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The Reformation Society exists
to stand for the principles and the doctrines of the Reformation.
The Five Solas are Sola Christus, Christ alone is the head of the
Church, Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone is the ultimate authority,
Sola Gratia, salvation is by the grace of God alone, Sola
Fide, justification is received by faith alone, and Sola Deo
Gloria, everything has to be done for the glory of God alone.
That is still on our one-ran coins in Sola Deo Gloria. If
you go to Wellington, to the side of the monument of Andrew
Murray which has been defaced you'll see the tomb of Andrew
Murray and it's got Solly Deer glory on it. That was his motto.
So tonight we are looking at blessing the nations 800 years
of the Magna Carta. We are approaching in June June
the 15th will be the 800th anniversary of one of the most significant
events in the establishment of law and liberty. Genesis 12 verse
1 to 3 I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and
I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing and in
you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. The Magna Carta
has been one of the most valuable exports of Great Britain to the
rest of the world. The Magna Carta has truly blessed
all the families of the earth where the people recognize it
not, it has blessed. Because the Magna Carta was the
first statute, the first written restriction on the powers of
government. The Magna Carta signed by King
John at Runnymede on the 15th of June 1215 recognised foundational
scriptural principles. Justice may not be sold. Justice may not be delayed. Justice
may not be denied. And justice delayed is justice
denied. No taxes may be levied without the consent of representatives
of those being taxed. This is basic municipal rights
and freedom. This forbids the idea that you
can have one group of people deciding taxes for another group
of people. That's why you've got to have
municipalities that are small, where the community decides,
rather than a uni-city where some strangers who couldn't care
less and know nothing about your situation, they decide what you've
got to pay and whether you get any benefits for what rates and
taxes you paid. No one may be imprisoned without
a fair trial by a jury of their peers, of their equals. Property may not be taken from
any owner without just compensation. Now if these principles seem
familiar to you, they were pretty radical for the time. The Magna
Carta is recognised as the grandfather of all Bills of Rights insofar
as there are good principles in our Bill of Rights and our
Bill of Rights in South Africa is flawed but there are good elements and
those good elements come directly from the Magna Carta. The Magna
Carta was the inspiration for the glorious revolution of 1688
the bloodless revolution that freed Britain from Catholicism
of James II and brought in William and Mary and established Protestant
rule in Britain And the Magna Carta was also the model for
the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which most people aren't
even aware of. And, of course, for the Bill of Rights of the
United States of America. Lord Denning described the Magna Carta
as the greatest constitutional document of all times, the foundation
of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority
of the despot. up to this point it was accepted
in fact many parts of the world today still seem to think that
the king is law in fact that's the term that they used at this
time was the king is the law rex lex in latin rex means king
lex means law rex lex the king is the law the king's word is
law what the king says is the law the sun king Louis XIV of
France said I am France and France is me which is arrogance in the
extreme, but there's a lot of presidents today who seem to
think like that. They think they are the nation. During the greatest
century of reformation, the 16th century, there was a tremendous
upsurge of interest in the Magna Carta and strenuous efforts to
apply these biblical principles of justice and freedom into all
areas of British life. The Magna Carta is an important
symbol of liberty today. It is greatly respected worldwide
by both historians and lawyers as a potent foundational document
for the protection of personal liberties. It has been described
as one of the most important legal documents in history. The
only reason you can say one of is because it's based on the
most important legal document in history, which is the Ten
Commandments, the law of God, as revealed in the scriptures.
Do not remove the ancient landmark. landmarks, whether they're historic
monuments or boundaries for property, estates, they are not to be moved.
This is the law of God. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
Stephen Langton, wrote the Magna Carta, which declares, John,
by the grace of God, King of England, know ye that we in the
presence of God and for the salvation of our soul and the souls of
all our ancestors and heirs and unto the honour of God and the
advancement of the Holy Church and the amendment of our realm
by this present charter confirmed for us and our heirs forever
that the Church of England shall be free and have her whole rights
and her liberties inviolable that's the first article of 63
articles in the Magna Carta that the Church of England should
be free and have her whole rights and liberties inviolable this
is why the first clause in the American Bill of Rights is freedom
of religion. Without freedom of religion you
don't have any other freedoms. It's the foundation for all freedoms,
in fact. And that's why English evangelists who have been arrested
on the streets of England for preaching the scriptures, such
as Romans 1, being accused of hate speech, hurting the feelings
of some pervert, All they need to do is wave a Magna Carta and
say the Church of England shall be free and have a whole rights
and liberties inviolable and maybe they need to give a bit
of a legal lesson to these law enforcement officials who might
not have actually even heard of this to remind them the foundational
legal document on which all the laws of Britain are based is
the Magna Carta which is based itself on the law of God. The Bible was clearly recognized
as a foundational authority for Magna Carta You shall do no injustice
in judgment. You shall not be partial to the
poor, nor honor the person of the mighty in righteousness.
You shall judge your neighbor. When I've been to London, like
in July last year, I went past the Royal Courts of Justice and
it's very inspiring. Do you notice those spires? They've
got different statues of individuals around. The first statue recognizes
plainly Moses, evidenced by not just the long beard but the ten
commandments on the tablets. Then King Solomon, a wise man
who wrote the book of Proverbs and who was wise in his judgments. Although not very wise in his
personal life, but he's here in terms of the book of Proverbs.
Christ being symbolized, the giving of the law on the Sermon
on the Mount. And King Alfred the Great. Why
King Alfred the Great? The one non-biblical character
who runs the courts of of justice in London. Because it was King
Alfred the Great who translated the Gospels and the law into
English. The first of the scriptures to
actually translate into English. And he set forth the dooms. Now
the dooms of King Alfred are the common law and the dooms
means this doom will fall upon you, these are the punishments
if you break these laws and it's called the common law because
it's common to all, it doesn't matter what your station in life
the same law applies to all, that's why it's called the common
law and the common law of England which was issued in the 9th century,
that's the 800s by King Alfred was I am the Lord your God and
brought to you out of the house of bondage, out of the house
of slavery in Egypt you shall have no other gods before me
and all of the ten commandments and the case laws of Exodus 20,
21, 22, 23 and the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule
of Christ and the Great Commandment that's the foundation of all
the law of England the law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount
of Christ that is the common law and all the laws of England
flow from that that's the dooms of King Alfred and that is the
foundation for Magna Carta and the English Royal Courts of Justice
recognise that in their architecture. Architecture can tell you a lot
and that's why people who want to smash statues and national
monuments are doing violence to far more than just property. They're national treasures and
they're bounding markers. It's like a cairn on Table Mountain.
If you think you're somewhere and the cairn disagrees with
your perception of where you are on the map, you're wrong.
The boundary marker is right. The boundary marker is a fixed
point. You get to Maclear speaking and you think, no this can't
be Maclear speaking. I think I'm over by Echo Valley.
No. The boundary marker is right.
You are wrong in your perceptions. And so these are boundary markers
that have been set up for our instruction. Magna Carta established
the right of trial by jury to protect the accused from capricious
condemnation by authorities. Because the judges were appointed
by the king. The judge could be bribed, intimidated
into condemning someone because the king wanted him condemned.
But a jury of 12 of the peers of the person. If a man was a
noble, he must be judged by nobles. If he's a knight, he must be
judged by 12 knights. If he's a commoner, by 12 commoners. He should be
judged by his own people. 12 of them. And this was to protect
against arbitrary misrule of a royal appointee. a government
official. The high value that Christianity,
from its inception, has placed upon the individual is in stark
contrast to the ancient Egyptian and Persian and Babylonian and
Chinese and Greek and Roman cultures, not to mention the Aztecs, the
Incas, the Marabili, the Zulus. Every culture put the individual
subservient to the state. The state predominates, the community
predominates, and individuals were just trampled over if they
got in the way of the community. But Christianity has never had
that attitude. It's always, you can have one individual who's
right and the whole community is wrong. True liberty, individual
rights, respect for human responsibility found no place in the ancient
world. And in came Christ and the Word
of God and changed all that. It was the Christian emphasis
on the individual that established the freedoms and the rights enshrined
in Magna Carta of 1215 and the later English Petition of Rights
presented in 1628 to King Charles, whose immediate response
was to suspend Parliament for 11 years, which led to the English
Civil War, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which followed
the glorious revolution that ousted James II and brought in
William and Mary, and the American Bill of Rights of 1791. This
is the lineage of freedom in the English-speaking world. Sir
Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, challenged
King James I that Magna Carta gave the Courts of Common Plea
the right to provide justice from the highest to the lowest
because the King is under God and under the law. Oh, if he
had only listened to that, and if his son Charles I had listened
to that, he wouldn't have lost his head at the end of the Civil
War because he thought he was above the law. The fact that
today the Americans can place their President, as they did
with Clinton, on trial, what they called to have the President
impeached, who he's brought on trial before the Senate and the
House combined. That, even though it didn't succeed
in ousting him, the very fact that the President could be put
on trial, that is a glorious fruit of Christianity and Magna
Carta to show the head of state is under the law. He cannot break
the law with impunity. Even the head of state is answerable
to the law. Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, you would have no power
at all against me unless it had been given to you from above.
That means all civil authority is delegated by God, all civil
authority is answerable to God. And to really emphasize that,
the British put on trial King Charles and had him executed,
showing even a king is under law. Dr. Alvin Smit in How Christianity
Changed the World documents that the freedoms and liberties expressed
in bills of rights and declarations of independence are all extensions
of Magna Carta, which is thoroughly Christian. Civic freedoms and
liberties could not have occurred had it not been for the Christian
values that prompted and shaped the formation of these documents,
all of which are extensions of Magna Carta, the Great Charter.
Magna Carta is revered throughout the world as the cornerstone
of modern freedom. Sir Winston Churchill noted in his History
of the English-Speaking Peoples that the rights and liberties
of English-speakers is more to the vices of King John than to
the virtues of any man. That's a bit of a backhanded
way of saying something. But what did he mean? Nobody would
have required of King Richard the Lionheart a Magna Carta.
He was brave, he was bold, he was courageous, he was a man
of integrity, he was revered, even respected by his own enemies,
because King Richard The elder brother was a really bold, brave,
courageous man of integrity. spent most of his eleven years
as king fighting on crusades in the Holy Land against the
Muslims and he only spent four months of his eleven years as
king in England. He once offered London up for
sale to fund one of his crusades. So you can see where his priorities
lay. But King Richard was the kind of person people respected.
Nobody would have asked King Richard to sign this charter
because He was recognized as a good man, but his brother was
so lecherous, so wretched, so dishonest, so breaking of all
of his promises and vows and oaths. Here's a scene of King
Richard coming back to England and his wicked brother had usurped
the throne in his absence and was oppressing the people with
exorbitant taxes and he was actually exiled from the kingdom under
Richard. And only Richard's death by crossbow in France enabled
John to come back and to take his place. Outside the Palace
of Westminster, the House of Commons and the House of Lords
in London, there are only two statues. One is Oliver Cromwell
and the other is of King Richard the Lionheart. In fact, the flag
of England, the St George's Cross, is King Richard's flag. That
is the flag of the Crusader. And it was Richard's flag that
became England's flag, which explains to you why the Muslims
hate this flag and they want this flag changed. and I hope
and pray the English people have the backbone to tell him to take
a running flying leap into hell. This magnificent statue with
this huge crusader sword this depicts the great honourable
crusader spirit of this King of England who was a worthy man
and a man who wielded the sword for England for Christ for the
crusades for the Holy Land but he died at the hand of a French
crossbow bolt and his wicked brother John seized the throne
and John was so bad that he ended up being excommunicated for six years from the Pope, because
of his breaking of his vows and all the rest, that in the end,
when he realized the barons were mobilizing against him, he reconciled
with the Pope, with Pope Innocent III, by placing the crown of
England at the feet of the papal legate. Can you imagine? He handed
England over, not that he had the right to do so, he handed
England over to the Pope. So the Pope wouldn't just be
the spiritual head, he would now be the actual feudal head,
he'd be the political or temporal head as well. And then the king
had to pay a tribute each year of taxes of a thousand marks,
that's a thousand gold coins a year, to the Pope. And here's
the papal legate trampling on the taxes of England, which is
now officially under the Pope, to show their contempt for the
money of the English. That's how bad John was. He was
that lecherous and low. And in this way he got the alliance
and support of Pope Innocent III. Funny how these people are
called innocent or not. Well, this is where Robin Hood
comes into the story. And I trust that you've seen
the best of the Robin Hood films, which is the Errol Flynn one,
without a doubt. And Robin Hood is not just a legend. There were
people, Robert of Loxley, out there in the forests of Sherwood,
rebelling against the oppressive taxation of King John and before
he is King, when he is Prince, while his brother was in the
Holy Land. And so this resonates in English
history because the story of Ivano, maybe you've seen the
Ivano film too, which gives you a good idea of all the abuses
that Prince and later King John was guilty of which led to Robin
Hood and led to the Magna Carta and the Barons forcing him at
gunpoint at sort point to sign this charter because he was abusing
the wards he would be if a knight died in the Holy Land or was
absent then the king would take ownership of his property, and
of his widow, and of his daughters, and he would sell them in marriage
to people that they didn't want to marry. That's why even Magna
Carta is dealing with it, that the king may not interfere with
marriage or force it on someone, or force someone to pay a fine
or a tax to the government to receive their inheritance promptly,
and that widows shouldn't be withheld from their inheritance
immediately. upon the death their husband
and that they shouldn't have to pay to the states anything
for this in death taxes and so on and so all of this is dealt
with because as if you've seen Ivanhoe or Robin Hood films then
you would immediately recognize a lot of the problems and the
abuses that Prince John was guilty of so that gives the background
if you haven't seen his films they're part of our library here
And so the barons of England were outraged because he was
abusing the barons, he was abusing their daughters, he was abusing
their wives, widows, he was confiscating lands, he was forcing people
to pay ridiculously large amounts. Now John was so bad he lost everything
that Richard had gained. Now for those who are not aware
of the history of it, you know I'm sure that in 1066 the Normans
invaded England and seized England. England was originally inhabited
by Celts, Britons, and the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes
came in and took over what we today call England, named after
the Angles, Angleland, and the Celts, the original inhabitants
of the British Isles, moved into Wales, Scotland and Ireland. And so Angleland, or England,
is where the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles moved into, basically
Danes and Germans who moved in. Now the Normans were Norsemen.
Many people speak of the Normans as though they were French. Well,
just because they came from France doesn't make them French at all.
It's like the Americans invaded Normandy from southern England
in 1944. It didn't make them Englishmen.
Just because that was their base of operations. The Normans were
Norsemen, as in, Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen, deliver
us, the Vikings. And so the Norsemen, the Vikings
who invaded in 1066, they owned Normandy. Normandy is that section
of France where the Northmen or the Norsemen ruled, where
the Vikings were in charge. So for many, many years, for
centuries, the King of England was called the King of England
and of France. Because a huge section of France, more than
half of France, actually belonged to the English. The English crown
controlled both sides of the Channel for centuries. Well John
managed to lose just about all of it. Everything that Richard
and Henry and his father and all the people before him had
controlled in France was just lost in the first few years of
John. He didn't manage to win a battle,
he managed to lose everything, squandered everything, made a
total mess, chaos, shambles, utter and complete disaster and
at the end they had virtually nothing left of France and they
were pushed out of it and they just hang on by their toehold
to just Cairn and a few other places, which is why you then
have Henry V later, Battle of Agincourt and of course Crecy
before that and he today that sheds his blood with me, shall
be my brother. and all of that great Henry V speeches given
in Shakespeare. So this business of France and
England being under the same crown all dated long before John,
but John managed to lose it all and force his ancestors later
to try and reclaim it, which was finally lost by Mary, as
in Mary Tudor, Bloody Mary, Catholic daughter of Henry VIII, who was
so bad, it would be a competition between John and Mary Tse, who
is the worst monarch of England. But I think those two would be
right at the bottom of the pile as absolutely hideous and detestable,
and both of them managed to lose everything in France. And Mary
sold Cairn, the last part of British possessions of France,
to the French to settle some of her debts, which were enormous. So all that gives you background
as to why John was overtaxing the people. He kept fighting
wars. He fought the Irish. He fought
the Scottish. He fought the Welsh. He fought the French. He lost
all the battles. And these battles are very, very,
very expensive. And so he was getting less and
less of a tax base to pay for more and more of the wars, which
meant more and more taxes were being piled on the barons who
were still unfortunate enough to be under his crown. And so
this is where things just went off the rails. we are not going
to keep paying these taxes. Plus there's the hidden tax of
unjust weights and measures. He was debasing the currency
and putting lead in the gold and silver coins and it was just
so outrageous and this explains why McNicotta made such a strong
emphasis on limiting the taxation, limiting the power of the state,
limiting his ability to do everything from wards of the state to having
authority of the marriages of especially girls whose fathers
were the crusades are out of town, or were, if they died,
or they weren't sure where they were, in many cases it took years
to find out if the father was still alive. And so these princesses
and these barons' daughters, they became wards of the king,
as you see with Maid Marian and King John and the whole story
that you get in Robin Hood. That's all got a basis in fact,
because that's exactly what King John did. and also the fact of
needing standardised weights and measurements because he had
made the currency of England debased, which is exactly what
Mary did too. Queen Mary was hideous in her
abuse of currency. So this is the background that
led to King John being forced to sign this Magna Carta. It's
the only good thing that came out of his realm was Magna Carta,
and it certainly wasn't his idea. This wasn't the king graciously
granting something to subjects. It was the king being forced
to accede to something at the point of the sword. and within
months of this he was fighting, the ink was not even dry so to
speak on the parchment and he was already breaking his word
and so as he fled his barons who went to war against him he
lost all his baggage, his jewellery, his lot in the wash as the waters
came up and this was seen as God's judgement and he died of
dysentery in 1216, barely a year after reneging on his oath. To fast forward another century
and a half, Professor John Wycliffe, the Morning Star of the Reformation,
championed the independence of England from papal control and
supported King Edward III's refusal to pay taxes to the Pope. And
it was only one step away from denying the political supremacy
of the Pope of England to questioning the spiritual supremacy of the
Church. And this royal favour that Wycliffe earned from this
confrontation protected him later in life. And so that he is able
to mobilise the lay preachers, the law lords, to travel throughout
the land and read the Bible, preach in the marketplace and
to sing the scriptures in English, laying foundations, sowing the
seed, ploughing the fields in preparation for the Great Reformation
to come. So King John was one of the very worst kings that
England ever had. And so the people of England
owe more to the vices of King John than the virtues of any
man their liberties. Because his vices forced the barons to
force his hand to produce and agree to this document which
has proved to be a blessing. What man means to evil, God can
use for good. God can work all things together
for good for those who love him and are called according to purpose.
And so we should not be too discouraged when we see evil things taking
place. We're living in evil times. violence, treachery, lawlessness,
wickedness, but those things can be used for God's honour
and for our good if it makes us better, stronger, chase us
back to the scriptures, back to God, and we will develop greater
strength of character in having to overcome these challenges
than otherwise. I mean, just think of, for example,
our ancestors who were fortreckers, who faced wilderness, carved
civilisation out of Absolute wilderness, had nothing given
to them free. It was hard times that made strong people. Strong
faith and hard times is a good combination. The reformers, the
martyrs, the people who advanced our freedoms, they were people
who knew ease and comfort and safety. They knew danger, difficulty,
but that's what brought out the best in them. John's cruelty
and capriciousness drove the barons of England to mobilise
and to compel King John to sign the statement which Archbishop
Stephen Langton had authored, Magna Carta, or the Great Charter.
So the signing of Magna Carta, 15 June 1215, was a splendid
victory for the English people. If you see any copies of Magna
Carta it will always say 15 June 1215, that's the date on the
documents, but it was actually fully agreed to by the 19th of
June. So you may see a difference in dates. The documents will
always say 15 June. That's when they met with him
and that's when he in principle agreed. But it took hammering
out and royal clerks reworking the documents until the Magna
Carta was fully agreed to and the royal seal was affixed to
it on the 19th of June. So you may see people using different
dates but normally 15 June is considered that's the date. This
marked an end to the arbitrary power of any ruler to throw a
man in prison without first granting him the opportunity to prove
his innocence. The innocent shall prove him guilty. Magna Carta
decreed that any man arrested must be tried in a court, openly,
and if it could not be proved by the state that he had done
wrong, he must be set free. The burden of proof is on the
state, not on the accused. He who justifies the wicked and
he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination
to the Lord. No taxation was legal that was not authorized
by those being taxed. Weights and measures were standardized.
You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length,
weight or volume. You shall have honest scales,
honest weights, an honest effort and an honest hymn. I am the
Lord your God. Leviticus 19 is of great importance
because Leviticus 19 tells us how to be holy. It begins, Be
holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. And then the rest of
Leviticus 19 tells you how to be holy, which includes relationships,
it includes economics, it includes boundary markers, everything.
and honest weights and measures. In other words, dishonest money,
inflation, is a crime, it's theft. My first mission overseas, 1988,
I went to Germany, including East Germany, to England, to
America. I was ten weeks, two and a half
months overseas. The air tickets, the train tickets
and everything was a thousand rand. 1,000 Rand. My father bought a car in 1971
for 1,000 Rand. I bought a brand new motorbike
in 1981 for 1,000 Rand. I went overseas for 10 weeks
across three continents for 1,000 Rand in 1988. Today you'll be
lucky to buy a good pair of running shoes for 1,000 Rand. That is
theft! That is debasing currency, that
is stealing from people. The first mailing of Frontline
Furniture in 1982, a stamp cost 4 cents. The first time I sent
a package of 5 kilograms of books to America, it cost 4 Rand. 4
Rand for a 5 kilogram parcel to America. What has happened
that our money is now lower? When I was growing up, the British
Pound was weaker than the Rand. the American dollar was weaker
than the rent. The Rhodesian dollar was... there was three
American dollars to be paid for one Rhodesian dollar. Then they
reached a stage of a hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollars couldn't
buy one American dollar, or a loaf of bread. Magna Carta required
a great council of nobles and bishops to advise and guide the
king and governing of the country which was the beginning of the
House of Lords, which later led to the forming of Parliament
itself. This great council soon developed into the English Parliament,
which is the model and the mother of all parliaments in the world.
The right of a fair trial by a jury of one's peers, the right
of having a voice in running your government and in determining
your taxes, the right to adjust and uniform standards of weights
and measures for money and goods, are just some of the many blessings
which have flowed from Magna Carta. hate evil, love good,
establish justice in the gate, let justice roll on like a river,
and righteousness like a never flowing stream. Archbishop Stephen
Langton strongly sympathised with the Northern and Eastern
Barons who openly rebelled against King John. The Archbishop declared
that if John refused to negotiate he would excommunicate every
man in the Royal Army. Suddenly all the volunteers to
fight for the King disappeared because nobody wanted to be excommunicated.
Bear in mind at that stage there was only one church. A group
of barons met here at St Edmund's Abbey Church and swore an oath
to compel King John to accept the Charter of Liberties as proclaimed
by King Henry I, which was about 60 years earlier. And he had
given the Charter of Liberties about 20 different promises in
his coronation oath, which were basically along the lines of
the dooms of King Alfred, just rule and so on. And so reworking
this, but that was something that the king had promised at
his coronation. Now they're going to extract something far more
requiring and far more specific from this lecherous, treacherous,
lying, deceptive perjurer of a ruler. And so this is the first
document. This is the Baron's petition. So these are the articles required
from the Baron. And it's this that the King agreed
to on the 15th of June at Runnymede. And this was later reworked into
the Magna Carta. The Barons advanced on London
and in London the people opened the gates, in fact the Tower
of London opened the gates and the Barons took the Tower of
London which had the Royal Mint, had the Royal Seal and the Crown
Jewels and King John had to just keep retreating and he retreated
along the Thames up to Windsor and the Barons advanced all the
way through and just past Staines at a place on the south bank
of the Thames River, a field called Runnymede they met in
full armour and they compelled the king at the point of the
sword to agree to their petition which included 63 demands by
that stage. So on Monday the 15th of June
1215 the barons met the king in the meadow called Runnymede
on the south bank of the Thames River halfway between Staines
and Windsor where Windsor Castle is today. and this was a matter
of the knights or the barons in full armour with the bishops
in their full regalia and there were 11 bishops there and they
put pressure on him and it took four days of hammering out the
details of the wording before they could make copies of the
document and at least 11 copies were made and sent out of Magna
Carta. On Friday the 19th of June John
affixed the royal lead seal to Magna Carta And this is a seal. Now this seal exists. This is
the seal that was attached to the bishop's writing, Bishop
Stephen Langton's writing, which was the Baron's Demands, which
they agreed to on the 15th. The document itself, it fell
off, but the seal is still intact. And this is what a copy of Magna
Carta looks like. There are four such copies in
existence, written on leather. Rudyard Kipling wrote this, At
Runnymede, at Runnymede, your rights were won at Runnymede.
No freeman shall be fined or bound or dispossessed of freehold
ground, except by lawful judgment found and passed upon him by
his peers. Forget not, after all these years, the charter
signed at Runnymede. A free man shall not be punished
for a trivial offence, except in accordance with the degree
of the offence, and for a serious offence he shall be immersed
according to its gravity, yet always saving his livelihood."
And here is the monument of where it was actually signed. Interestingly
enough, the British did not set up this monument, the Americans
did. Because the Americans see, even though this isn't Britain,
the Americans see Magna Carta as the birth certificate of freedom,
which is the foundation of the American Bill of Rights and the
Declaration of Independence. And most people may be surprised
at that, but you see the Americans were mostly British people who
saw that their chartered rights as Englishmen was being violated.
They were not being protected in accordance with the chartered
rights which they should be living under in England, just because
they're across the ocean. didn't mean they didn't have the right
to have representatives agreeing to the taxation, having fair
weights and measures, and being protected in their persons habeas
corpus from unjust arrest. And so, you can see, interestingly
enough, the American star over this monument here to commemorate
Magna Carta, symbol of freedom under law. And that term, freedom
under law, is so important. You cannot be free unless you
are under law. If it's just freedom in the way
the secular humanist means it, then I'm free to break your rights
and steal your property and violate your person. That's no good,
but freedom under law means all of us are free because we're
respecting one another's property and persons. And that's the only
freedom there can be, freedom under God's law. God's law makes
us truly free. And so here's another monument
of, you can see King John signing the document with a sword to
his side, but he's got these well-equipped barons, knights
around him compelling him to sign. So it's not exactly like
he's doing this of his own free will. Interestingly enough, Pope
Innocent III, he certainly was not innocent, he had his time
in the papal position at exactly the same time that John was king
in England. They just overlapped. One of
the requirements in the Magna Carta is, we will not seek to
procure from anyone, either by our own efforts or those of a
third party, anything by which any part of these concessions
or liberties might be revoked or diminished. Should such a
thing be procured, it shall be null and void, and we will at
no time make use of it, either ourselves or through a third
party. And within days of signing this, he was sending a third
party to go to the Pope to declare this annulled, which the Pope
did declare annulled, which is an exact violation of what he
had just done. But the Charter this Magna Carta also empowered
the 25 barons to swear to uphold all the Articles faithfully and
cause them to be obeyed by others to the best of their power and
that the 25 barons and any others that they may co-opt will cause
with all their might the peace and liberties granted and confirmed
by an endless Charter and so one of the requirements of Magna
Carta is that the military powers in England were to ensure that
these principles be adhered to and that is one reason why Oliver
Cromwell and Parliament believed they could mobilize the military
against the King was because he is violating Magna Carta which
required that those of the military might to do so to force him to
stay honest. And that's exactly what the Americans
thought they were doing also in 1776. In Worcester Cathedral
you can see King John the Worst's memorial and it's intriguing
that he's got these little creatures on his shoulder. One is a demon
and the other is an angel. Speaking about the fact that,
you know, you've got these two voices in your head. You've got the
angel sitting on your one shoulder telling you to do the right thing
and you've got the demon on the other tempting you to do the
wrong. And so the idea was that he was tormented by the voice
of his conscience and the voice of his demon, but he seemed to
have listened to his demon more. An intriguing thing, I don't
know if you've ever seen another tomb where a person's had an angel
and a demon perched on their shoulders in the tomb. That's King John the Worst's
memorial. Despite all attempts by King
John to violate his commitment as soon as it was made, and the
hostility of Pope Innocent III to Magna Carta, the regency of
John's youngest son, Henry III, who was only nine years old when
his father died and he acceded to throne, he reissued the Magna
Carta in 1216. And his son, Edward I, reissued Magna Carta in 1297
confirming it as part of England's statute law and there were a
few points that fell off because they were just for that time
but all essence and core of it was reissued and it was really
entrenched and so while the original Magna Carta was violated by the
one who'd signed it his successors and heirs reconfirmed it and
it got entrenched into English law and into the statute books
During the time of the Reformation in the 16th century there was
an upsurge of interest in Magna Carta as lawyers and historians
traced the principles of freedom to the Great Charter to biblically
based laws enacted during the times of the Anglo-Saxons such
as the dooms of King Alfred the Great at the end of the 9th century.
It is not good to show partiality in judgement. He who says to
the wicked you are righteous, him peoples will curse, nations
will abhor him. Both James I and his son Charles
I attempted to suppress discussion of Magna Carta and this led to
the English Civil War of the 1640s and the execution of Charles
for high treason in 1649. The first time in history that
a king has been put on trial for treason and after due process
executed. Kings have been assassinated
before. but never provide a king being executed after a trial.
And this most dramatically proved the point that the king is under
the law. No longer rex lex, now it's lex rex. The law is king. It was the violation of the rights
of Englishmen as outlined in the Magna Carta that led to the
glorious revolution of 1688 which ousted the Catholic James II
and welcomed the Protestant William and Mary from Holland to the
throne and the signing of the English Bill of Rights in 1689.
which most people have forgotten. But Britain did not forget to
mint a coin in 1989, linking 1689 with 1989, the tertiary
centenary of the Bill of Rights. And most English people are not
even aware there is a Bill of Rights in England. I've had them
say, no, no, America's got a Bill of Rights, we don't. That is
how poorly educated the average people are in the schools in
England. Sadly so. It is the Bill of Rights of 1689
that is at stake right now while people in England are discussing
whether Charles can truly be the successor to Queen Elizabeth.
Because Charles has disqualified himself on three accounts. According
to the English Bill of Rights, a divorcee cannot take the throne
of England. Nor can anyone take the throne
of England who is married to a divorcee. This excludes Charles
and Camilla on two accounts immediately, as they're both divorcees. Thirdly,
you cannot accede to the throne of England if you are a Catholic,
or if you are not a Protestant, in good standing with the Church.
Now, Charles is not exactly a practicing Church of England Protestant.
In fact, he has expressed himself as not wanting to take his earth
as defender of the faith, but as defender of faiths. small
f, defend of faiths, and he has shown tremendous enamouring with
Islam, and he has championed the cause of Islam in quite a
number of cases in England, such as when the Muslims wanted to
set up a study centre at Oxford University, and Oxford dons would
not allow it. Next thing they made Prince Charles
patron of one of their Islamic societies. And then they got
him to put pressure on Oxford to sell some land to the Muslims
that they could set up their own study centre in Oxford and
take the name Oxford Study Centre for Islamic Studies. Which is
an outrageous abuse of the Royal Charter and it's in violation
of the Bill of Rights of 1689. He's not meant to advance anything
but the Protestant faith. And so I would say Prince Charles
is excluded from being King on three accounts according to the
English Bill of Rights 1689. And so they should go straight
to Prince William and omit Charles if they are to be true to the
Bill of Succession as required in the English Bill of Rights.
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any
people. The colonists in the 13 colonies of North America
protested the violation of their chartered rights as outlined
in Magna Carta when Parliament failed to provide redress for
their grievances. They were complaining about the taxation, they were
complaining about the arrest, they were protesting about the
fact they didn't have elected representatives. They were protesting
about the billeting of soldiers and their homes without permission.
And so many things. Confiscation of lands. All the
things that were protected under Magna Carta were not being enforced
across the ocean. Somehow they'd lost the chartered
rights by being on the other side of the Atlantic and they
would not accept that. And so they were fighting for their
chartered rights to be restored. In 1687 William Penn, after whom
Pennsylvania is named, he published the most excellent privilege
of liberty and property being the birthright of free-born subjects
of England. And this book contained the first copy of Magna Carta
printed on American soil. Men must be governed by God or
they will be ruled by tyrants. That's as true today as ever.
Right is right even if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong
even if everyone is for it. well said by William Penn. Penn's
comments reflected those of Copes that Magna Carta is fundamental
law. The American colonists quoted
extensively from Magna Carta concerning the right to trial
by jury and habeas corpus. The American founding fathers
declared that their constitution was to preserve their rights
and liberties as enshrined in Magna Carta. For example, here's
the National Trust saying, this oak tree planted with soil from
Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement
in the New World, commemorates the bicentenary of the Constitution
of the United States of America. It stands in acknowledgement
that the ideals of liberty and justice embodied in the Constitution,
traced their lineage through institutions of English law to
the Magna Carta, sealed at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, planted December
2, 1987 by John Marsh, Secretary of the Army of the United States
of America. So as late as the 1980s, America had a Secretary
of the Army who could recognize the biblical principles of Magna
Carta as the foundation for their freedoms and justice. I doubt
that America's got a Secretary of the Army today who would do
that. The American Founding Fathers claimed that Magna Carta was
foundational for the American Constitution of 1789, which became
the supreme law of the land in the United States of America.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States,
nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law, nor do lie to any person within its
jurisdiction equal protection of the laws. All this comes straight
from Magna Carta. In 1976 Britain lent one of the
four surviving original manuscripts of the 1215 Magna Carta to the
United States for their bicentenary celebrations and also donated
an ornate case to display it. A replica is still on display
in the United States Capitol Crypt in Washington DC. William
Stubbs in his Constitutional History of England published
an 1870s document that Magna Carta has been a major step in
the shaping of the English people as a nation governed by laws.
under God. And so the British Dominions
of Australia, New Zealand and Canada and Southern Rhodesia,
Union of South, all regard Magna Carta as foundational to our
laws and we've sought to model our constitutions to its provisions. That is the foundation of our
laws. And so here's a Magna Carta 1297 produced under Edward I
in Parliament House in Canberra, Australia as one of the most
treasured possessions. Four exemplifications of the
original 1215 Magna Carta remain in existence and are held by
the British Library and the Cathedrals of Salisbury and Lincoln. Lincoln
Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral are the repositories for these
most precious of legal documents foundational for freedom, liberty
and these are the property of these churches. At least 13 original
copies of the 1215 Magna Carta were issued by the Royal Chancery
at the time. These were sent to county sheriffs and bishops
who made more copies, ensured that provisions were understood
by the population. The original charters were written on vellum
sheets, leather sheets using quill pens and abbreviated Latin.
Each were sealed with a royal seal using beeswax and resin.
Much of this of course had not survived. The 63 numbered clauses
of Magna Carta were introduced by Sir William Blackstone in
1759 as the original Charters formed a single, unbroken, long
text. William Blackstone said, So great,
moreover, is the regard for the law of private property that
it will not authorise the least violation of it, no, not even
for the general good of the whole community. Private ownership
of property is inviolable. No enactment of man can be considered
law unless it conforms to the law of God. That needs to be
shouted from the rooftops. All of man's law, small l, must
be underscored by God's law, capital L. Because Jesus is the
King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The four original 1215
charters will be on joint display in the British Library this year
to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. I must admit,
that would make me very nervous to have all four in one place. Prime Minister Winston Churchill
attempted to gift the charter of Salisbury Cathedral to the
American government, hoping this would encourage the USA, then
neutral, to enter the war. But Lincoln Cathedral refused
to hand over the rights to such a precious heritage and informed
the British Prime Minister, it does not belong to you or to
the government of Britain, it belongs to our cathedral. It
is Lincoln Cathedral's possession and you do not have the right
to give it. The Americans took the Magna Carta and kept it in
Fort Knox for the whole of the Second World War and only legal
wranglings from Lincoln Cathedral got it restored to them after
the war. Only one example of the 1216 Charter survives and
it's held at Durham Cathedral. Durham, in the far north of England,
one of the most powerful of the Bishoprics, a fortified city
on its own, Durham Cathedral was the seat of the Prince Bishop.
He had his own army, he enacted his own taxes and no King of
England ever attempted to challenge the power of the Prince Bishop
of Durham. Now this is a classic power of
where secular power and church power just met and Durham Cathedral
has a 1216 Magna Carta which again is considered its most
serious trust and position and it has their rights enshrined
which they will use to defend themselves against any infraction
of the state. I've been to this church, very
impressive, built like a monumental fortress. Four copies of the
1217 chart exist, three of these are held in the Bodleian Library
in Oxford and one at Hereford Cathedral. The Australian government
has a 1297 charter on display in the Members Hall of Parliament
House Canberra and this whole edifice is built around Magna
Carta. That is their most precious possession
in Parliament in Canberra in Australia. and all of this around
is meant to enshrine this document. The document is considered the
authority for everything else that goes on in the Parliament
here in Canberra in Australia. So, this should all make us stop
and think what is so important about it. The National Archives
in Washington DC has a copy of the 1297 Charts as well. The
Church in England played a central role in drafting the Magna Carta,
initiating the negotiations between the Barons and the King, and
at least 11 other bishops were present at the signing of the
Magna Carta, along with the author, Archbishop Stephen Langton. Now
the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty. The true Church should always be involved in enforcing
the just application of God's law in all areas of life. It's
not surprising that Pope Innocent III reacted with hostility to
Magna Carta and attempted to annul it, because the Inquisition
was being established on the continent of Europe with its
corpus juris, where burden of proof is on the accused, guilty
till proven innocent. But the Church in England was
establishing habeas corpus and trial by jury, where burden of
proof is on the state, innocent till proven guilty. Should you
help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore
the wrath of the Lord is upon you." For those who think Magna
Cod is now just a matter of distant interest for historians, Britain's
membership of the European Union is threatening to undermine our
chartered rights as Englishmen. The Tower of Babel is being rebuilt
right now in Brussels and Strasbourg by the EU, self-consciously building
themselves on the Babel rebellion against God. Many tongues, one
voice, they say. These are the countries that at the moment
are under the EU and most of these countries have got huge
movements objecting to their country's involvement in the
EU and in recent elections France, Austria, Germany, Denmark, all
over Europe you can see there's a real rumbling of discontent
against the EU and in Britain and France the parties against
the EU got more votes than even the governing ruling parties.
Because the EU elections are proportional representation,
that's exact number of votes, not just seats. And so you could
see the EU break up because there's a tremendous groundswell of hostility
to the European Union. And it's the EU that's fomenting
a lot of the war in Ukraine and trying to get Ukraine to join
the EU. and threatening to start almost a third world war. The
EU is really irresponsible. This is Babel. This is New World
Order. It's thoroughly anti-Christ in
how they are promoting the homosexual agenda. abortion, multiculturalism,
Islamic invasions, all of these things. I mean, persecuting Christians
for open air preaching. So the EU really is the enemy
of the church in Europe. Brussels is attempting to create
a unified European criminal code which could abolish trial by
jury, habeas corpus and the other safeguards entrenched in Magna
Carta. The European Union is more influenced by the Papal
Inquisition and Napoleonic Code's corpus juris, and if allowed
to progress unchecked, an EU prosecutor could issue European
warrants which could violate the foundational sense of our
freedoms established in Magna Carta, for example, prosecuting
some evangelists in Scotland for hurting some pervert's feelings.
And this is where we find ourselves today. people who understand
their history, dealing with people who understand nothing but propaganda
and indoctrination. They've been brainwashed by the
world. For example, this is a picture of Constantinople under the Christians
before it was conquered and turned into Istanbul of Turkey. reminding
of the immense, glorious civilization of Christians that ruled for
a thousand years. This was the greatest Christian
city in the world, the greatest city in the world, Constantinople,
before the Muslims took it in 1453. And this should remind
us, this is what can happen to the most beautiful civilizations
if you allow it to be taken over by Islamists, secular humanists,
or anyone who hates Christ. This is Christian civilization
that today is behind the lines. and now being wrecked by Islamists
and Jihadists. Unless the Lord builds the house,
they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the
city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not
be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. For you, brethren,
have been called to liberty only. Do not use liberty as an opportunity
for the flesh, but through love serve one another. So we will
be putting this up on our ReformationSA.org website and as soon as it's feasible
we'll get the audio shared on Sermon Audio and on the Reformation
Facebook Quite a lot of what I put together on Magna Carta
has come from this book I've had several books on Of course
that is what we're trying to teach through the Ten Commandments
book The Basis of All Law, Biblical Principles for Africa understanding
the foundation of all law in our society. If we know our history
and if we know what God's law teaches, then we are laying good
foundations for the future. So any comments or questions? I've just been reminded again that I was reading
Exodus and I was reading about the Pharaoh and how he was oppressing
the Israelites and then Moses comes and continuously all these
bad things were happening and everything you read about Pharaoh
and who he was and it was all negative but it is also encouraging
to know that God was so in control of the whole situation and was
leading that situation to gain glory for himself because every
time that Pharaoh turned Moses down It was God who had hardened
his heart. God, even before sending Moses,
had planned this whole thing. And I'm just thinking also about
King John and how he was the worst king that you can see,
that you can see in history, but how it must have also been
God's hand in that. making him the worst king in
order for something like the Magna Carta to be able to come
through, to see God being glorified or for God to get victory or
glory out of a situation. because the same with that Pharaoh
situation how every time, I mean Pharaoh could have said yes maybe
after the first two or three times but then the Bible specifically
said every time God hardened Pharaoh's heart and made him
turn against it so that he would receive glory in it and he would
tell Moses Pharaoh is going to say no to you and then also when
I was reading the Ten Commandments and after the Ten Commandments
the law that God gave and how When you read it, it kind of
gives you the sad feeling when you look at this country and
the way that things are going. It's sad because you can see
what it could be if everybody was living according to the commandments,
not just the Ten Commandments, but also the law with regards
to how to deal with property and all that kind of thing. You
know, there's so much even amongst the Christians, as we've said
before, that are turning, they say we must live only, we live
under grace, not under the law. But they stir out everything,
the baby with the bathwater, they don't see the value of the
law anymore. So this is a good reminder of
those things. Do you have a comment? Have we
ever had trial by jury in this country? I don't recall it. Does anyone know? I don't recall
it. The closest I think is we have
a magistrate and two assessors. Yeah. Which is a pity. It is. What also is interesting
is how the British used to have that they would elect their own
sheriffs, which the Americans still have, that they elect the
sheriff and their prosecutors. We've never had that either,
and that would be a good thing, that one could actually elect
your prosecutors and your sheriffs. There's a lot of things they
vote on in the elections in America and in Switzerland too, where
they've got all the way down to, you know, the smallest municipal
positions are being voted on. But we've had those things taken
out of our hands. We've got less rights right now
than most of the people in the Middle Ages that we look down
on. People in the Middle Ages in Europe had more freedoms than
we've got right now, which is quite disturbing. I was thinking they were saying
that you can't impose taxes on this, there's consensus about
it. I was thinking when did we agree
to the taxes? And you know there was a debate
going on in Europe fairly recently. where they were talking about
whether 50% or 60% was a fair tax. And then at what stage does
it get to you that they say 90% is? There are places in Europe
where there is 80% and 90% tax. Yes, there are. And it seems to me like the governments
decide that without any consensus with anybody. It's absolutely
outrageous. And of course, if you had real decentralization,
You may not be able to change the country's laws, but you could
deal with your province and your municipality, if it was accessible.
In the past, Pinus used to be its own little garden city with
its own mayor, and I remember the mayor would come to the local
Baptist church, we knew him, we knew where they lived. You
could pop in and you could see the mayor and the town council
and chat to them about anything. That's when I actually had power,
and the whole community knew one another, and they could hold
those people accountable. But when it's some stranger out
there, this ugly civic centre in downtown Cape Town, you've
got trouble finding parking, and the person's not there, and
the man with the key hasn't arrived, and come back in the wrong queue,
and they keep doing a run around, and nothing gets done. The bigger
the government, the more mess. In fact, as was well said by
Thomas Jefferson, bad government normally comes from too much
government. Limited government is the biblical way. More personal
responsibility, less power to government. Most things should
be done by the family and the individual, and the church and
local community. Central government should have
very limited roles. In fact, biblically, if we look like in
the biblical principles to Africa, we make it clear. Government
is there to be national defense, justice, and crime and punishment. That's it. They are just to protect
you from criminals and from external invaders. That's government's
job. Justice, law and order, and defense. Everything else
is in the hands of private citizens and the church and the community.
Education shouldn't be the realm of any state. You can't trust
any state to the moulding of the minds of future voters. You
can't trust the economy in the hands of the state. Certainly
you can't trust printing the money to them. Goodness me. You
might as well give a bottle of vodka, a shotgun and keys to
a 12-year-old and let them ride around in your truck while drunken
with shotgun. You can't give power to central
government. Any government's going to abuse
it. That's the principles we have. And that's why the barons
had to force the king to limit his power at the point of the
sword. And that's really where our civil liberties came from.
And that's why there's so much productivity and freedom and
inventions came out of Europe, was because they limited the
powers of the state. But that was self-governed people
who were willing to work hard and not expect a free handout. So, any other comments or questions?
I think it's an exciting study in history. We're at a time of
tremendous lawlessness right now. But if we can remind people
that here we are at the cusp of the 800th anniversary of something
immensely significant in terms of legality and authority. which has implications for everything. Property, economics, jobs, everything. Which of us doesn't want stability
and freedom and a healthier economy and a healthier society? It's
only going to come from God's law. But if people ask, where
does law come from? Challenge your unsaved, evolution-believing,
secular humanist friends. Where does law come from? If
God doesn't exist, if there's no eternal right and wrong, if
there's no Day of Judgment, how do you determine what's right
or wrong? If you believe in evolution, from goo to the zoo to you, from
mud to monkeys to man, cosmic accidents, once there was nothing,
and then there became something, and something became everything,
how do you determine what's right or wrong? What's your basis for
law and justice? If you're an evolutionist, if
you're into situation ethics, how does an atheist establish
what's right or wrong? Majority vote? What if you're
in a Muslim country and the majority vote that you should be stoned
to death? Because you're an infidel. How do you determine what's right
or wrong? You're with a bunch of cannibals and they decide
you suffer? There's a majority vote? The atheist has no basis
for law. Not real law, not objective law. Historically, the factors justice
and limited government came from Christians through the Magna
Carta and the Doomsday King Alfred totally based on the Ten Commands
and the case laws of Exodus and the Sermon on the Mount by the
Lord Jesus. That's the foundation of law. If you reject that as
your foundation of law, what do you have? And this explains
the mess we've got in the world today. They don't want God. They
don't want creation. They don't want the Book of Genesis
or Exodus, of course. And therefore, what have we got?
Evolution, perversion, homosexuality, immorality, chaos, anarchy, breaking
down, lack of respect for life and property, murdering of foreigners
and xenophobic riots. And how can you say that's wrong?
If you reject God and His law and the Bible and creation, how
are you determining what's right or wrong? I mean, if the majority
want to do that, what's wrong with hacking your neighbor to
death? If it's what the majority want. How do you determine right
and wrong if you reject God? I don't know that our atheist
friends can have any logical, consistent argument for justice
and law if they reject God and the Bible. So this is an evangelistic
point. We are not quite two months away
from the 15th of June. We've got less than eight weeks
before there, but we can start building up, I hope, discussions.
And this is going to be in the next Christian Action magazine
we'll be putting on social media. We want to get the CDs out. We
want to get people thinking and talking about it. But when there's
so much lawlessness, I would trust a lot of people saying,
what's wrong with our world and what's the solution? And I believe
this can be a nice milestone, a very momentous milestone, to
point people to something that was a foundation stone that led
to the greatest prosperity liberty and freedoms the world has ever
seen which is all under threat now because we've abandoned the
foundations and so that's the thing we we need to call the
people back to these foundation stones well let's pray perhaps three
or four would like to bring some of these matters before the Lord Our Heavenly Fathers, we've listened
to the history of John. We can't help but be reminded
of our own country and how a man like Zuma could undo so much
in such a short time. Because of his lack of acknowledgement
of you and of law and a respect for these laws and the Magna
Carta and all these things from history, and we recognize the
very dangerous times that we live in where everyone is doing
what's right in their own eyes and we ask you, not because we
deserve it, but we do ask you for mercy we were a Christian
country that abided by your rules but we are not anymore and we
are open to so much evil we pray that you will, in your great
mercy, move in this country in a very special way. We know that
as you have the heart of Pharaoh, you can have the heart of any
ruler. And we know that this country deserves a lot of what
is happening, but we also know that you are a good God and we
trust you and we pray that we might be loyal to what we believe. and we believe in you so we ask
that your church will stand up and be counted at this time and
proclaim the truth in Jesus name yes lord when you look at the
chaos in our country in the last couple of weeks lord we pray
that you will bring a revival of repentance So, please help the church to
stand up and to proclaim your word in all areas of life. To proclaim that you are the
Lord of Lords and the King of Kings and that you are Lord over
South Africa. Lord, we pray that you will drive
back the forces of darkness, Lord, and let your light shine
once again in this country, Lord. Please, Lord, help the church, to pray for breakthroughs, Lord,
to seek your face, Lord, and to turn back to you, Lord. Lord,
we pray especially for the youth at this time, Lord. Lord, that you will pour out
your spirit and draw them to you, Lord. Because they look
at the world and they are without any kind of anchor in this chaos,
Lord. I want them to look to you. for
their salvation and for everything that they do in their lives.
In Jesus name. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you
so much for your law. Thank you for the freedom that
we find in your law. Thank you Lord God that you are
holy and you call us to be holy and you've given us your laws
as requirements of what you expect from us thank you lord god for
jesus and for his righteousness as he fulfilled this law lord
and as we can be clothed in in his righteousness in your righteousness
lord we can have the righteousness of god and lord i just pray that
you will continue to lead us by your holy spirit whom you've
given lord to remind us when we are wrong and we step off
the line that you'll remind us lord and bring us back to obedience
to your law. Lord, your word declares that
if we say we love you, then we should obey your commands. So,
Lord, we thank you so much for your law. We thank you, Lord,
for the protection which we find in your law. Because it's those
who disobey your law who find themselves in trouble and the
world starts going upside down. But those who obey your law are
blessed. So, Lord, Once again, we thank
you for your law, and we just ask that you will continually
help us to obey your law more and more each day. We ask this
in Jesus' name. Amen. Lord God, we thank you for the opportunities
that bad times give us. We know that bad times are good
for spiritual work. We thank you, Lord God, for the
fact that during times of disruption, people can be waken up and shaken
out of their apathy and distraction to focus on what really matters.
You, your word, your law, the day of judgement, things that
will matter for eternity and we pray Lord God that you may
mercifully and graciously take what man has meant for evil and
use it for good. Lord that these attacks on law
and property will cause people to re-look at where law actually
comes is anything that is right or
wrong in the light of eternity, in the light of your nature,
the law that you gave to Moses. We pray, Lord God, that there
would be a resurgence of interest into looking at what the foundations
of freedom and justice are, that we can relay these foundations
in a country that had been broken up and undermined in so many
places by irresponsible people and by cowards, too, and treacherous
individuals and corporates who refuse to make a stand. We ask,
Lord, that there really would be a revival of repentance amongst
your people, in your churches. Help us, Lord God, to be faithful
to your word, to be effective in your service, to be brave
and bold for you. Lord, how we pray that there'd be leaders
in this country and throughout this continent who'd be like
those barons, to call the leaders to account, back to your word,
back to serving the population, not oppressing them. We ask,
Lord God, that as we approach 800th anniversary of Magna Carta,
that there'd be a resurgence of interest in the subject, that
you'd draw a lot of attention to our articles and PowerPoints
and audio messages that we'll be posting on this. We pray,
Lord God, that there would be many a Bible study and school,
college pulpit that would focus on this. And we do pray, Lord
God, that there'd be political parties in this country that
would take up this challenge and call our people back to this
foundational principle. And we pray, Lord, for opportunities
to challenge our unsaved friends over how consistent are they
in their worldview. If they reject God and the Bible,
what is their basis for knowing what is right and wrong? What
is the basis for civilization and society? We ask, Lord, that
you would help us to communicate this effectively, give us courage
and opportunity and wisdom. We commit one another to your
hands and pray, Lord, that you'd be our shield and our fortress.
And Lord, as our Armenian friends and brothers and sisters in Christ
worldwide commemorate the centenary of the horrific events that were
unfolded on him by the Muslims in Turkey in the First World
War. We pray Lord God that you would cause Christians to ask
why it is that the media and Hollywood do not give attention
to when Christians are targeted. We pray Lord God that this injustice
would be exposed and a deep discontent against the powers that be who
ruling our media throughout the world would manifest itself and
that we would not swallow the brainwashing and lies which has
been forced on us so often by those who hate you. Give us,
we pray, much courage and much strength and conviction
Blessing the Nations: Magna Carta 800
| Sermon ID | 43015811355 |
| Duration | 1:16:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Language | English |
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