This is my second post today. Last Saturday I was listening to Paul Harvey on my way to the church. He began a monologue that I thought was appropriate for consideration as we celebrate our Nation's birthday. My wife transcribed the text from the internet (hope this is legal) and now I offer it for your benefit.
I do offer this one disclaimer - while I am in whole hearted agreement with the sentiment of this monologue, there is a subtle reference to some prosperity theology, which I would not espouse. Be that as it may, please consider these words by Paul Harvey:
In our nation’s Declaration of Independence, have you noticed there is a significant Declaration of Dependence also? Because one without the other won’t work. So our text for today is taken from the next to last sentences in our Nation’s Declaration of Independence. Understand I’m no preacher. The pulpit is a responsibility infinitely higher to any to which I would aspire. I am an historian and inevitably our profession overlap. Our Nation’s Fourth of July celebrations have tended to focus on the word “freedom” and yet, even as our Nation’s founders offered their lives and their fortunes to win for our fledgling nation “freedom” from British rule, in that same eloquent document they sought the guidance and blessings of the Almighty. They appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our institutions. “Rectitude,” that’s God’s standard of integrity and honesty.
Our founders proclaimed themselves free to do whatever they want? No, hardly. No, they declared themselves free to do what they ought! There’s a distinct difference. They prayed “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth.” They bowed themselves to God’s will and that’s when in an instant ,as historical time is measured, our little 6% of this planet’s population began to accumulate more than half of all of the world’s good things, collecting on God’s written promise that believing on certain things and behaving ourselves, all else would be added. And so it was.
It was only recent generations of Americans mouthing platitudes about “freedom” that obscured the very meaning of the America. And now all over the bleak, black, bloody, front page it is apparent that self government without self discipline won’t work. And you can say that another way, “Capitalism without God is no better than Communism.” The Third Reich was a classic example of capitalism without God. The land which had produced Bach and Beethoven and Brahms ended up producing Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald.
Self government without self discipline won’t work. And today, once free Americans, have to be searched before they can board an airliner, not because there’s a dictator in Washington, but because there’s a handful of irresponsible ingrates running around loose. Because some who are free don’t deserve to be, none of us can be. Again, not because there is tyranny in government but because there is anarchy in the unbuttoned brains of a handful of loony birds.
And it’s down that road of thumbing our noses at rightness and wrongness, it’s down that road that whole nations go from regulation to regimentation then to tyranny. Self government without self discipline won’t work. Much more important than our Nation’s Declaration of Independence from foreign domination is our Nation’s Declaration of Dependence on Divine Providence and sacred honor. You ignore the guidance system that was built into our republic and we are like any unguided missile inevitably destined to self destruct.
Our founders proclaimed themselves free to do whatever they want? No, hardly. No, they declared themselves free to do what they ought! There’s a distinct difference. They prayed “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth.” They bowed themselves to God’s will and that’s when in an instant ,as historical time is measured, our little 6% of this planet’s population began to accumulate more than half of all of the world’s good things, collecting on God’s written promise that believing on certain things and behaving ourselves, all else would be added. And so it was.
It was only recent generations of Americans mouthing platitudes about “freedom” that obscured the very meaning of the America. And now all over the bleak, black, bloody, front page it is apparent that self government without self discipline won’t work. And you can say that another way, “Capitalism without God is no better than Communism.” The Third Reich was a classic example of capitalism without God. The land which had produced Bach and Beethoven and Brahms ended up producing Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald.
Self government without self discipline won’t work. And today, once free Americans, have to be searched before they can board an airliner, not because there’s a dictator in Washington, but because there’s a handful of irresponsible ingrates running around loose. Because some who are free don’t deserve to be, none of us can be. Again, not because there is tyranny in government but because there is anarchy in the unbuttoned brains of a handful of loony birds.
And it’s down that road of thumbing our noses at rightness and wrongness, it’s down that road that whole nations go from regulation to regimentation then to tyranny. Self government without self discipline won’t work. Much more important than our Nation’s Declaration of Independence from foreign domination is our Nation’s Declaration of Dependence on Divine Providence and sacred honor. You ignore the guidance system that was built into our republic and we are like any unguided missile inevitably destined to self destruct.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Pastor Ed
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