Foundations of American Government-Building On The American Heritage – What is the foundation our Country was build on? Why is it important to know the foundations of Government? What is the difference between a democracy and a republic? Tune in to learn the answers to these questions and more!

Air Date: 09/02/2022

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to WallBuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green. Today we’ve got a special program for you, it’s the second episode of Building on the American Heritage series. It’s called Foundations of American Government. We’re going to go straight to the television set right here. You’re going to get to hear it on audio, Building on the American Heritage series Foundations of American Government.

Rick:

Alright, David, I’ve been excited about this show because we’re really getting to the heart of the matter. We’ve been the most successful nation in history. What is the cause for the effect of America’s success?

David:

When you look at what we’ve been able to do and we have 4% of the world’s population and 32% of the world’s gross domestic product, and it’s not because we have more natural resources, I mean, Africa, other continents have a lot more resources than we do, we’ve been blessed to be able to take the resources we have and produce wealth at an unbelievable rate, produce stability. We’re the longest ongoing constitutional republic in the world. And it’s not an accident, because if it is, nobody else has stumbled on the cause. I mean, look at every other nation, 192 nations of the UN, they don’t have the stability, the prosperity…

So where did it come from? That’s where you have to go back and look at the foundations. So when you look at it, in our case, it is the Declaration of Independence. And in that document, you start with 104 words up top that give the five fundamental principles on which American government operates.

Rick:

So this is the formula that produces the result?

David:

That’s it. Now, you get those five principles, they then give you 27 grievances saying that here’s the five principles and here’s 27 examples of where Great Britain has violated these principles and we can’t stay a nation if we can’t do these five things. And then they close at the end with a very clear declaration with the firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge each other our lives, fortune, sacred honor and that’s where their integrity came out. Because you look at the story of these guys and so many of them did lose their lives, and fortune, sacred honor to keep their word, but it goes back to they were wanting to uphold those five principles.

So you look at the five principles and 104 words, they say, number one, we in government acknowledge that there’s a creative. Now, that’s not a personal declaration, that’s not something private. We say, government says in the document we hold these truths to be self-evident. These truths are so obvious, anybody gets them. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. So you start with the fact there is a Creator, we are a created being. That is an acknowledgement of government.

The second point is the Creator gives certain inalienable rights to every man; among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Eleven years later, when they did the Constitution, they did the Bill of Rights, they came back and said, we told you there were three among others, so we’re going to give you a bunch of others. Now, second point is God himself gives certain rights to every individual, regardless of race or station or position or anything else; these are God-given rights, not government-given rights.

The third point says that government exists to protect these rights. The whole purpose we have government is government makes sure that I have the right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. Nobody can stop me from acknowledging it. Now, they do it all the time. Now they’ve kind of reversed that, they’ve turned it on its head, but the purpose of government was to make sure I had the right to defend myself, to make sure I had the right to enjoy my property, to make sure I had a right to life. And by the way, you go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson in the 1700s, he’s passing antiabortion laws in the legislature of Virginia. You look in Pennsylvania, James Wilson, the same thing, Founding Father, we had antiabortion laws in every state in America.

Rick:

Wait, David, I always thought abortion was a 40, 50 year issue, you’re saying even 200 years ago, that’s huge?

David:

All these old books we have, we have a book on abortion in America from 1808, there’s an 1808 book on abortion in America. And by the way, also the issue of homosexuals in the military, that’s been something in the last few years. That’s not a new issue. George Washington dealt with homosexuals in military back in March of 1778. That’s what established the original policy the Pentagon held for so many years until they started playing with the last few, nothing new under the sun.

Rick:

But the right to life then not only are you saying is that right to life include don’t allow abortion because we’re going to protect life, but it’s saying that government is the one supposed to do, is suppose to protect, the purpose of government.

David:

That’s the third fundamental principle of government is, number one, there’s a God; number two, God gives certain rights; number three, government exists to protect those rights, including the right to life, etc, etc. The fourth principle was that there is a moral law. And the Declaration says there are the laws of nature and the laws of nature’s God. That actually is a quote directly out of this book. This is a book from 1766, this is called Blackstone’s Commentaries from the Law. This is the law book that was used in America. Matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson said that American lawyers used black Blackstone like Muslims use the Koran. I mean, this is kind of like the Bible for lawyers.

And that phrase, the laws of nature and nature’s God comes out of volume one. And what Blackstone points out is there is a Creator, the Creator made us, and the Creator placed creation around us, and creation tells us what His will is. Now, this is the same thing that Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1, where he says that everything that can be known about God, including the intricacies of Godhead, have been revealed through what He has created so that even heathen without excuse. That’s what Paul says.

Now, what happened and as Blackstone points out, judge Blackstone points out that, well, when man sinned, a lot of stuff became really cloudy. He had real clear vision. He understood exactly what God wanted. And when we sinned, sin has clouded our reasoning and understanding. So God in His compassion to us says, okay, let me just write it down for you in black and white. Let me put it in the Bible so that you get it. These are the laws of nature’s God. The God who created nature gave us these laws right here. So we have the laws of nature, we have the laws of nature’s God. Those two never violate each other.

Rick:

So that’s a very different view of the laws of nature. Then I’m going to put you up against my law school professors now because we were always told laws of nature is kind of like this New Age thing; it’s more of what feels [crosstalk 06:08] he comes up with at the time. But laws of nature to the Founding Fathers in our founding documents means we’re going back to what God…

David:

You take the guys who did the documents, Rufus King, signer of the Constitution said the laws of nature are the laws of God. Alexander Hamilton said, the laws of nature are the laws of God, signer of the Constitution. You have to operate under those laws. So that’s the fourth point of government is there is a moral law. The fifth point of government is below the moral law we do things with the consent of the governed. And that’s where George Washington and Thomas Jefferson says that the fundamental principle of the Constitution is the will of the majority prevails. That’s the consent of the governed. But that’s only below the level of moral law.

Rick:

That doesn’t mean whatever everybody wants to do that they will do, you still have be under that moral law?

David:

That’s a democracy. See, a democracy is everybody chooses what they want to do. We’re not a democracy. Article IV, Section IV of the Constitution prohibits America from becoming a democracy. Israel was set up as a republic, not a democracy. There are democracies in the Bible. Israel never was one. God didn’t allow His people to be a democracy. The Founding Fathers hated democracy. Seven forms of government in the world at that time, they hated democracy, they established a republic.

So we pledge allegiance to the Republic of the United States, not the democracy of the United States, which means there are certain things on which you do not vote. It doesn’t matter what the will of the people is on certain things, and that’s the moral law. And Blackstone gives a good example. He says, with the issue of murder, he said, God has said everything in His word that needs to be said about murder. He said, therefore, legislatures can do nothing different than what God has already said to do. He said, now, when it comes to importing or exporting wool, God doesn’t tell us how to do that, so we can use the consent of the governed. We go over to the legislature and say here, and see, this is also biblical as well.

When you look in the Bible, there are four types of law. The first type of law in the Bible is what we call ceremonial law. That’s the means by which you become righteous, so you could do a sacrifice, you go to… That law has passed away between the Old Testament and New Testament. The second thing that they cover in the scriptures is called the judicial law. Judicial law is the penalty that’s applied to a crime. For example, back in the Old Testament you have adulterers stoned. You get the New Testament, they bring the woman in adultery to Jesus, doesn’t stone her, but he just say, hey, don’t do this anymore.

Now, what he said is adultery is wrong, but the penalty is change. I mean, we’re from Texas, we used to hang horse thieves, no, we don’t hang horse thieves anymore. It’s still wrong to steal horses, but the penalty has changed.

So the judicial law changes across time. The Ten Commandments say don’t kill, but they don’t give a penalty. They say, don’t steal, but there’s no penalty. Nothing to the Tenth Commandment gives a penalty because the Ten Commandments are the moral law, they tell you what’s right, they tell you what’s wrong. Now, the judicial law may change.

And the fourth law is called the Social Compact, and that’s the consent of the majority. Social compact says, hey, if it’s not covered in the scriptures, we can decide what we want to do. And then the great example is the speed limits, it doesn’t violate the laws of God, it’s parking meters and parking zones, that’s consent of the governed.

Rick:

So we as a society have said it?

David:

We as a society say, hey, we take 55 or 70 or 25 or whatever, we think that’s what we want to do, it doesn’t violate the law of God, it’s not a violation of moral law we get to consent. So that is the five fundamental principles on which American government has operated from the beginning.

There is a Creator, the Creator gives rights. Government exists to protect the rights the Creator gave to every individual. There is a moral law under which we govern ourselves, given by God. And number five below the moral law we’ll use the consent of the government. Those five ideas were so radical even the British couldn’t handle it. They looked at the first, and they said, would you look at this? They said, our American cousins said that all men are created equal. That is nonsense. You’re created by classes. You’re created by races. There’s not equality. The notion of individual equality, they thought that was crazy.

And then they went on and said, when you look at this, our American cousins say that they’re endowed by their Creator with rights. We know that’s nonsense. It’s parliament that gives us our rights. It’s a king that gives. Exactly. If the parliament and king can give them to you, they can take them away from you. If God gave them to you, you can say, government, get out of here. These belong to God. You can’t mess…

Rick:

I got to tell you, David, this really challenges what some people would say is the American idea of freedom because they would argue that it’s everybody do whatever they want. But that’s not that’s not…

David:

That’s an American idea of anarchy. See, that is Judges where it says in that day, Israel had no authority, every man did that which was right in their own eyes. That is anarchy. That’s a terrible way to live. We’re told over in the New Testament that it’s the perfect law of liberty. Interesting that liberty is based on the law. That’s why we use the rule of law, not the absence of law. The rule of law is what gives you liberty and stability. But the laws have to be based on God, not man.

Rick:

It doesn’t mean do whatever you want, it means do whatever you want within these rules, within these parameters?

David:

When you follow these rules, you have liberty in society. Ten Commandments, great example. From a civil secular standpoint, I don’t care if my neighbor is an atheist, and as a Christian, I do. But from a civil circular standpoint, if my neighbor will follow the Ten Commandments, if he will not kill me, not take my wife and not steal my property, he’ll be a really good neighbor. If he’ll live by those moral laws that come from God, not anything to do with his spirituality, has everything to do with whether we have a peaceful society that allows us to have liberty. Liberty comes through the law. That’s what we had in those five fundamental principles of the Declaration. That’s the basis of the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers came along with the Constitution, said, okay, we set up the five principles; now in the Constitution, we’re going to put flesh on skeleton, we’re going to build this thing out. And so the Constitution did not change a single thing in the Declaration. It just built a structure around those five fundamental, unerring principles of American government that have made us the most successful nation in the history of the world.

Rick:

Okay, David, how about some questions from the audience?

David:

Sounds good.

Rick:

Alright, here we go.

Guest 1:

Why do we need government?

Rick:

Well, that’s starting with the basics. Really, is there a biblical reason for having government?

David:

God, who made us in the Book of Genesis said there’s three institutions I want you in relationship with. So right off the bat, in the first three chapters, you got Adam, you got Eve, you got kids, the family: God said this is good. Next thing you come to in the middle part of Genesis is he says, alright, here’s how I want you to conduct your horizontal relationship with each other.

He specifically gave Noah a number of commands, said if someone kills, here’s what you do. That’s horizontal relationship. That is government. This is the standards by which we live with one another. And that’s why government’s there to enforce those standards about if someone murders, etc. So God ordains government as the second institution.

The third institution in the latter part of Genesis is the one that flows in a vertical direction. God says, here’s how I want you to conduct your vertical relationship. And that is the church. As you open the New Testament in Romans 13, the Apostle Paul expounds learn even more, says that government exists to protect the righteous and to punish the wicked. That’s why God gave them the sword. As a matter of fact, there’s a great passage on government in 1 Timothy and let me just read a few verses here.

In 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 8-10, it says, we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully; and knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless. So the first point is God makes government not to regulate the good guys, but to regulate the bad guys, to protect the good guys from the bad guys. He said it’s made for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjury and anything else contrary to sound doctrine. And that’s what we call the common law.

The common law is what’s been established for several hundred years as fundamental wrongs: robbery, arson, murder, theft, perjury, homosexuality, all these things, that comes out of the scriptures. And that’s why government exists, is to say, hey, these are the wrong things to do. These are what destroy other people. This is what destroys a society. And so government is ordained by God, we need government.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out, wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live.

Rick:

We don’t want to be anti-government. We don’t want to say I don’t want any government at all. There is a biblical reason for having government and then government can be good or bad, depending on the principle.

David:

See, it’s the role of government. Because if you take that standard that laws are made to regulate the bad guys, not the good guys, that’s where people say, wait a minute government has gone way across the line. In any given year in America, there’s about 120,000 civil laws introduced every single year.

There’s a friend I have, she’s now deceased, but she was 95-years-old. Her name was Esther Armstrong. She loved doing prison ministry. And to the last of her life, she did prison ministry on a regular basis, and everybody loved her. And she’s just a favorite grandmother. And she was in a prison one time with some of the guys and one of the guys we call a jailhouse attorney, he’s been there so long, has a long enough sentence that he gets his law degree while he’s in jail and then sues the jails. So he comes to her, and he puts his arm around her and says, mama Esther, he said, did you know there are more than 100,000 laws that will put you in jail? And she looked back at him and said, do you know there’s 10 laws that will keep you out of jail? And it’s like that’s why God gave you the sword, is to punish the bad guys to protect us. And that is a God-given ordained role of government.

So we need government because God who made us, said, hey, you need to be able to have a horizontal relationship that is peaceful, that you protect your property, that you protect your rights, and that’s why government exists.

Rick:

Alright, David, let’s get another question on the foundations of American government.

Guest 2:

Isn’t the Constitution our founding document, then why get so riled up about the Declaration of Independence?

Rick:

Good question. We do spend a lot of time obviously on the Constitution, but why also the Declaration of Independence?

David:

But this is a change that has happened really in the last 50 years. In the last 50 years, as the courts have said, oh, you got to be more secular, you can’t have religious expression public. We’ve gotten into this thing of, oh, the Declaration is not important, the Constitution is… Now, why would we do that? Because the Declaration openly acknowledges God four times. And for 150 years, we consider that to be the founding document, not the Constitution. Now, the Constitution is what we swear to uphold, but interested in the Constitution in Article VII called the Attestation Clause directly ties itself to the Declaration. The Constitution dates itself step back. As a matter of fact, every single presidential act signed by every president since George Washington right to the president is not dated to the Constitution, it’s dated to the Declaration.

Rick:

So you really cannot have one without the other?

David:

You can’t have one without the other. The Founding Fathers looked at them as inseparable. Sam Adams, signer of the Declaration, he ratified the Constitution, he’s one of the many who said you can’t separate them. And it really is more like looking at it from a legal standpoint. That when you form a corporation or form a nation in this case. But you form a business or corporation, even today you start with a legal document called the Articles of Incorporation and that says, hey, here’s why we’re coming into existence, here’s why we exist, here’s what our purpose is. Then you come back with a second document called the Bylaws. And the bylaws say, now we incorporate ourselves under the Articles of Incorporation, but here’s the way we’re going to run ourselves under these things over here.

Rick:

Sort of like a mission statement and then the rules about what you’re going to conduct it?

David:

That’s it Because the bylaws are never allowed to violate the Articles of Incorporations, here’s why you exist, but here’s how we do it under these rules. Well, that’s what the Declaration Constitution is. The Constitution under the bylaws, here’s how we’re going to run things under this set of rules. It’s significant that if you go back in history and look at old textbooks, this is from Maine in 1820, old textbook from Maine. This is a textbook that students had to take a written exam once a year for the first eight years of school on this book. And this book has four documents in it. The four documents that students took a written exam on was, number one, the Declaration, number two was the Constitution, number three was George Washington’s farewell address, and number four was the state Constitution.

Rick:

So that was the foundation?

David:

Those were the non-negotiables. You went over that every year in school. And so the Declaration is a key part of that. And to this day, if you look in the US Code Annotated, which is the federal code under which we govern ourselves, on page one, it has organic laws. And the organic laws are the foundational laws that no federal law, no state laws are allowed to violate. And right up top is the Declaration of Independence. So that’s one of those organic laws that no law can violate.

And when we allow states to come into the United States or territories to become states, we always require that they uphold the Declaration and the Constitution. Every state that came in after the Founding Fathers, you had to swear that our state government will uphold the Declaration and the Constitution.

So while today we’ve been taught for 50 years in a much more secular society that the Constitution is it, but the Declaration has no relevance. Absolutely dead wrong! You can’t understand the Constitution if you don’t know the Declaration. And by the way, the 27 grievances that they gave you in the Declaration are all solved in the Constitution. So if you don’t know what the grievances are, you don’t know what the solution is all about.

Rick:

You don’t know why they did those things.

David:

You don’t know why they did. You won’t even understand the constitution if you separate it from the Declaration.

Rick:

Alright, David, got time for one more question on the foundations of American government.

David:

Let’s go for it.

Guest 3:

The Constitution is a godless document, so how do you claim our nation was founded on Godly principles?

Rick:

I think we saved the best for last year. I hear this all the time. It’s a godless document. It’s our Constitution godless?

David:

Well, in the last 50 years while they’ve tried to separate us from the Declaration because it’s got so much God in it, they’ve come up with this notion. And this is a textbook that is used in universities across the country written by a couple of professors at Cornell, PhDs. And that’s what they claim, it’s a godless constitution. I mean, all the Founding fathers were atheists, agnostics, deist, and they wouldn’t give you something, which is nonsense. Out of the 56 signers of the Declaration, 29 held seminary degrees, so they’re not atheists, agnostics, deist. A number of those who wrote the Constitution were absolute hardcore theologians who wrote doctrinal creed is for their denomination in their states. Their premise is wrong that godless guys wrote a godless document. But it’s easy to prove that they’re wrong when you look at the document itself.

Rick:

So it’s not just that these were men of faith, somehow the faith did make it out of the document?

David:

And political scientists have already documented. And as they went back and documented, they said, we think if we read the writings of the founding era and see who they quoted, we’ll know where they got their sources. So it took them 10 years, but they found 3,154 direct quotes. In those writings, they took every quote back to its original source, took them years to do it.

Number one most quoted source was Charles Montesquieu, right over 8%, number two was William Blackstone at 79%. Then you jump to John Locke at 2.9%. I mean, these are guys the Founding Fathers talked a lot about. They said they based the Declaration on Locke’s work; separation of powers, they pointed to Montesquieu. The phrase in the Declaration, laws of nature, nature is God came out of Blackstone. I mean, it’s easier to document.

But the one that had 34% of the quotes was the Bible. I mean, four times more than any other source.

Rick:

Than even the next largest source?

David:

You go from 34% down to 8.2%. Now, that’s a big jump. Now the Bible’s up here as the most frequently quoted source for the ideas. And then you jump down to folks like Montesquieu and Blackstone and Locke, so no question. And then when you start looking at specific clauses in the Constitution, if you look at the clauses, you look at Article III, the clause that prohibits a Bill of Attainder, where did that come from? Read Exodus 18:20. And you look at Article III, and there’s a provision in Article III, the Constitution witnesses. If you jump over to Deuteronomy 17, you’ll see it word for word right there.

Rick:

So you’re saying not only were these guys, men of faith, not only did the study show that they were quoting the Bible more than anyone else, but even the Bible itself made its way into the Constitution?

David:

John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, they point to Jeremiah 17:9 as the basis of separation of powers. That novel thing that northern government had done, they pointed the Bible on that. You have Article VI, which guarantees full Republicanism in every government. That’s why we elect our local, county, state, federal officials. The guys who wrote that pointed to Exodus 18:21 as a source out of it.

Rick:

So how do these guys then claim? Where do they get their ideas if they’re saying it’s a godless document?

David:

Good question. Where do they get their ideas? Let’s go to the back of the book, go to the footnotes, see what sources and you get to the back of the book.

Rick:

So this is where you get your evidence?

David:

That’s right. So here’s the note on sources, and here’s our two PhDs telling us, here’s the basis of the fact that we can prove that this is a godless Constitution. We can prove that the guys who did this didn’t believe in God. We can prove it. And here’s our footnotes at the back. And oh, interesting. They say we have dispensed with the usual scholarly apparatus of footnotes. Now, wait a minute. The guys who wrote it said that it was, as a matter of fact, this right here, this is the Federalist Papers. This is considered the greatest commentary on the Constitution that exists.

James Madison in talking about the finished Constitution, says he believes it was written by the finger of God. It doesn’t sound Godless to me. Alexander Hamilton says the same thing, it was written by the finger of God.

Rick:

But you’re going all the way back to the guys that actually gave to us, they’re ignoring the history and saying trust us?

David:

These guys are ignoring all the history. And by the way, George Washington called the Constitution a miracle. He believed it was miraculous the way it was done. Benjamin Franklin, another guy who signed the Constitution said he believed, and he quoted Acts 17:28 in his explanation, he believed that it had been overseen and guided and written by God, and he said the same spirit of whom we all live, move and have our being. I mean, the guys who were there and saw it said, hey, this is a goddess.

And now, 200 years later, PhDs tell us, oh, no, it’s a godless Constitution. And the courts cite this and not this. But see, that’s the thing for the last 50 years, the courts have been trying to move us in a more secular direction, so we can’t afford to cite original documents because that would really show that it is not secular.

Rick:

But if we want this, like you said, they came up with all these novel ideas, that produced the most successful nation in history, if we want to hold on to that, we can’t go to books like this, we got to go all the way back?

David:

We actually need to know that. And we used to study that. This is a cool little book from 1828, and this little book is an elementary book, and it’s called The Catechism on the Constitution. So you open this book up in an elementary school, we studied law school today…

Rick:

Elementary school, they’re studying the Constitution?

David:

Let me read you some elementary questions on the Constitution here, and these are all based on specific questions…

Rick:

I don’t want to try to answer them. Do it.

David:

I don’t know. Maybe I ask you this. Hey, Rick, here’s some questions [crosstalk 24:07]

Rick:

This isn’t fair, I’m being put on the spot here.

David:

You’re being put on the spot. But I will point out it’s easy, it’s elementary stuff. And by the way, the Constitution you and I have read, it takes 20 minutes maybe. But here’s some of the questions. May members of Congress be arrested while attending to their public duty, and the Constitution answers that. And the answer is no, except in three cases. The next question is what are the three cases in which they may be arrested?

Rick:

Elementary kids are learning that kind of, not just three branches of government, they’re getting down into the…?

David:

They’re getting down into the specific details. And I’ll guarantee you. Most attorneys, most Supreme Court bar attorneys could not answer that little elementary question. Here’s another one. May members of Congress be appointed to any civil office under the United States? Most members of Congress couldn’t answer that.

See, these are all simple things in the Constitution. Nobody reads the Constitution anymore.

Rick:

But this was 50 years after the Constitution after we’re a nation?

David:

Well, it’s a generation. Yeah, it’s the kids are the guys who signed the document, I mean…

Rick:

And they still understood you need to teach this every year?

David:

That’s right. Well, John Jay, one of the guys who did the Federalist Papers, he says every citizen should diligently read and study the Constitution of his country, they’ll thereby know their rights and be better prepared to defend and assert them. It’s like Jesus told us in Matthew 22: 29, he said, you guys are in not knowing the scriptures and the power of God. I mean, you religious guys, you don’t even know the scriptures. Well, we as citizens if we don’t know the Constitution is the same problem. Otherwise, you don’t know your rights, you can’t defend your rights, you can’t assert your rights. And that’s why we had every kid study it. And somehow we bought into this notion today that only elites know the Constitution, only the nine guys on the Supreme Court can really tell us what it means.

No. No. Elementary, takes us 20 minutes to read it. We got to go back and get into that Constitution again. But having said that, it is not a Godless document. No way, shape, fashion, and form, the guys who wrote it told us that, the Bible verses they use proved that. And the fact that it succeeded for so long, find me any other secular nation in the world that is successful. France has lived in secular nation, they’ve had 15 constitutions while we’ve had one. Go to Poland, they’ve had seven constitutions since 1921. Jump over to Russia, four constitutions since 1917. Hit Afghanistan, five constitutions since 1923. We’ve had one. It works. It’s not a godless document. No other secular nation or non-Christian nation in the world has had any success with their governments like we’ve had. It is because it’s built on biblical principles.

Rick:

Thanks for listening today, folks. That was Building on the American Heritage Series, the second episode called Foundations of American Government. This is the sequel. Many of you have the DVD set of the American Heritage Series. You can now get the sequel, which is Building on the American Heritage Series, a lot of new materials, some fantastic programs you want to have in your library. You can get it at our website today at wallbuilders.com.