INTRODUCTION
We are living in a time of confusion and a time of misinformation.
As a society we are at a crossroads. If you have been following the news, you have to be concerned about what is happening round you today in the United States of America. Today, I do not want to spend a lot of all of the negative things that are happening in our country, because quite honestly, it will not change anything.
I am aware of how the Courts are now saying that young people cannot pray at football games, how the State of Ohio’s state motto, “Though God all things are possible” has been labeled unconstitutional. For almost 30 years we it has been legal to kill our children in the womb. Enough of that.
What has caused us to slide down this path? We are confused about where and if God belongs in our nation. As time goes by, we are pushing God further and further out of our society. Has it always been that way?
What did our founding fathers fight and die for? What did they lay their lives on the line for? It is easy for us to look back on history and say that it was easy for these people to do what they did because we see that they won the war. But remember they took on the strongest nation in the world at the time, victory was not a sure thing.
Is it important to see what our founding fathers believed and fought for? Yes it is. These men had a vision for the nation that they shed their blood for, it was a vision that was so strong, they were willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds to make it happen.
Today I want to take just a few minutes for us to look at where the founding fathers believed that God belonged in our heritage, our Government and in our educational system. I am only going to briefly touch each area this morning but if you want to look at this more closely, I would be glad to help put you on a good path to learn more. The founding fathers wrote volumes and volumes of things, it is said to see supposed educators making accusations without looking at primary source documents.
SERMON Let’s look at:
I. GOD IN OUR HERITAGE
1. There is much confusion over our nations heritage. There is much confusion over the beliefs of the founding fathers.
2. Today it is popular for uninformed people to say that the founders were not Christians. They say that Thomas Jefferson wrote a bible that had no references to miracles. This is not true, he wrote two books that were written to the Indians so that they could learn something about Jesus. Thomas Jefferson would not have liked these books being called bibles.
3. The first act of the United States Congress was to authorize the printing of 20,000 Bibles for the Indians. Further, "When our first President, under the new Constitution, received the request of both Houses of Congress concerning a national declaration of a public day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, ’George Washington...issued a National Thanksgiving Proclamation’ without any apparent concern that he might be mixing government and religion." The men who founded our country clearly wedded it to Christian principles. "By today’s standards," as syndicated columnist Don Feder says, "the founding fathers were the religious right."
4. Tim LaHaye says that "This Christian consensus is easily verified by the fact that prior to 1789 (the year that eleven of the thirteen states ratified the Constitution), many of the states still had constitutional requirements that a man must be a Christian in order to hold public office." This Christian consensus was understood by leaders long after the American Revolution, as well. Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, called for a "National Fast Day," citing the fact that "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven ...But we have forgotten God."
5. There are so many things that we no longer hear today. For example, we are now told that our Founding Fathers were atheists, agnostics, and deists; but consider this statement by Patrick Henry:
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”
6. 52 of the 55 Founding Fathers who worked on the constitution were members of orthodox churches.
7. In a report delivered by the House and Senate Judiciary committees on March 27, 1854, they said that if the founders would have know that there would be an attack against Christianity, they would have strangled the revolution in the cradle.
8. In 1779 after the First Amendment (The Establishment clause)was written, the Supreme Court stated the following:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
By our form the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing.
II. GOD IN OUR GOVERNMENT
1. Does God have a place in our government? If you listen to people today they will tell you no. Let’s briefly look at a couple of statements from our founders pertaining to God in Government. I could spend all day quoting to you, so if you want more, let me know.
2. In a 10 year study the Political Science Professors at the University of Houston researched over 15,000 writing of the founders, they isolated 3154 direct quotes in these writings, of these direct quotes, 34% of these come directly from the Bible, another 60% were quotes from people like John Locke and Sir William Blackstone, who directly quoted the Bible. Over 94% of the quotes found in the writings of the founders came from the Bible.
3. James Madison, the “Chief Architect of the Constitution” said this in reference to the 10 commandments:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves.. according to the Ten Commandments of God..”
4. John Adams stated the following:
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is whollly inadequate to the government of any other.
5. John Quincy Adams said:
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code... laws essential to the existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws."
6. Notice this ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1892:
"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. In this sense and to this extent, our civilizations and our institutions are emphatically Christian." 26
6. In 1811 The Supreme Court stated:
Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government
7. The founding fathers based our system of government in the Bible.
For example, the concept for three branches of government can be found in Isaiah 33:22; the logic for the separation of powers was based on Jeremiah 17:9;* the basis of tax exemptions for churches was found in Ezra 7:24; and there are many other examples.
III. GOD IN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
1. Does God belong in the school? It does not seem so today.
2. Let us look at the New England Primer that was the standard textbook in schools for over 200 years beginning in Boston in 1690.
3. Our educational institutions were founded with God as the center. Look at these statements of philosophy of our major colleges in the United States.
Yale- Seeing God is the giver of all wisdom, every scholar, besides private or secret prayer... shall be present morning and evening at public prayer
Princeton- Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.
Harvard- Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus which is eternal life. John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.
Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein.
John Quincy Adams went through this system of education and when he was 14, he received a Congressional diplomatic appointment overseas to the court of Catherine the Great in Russia.
4. Each of the state constitutions mandated that Christian teachings would be included in a child’s education
5. November 1, 1802 The Ohio State constitution said:
Religion, morality, and knowledge, being essentially necessary to the good government, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision.
6. 106 of the first 108 colleges formed in America and 123 of the first 126 were formed on Christian principles
7. By 1900. It was extremely rare to find a university president who was not an ordained clergyman.
CONCLUSION
Where does God fit into America? The founding Fathers who gave us this great nation made it clear. Jesus belongs front and center in our society. Don’t be fooled by the so called enlightened people. The founders knew that when you take God out of something, that something will fail. As Christians, educate yourself and let people know about our Godly heritage.
Christians should be the one who are carrying the truth to the world. Let work to get America back on track.
