We Pledge Allegiance…to the Republic

One Nation Under God

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Preached by:  Carolyn Sissom

Text and quotes from:  Keys to Good Government according to the Founding Fathers by: David Barton

(Isa. 9:6: “And the Government will be on His Shoulders”)

As Christians, we continue to seek the Lord for God fearing leaders of Christian principle, integrity, wisdom, and understanding.  These virtues are the difference between a statesman and a politician.  It is my prayer that  Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as Governor is that her virtue has won over ambition.  If this is indeed the case, then she is a true statesman and not a politician.

“According to John Adams, it was the presence of private moral and religious beliefs that produced trustworthy public officials and thus provided a security for government and its citizens.  In fact, in his diary entry for February 9, 1772, he discussed ‘that struggle which I believe always happens between virtue and ambition,’  insightfully noting that an individual in office who lacks virtue will’ apply himself to the passions and prejudices, the follies and vices of great men/women in order to obtain their smiles, esteem, and patronage, and consequently their favors and preferment.’   This is an accurate description of what today may be termed a “politician” – an individual who willingly compromises principles in order to maintain favor with his party and constituents and thus win re-election.  A statesman, however, will not compromise principles, regardless of the cost.  What makes the difference between a politician and a statesman—what makes one willing to compromise principles and the other one not?

According to Adams, it was embracing the biblical conviction of the reality of future rewards and punishments.  That is, a statesman realizes that he will stand before God and account to Him for what he does in private as well as in public;  this awareness of imminent accountability to God serves as a restraint on personal misbehavior.  Such a restraint is especially important for office-holders, for although they are termed “public officials,” most of what they do in their official capacities actually occurs in private.  Therefore, if there is no self-imposed restraint on a public official’s private actions stemming from a sense of his accountability to God, then that public official is a danger to good government because of the compromises he invariably will make.

Was John Adams a politician or a statesman?—was he willing to compromise principles, or was he determined to stand firm even though it might cost him the next election?  Adams was definitely a statesman, explaining, ‘The duration of future punishment terrifies me.”  Because he understood that he would answer to God for his every action.  John Adams guarded his private behavior and carefully weighed his public policy decisions before God; as a result his reputation for public integrity remains untarnished to this day.” (Page 17 & 18 – Keys to Good Government)

Sarah Palin has been in the fiery furnace.  The Lord is testing and proving her.  He knows what He has deposited in  her and will continue to deposit in  her.  She has to be tested and proven so she knows how much of God is in her.  If she passes the test, the Lord will again raise up a Christian statesman to govern the United States of America.  It will depend on the prayers of the Saints.  We must under-gird her.  There are few leaders in public view that honor the Lord with their private actions and virtue at the risk of their ambition.  Such a leader is a threat to the ambitions of the spirit of anti-christ.

This is also the measure of a Minister appointed and chosen by the Lord and one who ministers by the political spirit.  It is the test of virtue vs. ambition.  If you are called and chosen, you will at some time have to make the choice.

“Noah Webster was one of the many Founding Fathers of this nation.   One of his famous texts used in public school classrooms was his History of the United States. In it he told students:

“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose rulers, ‘ Just men who will rule in the fear of  God’.  The preservation of our government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

While Webster’s description of the ills of government sounds like a contemporary news account, what he described was not a widespread problem in his day; he was simply pointing out what would occur if unprincipled, ungodly rulers were placed into office.

Webster then concluded: ‘ If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.’

Although Webster warned that our form of government would not endure unless we kept God-fearing people of faith and character in office, doesn’t the security of our government really depend more upon the people rather than the leaders?  After all, aren’t the people the most important element in a democracy?

This is part of our problem today; we think we are a democracy, but we are not.  As evidence of this fact, recall that when we pledge allegiance to the American flag, we pledge allegiance to the republic—not the democracy—of the United States.  America was founded as a republic, not a democracy; and while few today can define the difference between the two, there is a difference—a big difference.

A democracy is a form of government that has existed for millennia, and it was a form of government well known at the American founding.  Our founding Fathers had an opportunity to establish a democracy and deliberately chose not to.  They intentionally established America and each of the states as republican—not democratic—governments.  In their minds, we were not, and were never to become a democracy.

Numerous Founders issued declarations condemning democracies and praising republics.  In fact, they so strongly opposed democracy as a form of government that when they created the federal Constitution, they included language in Article 4, Section 4 requiring that “each state maintain a republican form of government".

The primary difference between a democracy and a republic is the fundamental source of its authority.  In a democracy, the people are the highest source of authority; in America, however, there was a source of authority higher than the people, and it was that higher source which formed the basis of our government.  As Noah Webster explain to students in a famous textbook:

Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Holy bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.

In a democracy, whatever the people desire is what becomes policy.  Therefore, if a majority of the people decide that murder is no longer a crime, in a democracy, murder will no longer be a crime.  However, not so in the American republic:  in our republic, murder will always be a crime, for murder is always a crime in the Word of God.  It is this immutable foundation that has given our republic such enduring stability, for since man at his cores does not change, he continues to need the same restraints today that he needed when the Bible was written thousands of years ago.  It is the rights and wrongs revealed in the Bible that have provided the moral and institutional standards for our republic.

Numerous early law books affirmed this, including Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws.  Blackstone’s principles formed the basis of American law from 1766 until `1920, and for decades, it was the final authority in the U.S. Supreme and lower courts.  Blackstone’s Commentaries taught that human laws could not contradict God’s direct decrees, and that only if God had not ruled in an area were men then free to set their own legislative policy...

God’s Word also provided the basis for what are termed inalienable rights (rights bestowed by God on every individual, regardless of race, gender or social station).  Among man’s inalienable rights were those of life, liberty, property, religious freedom self-protection, due process, sanctity of the home, as well as others listed throughout the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Significantly, our founding documents directly acknowledge: (1) that God gives these rights to men (“all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”).  So crucial to the maintenance of America’s republican government was the knowledge of God’s standards and God-given rights, that Thomas Jefferson queries:

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis—a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, hat 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.

Since the basis of our American republic rests on God’s standards, the only way to preserve the nation’s foundation is for citizens to have a knowledge of those standards and place into office individuals who both understand those standards and will protect America’s foundation—that is, for citizens to choose leaders who recognize inalienable rights and will prevent government encroachment upon them.

It is for this reason that a republic is a much more difficult form of government to maintain than a democracy, for a republic requires more effort from the voters—not only must they understand their own government but they must also diligently investigate the beliefs of candidates before placing them into office.

We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands:  we have a check upon two branches of the legislature…It becomes necessary to every (citizen) then, to be in some degree a statesman; and to examine and judge for himself…the political principles and measures.  Let us examine them with a sober…Christian Spirit.

A democracy is the deterioration of a republic—it is a lazy man’s form of government.  It requires no effort and no research of candidates or long-term issues; it is simply based on what a majority of the people feel at a given time and is primarily motivated by emotions and selfishness—by what is best for “me” rather than what is best for others and for the country.

An excellent illustration of the inherent deficiencies of a democracy is seen in what transpired around Jesus during the final week of his life here on earth.  As he entered Jerusalem, a great crowd ushered him in, seeking to make him their king; the next week, however, the same crowd shouted, “kill him”!  Give us the thief Barabbas instead!”  What a change—make Him king one week and kill Him the next!  That is a democracy—it fluctuates in direct response to the variable feelings of the people, and its policies are based on what they want at any given instant.  A democracy is what founding Father Benjamin Rush aptly called a “mobocracy.”

Benjamin rush was one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers, signing the Declaration of Independence and serving in three presidential administrations.  He helped found five universities, authored numerous textbooks, and was one of the first Founders to call for free, national public schools.  He understood the instability of a democracy; he also understood that if our people ever lost their knowledge of the Bible and its rights and wrongs, then we would lose our republican government.  As he explained:

The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government…is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.

Regrettably, America has forgotten and of these principles of government and has moved away from what the Founders so clearly articulated.  This seems amazing considering the lengths to which they went to ensure that we would always know and understand those principles.  How did we forget?  How did we depart from those teachings?

The  movement way from those principles came as a result of destructive teachings introduced and widely disseminated during the last half of the nineteenth-century by men such as Colonel Robert Ingersol, one of America’s first openly avowed and proudly self-proclaimed humanists.  He aggressively attacked both Judaism and Christianity in order to remove the Judeo-Christian ethic from America.  He wanted a different religion to be the foundation of government, explaining:

We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future…wherein…will be celebrated the religion of Humanity…We are looking for the time when…Reason, throned upon the world’s brain, shall be the king of kings and god of gods.”(Pages 8-13 – Keys to Good Government )

Last Tuesday, I was teaching on Ecclesiastes.  The Preacher has a sermon to preach.  The sermon is written for the conversion of the self-sufficient intellectual.  He explains  the philosophy of rationalism.  “I said in my heart”.  This is knowledge that comes through reason.  God’s truth can only come through his Holy Word and revelation by the Holy Spirit of God.  Vital to this is the basis of obedience to God in view of a coming judgment and the fear of the Lord.

A double-minded man is unstable in  all his ways. (Jas. 1: 6-8). 

Ec. 12:14: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it be evil.”

Ingersol wrote, “The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight…All these things are private and personal." To ignore a candidate’s religious views is as irrational as ignoring his economic views.  It is certain that he will enact policy on economic issues, so it is important to know his economic views.   People who are Socialists will endeavor to govern through Socialism.

The Scriptures direct that rulers should be men “who rule in the fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness.”

God has indeed blessed America.  Under His Providence over the last two centuries, America has risen to levels and achievements attained by no other nation in the history of the world.   Yet, ironically, in a nation once distinguished for its faith and made great by its people of faith, in recent years public expressions of that same faith have been viewed as a menace to society rather than an asset.

Christians are under persecution in the U.S.A.  We are today hearing from the mouths of government leaders an alignment with the philosophy of Ingersol and the religion of Reason, Empiricism, Rationalism, Humanism, Intellectuism, Socialism, Marxism, Elitism, and the worldly spirit of the anti-christ.

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries, Inc.

Scripture from K.J.V. and Text from Keys to Good Government According to the Founding Fathers by: David Barton.  Comments are my own.