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Matt 22:15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.
16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.
17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?
19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius,
20 and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"
21 "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
“Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s; and to God that which is God’s.”
Next week, we will look at the second half of that verse.
But this week we will look at the first half. How does a person who is a Christian “give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s”
There is a significant movement of revisionist history on today in our country – an attempt to say that the founding of this country is not unique, that the founding Fathers were not Christians, or were not men who were friendly to Christian doctrines and the Bible…
"Lighthouses are more useful than churches." - Benjamin Franklin
Franklin never said that… it does not appear in any of his writings.
It is generally agreed that this is a paraphrase of a sentiment written in a letter to his wife shortly after he survived a shipwreck. To his wife, he wrote:
"The bell ringing for church, we went thither immediately, and with hearts full of gratitude, returned sincere thanks to God for the mercies we had received: were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint, but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a light-house."
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." - John Adams
Yes, he said those words. But here’s the whole quote:
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell."
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." - Thomas Jefferson
Ok, here’s the full quote:
“the Christian philosophy, -- the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man.”
See what I mean?
In 1787, the year the Constitution was written and approved by Congress, that same Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance which outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory and stated the basic rights of citizens in a similar way as the Bill of Rights. In the Northwest Ordinance, they emphasized the essential need to teach religion and morality in the schools, saying:
"Article 3: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
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John Adams
SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; JUDGE; DIPLOMAT; ONE OF TWO SIGNERS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS; SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
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.
John Quincy Adams
SIXTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; DIPLOMAT; SECRETARY OF STATE; U. S. SENATOR; U. S. REPRESENTATIVE;
The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.
Samuel Adams
SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; “FATHER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION”; RATIFIER OF THE U. S. CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS
I conceive we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world . . . that the confusions that are and have been among the nations may be overruled by the promoting and speedily bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.
George Washington
1st U.S. President
"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
--The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.
John Adams
2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.
"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their address, or by me in my answer.
And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity
Thomas Jefferson
3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever
John Hancock
1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."
--History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229.
Samuel Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Father of the American Revolution
"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."
--As Governor of Massachusetts, Proclamation of a Day of Fast, March 20, 1797.
So you may see that there is no conflict between being a Christian and an American. What is patriotism?
Not a cheap nationalism, a “rah-rah, we’re the best and everyone else are losers with no clue” attitude…
What is patriotism?
Patriotism is not what you believe about your country in relation to other countries… patriotism is what you believe about yourself in relation to your country!
It is more reflected in “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” than it is in “make America great again.”
Patriotism means treasuring your country and all that is good in it, and working to change all that is not.
Patriotism is being willing to sacrifice and give up what is easy for the good of your country.
I want to tell you 2 stories this morning that illustrate two things that patriotism means:
1. Patriotism means country before self & ambition.
Self and ambition might as well be the hallmark of every person running for the office of president in this election cycle.
Contrast that with this story:
George Washington – Eric Metaxas story
It says much about Washington’s character that, following General Cornwallis’s surrender, Washington told his men to treat their defeated foes with respect and to refrain from shouting taunts and insults at them. “It is sufficient for us that we witness their humiliation,” he said. “Posterity will [cheer] for us.”32 There was something about Washington’s heroic, humble, fearless, and fair example that inspired fierce devotion in the men under his leadership. In fact, the respect, admiration, and love his men had for him increased during the years of war. Biographer David Adler writes, “His men followed him barefoot through the snow at Trenton. They wintered with him at Valley Forge without proper clothes, food, or firewood. Surely, they fought not only for independence, but also for Washington.”
But it was what George Washington did after the war that for all time marks him as someone who stands in the very first rank of the great men of history….Some talked of doing so literally, of crowning Washington as King George I of America—or at the very least, of making him into a kinglike figure. Even those who disliked this idea feared that with all Washington had done, it was somehow inevitable: he had simply earned it. And those who bitterly opposed the idea expected Washington to take [it].
They pointed to Washington’s desire to maintain a standing army as evidence that he planned a military coup after the war. As they saw it, newly independent America would end up with a military dictatorship, with Washington as dictator in chief. Yet Washington was that rarest of men on the expansive stage of history…
It took place in March 1783. The war was over and won, but the mood among the officers of the Continental Army in Newburgh, New York—Washington’s headquarters at that time—had turned decidedly ugly. This was mainly because Congress was quite broke and would not likely be able to honor its promise to compensate the soldiers for their years of arduous service to their country. It seemed Congress wasn’t even able to provide pensions. This was a tremendously harsh blow to these men who had given so much for their country, and they now complained bitterly. One officer named Lewis Nicola did more than complain. He took action, circulating an anonymous letter among the men, putting “in writing what many officers were whispering behind the scenes: that the Continental Congress’s erratic conduct of the war had exposed the weakness of all republics and the certain disaster that would befall postwar America unless Washington declared himself king.”
34 It was a threat: if they did not receive their promised pay and pensions, the officers determined to seize control of the fledgling government. Of course he proposed that Washington should be their leader. In reply, a horrified Washington told Nicola to “banish these thoughts from your Mind” and “denounced the scheme as ‘big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country.’ ”
The following March saw the arrival of what became known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. As Joseph Ellis writes in His Excellency, George Washington, “Scholars who have studied the Newburgh Conspiracy agree that it probably originated in Philadelphia within a group of congressmen, led by Robert Morris, who decided to use the threat of a military coup as a political weapon to gain passage of a revenue bill . . . and perhaps to expand the powers of the Confederation Congress over the states.”35
An anonymous letter, which later became known as the Newburgh Address, made the rounds in Newburgh. Written by Major John Armstrong Jr., it contained not one but two threats: if Congress did not guarantee back pay and commutation, “the army would disband,” even if the war continued (the peace treaty would not be signed until September 3, 1783). And if a peace treaty were signed, well then, the army would simply and absolutely refuse to dissolve. In effect, Armstrong was proposing tyranny and treason both.36
When Washington became aware of what was happening, the great man was horrified. And discovering that the leaders of the conspiracy planned to meet on March 11 to plot strategy, Washington stepped in. He “countermanded the order for a meeting [and] . . . scheduled a session for all officers on March 16.”37 Washington then set about writing the speech of his life. Everything he believed in was at stake. For one thing, his hard-won reputation was in peril, but much more important, the very existence and future of America were threatened. If not for what he then said and did, all he had said and done up to that point might have been for naught: the newly birthed nation might well have been strangled in its cradle.
On March 16, just before noon, the officers were gathered in a newly built hall in Newburgh called the Temple, to await the start of the strategy session, which was to be chaired by General Horatio Gates. At twelve o’clock sharp, General Washington entered the room and strode to the podium. Silence fell over the room as Washington removed his speech from a pocket and began reading in his slow, quiet style. First, he would rebuke them. “Gentlemen,” he began, “by an anonymous summons, an attempt has been made to convene you together; how inconsistent with the rules of propriety, how unmilitary, and how subversive of all order and discipline.”38 Many of the men present were angry with Washington for not doing enough, in their view, to secure their salaries and pensions. Washington reminded these men that he was one of them: If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country. As I have never left your side one moment, but when called from you on public duty.
As I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits. As I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army. As my heart has ever expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests.”39 Washington then got to the main point, referring to the—in his mind scandalous—letter that had been circulated: But how are [these interests] to be promoted? The way is plain, says the anonymous addresser. If war continues, remove into the unsettled country . . . and leave an ungrateful country to defend itself. But who are they to defend? Our wives, our children, our farms, and other property which we leave behind us. Or, in this state of hostile separation, are we to take [our families] to perish in a wilderness, with hunger, cold, and nakedness? If peace takes place, never sheathe your swords, says he, until you have obtained full and ample justice;
this dreadful alternative, of either deserting our country in the extremist hour of her distress or turning our arms against it (which is the apparent object, unless Congress can be compelled into instant compliance), has something so shocking in it that humanity revolts at the idea.
My God! What can this writer have in view, by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country? Rather, is he not an insidious foe?40 Washington then repeated what the soldiers had grown tired of hearing: that they should be patient as the Congress slowly sorted out how and when and how much to pay them. He also pointed out how far their mutiny would reach: Why, then, should we distrust [the Congress]? And, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired; and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe, for its fortitude and
patriotism? And for what is this done? To bring the object we seek nearer? No! Most certainly, in my opinion, it will cast it at a greater distance.41 The old general then reminded his officers of what they had come to mean to each other: For myself . . . a grateful sense of the confidence you have ever placed in me, a recollection of the cheerful assistance and prompt obedience I have experienced from you, under every vicissitude of fortune, and the sincere affection I feel for an army I have so long had the honor to command will oblige me to declare . . . that, in the attainment of complete justice for all your toils and dangers, and in the gratification of every wish, so far as may be done consistently with the great duty I owe my country and those powers we are bound to respect, you may freely command my services to the utmost of my abilities.42 Washington then gave what to many is the most moving part of his speech: Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained. . . . Let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overthrow the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.43 He encouraged his men to look to the future—to imagine what generations yet unborn would think of them and what they had achieved: By thus determining and thus acting, . . . you will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings. And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you haveRead more at location 713
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exhibited to mankind, “Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”44 Ironically, as magnificent and eloquent as these words are, it was not the words of Washington’s speech that turned the tide and saved the American Experiment. Historians tell us that as Washington finished his speech, the room was perfectly silent. But they differ in their opinions about precisely what happened next.
Did Washington plan and rehearse his next move? Or was it a spontaneous act? Announcing that he had something else to read to the men, Washington now reached into his uniform pocket and slowly pulled out a letter penned by a Virginia congressman. Washington unfolded it and began to read aloud, appearing to stumble over the words. Reaching into his waistcoat pocket, the general produced a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. His men had never seen them before, although the fifty-one-year-old general had been using them as reading glasses for some time. Washington apologized for the delay, saying, as he unfolded the spectacles and put them on: “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.”45 Somehow, these disarming, humble, and spontaneous words, spoken by the exceptional man standing before them, took everyone by surprise, and in an instant, the mood of the angry, battle-hardened men was utterly changed. Indeed, many of them wept openly as Washington read the letter and then quietly walked out of the room. The powerful temptation to crown Washington king or dictator and to wrest from Congress all control of the fledgling nation had been dealt a death blow—and the Nicola and Armstrong letters were cast upon the ash heap of history. Who can imagine that the liberty of millions might depend on the character of one man? What was it that gave him the strength to do the right thing when the temptation to do something less noble must have been overwhelming? In acting as he did that day—and on other occasions when the siren call of power might have overwhelmed a lesser man—Washington “demonstrated that he was as immune to the seductions of dictatorial power as he was to smallpox.”46 Most of us can hardly fathom just how unusual
Washington’s decision was. In rejecting power, General Washington became the first famous military leader in the history of the world to win a war and then voluntarily step down instead of seizing and consolidating power. In fact, Washington’s sworn enemy, George III of England, could scarcely believe his ears when he heard what Washington had decided to do. If the leader of the army that had defeated the most powerful military force on earth had indeed stepped down, as was being reported, George III declared that man would be “the greatest man in the world.”47 Whatever else historians say about Washington, all celebrate his willingness to set aside the chance of being crowned King George I of America in favor of going back to being a Virginia farmer. Nor was this a decision he made hastily. Washington had made clear, in the very first year of the conflict, that he was determined not to win the war against King George III only to set himself up as a rival American tyrant once he had won. In a speech to New York leaders, Washington announced that, in becoming a soldier, he “did not lay aside the Citizen”—that is, he recognized civilian authority over the military.48 And yet Washington’s decision still amazes. As historian Joseph Ellis describes it, his trademark decision to surrender power as commander in chief and then president was not . . . a sign that he had conquered his ambitions, but rather that
More than two hundred years after Washington’s death, his willingness to relinquish power—twice—is the most remarkable thing that we remember about him. These refusals to seize power for himself were the greatest acts of one of history’s greatest men.
2. Patriotism means country before comfort & safety.
We have numerous veterans and military men in our churches, and for them we are thankful!
Darrell Underwood – Dan Coker – Tony Martinez – Steve Howard – Eric Fisher
The military has been a hallmark of
I want to tell you a story of a man who exemplifies this, a true story from the 2nd World War…
Reverend Spy stories (from the book “The Reverend Spy”)
SIGNING UP & RECRUITMENT
Patriotism means God before country. (sermon #2)
