THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT II // Sunday, July 7, 2024 // Jeff Hines, Lead Pastor

Sunday — July 7, 2022

The American Experiment

Psalm 78: 5 - 8 (NLT)  

   For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, 6 so the next generation might know them — even the children not yet born — and they in turn will teach their own children.  7 So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.  8 Then they will not be like their ancestors — stubborn, rebellious,

and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.

John Dewey

    As non-theists, we begin with humans, not God, nature not deity…While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.

The Cyclical View of History

Repeating historical cycles with no ultimate purpose or goal.

The Marxist View of History

Class Struggle:  Resulting in the “Perfect Socialist State.”

Existential View of History

The Providential View of History

The Founders wrote the Constitution, not the Apostles.

1.               What influenced the Founders?

Researches spent 10 years working through 15,000 writings from the Founders era.

Isolated 3,154 Direct Quotes

The Bible   34%

2.               They wrote the Bill of Rights;

        not the Ten Commandments.

Daniel St. Thomas Jenifer
Signer of the Constitution

    In the name of God, Amen. I, Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer . . . of dispossing mind and memory, commend my soul to my blessed Redeemer. . .

William Cushing
First Associate Justice Appointed

by George Washington to the Supreme Court

    Sensible of my mortality, but being of sound mind, after recommending my soul to Almighty God through the merits of my Redeemer and my body to the earth . . .

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Signer of the Constitution

To the eternal, immutable, and only true God be all honor and glory, now and forever, Amen!. . .

Roger Sherman

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution

I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God. . . . that God did send His own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners, and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the Gospel offer.

John Langdon
Signer of the Constitution

In the name of God, Amen. I, John Langdon, . . . considering the uncertainty of life and that it is appointed unto all men once to die [Hebrews 9:27], do make,  ordain and publish this my last will and testament in manner following,  that is to say - First:  I commend my soul to the infinite mercies of God in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son of the Father, who died and rose again that He might be the Lord of the dead and of the living . . . professing to believe and hope in the joyful Scripture doctrine of a resurrection to eternal life . . .

3.               Freedom of Religion.

              NOT Control by Religion

Letter from the Danbury Baptists:

October 7, 1801

1.               Religion is personal between the individual and God

2.               People should not be discriminated against…

3.               Government =  criminals.

4.               The Constitution was too vague in the matter of government infringement in religion.

5.               Jefferson could not legislate.

6.               Fed can’t usurp State Rights

President Jefferson’s Reply:

January 1, 1802

    Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man
and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only,

and not opinions, Free to Believe…

    I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion,  or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

John Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence Second President of the United States

[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

    It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

4.               They created a Democracy,

not a Theocracy

                    Constitutional

Democracy      Republic      Oligarchy

    People              Law                    Elite

5.Christianity is not a political party

Micah 6: 8 (NLT)

    No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.