Fought/ fight = agony. Literally – “I have agonized over a worthwhile struggle”.
At the end of Paul’s life, he declared that as for his faith, it was strong because he fought to keep it that way!
While in the Middle East, I saw the prison cell in Cesarea, which held Paul before Herod Agrippa sent him packing to Rome to die. I saw the cave system in Bethlehem where Christians hid from their persecutors. I saw Petra, the city of rock, where Jesus warns his people to escape, because of the Anti-Christ’s terror. Folks, confronting Christians because of their faith in Jesus Christ is not over – it’s still happening in 21st century!
Why did Paul have to fight to keep his faith strong? Because there were those who wanted to weaken it by watering it down with “political correctness”! Political correctness is as old as the hills!
In today’s world, there are 6 dead men who rule the world from their graves…Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, John Dewey, Fredrick Nietzsche and Roger Baldwin. They rule the world because their philosophies sear the minds and steal the memories of many in our 21st century!
Karl Marx said, "If I can steal their history I can steal their country."
James Dobson and Gary Bauer have both said that the battle for the next generation’s allegiance is “The second great civil war”.
Proverbs 23:7 “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
If you teach a child that he’s nothing more than scum on a pond, he’ll think like a scumbag! If you teach a child he’s no more valuable than dirt he walks on, than he’ll act like a dirtbag!
Of those 6 men that I said rule the world from their graves, you have probably heard of most of them -- but you might not know Roger Baldwin?
Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920. Baldwin openly sought the utter destruction of the American society. Fifteen years after the founding of the ACLU, Baldwin wrote: “I am for Socialism, disarmament and ultimately, for the abolishing of the State itself...I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”
Earl Browder, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States, admitted that the ACLU served as “A transmission belt for the party”. Roger Baldwin agreed, saying, "I don’t regret being a part of the communist tactic which increased the effectiveness of a good cause."
Another co-founder of the ACLU is Crystal Eastman. She was a zealous feminist, an anti-war activist, and a great admirer of the former Soviet Union. She held the highest regard for Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Crystal Eastman said, "We [feminists] must all be followers of Margaret Sanger."
Sanger attempted to improve the human race through “selective breeding”. Abortion was the primary means to this "improvement," Margaret Sanger actually wrote, "The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
As early as 1931, the U.S. Congress was alarmed by the ACLU’s devotion to communism. A report by the Special House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities stated, “The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the communist movement in the United States, and fully 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of communists who have come into conflict with the law. It claims to stand for free speech, free press and free assembly, but it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is an attempt to protect the communists.”
Alan Sears’ book, "The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values." He states, “One of the great myths of the 20th – and now 21st century is the belief that the American Civil Liberties Union was an organization that had a noble beginning, but somehow strayed off course. That myth is untrue. The ACLU set a course to destroy America – her freedom and her values – right from the start.”
The result is that today the ACLU is a leading advocate of same-sex marriage and has expressed support for even polygamy!
George Grant, he has written 12 books ranging in topics from homelessness to moral issues. He writes in “Trial and Error: The ACLU and Its Impact on Your Family”… “Although they have fought for the free speech, expression and "rights" of pornographers, witches, abortionists, homosexuals, convicted criminals, child molesters, occultists, Communists, lesbians, Nazis, illegal aliens, AIDS patients, and Satanists, they have resolutely attempted to deny those same privileges to Christians. As a result…they have effectively reduced the place of religion in American life and have restricted religious speech in a way they would never allow other forms of speech to be restricted."
Their intolerance is a matter of record. In just 5 years they have sought to:
• Halt the singing of Christmas carols like "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" in public facilities.
• Deny the tax-exempt status of all churches--yet maintaining it for themselves as well as for various occult groups.
• Disallow prayer--not just in the public school classrooms, but also in locker rooms, sports arenas, graduation exercises, and legislative assemblies.
• Terminate all military and prison chaplains.
• Eliminated nativity scenes, crosses, and other Christian symbols from public property.
• Prohibit voluntary Bible reading in public schools--even during free time or after classes.
• Remove the words “In God We Trust” from our coins.
• Deny accreditation to science departments at Christian Universities.
• Prevent the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
• Purge the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
Folks I personally believe that the ACLU fears Christianity in a way that it fears nothing else!!!
Of course, its fear is cloaked in high-sounding Constitutional concerns--its bigotry is not overly blatant. It makes much ado over the principle of "separation of church and state." And it fixates on the "establishment clause" of the First Amendment. According to Barry Lynn, the ACLU’s Legislative Director: “There is clearly a distinction made between religious speech and activity and any other speech and activity...There is an establishment clause which limits and tempers only religious speech and activity…”
Separation of Church and State
There is no evidence anywhere that America’s framers of government shared the ACLU’s understanding of the separation of church and state. In fact, they readily admitted that their new nation was utterly dependent upon a Christian social order and Christian influences. America was founded as a Christian nation…and I’ll prove it!
• Joseph Story, the foremost historian of the founding era, underscored this truth in his book, Commentaries on the Constitution, published in 1833:
“The First Amendment was not intended to withdraw the Christian religion as a whole from the protection of Congress. At the time, the general if not universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state…”
•More than a century later liberal Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas reaffirmed that historical reality:
“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being…when the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs; it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. We find no such Constitutional requirement, which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence.”
Justice Douglas went on to state without hesitation that, "The First Amendment does not say…there shall be a separation of church and state."
The First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
This amendment says 3 things as intended by the founders:
1. The government has no authority over the church and was not to regulate or interfere in its work. Certainly government is never to gag the church in the manner the ACLU has sought to gag it.
2. The framers also wanted to make certain that the church did not meddle in the affairs of the state. The government was to be outside the church’s jurisdiction.
3. “Religion” = denomination! (Check out David Barton’s book "Original Intent" for the debate the Founders had over this issue)
That is a far cry from the ACLU version of Constitutional law.
Folks, the facts are inescapable. Throughout our early history, all our great leaders shared the necessity of a free and expressive Christian witness:
• George Washington, the hero of the Revolution and the first President under our Constitution, added the pledge every president recites, "So help me God," during his inaugural oath. He even stooped to kiss the Bible as an affirmation of his submission to God. He later asserted, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
• John Adams, the second President, made no secret of the fact that he studied the Bible often and with diligence in order to discern the proper administration of a Christian society. He said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. So great is my veneration of the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectful members of society."
• Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President, was also quite forthright in his acknowledgment of the necessity of a Christian foundation for this Republic. He said, "The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. A student’s perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband."
• Benjamin Franklin said, "A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know the price of the rights which God has given them, cannot be enslaved."
• Noah Webster, a founding father and educator said, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures form the basis of all our civil constitution and laws. All the miseries and evils which other nations suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
• President Abraham Lincoln called the Bible "The best gift God has ever given to man... It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
Why does the ACLU always refer to, or quote, judges and politicians 200 years removed from our founding?
Notice each of them understood the importance of integrating the Christian faith into the fabric of society if the great American experiment of freedom and liberty were to succeed.
In our public buildings, overwhelming evidence of our country’s Christian heritage abounds:
• The Ten Commandments hang over the head of the Chief Justice in the Supreme Court.
• In the House and Senate chambers appear the words, “In God we trust”.
• In the Capitol rotunda is the figure of Christ crucified; and carved on the Capitol dome is… "The New Testament according to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ".
• The Great Seal of the United States proclaims in Latin, "God has smiled on our undertaking"; under that seal is inscribed the phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, "This nation under God".
• The walls of the Library of Congress are adorned with the words from Psalm 19:1 and Micah 6:8.
• Engraved on the metal cap of the Washington Monument are these words, “Praise be to God”.
The men who built this nation knew that we must never forget - that America depended upon Christianity for its foundation for greatness and blessings.
As George Washington prophetically declared, “Morality is the necessary spring of popular government. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without Christianity. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Folks, the ACLU is attempting to steal our Judeo-Christian history so it can steal our country… remember what Karl Marx said, "If I can steal their history I can steal their country."
If we don’t stand up for Christmas, then that’s just one more thing stolen from us. Don’t you think the fight is worth it?
