word which calls upon us to remember those things that have gone on before and as we do that today help it to be a type of remembrance that brings our eyes and ears upon you and brings you glory not the glorification of men, but encouragement because of obedience in their lives that you worked through and hope that you would continue to work in such a way today. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Yeah, remembrance. Remembrance is important in The Christian faith, and in God's Word, multiple times in Scripture, God calls upon his people to remember. In Exodus 13, verse 3, Moses is saying, remember, God's told me to tell you, remember. And this was to remember the Passover. They were to remember that they were once slaves in Egypt and had been brought out. And they had that set down as an annual practice to remember what God had done. And in fact, I'll go ahead and read this scripture, and I think it's one that I will end with. But you can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 143 and verse 5. Here, David is praying. I believe it's a psalm of David. I can't remember if it said it. Yep, it says a psalm of David. 143 verse 5, and in whatever the psalm as a whole is dealing with, which is his thirsting for God, he says in verse 5, I remember the days of old. I meditate on all that you have done. I ponder the work of your hands." And so here, Moses told the children of Israel from the first, and many times they are told, use this Passover as a remembrance that you were once slaves in Egypt or that God brought you into the promised land. Remember this. Remember these things of old. We read Deuteronomy 32, which commands us to remember the things of old, the things the Lord has done. to talk to the generation above us, to our fathers and to our elders, that they could tell us what has gone on before. And then here's David saying, I'm going to meditate on these things. I'm going to think about these things. I'm going to remember these days of old and meditate on them, that I know what you have done. And that would be the purpose in remembering these things, that we would know what God has done. The idea of remembrance, as God instructed his people, was for them to remember where they came from, to remember how they were guided by God, to remember from the blessings that have come to them because of the way the Lord has led them. All these acts of remembrance, of God and what has gone on in the past were to be done to bring about an effect upon the people of God that ultimately was to turn them back to God. You know, you're going to follow the things you think about and you consider and you ponder. And we go through so much life that directs our thoughts this way and that way, and we find ourselves going after things simply because that's what we're thinking about. And God said, no, there's a basis that you've got to be operating from. And so you need to have times of remembrance. And it is my conviction that remembrance of what the Lord has done, remembrance of the truths of God's word, remembrance of the acts of God, are the things that bring about a changed life. We call that revival, when life is renewed and changed in one's heart. And the greater depth of revival among a people comes out of a remembrance of what God has done. Remembrance actually brings about repentance, and repentance brings about revival. That's the whole process through there. But forgetting of what God has done is the first step to forgetting about God in your life even today. And so God, in speaking about remembrance, was trying to, was providing, and I'm not gonna say God just tries, God always does. He provided an opportunity for his people to practice a celebration, Passover or other types of celebrations that they had that caused them to reflect on where they had come from to be where they are now and that God's hand was involved in every part of it. That they'd have a turning back to Him if they had strayed, they'd have renewed devotion whether they strayed or just were being encouraged and they would continue then to walk in the ways that God had called them to walk. And for Israel, as I've mentioned many times in just this opening remark here, it was to remember their slavery, a time of oppression and bondage that they had been brought out of. And that eventually led them to a promised land, to a place where they were eventually established as a nation. So they went from one condition through a transition to a new condition, from total oppression to liberty, from being a downtrodden people to being an independent nation themselves. And they remember how God was the one that brought them out of the one condition of slavery and oppression and actually, through the process, established them in this new condition of liberty under His law. And God was directly involved in every process. And when they ignored their history, when they raised up a generation that was ignorant of the knowledge of these things, not taking the time to Consider that history and what had happened. That's when they began to falter as a nation. They began to want to be like other nations. They had no history like them. that had no rooting in God and His Word and they began to falter as a people and they would leave their course of following God and they would begin to walk in disobedience and much of the disobedience that our nation itself walks in is because we have forgotten God, we have forgotten what God has done and there's been, I mean there's just been overt acts of trying to tear down, get rid of, rewrite, change, whole perspective on history and the history of our nation. But you think about America. a remembrance of their history, our history, it came out of a state of oppression, oppression in England and coming to America and after a time of some peaceful existence here as colonies of England here on this side of the Atlantic, we could say in a sense there arose a king, like Pharaoh in Egypt that didn't know Joseph. He didn't understand. He failed to remember the congenial relationship that there was between England and America and the beneficial relationship that was there, and there began a process of trying to get more out of America than America would naturally be providing, and this led to oppression. oppression of taxation, oppression of burdensome type of unconstitutional and under England standings taxes, unjust trials that would take place, and an ever-growing military presence that was going on in this land that caused this greater oppression upon the American people. And so God in his providence pulled the American people out from under an oppressive condition and established them in a new condition, a new condition of liberty under law. George Washington, who really had the most firsthand knowledge of the war for independence that America had gone through, and of the evidence of God's involvement in the nation at that time, wrote this in 1789 to Samuel Langdon, that the man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitudes toward the great author of the universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. So yeah, he recognized, and many, many of our founding fathers recognized the hand of God in that time period. And our forefathers recognized the hand of God in the ages or years, not really ages in terms of a really long time, but the years prior to that during the colonial period. Washington went on to say as well that the hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. Those are strong words to assert that God has been involved in this whole process and you cannot look back at what God has done without being worse than an infidel. greatly wicked who could not have such gratitude. And certainly the children of Israel would have the same type of assertion as they came into the promised land in that era and said, you'd be worse than an infidel if you didn't look back and say, God has not done what he's done. Similar type of sentiments were there. But for many, the recognition of the act of God in the lives of America's founders and the recognition of God and his providence in the American founding often comes to a close in their eyes and in their understanding, or at least is greatly tempered and tapers off with the end of the war for independence. with the victory in the War for Independence from England. And from that point on, and you're talking that war ended, the Treaty of Paris, 1783, the Constitutional Convention is 1787, and you're saying, historians are saying, who would even recognize these things in the time period up through the War for Independence that God in the Bible is somehow all of a sudden absent in the American founding when you get to the Constitution. Somehow God in the Bible is absent in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, there's a book that was written, first published in 1996. There's been a new edition out in the early 2000s. I don't know how prominent it is now, but the name of the book is The Godless Constitution. The Godless Constitution, written by two academic scholars, at least that's what people say they are, two scholars, Isaac Kramnick and R. Lawrence Moore, Kramnick and Moore. And they wrote the book, The Godless Constitution, and their basically goal is to demonstrate that our constitution has no connection with God himself. that he wasn't involved, he wasn't thought about, he's not there. The Constitution is a completely secular document is what they're asserting. And so in this message this morning, I want to rebut that, give a rebuttal to it in asserting the, I guess you'd say the negative answer to the question is God absent in word or action in the Constitution it's framing. I would be saying no, that he is not absent in that. Some of you were able to attend last year on September 17, 2022, which was a Saturday. We did a four-part teaching on Christianity and the Constitution. It basically had four parts to it. We looked at the Christian history of the Constitution. We looked at how America's history is a Christian history from its earliest settling in the 1600s up to and through the Constitution. Christianity and the Constitutional Convention was session two, which we looked at the process of the Constitutional Convention, identifying Christian elements there. Session three is more like what I want to address today, Christianity and the Constitution itself, the document. But I want to give you some things that weren't said then. I'm not just going to repeat that session. Most of it, some of it will be overlap, but most of it hopefully will be some new ideas. And then finally, Christianity and constitutional restoration. Those are the four. What I'm presenting today is just surface level compared to the depth that we went into last year in basically a four-hour seminar. And so you can always go seek that out on Sermon Audio, and maybe one of these days I'll get it uploaded to YouTube. But anyway, you could go and seek that out and listen to it in greater detail. But what I want to do today is center more on if someone's going to argue that this is a godless document, how can we respond to that? In recognition of academic propriety and proper recognition, much of what I am giving you has been presented by David Barton, David Barton of wall builders. Some of you may know him, and I have been mistaken for him. In fact, there was one time we were just in someone's home, and someone came up to me, started thanking me for how I had changed their life, and they went into homeschooling for something I had taught. Now, that's not unusual. I've been speaking about homeschooling, whatever, for some time. But then they told me that I did this when they attended my seminar in some hotel in Seattle or something like that. Oh, I don't remember ever speaking there. I was trying to graciously change, but come to find out, she meant David Barton, and I was getting all the praise for what he had done. And in fact, in one of my own conferences, someone came up to me and told me how much they appreciated my teachings on, and they named this history series and stuff, and I'm like, That's David Barton they're talking about. So anyway, if you ever do go to Wall Builders and watch something that he taught, you might wonder how David Barrett could be confused with David Barton, because I don't have a Southern drawl, and I speak at 50% of the speed that he talks at. Now, if you ever listen to somebody with a Southern drawl talk at 90 miles an hour, that's David Barton. It's amazing how he can do that. because most southern trolls are slower in their speech. But if you think I speak fast, just listen to him and think, oh, I'm so glad that David Baird doesn't talk that fast. Anyway, so if you get confused while I'm speaking saying, boy, that sure sounds like David Barton up there. I did. I'm not plagiarizing. I'm giving him full credit. A lot of this comes from a teaching that he gave, and I thought, wow, that's got other information that I wasn't aware of, and I'd like to just share with you, and I would encourage you to go to WallBuilders. They have many good teachings and resources. So, we are doing a This Day in History message, September 17, 2023. The Constitution coming to its completion in 1787 on this date. And we're addressing the question, do we have a godless Constitution or can God and His Word be found in And if you pose the question like that, and it's kind of like got you type of question, if someone says, well, can God or the Bible be identified in the Constitution? I mean, I don't see G-O-D anywhere in the Constitution. I don't see God identified in there, nor do I see any biblical references, no citations of verses or anything along those lines. That is usually how something is presented and it's kind of like, well, what do I say to that? It's true. I can't find God and I can't find, you know, Romans 13 or whatever it might be that would be referenced in there. And so I hope to give you some things to give a response to such an assertion. I have down, if you've paid attention to what I've taught in the past, which I think you have, paid attention to teachings in the past, and that's kind of a rude way to say that, but what I mean to be saying is you would have recognized that, you know, something being biblical, I mean, it's really nice if something says, we believe in God the Father, I mean like the Apostles Creed, certainly we understand that, or that there'd be scriptural references, but for something to be biblical it has to just be in agreement with God's Word, or has to be able to be identified that the reasoning came out of things that are from the Word of God. We don't have to get, you know, worked up or nervous or feel defeated just because we can't point and say that's a quote from the Bible that's in that document. People are operating all the time within the context of a worldview. And what we want to assert here is that it was a biblically founded and structured worldview within which our framers of the Constitution were operating, and they were drawing upon fundamental biblical principles for what they were doing. And so I hope to express some of that in what we do here today. The way Martin presented it, and I'm going to follow the format here, hopefully add a few little things here of my own, but if you were to respond to, we have a godless constitution, there could be, I think it's four avenues through which you could present an argument. One would be the source of the ideas. Where did these ideas come from that were even put into the constitution? A second would be, let's go ahead, let's look at the Constitution. Can we identify biblically rooted concepts or expressions from it? So source of ideas, internal content. Then we could think about those who participated in the Constitution. What kind of men were they? the nature of the delegates to the Constitution, and then we can look at their testimony about the event itself. So those will be the four that we're going to look at here. We're going to look at the source ideas, the internal content, the nature of the delegates, and their testimony. What did they have to say? The source of ideas, that was the whole first session a year ago. The Christian history of the Constitution. And so we're not gonna repeat all that. I had meant to look up, I realize now, I've got things in my head that I wanna add that aren't down on paper. It was too late last night to get it all organized. But I meant to look up, there's a sermon, William Federer brought it up. and it's something along the lines of the Hebrew Republic as a model for constitutional government or something like that. Because one of the things that we need to understand that we asserted very much last year was that the ministers were predominant in informing and educating those who went out and did the doings of establishing and practicing government, whether it be just teachings on good government, whether it be election day sermons of instructing how a godly individual whose elected office should govern, or just general principles of government, they very often, in fact, the most quoted book of the Bible in their sermons and also in other political documents was Deuteronomy that we just read from. about government. We didn't read about government, but I mean that was what was most often quoted out of the Bible by particularly the ministers, but also others who wrote documents. When you think about source of ideas, One way to do it is say, well, let's just collect up, you know, documents for a certain number of years preceding to the Constitution itself and see what they talked about and who they cited as their sources for their ideas. One individual that has done this is Donald Lutz. And the book in which he collected the information together is called The Origins of American Constitutionalism. And they, he and colleagues, looked at over 15,000 different representative writings, which they brought out thousands of quotes. And they said, where did this, who were they quoting? Who were they drawing upon when they made this statement or that statement? So they had to research back, because not everybody always says, well, as so and so says and stated. Sometimes it's really good that they do. But they researched out the sources of these quotes. Now, among individuals quoted, the most often quoted individual was Charles de Monesquieu. You ever heard of him? Mrs. Barrett has. Some of you have. Charles de Monascu. Well, Charles de Monascu. He was quoted 8.3% of the time and over 3,000 quotes that they took out of over 15,000 writings. So that's like 1 in 12 times he was the guy quoted. He was from France, which is an odd place for someone to come that had proper ideas of liberty, but he did. His spirit of laws, basically, it carries that name because he said behind every form of government is a spirit in the sense of a character. a quality that must be there. And for the freest form of government, there has to be honor and other type of character qualities. But within it, he distinguished and promoted separation of powers as one of his key governmental concepts. The fact that there's legislative, executive, and judicial functions and these should be separated, okay? Everybody knew from eons before that there were three basic functions of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, and one guy, so often wanted to be the one to do it all, and that was the king. And he would legislate and execute the law, and when he was tired of what these judges said, he would set up his own courts so they would rule his way. So it'd all be around him. And it was the idea of separating these things, which was one of the concepts that Montesquieu asserted. That book, Spirit of the Law, as I came to find out, was also a very good book on promotion of for enterprise economics too. It has liberty throughout it all and even in the economic field as well. And at Bradford Christian College, if you take our economics course, you will read that book. He was first. Second at 7.9% was William Blackstone. You probably remember William Blackstone. He wrote the commentaries on the common law of England And that happened by the providence of God to come out right before the war for independence, and it became the law book read by American colonists as much or more than in England, and Blackstone was in England. He became the, you might say, the founding father of American jurisprudence. And if you know anything about his position concerning law must be rooted in God and God's law. If it's contrary to that, it's considered null and void. These are concepts that he put forth. You can see that biblical concepts and godliness was very prominent in their legal thinking. He was 7.9 percent. Then I thought it was kind of interesting that the next person is only 2.9 percent, yet he is often called the philosopher of American independence. That's John Locke. John Locke, 2.9 percent. Okay, and so he was often quoted. Percentage-wise, it doesn't sound like too much. He's running third behind Montesquieu and Blackstone, but his two treatises on civil government were the fundamental argument against divine right of king, which is what, you know, we don't, although, We think our U.S. government's God and it's divine or whatever. We don't understand the whole mentality of having to get ourselves, our forefathers having to get themselves out from under the thought that the king was divinely appointed in the sense that he could do no wrong, or even if what he did wrong had to be right. And so with the glorious revolution, or bloodless revolution, when James II was run off the throne by his daughter and son-in-law, who were coming in from Holland to take the throne, William and Mary, in 1688 and 89, Black Locke wrote these two treatises on civil government in defense of that act, that a God denying and individual who was going contrary to the Word of God as a ruler could be replaced because the king was to be a minister of God and the people had a right when that social compact agreement between them and the king had been violated by the king's you know, covenant-breaking acts, they could establish a king who would be covenant-keeping. That's the whole concept behind Locke, and so that was quite predominant in their thinking. You're talking 8% of the time, Montesquieu, just under 8% of the time, Blackstone, just under 3% of the time, Locke, were these sources of ideas. But you know what was the source of ideas and quotes? over a third of the time, 34% of the time, it was the Bible. The Bible was the source of what they had to say 34% of the time. And I would argue, if you go back to Blackstone and Montesquieu and take their ideas to where they came from, you're probably talking 40 to 50% of the time it was from the Bible, because that's where their ideas came from. And so, starting with the source of ideas of the political thought of the time, we see the Bible. God's Word was the source of ideas. Well, if that's the case, why don't we see more in the Constitution that says, the Bible says this and that? Well, one of the things that you need to understand about the documents and their function is the actually founding document, the... Mission statement, kind of like you think about a corporation, you've got your mission statements, then you've got your bylaws, okay? You've got your purpose of function, and then you've got your framework on how things will be carried out. Well, the mission statement and founding document is really the Declaration of Independence. And it's hard to say that God is absent in the Declaration of Independence. It carries really the philosophical purpose behind their thinking of government. And then you've got your bylaws, your articles of function. And in your articles of function, it's more, this is how that spirit is going to flow through this framework, such that that spirit is honored. And so when you come to the Constitution, you've got to realize you're dealing more with form than you'd say spirit or philosophy. But that doesn't mean it's absent. In fact, I would assert that the preamble carries with it kind of the transition. It is the more philosophical statement that carries some assertions that are rooted in the Bible. And this is more, this is me, not Barton for sure. And so, if you listen to David Barton say, well, he never said anything about that. Well, rest assured, it's me and he might disagree, but I agree with me. So, in it, just think about the preamble, we the people of the United States of America. What they're saying is the place from which a government should rise and be formed is from the people. That is the source of power. Ultimately that power is in God, but He delegates certain powers to men to exercise in accordance to His will, but to exercise on earth. And so the fact that it's among the people and it's not among, say, the aristocracy or a certain group of people, but it's from the people, just as Moses would say, choose ye from among you. Yeah, the idea was there, that ultimate power rests in the people of the United States. Now, it just wasn't the people of America. It was the people recognized as being parts of states that have become united, which transitions into a second governmental concept and principle, which is that of covenant, the federal nature of our union, of which we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect covenant, you could say, just as well as union. And they understood we have come into voluntary association, covenanting together for our good. It goes on to say to establish justice. Well, the Bible's concept of justice, of which the Americans understood, was that what is right and wrong for you is right or wrong for me. That status in society doesn't make one person able to do something. What's going on today? This is getting violated. We're able to do something and it not be wrong, and me do it and it be wrong. This is the whole fundamental principle of individuality and equality before the law, that you have a right to exercise your life in accordance with God's word and legal action and have success or failures in this direction, somebody else success or failures in that direction, but if there's a crossing of the law line, justice is blind. It doesn't matter if you're wealthy or poor or whatever, you stand equally before the law. So it's to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, pray for peace, that what? The gospel would abound. Liberty is where the spirit of Christ is. Liberty is where the spirit of Christ is, where one's life is changed and one's character is changed. able to rise to the highest level. The greatest liberty is in a society that achieves the greatest amount of character among its people, and the government is least involved leaving the people at peace. Provide for the common defense, the preamble goes on to say. This is your prominent function, government. This is your jurisdiction. God's word is filled with, this is the jurisdiction of the home, this is the jurisdiction of the church, and this is the jurisdiction of the civil sphere. And they understood that of common defense was a biblical concept of limited jurisdiction. Promote the general welfare. Just like Romans 13 says, to promote the good and punish the evil. promote the good and punish the evil. Promoting the general welfare says the people have the responsibility to care for those in their culture and society. Government should lay down no barriers but promote the caring for the poor and the widow and the one who comes up against the hardship. This is personal stewardship responsibility among the common people. And then finally, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, the Bible says that we do all things for the generation yet to come. When you speak and you tell these stories of remembrances so that your children will tell their children and even those yet unborn. The Bible speaks in this vision-oriented way for generations to come and the founding fathers had that biblical concepts in their minds that we do nothing for ourselves only. But if we're going to do something to secure liberty, it had better be done in a way that those yet to come experience the same liberty. You can make a decision for liberty now that sacrifices the next generation. It's called debt spending. Okay. And other things. Okay. You can see right in the preamble more of the spirit of biblical thought. But what about the bylaws? What about the articles themselves? Now we'll transition more to Barton instruction. Article 1, Section 7, Paragraph 2. Everybody can quote it. You can once I start. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 10 days Sunday accepted, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it." And so, children, you know how a bill becomes a law, right? Somebody says, I think there should be a law about this, goes to committee, committee looks at it and says, well, let's send it to the floor with a due pass. The floor argues it. They say, yes, we'll pass it, goes from the House to the Senate or Senate to the House. The next congressional body passes it, goes to the president's desk, and if he wants it to be a bill, he can sign it. but he's gotta make his decision within 10 days. And you know that 10 days is longer than one week. And so it's possible that it would take more than seven days for him to make his decision, and it comes to Sunday. And they decided that our founders, out of just the blue, for no reason apparently, decided that he doesn't have to work on Sunday. doesn't have to work on the Lord's day. We can't count that as a work day. Well, where in the world would that concept come from? In fact, if you time the bill just right, he could have 12 days to make his decision, counting two Sundays in which he didn't have to think about it. Well, certainly the Sunday accepted clause is there because the culture said Sunday is not a work day. And the culture said Sunday is not a work day because they knew that Sunday was the Lord's day. And the Lord's day was the Christian Sabbath. Wow. It is there even in that. Some of the early courts said, Christianity is part of the common law of the land. With liberty of conscience to all, it has always been so recognized. The U.S. Constitution allows it as part of the common law. The president is allowed 10 days to sign a bill with the exception of Sunday. So courts, whenever this particular issue has come up for whatever reason, have said, it is rooted through the common law to Christianity that this is so. You know, there are other belief systems that have their non-work day. Jewish people still say Saturday, right? Muslims have Friday. is their day. So why weren't those chosen? And it was Sunday. It was because the observance of Sunday is part and parcel of Christianity that is rooted in our common law. Or maybe I should say the other way around, common law that's rooted in Christianity. Christianity was so much a part of that founding era that, you know, Washington D.C. wasn't where the Capitol originally was. That land was set aside, and it took a while to start building some buildings, right? And the first Capitol building was just, it's still part of the original Capitol, but it's just a rectangular structure that, was done, and in the Congressional Records, Thursday, December 4th, 1800, the Speaker of the House reported this, that the Speaker informed the House that the chaplains There were house and senate chaplains from the beginning. The chaplains had proposed, if agreeable to the house, to hold divine services every Sunday in their chamber. The largest room of the original structure of the Capitol, and it's always been the largest room as the Capitol has been expanded, is the house chamber because it's the largest body. And the chaplain said, well, Sunday's not a work day. Can we have divine services and use your chamber? The house is over the house chamber. They say yea or nay. And they said, yes, you can use this for divine services. That was in 1800. Now the Capitol as we know it took another 70 years to build and as it was built, Divine services had been held in the House chamber in the largest room year after year after year. In 1867, 2,000 people a week, or say 1867, we're talking 90 years after the Constitution, 2,000 people a week attended Sunday services in the House of Representatives. That was not only the largest church in Washington, D.C., it was the largest Protestant church in America. holding services in the Capitol building on Sunday. And in addition, there were actually three other additional churches that held services somewhere else in the Capitol building. So there were four services every week happening at that time. So the Sunday Accepted Clause was all a part of a Christian ethos, we might want to think of it, or a Christian just thinking concept within our founding period. Another clause within our Constitution is called the Oath Clause or Oath Clauses. There's five within the Constitution that speak about taking an oath. Any officer taking their position is to swear an oath. The oath the president gives or follows is actually quoted from the Constitution itself. Washington is the one who added, so help me God, they didn't put that there. Why? I don't know. But Washington was like, that's what you say when you take an oath. Why? Why do you say that when you take an oath? Well, it was the thinking of those who wrote the Constitution that your oath is a swearing before God, whether you said that or not. Rufus King, he was a delegate to the Constitution Convention. He says, in the oath, which our law prescribed, we appeal to the Supreme Being to deal with us hereafter, too, as we observe the obligations of our oaths. The pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle which is proclaimed in the Christian system. So Rufus King was saying, oaths are understood as declared before God saying, deal with me or he will deal with me in accordance to how I carry out my obligations. And therefore, and it's out of the Christian framework of thinking. You don't find that in the pagan world, Rufus King said. And there's a number of oaths. Swearing an oath is given in Genesis 26. We're not gonna take time to read each of these or we'll be here quite a while. But you can read about it in Genesis 26 verse three. It says that God raised his hand to take an oath. You wonder, why do you raise your hand? Put your hand on the Bible and raise your hand. That's because in the Bible it says when God took an oath, Ezekiel 20, 15 and 23, Ezekiel 36, Psalm 106, it says God raised his hand. In fact, Isaiah 62a says that the Lord swore by his right hand. Why do you raise your right hand? Yeah, it's there. And we are instructed in Scripture to take oaths in the name of the Lord, Deuteronomy 1020. Maybe we'll read that one just so we read one of our oath references. But what we're showing here is the thinking is biblically based. You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him, and by His name you shall swear, swear an oath. That's why we would say, so help me God. It's by the name of God that we take these oaths. John Witherspoon said, an oath is an appeal to God, the searcher of hearts, for the truth of what we say and always supposes a calling down of his judgment upon us if we lie. Persons entering on public office are obliged to make oath that they will faithfully execute their trust in vows. There is no party but God and the person himself who makes the vow. So what you are doing is not entering into an agreement horizontally. When you swear an oath before witnesses, you're entering into agreement with God. It's just you and God in this agreement here. to carry out your duties. An oath, therefore, implies a belief in God and his providence and is indeed an act of worship. John Witherspoon said, this is actually an act of worship to swear an oath. So we could say that the Constitution has five clauses in which it prescribes you to worship God as part of your function. George Washington in his farewell address says, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert our oaths? As soon as we remove the religious obligation of oaths, we are insecure completely in all these areas. So we looked at Sunday accepted clause, we've considered the oath clauses, there's also the attestation clause. the clause in which you bear witness and testimony of what you've done. And that is at the end of the Constitution, done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present, the 17th day of September in the year of our Lord, 1783. And we talked about this when we deal with the Constitution before. I think one thing that we said there that we want to emphasize is every signature is under that dating statement. They are all saying, we agree with that particular statement. That's why you sign a document. You're agreeing with all the statements within it, of which they are agreeing with this one, that done in the year of our Lord, 1783, 87. And they did not say, obviously, done in the year 1787. Nor did they say, as some documents would be worded, done in the year of the Lord 1787. They said done in the year of our Lord. They said this is our Lord. They personalized the expression that the Lord which would only be 1,787 years before the birth of Christ, would be Jesus Christ, they were declaring him as their Lord, our Lord. You know, and some would argue, well, you know, that's just the typical way things were done back then. You dated things that way. That's my argument. It is the typical way, but they try to excuse it saying there's nothing there because that's the way they would have done it, but I guarantee you if it had said done in the year 1787 and not this way, they would have made it their argument. So let's play fair on both sides of the field, right? This is my argument. They personalized the Lordship of Jesus Christ in this act stating he was our Lord. Everyone who signed under that. We could go on to say that there's other unique language. For example, for capital punishment, crimes that would result in capital punishment, they required that, this is in Article 3, Section 3, like for treason, which could lead to capital punishment, there had to be at least two witnesses. That wasn't the case in other countries at the time. In fact, if the king didn't like you, he could just say you're dead. Or if one person raised something and the king decided I'm going to go with it, you're dead. But no, they said there had to be two witnesses. And in Deuteronomy 17.6, it says only by the mouths of two or three witnesses. That was established in the Bible. The Bible preceded our Constitution. Presidential requirements. president is the highest office in the nation. Your president is the only person in federal office who has to be native born. You say, well, of course. But why? Why would they think that? Well, in Deuteronomy 17, 15, they were told that Israel was told you cannot put a foreigner as king over you. It was the same concept. When it comes to President of the United States, the highest office, he must be a naturally born citizen. If you want to serve in the House, you have to have been naturally born or a citizen for a certain number of years. If you wanted to serve in the Senate, you had to be naturally born or have become a citizen for a certain number more years. But as President, if you were from another country and immigrated to this country and been a citizen for the rest of your life, You could not legally be president. Constitutionally be president. That's why there's been some debate over some of those who have sat in that office. But yeah, you had to be natural born. That was a biblical concept. The idea of a tainter. The idea of a tainter. The bill of a tainter. There shall be no bill of a tainter to the tainting of blood. Okay. What's that all about? Some medical procedure? No. What we're talking about there is that if somebody does a crime, no matter how heinous, it cannot corrupt blood, meaning descendants. Others cannot be punished because of what that person did. A person will be held guilty for their own acts. The father shall not be put to death for the children or the children put to death for the father. That sounds a lot like the Bible. Yeah. They came out of England, where England, if you had a parent who did a certain thing, you might have lost all your inheritance. Your blood was tainted. You might not have been able to hold certain offices or carry out certain business practices legally. You were tainted. But they said no, and the only place they could go to was the Bible as teaching that. Separation of powers. We've talked about that, and it was promoted by Montesquieu. But why would they have separation of powers? They came out of an era where powers were combined. They knew the three branches of government. It's also documented in Isaiah 33, 22, the Lord is our judge, lawgiver, and king. It was understood that in God, all the powers of government are in one. Why not in man? because of corruption, the true corruption of blood that did get passed on to you from Adam. Original sin was a part of man's makeup. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. In fact, John Adams said, the word of God informs us that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. There is no man so blind as not to see that to found a government upon the supposition that bodies of men left to themselves will practice a course of self-denial is either to babble like a newborn infant or to deceive like an unprincipled imposter. So to say, oh yeah, we can trust this guy with all the powers of government, you're either babbling in ignorance like a newborn infant or you are an imposter who's unprincipled and probably have other designs. That's what John Adams said. Why? Because the heart of man was deceitfully wicked. He rooted it right in the Bible. John Madison in Federalist Paper 51 said, you know, if men were angels, we wouldn't need any form of government or any structures, whatever, in government that would restrain them. If they were governed by angels, all would be good. But no, the great problem is to give the government enough power to govern and the people submit to that and get the government to control itself. And he rooted this whole concept in the idea that men are evil, men are fallen. And so they understood we need to separate powers and get men to check upon each other. The whole concept of separation of powers and checks and balances is rooted in the biblical concept of man and his fallen nature. What about the nature of the delegates? We'll quickly go through a few of these. We often talk about George Washington and James Madison, the two most prominent individuals, along with Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention. And we dealt with those people before. I thought it was interesting what Barton brought up. He brought up people that you don't think about, people you wouldn't know, like Abraham Baldwin. Yeah, somebody you think about at the Constitutional Convention. But you've got to realize there were 55 delegates sent to the convention. Not all were there at all one time. Typically there was 30 to 40 gathered there at one time due to home duties and travel and stuff like that. But who were some of these other people? Abraham Baldwin, he was from Georgia. He was a chaplain in the army. In fact, he was offered the divinity position at Yale University more than once, and he turned it down because of other commitments, but he was so, that's when Yale was actually Christian, okay? Yale Divinity School was good back then. And he actually is the founder of the University of Georgia, which was founded first and foremost for the purpose of training ministers. I wonder how many bulldogs at Georgia think that now. But anyway, that's who he was. Rufus King, we've talked about earlier, he was actually one of the founding members of the American Bible Society. And when he was in New York, he ran the Common Prayer Book Society, probably Episcopalian then, but his goal was to make sure the common book of prayer was available in every home. Americans would have a book to help guide their prayer life. Charles Coatsworth Pinckney, you may have heard of. He was from South Carolina. He was also a founder of the American Bible Society. James McHenry, remember Fort McHenry, Star Spangled Banner and all that? That's what was named after him. He founded the Maryland Bible Society. I mean, these people had interest in the Bible being in the hands of the people. Roger Sherman, he's the guy who offered the Connecticut Compromise that finally settled the big contention that was going on at the Constitution between large states and small states. He wrote the actual doctrinal creed for the Connecticut Evangelical Congregational Church. He was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence of which in our library we have this book, For You They Signed, which is on the declaration signers. Some of them attended both. He was one of those. For time, I'm not going to read, but they highlight his Christian character in there quite a bit. William Livingston, he was from New Jersey at age 14. He actually lived with missionaries among the Mohawk Indians, one of the most vicious tribes. Yet he was raised under missionaries ministering to them. Governor Morris, when he, he's the guy who spoke the most at the convention, he always had something to say, but he was actually the one chosen to pin the Constitution, to put it in the style that we have received it. And once when he was later ambassador to France, the people in France said, we want a constitution, we want a stable, well, actually, we want a stable government like America. What do we need to do? And he said, the first thing you need to do is make sure that religion is, and when they used religion, they meant Christianity, he says, make sure religion is always foremost taught in your schools. We could go on with others who were founders of the American Bible Society and so forth, but we will move on for time here. To the testimony of the delegates themselves, to kind of bring this to a close. If you remember the Constitutional Convention and its function, it went for about five weeks from May to the latter part of June, and at that point, it was falling apart. People were going home mad, they were saying they can't work. Washington, he thought it was over. And it was at that time, as we've referenced before, that Benjamin Franklin stood and called for a motion to have prayer. Yeah, godless individual, right? He may not have been an Orthodox Christian, he wasn't, but he was a God-fearer in a very real sense, and he called for prayers, saying, you know, in our battle time of the American Revolution, we had daily prayers in this room, and have we forgotten the Father of Lights who could illuminate us in our, you know, groping in the darkness as we are right now that we can't find our way? And he gives quite a speech concerning the role of God in their lives. And they took a three-day hiatus at the end of June. And at that time, several attended services of which one minister in particular preached to several delegates in his church and offered special prayer for them. And once they returned, though it wasn't that everything was smooth sailing, it was noted how much more of a cooperative spirit was part of the convention. And over the next 10 weeks, everything progressed forward even through some of the toughest decisions. One of the expressions in the Bible that speaks to the power and authority of God is the expression, the finger of God. The Ten Commandments were written by the finger of God. When the plagues in Exodus reach a certain point where the magicians of Egypt cannot copy what is being done, They actually tell Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. When Jesus cast out demons and was being accused of being an instrument of Beelzebub for casting out demons, he says that he casts out demons by the finger of God. It's the power and authority of God. And these were not biblically illiterate individuals. In fact, there's a time when Benjamin Franklin corrects a Christian about the teachings of Jesus that he should have known. I mean, Franklin, who maybe doubted the divinity of Christ, knew the Word of God and what expressions meant. Alexander Hamilton says this, for my own part, this is testimonies of delegates, for my own part I sincerely esteem the constitutional system which without the finger of God never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests. They didn't use expressions without meaning. James Madison said, the real wonder is that the Constitutional Convention overcame so many difficulties. And to overcome them with so much agreement was as unprecedented as it was unexpected. It is impossible for the pious man not to recognize in it a finger of that almighty hand which was so frequently extended to us in the critical stages of the revolution. And they're talking about the Constitutional Convention and what they saw there. George Washington wrote to his adopted son, the Marquis de Lafayette, who had come over, and Washington, you know, adopted him, quote, he didn't literally adopt him, but he considered him his son, and he fought under Washington, and they stayed in very close contact. So he wrote him, following the convention, he says, as to my sentiments to the new Constitution, it appears to me little short of a miracle. It demonstrates as visibly the finger of providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it. Now the finger of providence was operating. Benjamin Franklin He said this, I beg that I may not be understood to infer that our general convention was divinely inspired when it formed the new federal constitution. Yet, I must own that I have so much faith in the general government of the world by providence, which is their most common reference to God himself, that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance should be suffered to pass without being influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being." Acts 17, 28. I can't believe this would have come about without God actively working here. Dr. Benjamin Rush says, I do not believe the Constitution was the offspring of divine inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that it is as much the work of divine providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament. Think of a miracle in the Old Testament. Think of a miracle in the New Testament. Benjamin Rush is saying God was just as active in this constitutional formation at the Constitutional Convention. Stephen Cowell is a writer of legal works and textbooks on law and so forth in the 19th century. He lived 1800 to 1872. And he said this about what the Founding Fathers had done. It was in the spirit of true Christianity that the hospitality and blessings of the United States were offered to all the world. All were invited to enjoy it. The Christian men of that day intended that the nation should continue as a Christian nation. They did not place Christianity beneath nor over their political institutions. Rather, it was to be the atmosphere which they breathed who administered them. It was the source of their inspiration and they sought to make the blessings available for human advantage. These institutions and laws were to be the instruments of Christian men for the good of the whole human family. What's key there is he's saying they basically breathed Christianity. They breathed Christianity in what they did. That was their atmosphere. That was what gave them their life to what they were doing. And it's under that atmosphere, that intake and exhale of Christianity that the Constitution was established. And without it, it does become an empty document. It becomes an unworkable document. It's not understood within the atmosphere of Christianity. And as you all know, the John Adams quote is very relevant. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. The people need to breathe Christianity as well, and certainly those who serve in office. It's on that basis that the Constitution was established. It came out of that framework, and it's only on that basis that it will properly function, the liberties that it was to secure for us all. So on this day, we're having a time of remembrance. Remembrance, hopefully, of things that you knew, but maybe some refreshing of things and bolstering of things that you ought to have known, or I ought to have known. I didn't know some of these facts and figures that I now share with you today. But in doing that, it tells us this is what God has done. And we should, as good stewards of what he has entrusted to us, understand that and know what the purposes of our Constitution is and for what blessings it was to provide. For it was what brought the nation into being that it would function for the security of liberties to those who framed it and to generations that would come. And so in this, what we learn is that God's Word is true, that we as a people, if we neglect remembering what He has done in the history of Israel and the history of our nation, for He's operating even today, we will go astray. And that which would give life and be the proper power to operate within our land for our good will be lost. Because we have forgotten. We've forgotten God. We've forgotten what he's done. So let's use this as an encouragement to remember what the Lord has done for us as an American people and to devote ourselves to the work of God within our homes and within our community that we as a people could be a blessing to him once again. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for its admonition to us to remember what you have done Yes, Father, it was you working in the course of history that brought about even the Constitution under which we have been functioning and the longest functioning Constitution in history. But Lord, it is mishandled. It's misrepresented. It's maligned. It's ignored. It's walked underfoot by many who serve in office. Father, that needs to change. We pray that even in our little influence, we would come to understand the Constitution as a blessing from you, knowing that In fallibility, in the basis of fallibility, there would be better ways that it could be expressed. Even our founders recognized that by acknowledging there needed to be an amendment process. But the principles on which it is based are rooted in your word and the atmosphere and worldview within which it was framed is out of your word. And Father, that is the context within which this government needs to function. Father, help us to improve ourselves in this area. Help us to be a blessing to others in instructing and directing them. And Father, help us to raise up individuals to serve in office that know you as Lord. and would seek to function from a biblical worldview in whatever office they serve. So Father, we thank you for what you have done. Help us.