Leaders Who Can Answer The Call

INTRODUCTION

• PC VIDEO

• SLIDE #1

• As we celebrate this 4th of July holiday we should thank all those who have fought for the freedoms that we have.

• We live in the greatest country in the world. I believe that we live in the greatest country that has ever been.

• I want to thank all of you who have sacrificed to keep us a free nation. I hope that if our freedoms are in jeopardy again that we will respond with the same selflessness that you have.

• I want us to consider what made this country great. I believe the greatness of our country emanates from three sources.

• The foundation on which the nation was built upon, the great leaders who saw fit to build the nation on those principles, and the great people of the nation who were willing to see the wisdom of the leaders who set forth this nation.

• As great as our nation is, I am saddened when is see where this nation was to where it is today. I am afraid if the American people do not wake up and start to see where we have been going over the last 50 years that we will reach a point of no return.

• I am not convinced that our founder fought for the rights of pornographers to put their trash out.

• I am not convinced that our founders fought so that we could take God out of our schools and society.

• I am not convinced that our founder fought for Gay rights. I am not convinced that our founders fought so that a class of elitists could force their will on the people.

• I am not convinced that our founders fought for a government that intrudes into every aspect of our lives.

• Do you think the founders of this great nation fought and died for what has been done to this nation?

• God was important to our Founding Fathers, they were far from perfect men, but they knew our nation needed to have its foundation built upon Christian principles.

• SLIDE #2

• Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840), Vol. X, p. 297, April 17, 1787.

• SLIDE #3

• The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. (Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIII, p. 292-294. In a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.)

• SLIDE #4

• As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see. Benjamin Franklin, Works of Benjamin Franklin, John Bigelow, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), p. 185, to Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790.

• SLIDE #5

• The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evil men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 339, “Advice to the Young,” ¶ 53

• I can give you quotes for days. But let us move on.

• The founders fought for freedom. They felt that freedom was found in Jesus. They built this nation on Christian principles. The foundation of the Country is the Bible and faith in Jesus. This fact cannot be disputed.

• When this nation was being formed we had leaders who stepped up and answered the call. These men though not perfect were great men to whom we owe a lot for the sacrifices they made in helping form this great nation of ours!

• Today we are going to be in Exodus 18:21.

• I go to this passage because it gives us principles that we can use when we choose those who will lead our nation.

• Moses was leading the Israelites in the wilderness; he was trying to do all the work of leadership himself.

• One day Moses father-in-law Jethro saw that Moses was spending all day dealing with judgments and disputes among the people.

• Jethro confronted Moses and told him he needed to find others to help in the role of settling the disputes and making the judgments. In essence Moses was told to find men to help him lead.