint and dissent. Samuel Adams response to them was this, “If you love wealth better than liberty, servitude better than freedom, then go home from us. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains be set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen!” Strong words! Yes, a true patriot speaks strong words. They believe this stuff with conviction. This is not some minor thing. If you ever get to where there is no liberty, you will yearn for it! You will find it is more valuable than all the wealth of the world.
Patrick Henry said, “Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased with chains and slavery? forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others shall take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” That is not the only great statement that Patrick Henry every made. He also said this repeatedly. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians. It was not built on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” Why? Because true Christianity does not make converts with the sword. They make converts with the love of Christ, the Gospel message, one sinner at a time! It is those of us, independent Baptists, that are so fond of the Bible doctrine of soul liberty. We embrace that and we always have, and it is vital.
George Washington in his farewell speech, and by the way, for 170 years Washington’s farewell speech was considered the most significant political speech that had ever been delivered. After 170 years, they pulled it out of the history books because suddenly it is not politically correct. He said this in his farewell speech. “There are only two foundations on which political prosperity in America are built. Number one, is religion.” He was not talking about generic religion, but on Bible religion. I have at least 100 of his recorded prayers, and they all end in the name of Jesus Christ.
He also said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” Bible Christianity! When these Founding Fathers talked about religion, they were talking about Christianity my friend, and they came here to escape persecution of true Christianity. They were being persecuted in Europe.
He said the second pillar is morality. That would be Bible morality. You know, things like, “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery.” Some of the most amazingly crazy decisions come out of the Supreme Court. They decided that they couldn’t put the Ten Commandments up in public schools, and here was the rendering. They said, ‘Well if they display the Ten Commandments like they have throughout the history of America’s public schools, the children might read them. And if they read them, they might believe them, and if they believe them, they might attempt to practice them.’ Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery! That would be a travesty, wouldn’t it? How dangerous would that be?
This amoral stuff is insanity. Everybody decides for themselves, and you mark my words along with this self-identifying in genders, it won’t be long until some pedophile comes along and says, “I am a nine-year-old boy trapped in a 60-year-old body. I am not a pedophile. I self-identify as a nine year old.” You tell me how you can draw the line on that and say, “Well you can go this far, but not this far.” They have opened Pandora’s Box, and America is in trouble! Better wake up and realize it.
By the way, in that same speech, Washington is talking about Christian religion and Bible morality. Listen to this. No wonder they took the statement out of the history books. He said in that same speech, “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism that would labor to subvert these two great pillars.” In essence, he said, “Anybody who undermines the Christian religion and Bible morality cannot claim the tribute of patriotism. You can’t destroy the foundations on which something rests and be a hero of it.” If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Biblical principles are the foundations of this nation.
John Adams said, “The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.” John Quincy Adams said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this, that it connected in one indissoluble bond...” (and I hope he is right, that it is indissoluble) “...the principles of Christianity with the principles of civil government.” You know what he said? We didn’t get a state religion or a national denomination, but we have a government that was based on Christian principles, therefore, a government that honors God, a government that promotes the principles that are holy.
By the way, Daniel Webster said, “The principles of all genuine liberty and all wise laws and administrations are drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority.” Did you get that? They are sustained by its authority. He said, “The man who therefore weakens or destroys the divine authority of that Book (speaking of the Bible) may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.” Tragically in this day and hour, we even have preachers in the pulpit who undermine the authority of the word of God, so sad and heart-rending. The church is supposed to be the pillar and ground of truth, a place where truth is upheld and supported, a sanctuary that is set apart for truth, a safe place where truth never comes under attack. But we have religious leaders as well as political leaders who constantly undermine and malign the authority of God and His principles.
Where did our Founding Fathers get the idea for this form of government? They examined 15,000 pieces of literature that were written by the framers, and most of it was in correspondence to each other. Do you think 15,000 pieces of correspondence and writing is a pretty good body of evidence to examine? When they examined it, do you know what they learned? Thirty-four percent of everything that the framers wrote was a direct quote from the Bible. But they paint them today to be a bunch of infidels and godless heathens who were materialists that came here for money, and that is a lie.
They continued and found that another 60% of everything the framers wrote was a quote from one of three men, all of whom drew their conclusions from the Bible. That would be William Blackstone who wrote the Commentaries on Common Law that were used for many years as the basis of law. By the way, Charles Finney got saved reading Blackstone’s Law Commentary. He would read, and he noticed that every time Blackstone stated a law, beneath that he would give at least one and maybe a dozen scriptures to substantiate that law. He fell under conviction reading that law book, and all the scripture it contained. The second fella with the name of Montesquieu, and a third was John Locke. All these men were Bible believers and drew their conclusions from the word of God. That is 34% direct quotes from the Bible, 60% quotes from people who use nothing but the Bible to get to their conclusions, which equals 94%. Then, there are words like: Or, nor, for, but, George, Thomas, that made up the rest of the percentage.
I am telling you that we have allowed history to escape us! John Jay was the original Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, (much better than John Roberts, who has been a turncoat on every major issue; anything that counts he is on the wrong side. He was the deciding vote against truth and against righteousness, on abortion, on sodomy, on closing churches.) John Jay, original Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and one of the three men most responsible for the Constitution, said this, “Providence (that refers to the overruling hand of Almighty God,) has given to our people the choice of their leaders, and it is the duty as well as the privilege of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians as its rulers.” (Notice he also said America is a Christian nation.)
How is it that the most vile people on the planet end up in leadership in this day and hour? How in God’s name can we go to the polls and vote for a devil, people who stand for everything the Bible is against? People do it all the time. Then they say that you can’t mix religion and politics. That is the dumbest statement I ever heard in my life. You can’t separate them!
How do I separate my moral values, things that I believe are absolutely necessary to having a decent society, from who I vote for and what they are going to do? Oh, I see, you have divided your life into secular and sacred so you can justify voting for devils and then coming to church and tell us how much you love God while you vote for everything contrary. I hate to tell you this folks, but there is a real God in Heaven, and you will face him over what you are doing to liberty and what you are doing to the nation that has sent more missionaries around the world than any nation, and that will be ended when socialism takes over. This nation is on the verge, and some of it has to do with turncoat Christians. Go ahead and get mad at me and suck your thumb, but when you face God, I will be mild compared to what He has to say about this stuff.
Fifty-three of the original 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were professing evangelical Christians. You say, “Well you don’t know they were saved.” I don’t know that you are saved either. I know I am saved. I will have to take your word for it, but 53 of the 56 senators were professing evangelical Christians. None were atheists. None were Muslim. None were Hindu. There was a little Jewish influence because Haym Salomon, a Jewish man, loaned George Washington and the Continental Army $100,000 to finance the war. Do you know how much $100,000 was in that day? Haym Salomon was arrested as a spy in 1776 by the British Government and imprisoned for his contribution to the Continental Army.
Where did the Founding Fathers get the idea for the three branches of government? They got that out of Isaiah 33:22. “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22) That is the judicial branch, and who is at the head of it? The Lord! The Lord is our judge. It also says that the Lord is our lawgiver. There is the legislative branch. Who is at the head of that branch? The Lord. The Lord is our King. That is the executive branch, Who is at the head of that branch? They wanted a government that honored God and acknowledged the Person of God. He was at the head of every area.
I will be honest with you, I am weary of all the rhetoric about separation of church and state. There is a certain element of the truth to that if it is properly interpreted. But if you ask the average person, even the average lawyer today, to quote you the First Amendment, I am afraid that many of them would say ‘separation of church and state.’ They have no clue what it really says.
You realize it says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That meant two things. Number one, Congress was not to set up one denomination of Christianity above another. That happened in England with the Anglican church, so that the government and that church were joined. The second thing was that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. In other words, religious organizations are self-governed by the Bible under God, and government needs to let the church govern itself. It is not their responsibility to tell us who to hire and what our message is allowed to be. He goes on and says, ‘nor prohibit the free exercise thereof,’ and if they are not prohibiting the free exercise of the church right now, somebody explain to me what you call it. If closing churches is not a clear violation of what the Constitution says, somebody instruct me more perfectly.
He goes on and says, “or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Did you notice that the press is number three? They claim the First Amendment like it was written for them, as if Christians are just trying to squeeze in on what they had prepared for them. By the way, the press never was supposed to be sanctioned to lie. Reporting news is one thing; reporting lies and propaganda is another that is not protected by the first amendment. Creating news instead of reporting news. Propagating an agenda.
It goes on and says, “Nor the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievance.” Maybe I could help the Governor of New York’s brother on CNN who asked the question, “Whoever said that protests were supposed to be peaceful?” That happens to be in the First Amendment! You might ought to get familiar with it there Dumbo before you get up on national television and make stupid statements like that! It is right there!
You say, “Well preacher, if that is not what it says, where did they get the idea of separation of church and state?” They got that from a letter that was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. In 1801, the Danbury Baptists, a bunch of Baptist preachers, wrote Thomas Jefferson a letter of protest because they heard a rumor that Jefferson was going to establish the congregational church as the official church of America. In 1802, he wrote back and said, “Gentlemen, if the rumor you heard was true, you would have plenty of reason for complaint. However, it is nothing more than a rumor.” He continued and said, “There is a high wall of separation between church and state that shall not be breached.” He continued in the rest of the letter and said, “We will; however, continue to moderate our behavior and govern the people of this country by Biblical principles.” He didn’t say we are going to cut Christianity off, and it is not allowed to have an influence. He said we will still moderate our personal behavior and govern the people based on Biblical principle.
He said, “Don’t worry, I am not going to set up one denomination of Christianity over another.” If you see the early renderings before they settled on the wording of the First Amendment, you will find out that was one of the things they were most concerned about. They weren’t worried about Islam. It was a non-factor, but they were worried about one denomination being elevated above another and becoming the state church and them being oppressed like they were under King George in the Anglican church of England. He gave them clear statements that this is not a separation where church is to stay out of government, but rather that government won’t establish one denomination over another, to intrude upon your liberties.
By the way, this was understood, the true rendering of that statement and the spirit of his letter, though it was not a legal document. It is not part of the Constitution, but even the understanding of the letter in its entirety was used in court for 170 years to prove the true meaning.
That is where the statement came from ‘high wall of separation between church and state’. The same statement they are using today to try to disenfranchise Christianity, shove it out the door, keep it out of public life, keep it in the church building, and keep it off of public property. The last time I checked, I pay taxes like the rest of the public. Public property is common property that belongs to the public (all of us) regardless of our beliefs, but in 1878 that case, US vs Lenig, the letter was used in its entirety to prove that the government would not establish a denomination, but they would use religious or Christian principles for conduct and behavior, even in the realm of government.
In 1962, suddenly all of that changed. In 1962, in a case Engel vs Vitale, the Supreme Court redefined the meaning of those few words in that letter. They totally ignored the context and the spirit of the letter. They ignored who it was written to! A bunch of Baptist preachers. They ignored all of that and isolated the few words of ‘separation of church and state,’ and they redefined that statement to mean ‘no religious expression on government property or public property.’ That was the first time it was ever interpreted to mean that. That is when they took prayer and Bible reading out of the schools, and if you check the education system since then in the public school realm, it has disintegrated. Check the crime, it has escalated. You check the teen pregnancy rate, and it has escalated. Everything negative has gone along with this; so, it is a real problem, but somehow, we have just conceded that’s the way it is. It’s not the way it was and not the way it is. How could this happen? In America, how could something that drastic change on a dime.
We get a pretty good idea when you hear a fella by the name of Justice Holmes. In 1908 when he was being sworn in to the Supreme Court, he said this in his acceptance speech, and you see the arrogance of his statement. You know what he said? “The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means.” In other words, there is no spirit of the Constitution. It is not our job to discern what the Founding Fathers meant, and rule in that way. We will decide what it means.” Now, we have had judges like Ginsburg and others who want to bring in international law. We are a sovereign nation! We are not governed by international law. You are supposed to uphold the Constitution. You swore to do that. So did every public official. So did every man in the military. So did every police officer. Holmes made that statement and basically what they were saying is that we ARE the law.
Samuel Rutherford nearly lost his head to King George when he wrote a document titled “Lex Rex” that is Latin for ‘the law is king.’ What he was telling the king is, ‘the King is not law, the law is king. You are not above the law.’ You heard all the leftists screaming, “President Trump is not above the law.” He is not the one violating the Constitution, but they think they are the law; so if you disagree with them, you are trying to operate above their authority, and do you know how important they are? About as important as a tree stump.
Before Holmes made this statement, just 16 years before, in 1892, the Supreme Court deemed it necessary to put something on public record to prove that America is a Christian nation. There was nobody refuting that at the time, but they thought it ought to be on public record. They gave 87 historical precedents to prove that America is a Christian nation. The decision was 9 to nothing. Try getting one of those decisions today.
Here is the statement of the court after they examined all the evidence and gave their rendering. They said, “It is impossible for it to be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” It didn’t say religious. It didn’t just say moral. It said they are Christian. They gave 87 precedents to prove it. Do you know how many precedents they gave in 1962 when they changed the meaning? Zero! There was no previous precedent in their favor. None!
Daniel Webster said, “Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens.” Then he said this, “Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion... They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society and diffuse its influence through all their institutions civil, political, or literary.”
Let me give you a few illustrations. How many of you have ever heard of the American Tract Society? Do you know who started that? The same guys that forged the Constitution. Guys like John Jay and Francis Scott Key wrote gospel tracts to spread the message of salvation. They weren’t the only ones. Have you ever heard of the American Bible Society? You know who started that? Our Founding Fathers. How about the Philadelphia Bible Society? By the way, the Capital was there for a short time? Founding Fathers.
Do you know why the Founding Fathers wanted to have an educational system? Benjamin Rush was front and center on this, but in essence he said, “We have to have an educational system because if people cannot read, they can’t read the Bible. If they can’t read the Bible, they will be immoral. If they are immoral, they can’t be free.” He said, “We want a free people. We need people to learn to read so that they can be moral and free.” Everything they did was to establish Biblical authority in the lives of people and get people acquainted with Bible truth.
Patrick Henry stated, “Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation of infidels and idolaters should be a nation of free men.” That means we are headed to tyranny and oppression. He also said, “It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. He said, “A vitiated state of morals and a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.” I’d say we are in trouble, and most people don’t even realize it.
John Adams said, “Our Constitution is made only for a law abiding and religious people; it is wholly inadequate to govern any other.” What is he saying? He is saying if I won’t assume responsibility for myself, and I won’t temper my conduct personally, it requires more government to do that. By the way, that is a Bible principle too, you know. “For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.” (Proverbs 28:2) That means that the more transgression you have, the less self-control you have, and the more government you require. Does that make you wonder at all why the liberals and the left wingers, the socialists, the globalists, why they promote anarchy in the street? Why they promote hate? They have got everybody hating each other and while everybody is hating each other they are destroying both groups, but they distracted the attention away from themselves, so we are all hating each other.
Liberals divide and conquer, but they promote immorality. They promote things that destroy the home because the home is a Bible-based Christian institution. Parents rearing children is Christian. Church is Christian. Those are things that are ordained of God, and they get in the way of the socialistic crowd trying to take control. If Christianity is the root of liberty and salvation is the source of Christianity, then people must be born again. I am going to tell you something folks, if you let them lock you in your house during all this stuff, they haven’t slowed down their agenda, they just stopped yours. They stopped you from going to church. You stay out of church for about two months and you will be so backslidden you won’t want to come back because you’ve got flesh like I have got flesh. You will get comfortable. They will stop you from winning a soul while they are converting people right and left to socialism with the media. They haven’t slowed down their agenda. They are diverting young people right and left, convincing them how terrible America is, how awful it is.
I am going to tell you something pal, before you swallow that, you better go around the world and check some of these countries out. If you have to kneel to disrespect the American Flag, you show me the one you can stand for. If the flag divides us instead of unites us, tell me what unites us? A house divided against itself cannot stand, and those are the very words of Jesus. The leftists keep dividing and conquering.
Thomas Jefferson was like a prophet. That guy said some things that sounds like he’s here today and knew exactly what would happen. He said, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” That is a Bible principle too. If you get hungry enough, you will work. I am not talking about people who are incapable. We are supposed to care for people who can’t work. But there are second and third generation welfare people that never hit a lick in their life, and they are telling you how oppressed they are. I have been paying their way forever. You have been paying their way forever. My tax money buys everything you eat, and you are oppressed?
Jefferson also said, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” I don’t want a government to take care of me. I will take care of myself. I will feed and clothe myself. I will generate my own income. I will work as hard as I need to. I want them to just watch the borders and protect me from enemies, foreign and domestic, just do their job and quit tampering with me.
I don’t want the government’s protection from a virus. Government, at least a republic like we live in, was never ever intended to be a cow to be milked. It is supposed to be a watchdog to protect liberty. When it becomes a cow to be milked, we are in major trouble, and that is where we are today. We have so many government programs that you can’t finance all of them. It is unsustainable. The Green New Deal??? The brain-dead new deal! If you had all the money in the world you couldn’t finance that thing. Are you kidding? Do you think money just falls out of the sky? You think that you just keep printing paper and it is not going to destroy the value of the dollar worldwide?
Jefferson also said, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.” That is not what we want. I mentioned earlier that socialism promises equality, and by the way, it delivers. The problem is that the people who buy in never do examine what kind of equality it produces. I have been all over the world. I preached in Russia in the 90s when they started to let folks come in. I preached in Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine. They were in dire poverty.
I stayed in a preacher’s home in Russia. He lived in government housing, like everybody did. A little concrete cubicle, a couple of rooms for parents and a bunch of kids. Government provides the housing and they decide what you get. When I was down in the Ukraine, the great blessing was that we had hot water every third day from the central government boiler. Oh, but socialism is wonderful, and America is awful, right? Only people that have never been anywhere else are dumb enough to believe that.
I talked to a man in Russia, and I said to him, “It looks to me like you have all the same natural resources in Russia that we have in America. Why does everybody live in abject poverty?” He smiled, and through the interpreter he said, “Oh, that is easy. Over here, the government owns everything. We all work for the government.” Then he smiled and said, “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” You know what he was telling me? There is no incentive to excel.
Doesn’t it sound wonderful? We are going to make everybody equal -- equally poor. That means if you work 80 hours a week you can’t excel and get ahead. That wouldn’t be fair. You ought to be equal with the couch potato. That is what socialism does. Why would a couch potato ever get off the couch and do anything if you are going to give him the same amount of money for laying there, and why would a hardworking man keep working hard when you are going to take everything he works for and give it to somebody else and you refuse to let him excel when he has earned it? People today are not thinking straight.
Jefferson went on and said this, “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is both sinful and tyrannical.” He is talking about taxation without representation, them taking my money and using it to propagate ideas that I disbelieve. How about family planning where about two-thirds of the money goes to murdering babies? Take my tax money and pour it into that without my consent. How about abortion itself? How about the sodomite causes that they are promoting? How about sending billions of dollars to Muslim countries that would like to slit my throat and yours? I don’t want to finance that. How about training atheists and evolutionists in the public schools and using my tax money to do it?
The same people who cry about poverty in this country, if they quit sending it to Muslim countries and used it in the society here, there wouldn’t be much poverty. Some people are going to be in poverty because they are in sin. You got that? Sin produces poverty. There are people who can’t hold down a job because they are in a state of addiction. They are dysfunctional. I am for trying to reach them, help them, restore them, but it is not society’s fault, it is not the church’s fault, and it is not the government’s fault that somebody has an addiction problem that has destroyed their ability to hold a job. We can have compassion, but we better not use foolishness as a cure. We will encourage it rather than discouraging it.
We live in the days of Isaiah 5:20. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Everything is the exact opposite of what it really is. Now they tell us that sodomites are normal. It is just a preferred lifestyle. And those of us that are appalled at that perversion, they say we are sick. We have homophobia, and I have a bad case of it. I may be terminal! I am certainly incurable! I hate to break your hearts, guys, but I have never seen a good-looking man. If I ever see a good-looking man, I am going for shots, glasses, and a few other things. God help us! I am so weary of this insanity. I am not just sitting back silently and letting them influence our children to believe that this is the norm. This is not normal. This is wild perversion being justified.
Listen folks, for 170 years or longer, sodomy was on the books as a felony in virtually every state in the United States. George Washington had a man by the name of Tupper who attempted an act of sodomy. He had him fifed and drummed out of camp in infamy, kicked out of the Army. Maybe we ought to catch up with a little history.
“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” (Isaiah 1:4-6) What do you mean when you say somebody is sick in the head? God said, the whole head is sick. He is talking about insanity. Their decisions are so unsound and unbiblical and so much in reverse to reality, and if you listen to them, everything they say is the opposite of what it really is. The whole head is sick.
The whole heart is faint. Judaism is the heart of Israel. If the heart stops, guess what happens to the body? It dies. Christianity is the heart of America, and the heart is faint. Church, we need revival. The heart is faint. If the heart stops, America dies, and there is no America without Christianity. I am not talking about the places where they turn the church into a theater and everything is contemporary and they don’t have a Bible and they play rock music, dress down, or don’t bother to dress at all.
Today America has sodomite parades, riots in the street, and the mayors and governors are involved in it. Tell me, how do all these ball bats and bricks get delivered to where the riot just happens to erupt? I’m talking about pallets of bricks and ball bats. You ought to find the guy that delivered them, and string him up by his ears. Foolishness. They never do get to the bottom of this stuff because it would be incriminating, I am afraid, for a bunch of leaders in this country.
Jefferson also said, “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes, a principle that, if acted upon, would save half the wars of the world.” If every generation would pay its own bills and they didn’t stack debt upon debt. He goes on and says this. “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered.” How much worse is it that the Federal Reserve is not even an entity of the United States? Dictating the value of the dollar and the interest rate and everything else.
Ronald Reagan said, “Government is like a baby. It has an alimentary canal with a huge appetite on one end and no sense of responsibility on the other end.” How true that statement is? He also said, “If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will just be a nation gone under.” We are one nation under God, and if we ever forget that, then ‘the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God’ -- we are done.
I am telling you that we, as a nation, are on the cusp of destruction. We must wake up. Hear me and hear me well. Salvation and Bible Christianity is the solution. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (II Chronicles 7:14) Is there anybody here that thinks this the land doesn’t need a healing from God? Quit pointing fingers and say, “It’s me, it’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” Humble ourselves and pray. Prayer is getting into the presence of God and obtaining an answer.
Did he instruct us to seek God’s hand? Oh no! We do that every day. “Lord, do this, give me that.” No, we need to seek God’s face, His person. God provides with His hand, but we are supposed to seek His person, His favor. We are supposed to seek Him, not just what He can do. Seek God’s face and turn from OUR wicked ways. Don’t look at me like you don’t have any of those. Turn from our wicked ways, then will He hear from Heaven, and He will forgive our sin and heal our land.
Folks listen to me, if we are the cure, then we are also the problem. If we will have revival, God said he will heal the land. That means we are the cure. America is in the shape that its in because there are dead flies in the ointment of the apothecary. He didn’t say dead elephants. It’s those dead flies that you figure out a way to justify. It is about time that we cleanse the ointment of the apothecary. It is about time that we humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways. It is about time that we realize that we are either going to have revival or destruction nationally. Hear me, if liberty goes, persecution comes. Don’t you think that you are just going to come to church when you please and they are going to let you alone once constitutional liberty is destroyed. Everything is on the line right now.
We need revival desperately, and revival has to start with me, and it has to start with you. Are we going to have any of that right now, or are we going to wait until it is too late, and say, “I didn’t think this would ever happen in America?” If we don’t have revival, we are going to lose our liberty and experience persecution and have more problems than you can imagine.
We need revival now, not later. We need to draw a circle on the floor, kneel inside the circle and say, “Oh God, please send a revival inside this circle.” I am not concerning myself about what is wrong with everybody else. It is me, and I need to get right, and I need to get clean, and I need to be filled with the Spirit of God. I want to be used of God. I want personal revival. If we have it, revival is contagious. If anybody gets it, it will affect other people. I plead with you to look at the gravity of the moment and realize what is at stake and what the cure is and do your part as an individual believer.