2 July 2023
Suffer me again for a few moments while I digress regarding the “state of nature” that now philosophically and spiritually exists in our nation, as it did previously in much of the (third) world.
We, the USA, until recently, were uniquely a nation of laws (that restrained the power of men in government as we continually strived upward toward the goal of justice for all) and not men’s whims. We now (in our nation’s seats of power) twist logic, impulsively changing laws to punish those not responsible but blamed by false accusations of demagogues who’ve, by this means, risen into power and become tyrants.
Those who’ve been with me for a time well know the above process is spoken of by Alexander Hamilton in his first letter in defense of the Constitution and urging its ratification (see Federalist #1). He therein wrote of what he and other enlightened men learned from history: that wicked men, claiming one group was victimizing another, were those who had most often overturned the liberties of republics (causing nations to commit national suicide, which is most often the way they die).
You have also heard me speak of John Adams, warning of the danger in the vast freedoms secured by the Constitution if dishonorable and ungodly men were to take power. He said they would go through it (the restraints of the Constitution) “like a whale through a net.” He is speaking of keeping (protecting and defending) the ideas that readied the nation for “self-government.” He said the Constitution is meant to be administrated by Christian people (restraining themselves), and any others there in power are the whale of which he speaks.
Christianity is (de-centralized) self-government, a principle the founders knew well from the teaching of reverend John Wise, who wrote extensively on the subject: the principles of self-government in church and state, a Christian people governing themselves and thereby removing the need for the bloated bureaucracies which from afar now despotically rule every aspect of our lives.
So, the wicked, with evil intentions, infiltrated the church, removed good judgment, and surrendered to the calls to “keep our religion to ourselves.” They (the church) fell for the lie that told us there is such a thing as a nation without a moral standard. So, nature abhorring a vacuum, the wicked and power-hungry (barbarians) rushed into the void left by her surrender and established their kingdom of lawless men teaching against self-government.
But nature’s laws can’t be denied or avoided. Her laws were learned in the experience, in a state of nature, without any civilization or government recourse, when men by themselves understood there are certain self-restraints necessary to live in peace with others. These mostly centered on not threatening your neighbor’s life, liberty, or property; and them reciprocating and doing the same. These are also codified in God’s Commandments and are preceded by those telling us not to make any gods we put above God: exalting, teaching, and obeying His voice above all others.
Our Declaration of Independence is the only founding document that speaks of anything to which a people are “entitled.” Its first paragraph tells us it is to live “under the laws of nature and nature’s God.” It speaks of the necessary political separation from those denying us (putting under threat) this entitlement and our God-given rights, which the new government would be constituted to secure.
Friends, the LORD calls us again to this moment and the same separation from the lawless now sitting in power in every (centralized) institution of church and state.
“WHEN in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
