Point of View July 4, 2024 – Hour 1 : History of Our Independence

[00:00:00] Hour 2, 2020

[00:00:44] more information let me just mention that we'll have some material on the website but much of what we'll be talking about comes from many of the booklets that we've made available in the past and if you're not a donor to

[00:00:56] point of view there is a lot of good reasons to donate to point of view not the least of which is of course you can support this program you'll receive the Outlook magazine but if you give at a significant level we send these

[00:01:08] booklets out each month and I'm going to be pulling from some of them just to really educate all of us about the 4th of July where does that come from well again the Declaration of Independence was actually formally ratified by the

[00:01:22] Second Constitutional Congress on July 4th 1776 and that's what established what eventually came to be known as the United States of America now they had met together before as 13 colonies and they were actually declaring that they

[00:01:41] were no longer subject to or even you could say subordinate to the monarchy of England and King George and so there is a sense in which they were uniting as 13 colonies to say that they were going to actually declare their

[00:01:57] independence from the crown and from England and the resolution which we'll talk about in just a minute in more detail was first put forward on July 2nd and adopted then on July 4th now the Independence Day that we experienced

[00:02:17] today really is associated with all sorts of things fireworks and parades and barbecues and picnics baseball games political speeches in the like and there was even an assumption early on that there would be a celebration of that day

[00:02:33] interestingly enough the person that probably wrote the most about this is John Adams again who was John Adams was the first vice president of the United States he became the second president of the United States and later his son

[00:02:48] became a president as well and interestingly enough he wrote to his wife Abigail that he said on the second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epic in the history of America I am apt to believe that it will be

[00:03:04] celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival it ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God but it also will be solemnized with pomp and parade and shows and games

[00:03:20] and sports and guns and bells and bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other from this time forward forever well he was right about the fact that there would be celebrations he was wrong on the date it

[00:03:33] turned out that we celebrate that on the fourth of July rather than when the actual resolution that came from Richard Henry Lee actually Richard Henry Lee was put forward but again that I think gives you a little bit of a sense that even

[00:03:48] back in 1776 and shortly thereafter there was a real sense that this would be a celebration they are think had no idea that how long this war of independence would take place but nevertheless there you find yourself

[00:04:05] with again the declaration but a little bit of history in the next segment will get into some aspects of the declaration but this was something that was put forward and there were individuals who were then drafted to actually put

[00:04:20] together the declaration and just the next segment I'll talk about that in more detail and so then you have this resolution that came on July 2nd from Richard Henry Lee of Virginia actually declared the United States independent

[00:04:33] of rule from Great Britain and then of course they have been turned their attention to the drafting of the declaration which was prepared by a committee of five the principal author of course was Thomas Jefferson you

[00:04:47] oftentimes see pictures and I have had a picture in my office of everyone signing the declaration but they didn't all sign it on the fourth of July some of them didn't sign it till August so the picture looks really nice

[00:05:00] that's another place where John Adams got very upset about this he said that's really not how it took place but again it was a picture to show all the signers of the declaration and of course is something that of course is now part of

[00:05:14] history but I also might just since we're talking about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams mentioned something which I mentioned my wife the other day she said I did not know that it turns out that two of the signatories of the

[00:05:26] Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both who served as presidents of the United States both died on the same day July 4th 1826 which was the 50th anniversary of the declaration just a interesting

[00:05:43] kind of footnote and James Monroe who is not a founding father but also another president he died on the fourth of July as well so kind of interesting to see how that developed but the next year after 1776 in 1777 there was a tradition

[00:05:58] of firing gunshots 13 times in a salute and this oftentimes was done in the morning and in the evening to represent of course the 13 colonies you would then had some articles coming out calling for an official dinner of the Continental

[00:06:14] Congress gun salutes speeches prayers and all the things that John Adams predicted really took place in 1778 now of course we are in the midst of some really difficult times during the American Revolution but again in the headquarters at Ross Hall which is in New Jersey then General George

[00:06:35] Washington Mark the fourth of July with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute and even John Adams and Benjamin Franklin who were not in the country that time they were over as ambassadors they actually held a

[00:06:51] dinner for Americans in Paris in that case then in 1779 July 4th fell on a Saturday so they decided to have the holiday on July 5th 1781 you have the Massachusetts General Court really became the first state legislature to

[00:07:08] recognize the fourth of July as a state celebration two years later in 1783 Salem North Carolina held a celebration with a very challenging music program that was put together and the town celebrated its first public fourth of

[00:07:26] July event which was documented by some of the churches and the rest and so then you move from the 18th century into the 19th century and by 1870 the United States Congress made Independence Day a holiday for federal employees but it was

[00:07:44] an unpaid holiday and by 1938 Congress changed Independence Day or the fourth of July to a paid federal holiday little bit of the tradition of the fourth of July but when we come back we're going to talk about the Declaration of

[00:08:01] Independence and the Constitution and really look at this from a Christian point of view why is it that we have for example this idea of so many rights being rooted in God and in the Creator who is endowed us with those rights and then

[00:08:18] why is it in the Constitution we have this idea of the separation of powers both a vertical separation of powers and the horizontal separation of powers that has to do with again a Christian view of human nature and then we'll move on to

[00:08:32] some of the other great stories of some of the patriot preachers and even the whole structure of our government so on this fourth of July sit back and learn as we learn a little bit more about the history of the fourth of July

[00:08:53] this is viewpoints with Kirby Anderson today is the fourth of July and I thought I would take a moment to talk about the origin of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson said that many of the ideas in the Declaration came from John Locke

[00:09:13] Jefferson also gives credit to the writer Algernon Sidney who in turn sites most prominently Aristotle Plato Roman Republican writers and the Old Testament legal scholar Gary Amos argues that locks to treatises of government is simply Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex in a popularized form

[00:09:31] Amos says in his book defending the declaration that the law of nature is God's general revelation of law in creation which God also supernaturally writes on the hearts of men this foundation helps explain the tempered nature of the American Revolution the Declaration of Independence was a bold

[00:09:47] document but not a radical one the colonists did not break with England for light and transient causes they were mindful that Romans 13 says that we should be in subjection to the governing authorities which are established by God

[00:09:58] yet when they suffered from a long train of abuses and usurpations they argued that it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government Jefferson also drew from George Mason's Declaration of

[00:10:11] Rights published June 6 1776 the first paragraph states that all men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent natural rights among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty with the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety the

[00:10:30] Declaration of Independence is more than 200 years old it was a monumental document at the time even today its words ring with truth and inspire new generations I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view go deeper on

[00:10:49] topics like you just heard by visiting point of view dotnet that's point of view dotnet you're listening to point of view your listener supported source for truth once again happy fourth of July and this is Independence Day and I thought it

[00:11:08] would be good on this day to spend a little bit of time talking about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and how do we think about this from a Christian point of view I might just mention again we have

[00:11:18] resources here at point of view if you'd like to study this or use this to educate your children and grandchildren maybe your homeschooling there are all sorts of great resources that we would love to make available to you let's go

[00:11:30] back to the day of 1776 and we of course talked about July 2nd and July 4th in 1776 but actually the resolution that started all this came about in June of 1776 from Richard Henry Lee which he called for the Continental Congress

[00:11:51] to actually put together a formal declaration of independence however at that late date it was interesting there was still opposition to that resolution so at the time Congress then recessed for three weeks to allow delegates to return home and discuss this proposition with their constituents while a

[00:12:13] committee was put together to actually write this particular declaration together the initial draft written by Thomas Jefferson and a variety of other individuals who were part of this process and because of course he was the major

[00:12:30] writer along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams a number of others really kind of left out God in the manuscript in which there was sort of a reference to the laws of nature in nature's God yet even this particular phrase I think

[00:12:45] shows an implicit reference to the laws of God I'll get into more of that in just a minute but the phrase laws of nature were really understood back in the 18th century England in the United States or that time just America the

[00:12:59] colonies it was a direct reference to the idea of the laws of God in a created order the phrase had been used for example by John Locke in his second treatise on civil government you also find it in William Blackstone's

[00:13:13] commentary on the laws of England but it turns out that after that first draft what Jefferson was content to leave implicit most of the other members of the committee wanted to make more explicit and that's where then they

[00:13:27] actually added some very significant points which probably seem the most familiar to us first of all they change the language to read that all men are what endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among

[00:13:40] these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness later than the Continental Congress even added some other particular statements as well for example they said that they were appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of

[00:13:57] our intentions and that is certainly the case because they wanted to make sure that as they were engaged in what could be considered today's civil disobedience or a revolution or a revolt that they were following the dictates of God and

[00:14:14] then they also went on to add that they were placing firm reliance on the protection of divine providence and the reason for that is they recognize that this ragtag bunch of militia and regulars we're going to now go against

[00:14:31] in a major battle and war against the greatest military power of the 18th century and so you can see that even as you read through the Declaration of Independence lots of times people will say well it really doesn't mention God

[00:14:47] well if you think about it actually the Declaration of Independence mentions God four times either implicitly or explicitly and I think shows even in the Declaration you see this idea of a reliance on God but also I've pointed

[00:15:03] out in some of my writings that the declaration was not actually written just in a vacuum in an intellectual vacuum because these ideas were in the minds of individuals who were actually debating liberty and tyranny and

[00:15:20] certainly were debating some of these ideas and we're very familiar with not only the ideas articulated by John Locke but also from the ideas articulated by a man by the name of Samuel Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford

[00:15:35] wrote a book called Lex Rex and this was really written to refute the idea of the divine right of Kings. Lex Rex established two principles that there should be a covenant or a constitution between the

[00:15:51] ruler and the people and then second that all men are sinners so that means that no man is superior to any other and so these principles of liberty and equality of course are found not only in Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex but also in

[00:16:06] John Locke's second treatise on government and if you go reading through some of the other things you can see that John Locke as many people have pointed out explained that the law of nature is God's general revelation in

[00:16:21] creation but then also we see that God supernaturally writes the laws of men on laws of God on the hearts of men and so you can see that this idea of the law of nature certainly applies to creation and to our conscience but then of course the

[00:16:41] law of God also represents the idea that God's eternal law is written as well. So you find I think a justification for this in certainly scripture in Romans 1 and 2 but you also read about this in of course John Locke's writing of the

[00:16:58] second treatise of government and Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex and so in some respects it helps us understand that the colonists were not calling for a complete revolution against God they did not as it says in the Declaration break with England for light in transient causes because they recognize

[00:17:19] that as it says in Romans 13 that we should be in subjection to governing authorities but they also went on to write in the Declaration that when they had suffered from what's called a long train of abuses and usurpations that then

[00:17:35] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish government and to institute a new government so again you can see some of these very important ideas and one other place where you also see the influence is that not only did we have

[00:17:50] at the time of the Declaration other statements being made in various literature but you also have what was called the Declaration of Rights that was established in Virginia the writer of that is a man by the name of George

[00:18:06] Mason and he actually in his first paragraph said that all men are born equally free and independent and have certain inherent natural rights that among these are the enjoyment of life and liberty and the means of acquiring

[00:18:22] and possessing property and pursuing and obtain happiness and safety can you not see how similar that is of course to the Declaration and it illustrates again that in the Declaration they were following some of these biblical principles what about the Constitution because after we established the

[00:18:41] government there was a need to write a constitution and this is where again we have a number of scholars that have gone back and looked at the writings of the individuals during the founding period some individuals were from LSU

[00:18:58] and University of Houston matter of fact one of my major professors at Georgetown were assembling some of these writings and they found that if you looked at these writings there were about 3,000 citations as individuals that were the

[00:19:13] framers of the Constitution wrote back and forth they oftentimes cited things and the particular document cited most often was the Bible 34% of the time and what I think is so striking about that is is that if you go back and look at

[00:19:30] those citations three-fourths of those citations were actually references to some of the sermons of that day after the break we're going to talk about some of these sermons that were preached by the Patriot preachers and so in some

[00:19:44] respects I think it is fair to say that many of the ideas that made their way into the Constitution actually came from the preaching of pastors in the 18th century and then of course you have this whole focus on the fact that

[00:20:00] government needs to be protecting us from the fact that human beings are sinful as James Madison said in the Federalist Papers but what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature if men were

[00:20:14] angels no government would be necessary if angels were to govern men neither external nor internal controls and government would be necessary but he goes on to say that in framing a government which is to be administered by men over

[00:20:27] men the great difficulty lies in this you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place obliged it to control itself and that's where our idea of checks and balances comes from that there is a

[00:20:41] horizontal distribution of powers an executive branch a legislative branch and a judicial branch that keeps each other in check and then you have a vertical distribution of powers in which you have certain powers given a numerator

[00:20:55] power to the federal or national government the rest are reserved to the states and the people so whether you look at the Declaration or the Constitution you can see many of those Christian ideas made their way into

[00:21:07] these documents so we come back from the break we're going to talk about where those ideas came from and many of them came from the sermons of pastors in the 18th century happy fourth of July let's take a break we'll come back and talk

[00:21:22] about some of those patriot preachers right after these important messages in 19th century London two towering historical figures did battle not with guns and bombs but words and ideas London was home to Karl Marx the father of communism and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon London was in

[00:21:49] many ways the center of the world economically militarily and intellectually Marx sought to destroy religion the family and everything the Bible supports Spurgeon stood against him warning of socialism's dangers Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth it is truth for all

[00:22:10] of life where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the viewpoints commentary at point of view

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[00:22:49] point of view will continue after you are listening to point of view the opinions expressed on point of view do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station and now here again is Kirby Anderson

[00:23:14] back once again fourth of July Independence Day and again happy fourth of July but we have been talking about if you've been listening to the program a little bit on the history of the Independence Day and fourth of July

[00:23:26] celebrations also been talking about how from a Christian point of view we can look at issues like the Declaration and Constitution and see some of those Christian ideas surfacing but I thought we would now in this segment at least

[00:23:39] talk about what I call the Patriot preachers and I do this for a couple of reasons first of all there is of course the perennial question about how much pastors and churches should be involved in the moral and political issues of

[00:23:51] their day that's a question that's been around for a long time and as you'll see in just a few minutes and many of these pastors and preachers actually directly address those issues but there's also the issue I mentioned just a few minutes ago

[00:24:03] and that is many of these ideas that surfaced in the Constitution came from those sermons of the 18th century pastors and preachers and I think it also is helpful as we talk about what some of these pastors endured as they spoke out

[00:24:19] to remind us of the price that they paid as well so there's lots of things to really begin to address but again how did pastors back in the 18th century during what's called the founding era really address this growing conflict

[00:24:34] between England and the colonies well let's see if we can look at a couple of examples first of all we have to recognize that there are some very good books on this subject this may be something where you're hearing it for the

[00:24:46] first time and wonder will there other resources I mean I appreciate the fact you have a booklet on that but I do document Frank Moore's book the Patriot preachers of the American Revolution we have John Wingate Thornton in his book

[00:25:01] the pulpit of the American Revolution in which he talked about the fact that the fathers meaning the founders of the Constitution framers did not divorce politics and religion but they denounced the separation is ungodly indeed the clergy were generally consulted by the civil authorities and not infrequently

[00:25:20] the suggestions from the pulpit on election days and other special occasions were enacted into laws in the state was developed out of the church the annual election sermon bears witness that our fathers even began their civil year and its responsibilities with an appeal to heaven and recognize

[00:25:38] Christian morality is the only basis of good laws now again it would be wrong to say that all of the framers were Christians that is certainly not the case but it's also equally wrong as many secular historians have said that there

[00:25:51] was really no Christian influence in the founding of this country hard to maintain but nevertheless people do say that Alice Baldwin probably best known for talking about the New England preachers and said no one can fully understand the American Revolution and the American constitutional system

[00:26:08] without a realization of the long history and religious associations which lie back these words without realizing that for a hundred years before the revolution men were taught that these rights were protected by divine inviolable

[00:26:23] laws so I thought it might be good to maybe talk about a few of those preachers and one that certainly surfaced and I'll maybe tell you the story of Peter Muhlenberg Jonas Clark and James Caldwell John Peter Gabriel

[00:26:38] Muhlenberg is a Lutheran was a Lutheran pastor who served in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg Virginia with a heavy heart after hearing about the conflict taking place in New England comes back to his pulpit and announces

[00:26:55] from the pulpit that he was going to go off to war and preached his last sermon to his church in Woodstock Virginia in January of 1776 his great nephew wrote that on that day John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg preached on Ecclesiastes

[00:27:14] which makes some sense because you might remember by the time you get to Ecclesiastes 3 verse 8 a time for war and a time for peace and that's where he announced that there was a time to fight and that time to fight had come and then

[00:27:29] after the sermon he took off his preaching robe to display that underneath it he was actually right wearing the military uniform and called then for the men of his church to join him in the American Revolution there are

[00:27:45] very famous paintings of this matter of fact his statue is in Congress and all sorts of other things and he actually fought with George Washington at the beginning all the way down to Yorktown and later he and his brother who were

[00:28:00] also a minister served in Congress but then I have to tell the backstory which is kind of interesting because his brother Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg at the time was very critical of the fact that his brother not only was preaching

[00:28:14] on politics but also now was going to join the military and so we have some of those letters and Frederick Muhlenberg was actually accusing John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg of serving two masters and Peter Muhlenberg answered the charge in

[00:28:30] one of his letters he said I'm a clergyman it is true but I'm also a member of society as well as the poorest layman and my liberty is as dear to me as any man shall I then sit still and enjoy myself at home when the best blood

[00:28:43] of the continent is spilling heaven forbid he later went on to even add do you think then if America should be conquered I should be safe on the contrary would you no sooner fight like a man than die like the death of a dog

[00:28:57] and over time that's interesting Frederick Muhlenberg who was forced out of his pulpit in Manhattan changed his mind and not only did John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg serve in Congress but actually the first speaker of the house was his brother Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg let's talk about Jonas Clark

[00:29:17] most of us know the story of Paul Revere and again he was riding to the home of Pastor Jonas Clark in Lexington Massachusetts on that particular night in April 18th 1775 he was entertaining two guests Samuel Adams and John Hancock

[00:29:34] during the meeting Pastor Clark was asked if the minute men would fight and he said I trained them for this very hour they would fight and if need be die too under the shadow of the house of God these two men are actually trained by

[00:29:47] Captain John Parker and you may remember of course their particular statement when the British commander ordered them to throw down their arms Captain Parker and his men said we recognize no sovereign but God no king

[00:30:00] but Jesus and of course that led to as many people know the shot heard around the world one last one would be Reverend James Caldwell he served as a pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Elizabethtown New Jersey he was

[00:30:15] known kind of as the high priest of the rebellion and there was actually a price on his head because the British actually began to refer to some of these Patriot preachers as the black regiment why that well they wore black robes and

[00:30:29] they were the ones that kept stirring up the people to fight in the revolution anyway there was a price on his head and someone dressed in a British uniform actually shot and killed his wife he was able to recovery her body under the

[00:30:43] white flag and was eventually able to bury her he later himself was killed but interestingly enough probably the most famous story is where James Caldwell was in Springfield New Jersey and the soldiers ran out of wadding for their

[00:30:59] muskets Caldwell went to the Springfield Presbyterian Church filled up some of the church hymnals and encouraged the men to tear out the pages of the hymnals to use them as wadding and since many of the hymns were written by Isaac

[00:31:15] Watts he is best known for saying give them Watts boys and again one of the battles that took place there some of these key figures in the American Revolution were people like Dr. Samuel Cooper Dr. Jonathan Mayhew that's who at

[00:31:30] least John Adams the first vice president and the second president of the United States said we're so important and you might say I don't even know who they are well when John Adams was asked what caused the American Revolution he

[00:31:43] mentioned Jonathan Mayhew who's oftentimes referred to as the father of civil and religious liberty and actually wrote about and in his sermons the idea of the fact that there is a time in which we may have to disobey government

[00:31:59] he's also the one best known for the phrase no taxation without representation and of course if you are have not heard the name Samuel Cooper well some of the members of his church were John Hancock John Adams Samuel Adams also a good

[00:32:14] friend of Benjamin Franklin and of course the individuals that were part of his church actually fought in a battle of Bunker Hill which actually took place in Breed's Hill and I think you can begin to see that what we are dealing

[00:32:27] with are lots of individuals who were preaching about these issues and I'd be remiss if I did not mention at least one other name and that is John Witherspoon he was the minister and president of what today is Princeton

[00:32:41] University he preached a very famous sermon in May of 1776 calling for the fact that maybe it is time for us to disobey government when it is disobeyed God's rule and he as a preacher and a pastor was one of the individuals that

[00:32:58] signed the Declaration of Independence well if you find yourself saying I'd like to read some more about this again we have our booklet that is on a biblical view on Patriot preachers it also has a extensive bibliography of

[00:33:12] other books you could read and might be good to share that not only with your children and grandchildren but just again recount on this fourth of July this Independence Day those who came before us that applied biblical

[00:33:25] principles oftentimes in their sermons which eventually ended up in the United States Constitution let's take a break as we come back we'll talk a little bit more about some of the other aspects of Independence Day but we'll be back right

[00:33:38] after this fourth of July for the next few minutes just want to maybe send maybe think about this whole idea of how to evaluate government because a lot of people listening might even you think of well does that mean that the present form

[00:34:17] of government fits all the biblical requirements and not necessarily any form of government is going to have its limitations and given the fact that over these many centuries we've had monarchies we've had dictatorships we've had authoritarian governments there been attempts to implement in some of the

[00:34:36] Muslim world of theocracy we've had democracies a republic how do we think about this and it seems to me that the first thing we should always do as Christians has come back to biblical principles and I would say that there

[00:34:49] are two very important principles we should think about the first is the issue of human nature we recognize that we're created in the image of God and have value and dignity we have judgment we have rationality but as soon as we

[00:35:03] make our way through the book of Genesis we get to Genesis 3 and we recognize that there's the fall and when you spend time in the book of Romans in Romans 3 23 Romans 6 23 you recognize of course the very clear teaching about human

[00:35:21] sinfulness and so again if we're going to be in a world where sin reigns and it does then we don't live in a sinless world like the garden maybe there will be a future time in which we will once again in the new heavens and new earth

[00:35:39] never have to think about sin but we live in the world right now that does now there have been various attempts to put together governments some have been rather utopian Plato for example in the Republic I suggested that maybe we could

[00:35:55] just find really enlightened individuals and they would lead us and the problem with that is those leaders themselves would also have a sin nature and though they might generally be benevolent and enlightened there'd also be the concern

[00:36:11] that they also would be affected by sin and that is the concern I think Christians also have to reject other utopian ideas the Marxist view of government proposed by Karl Marx assumed that we'll eventually get to a utopia

[00:36:26] now going through maybe socialism where it will create a new human race we would no longer have greed we no longer have ambition we no longer have selfishness that's not going to work either and so it seems to me that even though we

[00:36:41] recognize that as Christians we may be created in God's image and as we become Christians we become as it says in 2nd Corinthians 5 or 17 new creatures we still need to understand the need to protect one another from any kind of

[00:37:00] concentration of power because power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely as the famous phrase goes and so we can't give total allegiance to a secular state but at the same time we need to figure out some particular way

[00:37:17] in which we can have some checks and balances in this particular regard and that's where we're going to have to begin to use this idea of human sinfulness to really begin to evaluate any kind of government program any kind

[00:37:36] of government push to put more power in the hands of individuals and so we recognize that we certainly are given the responsibility under government their various institutions one of which of course is the government the other is

[00:37:53] the family and the church but those institutions themselves also need to be protected from this as well and I think the framers wisely understood that they did not want to give too much power to any particular form of government you

[00:38:09] have of course power to actually write laws in the United States Congress but even there it's divided between a house and the Senate and bills for finances and budgeting begin in the House of Representatives but they did not want to

[00:38:25] give too much power to the executive branch to write laws because they also want to give power for really for the first time to a judicial branch to evaluate the actions of the legislature of the Congress in terms of the

[00:38:38] Constitution and also give a separate branch which would be the executive branch to implement that and so this brings you of course not only to the separation of powers but to this idea of government authority we recognize that

[00:38:53] God has indeed ordained various institutions of the institution of the church we see this in first Peter 2 and Hebrews 12 and recognize that it has a function we recognize of course the institution of the family in Ephesians

[00:39:10] 5 and first Peter 3 and other passages and then of course we have the institution of the government which we see in Romans 13 1 to 7 and so we recognize that each one of those particular institutions have a very significant responsibility and we have to also warn against the threats that

[00:39:32] sometimes come because an atheistic situation in which we have found in many of these communist countries and even some of these modern totalitarian countries actually in some respects have the government with a total responsibility over the institutions of the church and family and as we've

[00:39:54] talked about on point of view on many occasions it is not surprising that when a dictator takes over he or she will almost immediately want to remove the issue of religious liberty because we as Christians will recognize that God is

[00:40:10] sovereign in these various affairs and the sovereignty of the church and family are just as important as the sovereignty of the government and so we need to begin to think biblically about each one of those issues and begin to prevent

[00:40:26] any kind of abuse that would take place we have many lessons even in the Old Testament of that you think of David a perfect example a man who is described as a man after God's own heart we see this in first Samuel 13 it's picked up

[00:40:43] again in Acts 13 and yet what do we see by the time you get to second Samuel verses 11 and following you see that even a man after God's own heart when there wasn't checks and balances abused his authority and of course Israel

[00:40:59] experienced great calamity the founders and the framers understood that and so they recognize the potential danger of a tyranny of the minority but they also recognize the danger of actually having just a lot of people making decisions

[00:41:15] which you might almost call the tyranny of the majority that's why they weren't necessarily for this idea of a democracy where 51% can say what is right but they believed in this idea of a republic that there are certain immutable laws and you

[00:41:32] find that back in the Declaration of Independence where we started this conversation just about an hour ago because we recognize that we as individuals are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that governments

[00:41:51] are instituted by men and indeed when government becomes too abusive it is the right of the citizens to abolish or alter that government and that is of course what was the rallying cry for the American Revolution well it's just been

[00:42:08] a quick kind of teaching on the 4th of July Independence Day if you find yourself saying well I would like to know a little bit more about some of these issues can you recommend some books and booklets and resources that

[00:42:22] would be helpful first of all to educate yourself second of all to pass on these valuable principles and lessons to your children and grandchildren and I bear you good news because you can go to our website today pointofview.net find some

[00:42:37] of the material that we've talked about and you can also ask for some of the booklets that I've mentioned on everything from the Patriot preachers to the biblical view of government and those are all available at the website at

[00:42:50] pointofview.net so hope you go there and if you would like to listen to this again you can click on the button that says listen if you'd like to pass it on to others you can click on that button and use that podcast to send others but

[00:43:03] on this 4th of July I thought it'd be good to spend at least an hour talking about what the Bible has to say about liberty and tyranny there is an old military saying if you don't have communications you don't have anything

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