“Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants”

-William Penn

Grace and peace unto you.

Today is the 4^th of July 2011 and it is raining outside; and I could not be more pleased.  Independence Day is a sham.  For the retail business, the 4^th of July is merely a day to market grills, charcoal, coolers, and flags.  For most Americans it is just a day off from work to eat barbecue and enjoy family and friends.  There is nothing wrong with that.  But, Americans could care less about the true meaning of this day.  I would wager that many—if not most—Americans are not even aware that the true name of this day is Independence Day, and I would again wager that precious few of those who are aware know the circumstances which lend special significance to that moniker.

No.  Americans have completely divorced themselves from the ideals that made this country what it is.  Americans are ashamed to be Americans.  Americans are ashamed to be patriots.  And Americans are ashamed of their Constitution: the only document in the history of the world that set man free.

Americans are blissfully ignorant of the fact that the greatest war between good and evil, light and darkness, and liberty and slavery has been, is being and will be fought in this country.  They are marvelously blind to the fact that America is the only country in the world where human beings were free to do as they like.  Our Constitution gives us the freedom to say what we want, to think what we want, to worship as we see fit, to associate with whom we choose, to bear arms in order to defend our persons and property, and to be secure in our persons and property from government seizure.

Every other nation in the world is under some form of dictatorship.  Even the so-called democratic countries have nothing in writing that guarantees any freedoms to their citizens to the extent that the United States has.  These countries can grant or rescind any privileges given to the people that they so choose.

And therein lies the difference.  The Constitution of the united States of America—unique in the history of the world—grants its citizens rights rather than privileges; and there is a huge difference.  Rights are God-given whereas privileges are man-given.  It is against the principles of the Bible to deny a person the right to say what he chooses, or to worship his God, or to defend himself against anyone who would want to take his life or property.  These rights are given us by the Constitution, a document which would never had been ratified by the several states unless those rights were expressly given.  The founders of this country knew what the inevitable result would be if a government were given unlimited powers over the people – tyranny.

Therefore the founders devised the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which the several states demanded as a prerequisite to signing the Constitution, to protect our God-given rights.  The Constitution established a federal government—meaning that power was shared between the national government and the government of the several states—with limited powers.  And this is very important to understand.   The United States government exists nowhere but on paper.

The Constitution created a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” which was limited in power and scope to keep it from turning into a dictatorship.  Without our Constitution, the government has unlimited power; and can do as it pleases, when it pleases, and to whom it pleases.  Yet this document, which is the only protection that the people have from their government, is being trampled on daily by both the government and the people.

You must understand that without the Constitution we have no rights.  If you think that once the Constitution is abolished, the government, out of the goodness of its heart, will allow people to continue to enjoy the freedoms that they do now, you are out of your mind. 

The imminent loss of the Constitution of the United States should be of great concern to everybody, but it should absolutely terrify Blacks. 

Before the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments (the Reconstruction Amendments) to the Constitution, Blacks were slaves—owned property—who did not have the right to live, let alone own property.  They were property.

Slavery is the best example of the difference between a right and a privilege.  Understand that the United States Constitution created a Constitutional Republic, where the rights of the individual were more important than the rights of the people; the logic being that if you look out for the rights of the individual citizen, then the rights of all citizens will be protected.  But those who supported slavery preferred a democracy,  where the rights of the people took precedent over the rights of the individual.  Which people?  The majority.  Who were the majority?  male, white, property owners. 

The majority, who filled many offices of government, said that blacks were not people and thus, were not entitled to the right to life, liberty, and property.  Without that right, blacks could be bought, sold, and discarded like all other owned property.  Life, then, for the Black, was a privilege rather than a right, and, thus, could be taken away at a moment’s notice.

The 13^th Amendment not only abolished slavery as a government-sanctioned institution, but it also eliminated slavery as a class (for that is exactly what it was) and thus a perpetual and hereditary condition.  The 14^th Amendment then established the Negro as a person and thus entitled to all the rights and privileges under the Constitution and the various state governments.  Among these is the right to live, granted by the Fifth Amendment, which reads:

“No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

Did you know that the right to life comes from the Bible?  Well it does, and we would do well to understand that.  Genesis 2:7 says,

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

That means that God gave us life, not man.  There is a very simple principle at work here:  he who makes a thing owns a thing.  God created us and gave us life, so only He has the right to take away our lives (as He has proven on occasion).  That is why the taking of a man’s life by another is called murder and is against the law.  Man didn’t come up with that; God said it first.

The Declaration of Independence

But ever since Cain killed righteous Abel, man has usurped God’s authority and determined for himself who should live and who should die.  Whenever man is in charge he will set himself up as lord over other men and, taking upon himself the mantel of God, usurp a right that is exclusively His: the right to determine who should live and who should die. 

Can you see now why Evolution is so dangerous?  A doctrine that eliminates God as Supreme Lord and Creator and decrees that man just “happened,” supplants God’s decree regarding the sanctity of life.  Then men get to choose who will live and who will die.  Which men?  Why, the majority.  Who is the majority?  Why, the most evolved.  Who is the most evolved?  Well, I think we all know the answer to that one.  This is the danger of a democracy.

The founding fathers were Christian and learned men who knew full well the weakness of man, so they gave us the Bill of Rights to protect the common man’s life, liberty, and property from anyone who would take these away from him.  This is even reflected in the way the Amendments to the Bill of Rights are ordered.   The First Amendment gives man among other things, freedom of worship, and right behind it comes the Second Amendment, which gives us the right to “keep and bear arms.”  Why? In order to protect the first rights and all the others.  This too, comes from the Bible, for Jesus said:

“When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace” (Luke 11:21).

Without the right to protect ourselves, we would have no way to keep someone from denying us any of our rights, especially the right to life. 

At this point, I want to emphasize something very important:  if everyone thought that all individuals were entitled to rights, there would have been no need to expressly grant them in the Constitution.  So, the very fact that they are in the Constitution is a direct indictment against man.  It is also important to note that at the time the Constitution was penned, there were no blacks in government and no one was looking forward to a day when Negroes would be free.  That means that white men at this time feared enslavement and deprivation of life by other white men.

This is very important to understand considering that many, many, people blame Blacks, Hispanics, and anyone else they can for all of America’s ills.  Yet, at this time, whites were afraid of other whites.  Why?  Because they knew that it is not a man’s color that one should be concerned with, but his ideology and worldview—his religion.   This is why the founding fathers, after giving us the freedom to worship as we choose, gave us the right to arm and protect ourselves from someone exercising their freedom to worship a god that may not be very friendly towards you. 

Think about it.  If your right to live comes from God; that is, Jesus Christ, but Jesus does not hold the place in another man’s heart that He holds in yours, then this person may not even recognize your right to live.  The founding fathers understood that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

You may not think that the right to live and to protect your life is important, but look at what has happened in every country where those rights were not respected.  Look at Nazi Germany and the death camps.  Look at Communist Russia and the more than two hundred million Russians killed under Stalin.  Look at Communist Cambodia and Pol Pot’s Killing Fields.  Look at Communist China and Tiananmen Square.  And look at America during the time of slavery.  

Everywhere where the right to life and the right to protect one’s life has been denied people have suffered terribly.  Yet we have these rights expressly guaranteed in our Constitution–and we want to get rid of it!  Rather than remember the terrible price that has been paid in order to make our country free, we prefer to get together and eat barbecue.

Don’t get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with eating barbeque on Independence Day.  But rather than celebrating the ability to cook and eat barbecue, we should be celebrating the Constitution which gave us all the rights that enabled you to be standing at your grill wearing your “Kiss the Chef” apron on a normal workday (whereas in a Communist country you would be working).  

Blacks should be remembering all the brave men and women from President Abraham Lincoln to President John F. Kennedy who fought and died so that you could have the right to enjoy the same rights as everyone else.  We should above all remember the Lord Jesus from whom those rights ultimately came.  And we should never forget that there are those who are determined to take those rights away from us.

Enjoy this Independence Day America.  Soon it will be a thing of the past.  Forgetfulness is a terminal disease.  

Please forgive me for this ranting diatribe, but my heart hurts for America.  Come quickly Lord Jesus!

The Still Man