29

---

1

AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN HERITAGE

ACTS 5:29 7/29/2018

Our forefathers believed that less government was better than more government. In our lifetime too much government has intruded into our personal lives. I. THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND BIBLICAL RIGHTS

A. Founding Father John Dickinson said that rights essential to happiness could not be given by kings or parliaments. We claim them from a higher source— from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power without taking our lives...it would be an insult on the Divine Majesty to say that He has given or allowed any man or body of men a right to make me miserable.

B. Alexander Hamilton's views are seen; 1. "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

2. Hamilton's final thoughts are etched on his tombstone; "Mortals hastening to the tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning, and avoid my errors. Cultivate the virtues I have recommended. Choose the Saviour I have chosen." C. Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution wrote a trac before the war entitled; "The Rights of the Colonists as Christians." He wrote; "The rights of the colonists as Christian might be best understood by carefully reading and studying...the New Testament." D. In the view of the Founding Fathers, the source of human rights is God.

2

E. By 1775 75% of the colonists believed in a Biblical based understanding of natural rights and constitutional self-government.

F. John Witherspoon was a clergyman and president of Princeton University. His Biblical faith structure was taught and built into those who would afterward become leaders of this nation including;

1. Eighty-seven Founding Fathers.

2. One President 3. One Vice-President 4. Three Supreme Court justices

5. Ten Cabinet members 6. Twelve Governors 7. Twenty-one United States Senators 8. Thirty-nine Congressmen

9. Many members of the Constitutional Convention.

II. THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE RIGHT OF RESISTANCE A. Our forefathers stated in our founding documents that Biblical Government should prevent tyrannical leadership from ruling supreme in our nation

B. It is important we understand that man's dominion over us ends where that of God begins. C. There are Biblical precedents for civil disobedience.

1. The Hebrews in Egypt disobeyed Pharaoh's command.

a. Pharaoh commanded that all male children be killed. (Exodus 1)

b. The Scriptures are clear; "But the midwives feared God and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive." (Exodus 1:17)

3

2. The King signed a decree that Daniel should not pray; (Daniel 6:9

a. However the Bible states; "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. (Daniel 6:10)

b. The stand of Daniel in the lion's den has encouraged countless people through the ages! 3. Shadrach, Mechach and Abednego refused to obey King Nebuchadnezzar and rather chose to walk with God in the fiery furnace.

4. The apostles were commanded not to speak in the Name of Jesus.

a. They were brought before the council. (Acts 5:27) b. The apostles when threatened said; "We ought to obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29) D. Augustine said; "An unjust law is no law at all." E. There are also precedents for civil disobedience in American history.

1. One such law was The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850; a. It decreed that every U. S. citizen had to assist a slave owner in recovering his runaway slave, even if that slave had reached a free state. b. Senator Seward of New York said publicly that he could not require the people of New York State to obey that law because the law of God was a higher law, and took precedence.

2. In 1738 Jared Elliott, a pastor friend of Ben Franklin's wrote that if any laws should be made by government which are inconsistent with the laws of God, or which destroy the foundations of the Commonwealth, men must just obey God rather than man, as did the Apostles. 3. In 1713 John Bulkley of Connecticut preached: "No law of the Civil Magistrate can bind in opposition to the Divine...it is a sin...to invade these rights of a people."

4

4. In 1744 Elisha Williams wrote; "The powers of government are limited, and therefore the obedience due is a limited obedience." 5. Jonathan Mayhew was called the Father of Civil Liberties in America. a. Mayhew was the first minister in New England to begin preaching resistance to British tyranny in 1750.

b. In 1773 Mayhew said that; "True religion comprised the love of liberty and of one's country and the hatred of all tyranny and oppression." 6. On May 26, 1776 Pastor Samuel West gave a famous talk to the Council House of Representatives in Boston, just a few weeks before Thomas Jefferson started writing the Declaration; He stated; "When rulers become oppressive to the subject and injurious to the state, their authority, their respect, their maintenance, and the duty of submitting to them, must immediately cease; they are then to be considered as the ministers of Satan, and as such, it becomes our indispensable duty to resist and oppose them." 7. James Otis, the famous Boston orator of the Revolutionary period, said; "He that would palm the doctrine of unlimited passive obedience upon mankind is not only a fool and a knave, but a rebel against common sense as well as the laws of God, of nature and his country."

8. Another colonial minister asserted: "The man who refuses to assert his right to liberty, to property, and to life, is guilty of the worst kind of rebellion; he commits high treason against God...and is a betrayer of generations yet unborn." 9. King George III demanded absolute submission from the American colonies and stated that they must submit to the crown; "in all cases whatsoever."

10. There were two great statements uttered in the colonies;

a. "No king but King Jesus!"

b. "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God" F. America is the only nation in world history since Israel to be founded on the Biblical concepts of government by the consent of the governed.