We can only imagine how furious the king was after receiving the document. In fact, he dispatched Admiral Lord Howe on an emergency mission to Staten Island in order to demand that the declaration be revoked. The king thought of himself so highly that the thought of "his subjects" in America refusing to obey the king's laws - by declaring their freedom from his tyranny - must have infuriated him! What the king didn't realize is that the "subjects" in America were appealing to a higher law - the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."
That phrase had a very specific meaning in the eighteenth century. John Locke (1632-1704), the British philosopher, said it quite simply:
"The law of nature stands as an eternal rule of all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions must... be conformable to the law of nature....i.e. to the will of God." (11)
Sir William Blackstone (1732-80), the great teacher of the English common law, wrote:
"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being....And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker, is called the law of nature." (12)
The book goes on to describe that one law of nature is gravity. This could be described as "the will of God revealed in creation." Gravity is a law written into the workings of this world by the Creator. You don't have to believe in God to understand the law or to witness its power, but the law is there nevertheless, and breaking it results in immediate and sometimes painful consequences.
But King George had broken God's revealed law. He had overstepped the limits of his authority established by God in the Scriptures and noted by the Magna Carta. Again, using Locke and Blackstone as our guides, we might categorize those eternal laws that limit a ruler's power as the will of God revealed in Holy Scripture. Blackstone wrote, "Upon these two foundations, the law of Nature and the law of Revelation, depend all human law; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these." (13)
We can definitely see how far our government has strayed from the original intent of both the Declaration and our U.S. Constitution. They have done so at the extreme detriment to our nation. There is A LOT than needs to be fixed. But even a new leader can't fix it all at once. It took decades to get to this point of the brink of destruction that we face (financially, economically, morally, internationally, militarily, and especially spiritually) and the only leader who will solve it all is Jesus Christ at the time of his return. Living in the future Millennium will show us what the ultimate temporal life is like - and will adhere to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" perfectly! Meanwhile, we suffer under imperfect (and, unfortunately, often evil) "leaders" due to the "god of this world" and his penchant for spreading relentless evil, sin, and death. But there is hope eternal - and that rests ONLY in the Son of God - Jesus Christ!
Back to the book chapter.
We have already discussed the Declaration's source of our Liberty. Next, we find the Unalienable Rights of Mankind.
"Then, in the second paragraph, they got down to some specifics of that law, beginning with these eight wonderful words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident...."
Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and the others were about to list the great truths that led to the birth of our nation and to the eventual creation of a better kind of government. Yet they told King George at the outset that those same truths with all their historic consequences were "self-evident" -- that is, they were plain, widely recognized, and needed no further proof or explanation.
Then they listed these obvious truths:
That all men are created equal,The book goes on to ask the question:
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these end, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.
And where did our forefathers find this basic list of unalienable human rights? Again, they found them in the Bible. God is the giver of life. Moses said it in the Old Testament: "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 being." (17)
God is the giver of liberty. The Apostle Paul proclaimed it in the New Testament: "Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (18)
And God is the giver of humanity's right to pursuit happiness. King Solomon wrote about the pursuit of happiness in his ancient book of wisdom: "And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor--it is the gift of God." (19)
The framers believed those basic rights were God-given. They were not man-invented or state-granted. And because those rights were from God, they were "unalienable." They could not be sold, traded, or taken away. Moses said it this way:
"God is not a man, that He should lie,...
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken,
and will He not make it good?" (20)
And Jesus Himself promised, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." (21)
When God gives rights, they are forever. The words of Scripture made that perfectly clear. But the signers had also learned at their parents' knees that we live in a fallen world where sin and wickedness prevail. Every new generation has its share of men and women who attempt to steal God-given rights from their neighbors. Because of this threat, civil government was instituted by God to protect people's rights. The Old Testament stories of those first kings of Israel gave our nation's forefathers the basis upon which to institute a more perfect government in this land.
The signers said it this way: "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Scripture informs us that after rescuing his people from Pharaoh, God wanted to lead the Israelites directly, through God-appointed prophets, priests, and elders to be His voice among the people. But the people wanted a king "like other nations." We learn through the prophet Samuel that human kings would misuse and abuse them.
God warned, "And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen...."(22) But the people refused to listen, so God said to Samuel, "Heed their voice, and make them a king." (23)
God loved his people and established a godly pattern (the Ten Commandments for example) for the kings too follow; urging them not to turn aside from the commandments.
The apostle Paul reaffirmed this godly pattern for all civil government when he wrote, "For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God...For [a ruler] is God's minister to you for good...[and] God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." (25)
Let me stop here for a moment. Do you see a similar pattern in the election of Barack Hussein Obama here in America? Some of the people were clamoring for a "new kind of leader" who promised the moon, but gave us the horrible situation that we are in now due to the Obama administration's lies, deceit, deception, corruption, and dismissal of God's Word! During the frenzy of the 2008 election, signs of "hope and change" were everywhere. And Obama gave speeches telling the people what they wanted to hear. However, once he got into office the real roots of his rage [see the documentary 2016: Obama's America] became so apparent that many former supporters of his are now totally against his re-election!
I think that God heard our fervent prayers during the 2010 mid-term election which helped stem the huge tide of destruction that was occurring against our nation! The change in the House of Representatives stopped the avalanche of the liberal leftist agenda that was previously being heaped upon our nation and people.
We now stand at the crossroads of whether we will continue spiraling down away from our God-given liberty and unalienable rights into a pit of doom and despair!
It's your choice, America.
Hopefully, enough of us will vote Obama out (while at the same time, do so overwhelmingly so as to overcome the voter fraud, deceit, and deception that we are seeing happening) and continue to PRAY TO GOD FOR OBAMA'S REMOVAL FROM OFFICE!!
The covenant between God, the king, and the people was simple. The king would retain his office as long as he obeyed God and protected the unalienable rights of the people. But if he failed and elevated his own good above the people's good, he would be removed from office. The signers of the Declaration said it this way: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." (26)
Hat Tip:
Pat Roberson, America's Dates With Destiny, (Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc., and distributed in Canada by Lawson Falle, Ltd., Cambridge, Ontario, 1986). 66-71
End notes:
(11) John Locke, Second Treatise On Civil Government 77 (n.d.: Liberal Arts Press, 1952). Quoted by Dr. Herbert W. Titus in an unpublished work titled "The Christian Legacy of America's Declaration of Independence," CBN University.
(12) I. W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (39; reprint Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979).
(17) Genesis 1:27.
(18) Genesis 2:7.
(19) 2 Corinthians 3:17.
(20) Numbers 22:19.
(21) Matthew 24:35.
(22) 1 Samuel 8:18.
(23) 1 Samuel 8:22.
(25) Romans 13: 1, 4.
(26) S. E. Forman, ed., The Life and Writing of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs, Merrill Co., 1900), 255-256.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment