People are strange. And it seems that Christians can be the strangest. True freedom can only come through God. Our nation was founded upon God-given rights, or what is called Natural Law. These are rights that are given by our Creator and, not by any person or governmental body. They cannot be taken away.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).
It is unfortunate, then, that most of today’s Christians (at least in the Western world, particularly America) are as much in bondage as those who are not Christians. They are in bondage to traditions of men, liturgy and doctrine. They are enslaved much as the Pharisees enslaved Judaism from accounts we read in the Bible. Jesus spoke with passion and was “in-your-face” with the Pharisees about their “oral law.” These were their additional “rules” which they took upon themselves to add to that which was given by God to guide Israel.
This is very unfortunate, especially considering what we see unfolding not only across the world but here in America. This is a nation that was founded upon biblical principles and laws. Our founding fathers took these very seriously and crafted documents that reflect this. Despite what some “progressives” try to say in order to rewrite history, the facts are facts. History cannot be changed. But as we see from history, when a nation does not honor God, it is not blessed.
All Christians, particularly in America and especially pastors, should then be keenly interested in this and in being proactive by doing everything within their power to see that our nation isn’t tolerating the things God has told us not to tolerate. To call that which is good, good and that which is evil, evil─and not to care what the world thinks at all. That was Jesus’ philosophy.
One of the founding fathers was a minister. All of these brave men laid everything they had; even their very lives on the line in order to do what they did. They were, after all, committing a treasonous act. They were taking action against King George. They were standing in defiance against a tyrannical government. And Christians and ministers stood with them. Churches were a significant force in keeping communities informed of what was happening. Today, this is unheard of. The pulpits have fallen silent, with the exception of a very few.
Instead of teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ (which includes how to be a good citizen, if these teachings are taken seriously and followed), the Baptists are teaching how to be “good Baptists.” Methodists are teaching how to be “good Methodists” and so forth. Instead of understanding and teaching the great blessing and significant role God has played in this nation and therefore, how being a good citizen is also acknowledging what God has done for us, they are actually denigrating this. How? By teaching that Christians are “citizens of heaven” and therefore have no responsibility to their nation, state or community.
This has happened within our generation for our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not do this. They served God and part of serving God was serving their communities. In doing so, they built this nation to become the most prosperous, and therefore, blessed nation in history. This was because they obeyed God, kept Him first, served Him and served their communities and their nation in a way that honored God. God blessed them by blessing the work of their hands and their obedience.
Of course, being a “citizen of heaven” doesn’t keep Christians today from going to the mall or attending their favorite sporting event on weekends. Not only are so many pastors and churches enslaved to denominationalism, they are enslaved to incorporationism. Nowhere in Scripture is the church of Jesus Christ seen or described or commanded to be a “denomination” or a “corporation” or even a “business.” It is not even described as a denomination or corporation. Yet most churches today are being run exactly as corporate America is run, using the exact business model.
This is embracing worldly principles instead of godly ones. Ask most any Christian today and they will tell you that unless a church is a 501(c) 3 corporation, has a building and by-laws, and is under the “umbrella” of a structured denomination, it is not a church! Really! In other words, if a church is not recognized by the state, it is not a church! Wow. Did Jesus Christ teach that? If so, WHERE, WHEN?
Read this carefully. The churches in the book of Acts, the early Christian churches were not 501(c)3 organizations and most didn’t have buildings. They certainly were not set-up as corporations and they were not under any authority such as a denominational organization. Nope. They submitted only to the authority of Jesus Christ. There is only one Head of the church – the church of Jesus Christ – the Ekkelisa and that is Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Messiah, Himself!
No man, no pastor, no evangelist, no one can say otherwise and not be a liar. The church in Rome is not “the” church, nor is the pope more than a mere man. We are not to revere any man but instead look to our Heavenly Father for all things. No doctrine but that of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be obeyed.
Any true church will refuse to be controlled by anything or anyone but the teachings of Jesus Christ. History proves this; the early Christian church refused to submit to Rome, the Pilgrims refused to be bullied or controlled by the British Crown, the German churches refused to submit to the Nazis. The true church in China today refuses to bow to communism. What is the excuse for professing Christians in the U.S. today?
Today’s churches are wimps, filled with greed and love for the things of this world. Most in the congregations are not hearing their Shepherd’s voice. They are scared and will not stand against anything we see happening in our nation today. That is why we see homosexual marriage, we see Christianity being made into “the enemy” and there are other, far more wicked things coming down the road. How far “we” have fallen! Surely today’s church is the church of Laodecia; lukewarm at best; neither hot nor cold about anything. Just “comfy.”
Political Science Professors at the University of Houston wanted to know the source of the Founding Father’s ideas. After assembling over 15,000 documents, quotes and writings from them this is what they learned:
Direct quotes (3,154) showed that 7.9% were from William Blackstone. Blackstone’s Commentary on the Law/span>, 1758 was the textbook for American lawyers and it contained direct Bible quotes referencing sources of laws; 8.3% were from Charles Montesquieu, a political philosopher; 2.9% were from John Locke, theologian and political philosopher; 94% were quotes from The BIBLE, of which 34% were direct quotes, and 60% were quotes from men who quoted the Bible in their writings.
The study revealed that the book most often quoted was Deuteronomy. The Bible (the inspired Word of God) was used to create the U.S. Constitution. (Why would anyone then wonder why so many wish to destroy the Constitution? This is why!) The following ideals were taken directly from the Bible: Representative form of government: Deuteronomy Chapter 1; Three distinct branches of government: Isaiah 33:22; Logic for separation of powers: Jeremiah 17:9; Tax exemption for churches: Ezra 7:24.
The writing of the U.S. Constitution is attributed to Thomas Jefferson (who has been painted as a racist, an atheist or agnostic, and a terrible person…) but here are a few true FACTS about Jefferson who was uniquely qualified to write the document: At the age of nine, he studied Latin, Greek and French. At 16, he entered the College of William and Mary. At 19, he graduated and began five years of extensive study with George Wythe, the first professor of Law in the U.S. He dedicated between 14 and 16 hours a day to this study. By the time Jefferson reached early adulthood, he was proficient in five languages. He had studied the Greek and Roman Classics. He had studied European and English history. He had carefully studied both the Old and the New Testaments. These are facts.
While studying the history of ancient Israel, Jefferson made a significant discovery. He, along with Reverend Thomas Hooker, who wrote the Constitution for Connecticut in 1649, discovered that the most substantiative principles of representative government were those practiced by Israel under the leadership of Moses. He saw that at one time the Israelites had practiced the earliest and most efficient form of representative government. His study found that as long as the Israelites followed their fixed pattern of constitutional principles, they flourished. When they drifted from it, disaster overtook them. Jefferson thereafter referred to this constitutional pattern as the “ancient principles.”
Jefferson was also surprised to find that the Anglo-Saxons somehow got hold of some of these “ancient principles” and followed a pattern almost identical to that of the Israelites, until around the eighth century A.D.
It is interesting that when Jefferson was writing his drafts for the Virginia Constitution he was already emphasizing the need to return to the “ancient principles.” Jefferson incorporated these principles into the U.S. Constitution.
The first eight of these are:
1.Sound government should be based on self-evident truths. These truths should be so obvious, so rational, and so morally sound that their authenticity is beyond reasonable dispute.
2. The equal station of mankind here on earth is a cosmic reality, and obvious inherent aspects of nature and of nature’s God.
3. This presupposes (as a self-evident truth) that the Creator made human beings equal in their rights, equal in His sight. (Of course individual attributes and personal circumstances in life vary widely).
4. These rights bestowed on each individual by the Creator are inalienable; that is, they cannot be taken away or violated without the violator coming under the wrath and judgment of the Creator. A person may have other rights, which have been “vested” rights by statute, but those are not inalienable rights. They can be altered or eliminated at any time.
5. Among the most important of the inalienable rights are the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to pursue whatever course of life a person may desire in search of happiness, so long as it does not invade the inherent rights of others.
6. The most basic reason for a community or a nation to set up a system of government is to assure its inhabitants that the rights of the people shall be protected and preserved.
7. And because this is so, it follows that no office or agency of government has any right to exist except with the consent of the people or their representatives.
8. It also follows that if a government either by malfeasance or neglect fails to protect those rights – or, even worse, if the government itself begins to violate those rights – then it is the right and duty of the people to regain control of their affairs and set up a form of government which will serve the people better.
Consider the principles above (which are our right – our heritage and cannot be taken away) and ask yourself why these are being taken away today? They are being FORFEITED! And then ask why Christians are sitting by and watching as their right to worship the GOD of Abraham, Jacob and Israel is being diminished, and the right to pray, to speak in the Name of Jesus Christ, and to teach their children about God (instead what the government chooses). Ask why pastors are NOT teaching the gospel, why they don’t revere these freedoms? It is because they are not doing their duty to protect the very rights given them by God Himself! Perhaps they serve a different master. Perhaps they teach a “different” gospel.
FOUNDATIONS:
God: “In the beginning…God” Genesis 1:1.
“We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus.” (John Adams and John Hancock, April 18, 1775)
The Word: “In the beginning was the Word…” John 1:1.
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason, people of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.” ─Patrick Henry’s, May 1765 Speech before the House of Burgesses
The Son: “And the Word was made flesh, full of grace and truth” John 1:14.
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me, so pure as that of Jesus…I am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” ─Thomas Jefferson
The Holy Spirit: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.” Acts 1:8.
“The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost…there is not authority, civil or religious-there can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words, damnation.” ─John Adams
THERMOSTAT OR THERMOMETER?
What is the difference? Which are you?
Webster’s Dictionary 1828:
THERMOM’ETER, n. [Gr. warm, from heat, and measure.]
An instrument for measuring heat; founded on the property which heat possesses of expanding all bodies, the rate or quantity of expansion being supposed proportional to the degree of heat applied, and hence indicating that degree. The thermometer indicates only the sensible heat of bodies, and gives us no information respecting the quantity of latent heat, or of combined heat, which those bodies may contain.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: Thermostat, no definition.
Modern Webster: an automatic device for regulating temperature (as by controlling the supply of gas or electricity to a heating apparatus). Device that detects temperature changes for the purpose of maintaining the temperature of an enclosed area essentially constant. The thermostat generates signals, usually electrical, to activate relays, valves, switches, and so on when the temperature rises above or falls below the desired value. Thermostats are used to control the flow of fuel to a burner of electric current to a heating or cooling unit, or of a heated or cooled gas or liquid into the area it serves.
Thermometer or Thermostat
Similarities:
Both devices detect the temperature and report it; both devices are passive detectors;
Differences:
One obeys its direction without further thought; one responds to the environment presented to it.
One takes the necessary action based on what it senses.
WHICH ONE DO YOU DEPEND UPON THE MOST?
Matthew 5:12-17 (Amp)
“Be glad and supremely joyful, for your reward in heaven is great (strong and intense), for in this same way people persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste (its strength, its quality), how can its saltiness be restored? It is not good for anything any longer but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a peck measure (basket), but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your [a] moral excellence and your praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds and [b] recognize and honor and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I have come to do away with or [c] undo the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to do away with or undo but to complete and fulfill them.
Matthew 5:18-20 (Amp)
“For truly I tell you, until the sky and earth pass away and perish, not one smallest letter nor one little hook [identifying certain Hebrew letters] will pass from the Law until all things [it foreshadows] are accomplished. Whoever then breaks or does away with or relaxes one of the least [important] of these commandments teaches men so shall be called least [important] in the kingdom of heaven, but he who practices them and teaches others to do so shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness (your uprightness and your right standing with God) is more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Deuteronomy 29-30 (Amp)
“I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live And may love the Lord your God, obey His voice, and cling to Him. For He is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
ARE THESE BIBLICAL CONCEPTS?
Does the earth overcome the salt?
Does darkness overcome the light?
We could examine people of the Bible
Parables
Doctrines of the Bible
And it is all the same!
God…Christianity is a Thermostat!
Anything else is a thermometer and un-Godly!
WHICH ARE YOU?
Comments or questions to sylvester.lea@gmail.com