A Bible Reading People Cannot Be Enslaved

A training meeting for law enforcement officers held in La Junta, Colorado last year included a presentation on how to identify potential terrorists. Undersheriff Ron Trowbridge, present at the meeting, reported that one of the groups listed included “Christians who take the Bible literally” or “too seriously.”

That seems rather odd to me.

I mean after all, the Bible, as Thomas Jefferson stated, “will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.” How then, can a person who reads and believes in the Bible be considered a threat? I’m sure that is a question the Puritans would have loved to ask the King of England.

So just what is it about the Bible that those who seek to destroy liberty and enslave people fear so much?

I would propose that what they fear is the discovery of freedom.

For over 5,000 years, people lived in grass houses, plowed fields with their bare hands, and lived every day just to survive. In a little over 200 years, we have gone from grass houses to Victorian mansions, from wagons to motor cars and from the Pony Express to Federal Express – and it all began with the simple knowledge that men are free.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t just come up with an idea and thought they’d try it out. They studied centuries of history repeating itself. They witnessed tyranny and oppression firsthand. They knew that power corrupts and that ultimate power corrupts ultimately. They knew there must be a better way.

They found that better way at the foot of their mother’s knee as she read to them the stories of the Bible.

Each night, families would gather together and read the stories that gave them hope, direction, guidance and understanding. They read about the unwavering obedience of Abraham, the courage of Stephen, and the devotion of Ruth. They read the stories of Daniel, who risked his own life for what he knew to be right and true; David, who stood against Goliath; and Esther, who sacrificed her own well-being to save her people.

Then, when they read those powerful words of Paul as he stood before King Agrippa and declared, “I was born free,” they came to understand for the first time in centuries, that their rights came from God and not from man.

With tear-filled eyes, our Founding Families read of the Israelites who knew they were free but begged for a king. They traded their freedom for a monarchy, because freedom was too much work. How it must have made our Founders ache to read those words. To them – living witnesses to the evil and oppression of a monarchy – it was the same as trading a divine birthright for a bowl of soup.

The Bible was the foundation that cultivated the soil of liberty, and America was the venue God chose to house it. Our Founding Families knew what freedom was long before it was openly declared in theDeclaration of Independence. Because of that simple, consistent act of reading the Bible together as families, the knowledge that man’s rights came from God and not from government was infused into their very souls.

When they saw that knowledge manifested in the United States Constitution, they embraced it as the banner of freedom that would secure their liberties, not only for themselves, but for their posterity and generations to come.

Our Founding Families learned all the key ingredients to a free society in those well-worn pages of their family Bible – self-mastery, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and self-governance. With this knowledge, they found the better way; and they thoroughly believed that with these key ingredients, and the divine intervention of a loving God, man could in fact govern himself. They believed it with all their hearts and formed our entire government on that belief.

For over 150 years, families read together, ate together, worked together, and served together. In 1776, we saw the fruits of their labors as 56 men, raised with an understanding of these principles, pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for the greatest contribution of freedom ever made on this earth.

Our Founding Fathers learned what freedom was from the Bible. When they signed the Declaration of Independence they knew they were going against Goliath. When they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor they – like Daniel and Esther – sacrificed their own lives and well-being for what they knew to be right and true.

When they penned the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” they did so with the words of Paul echoing in their ears and they knew they were “born free!”

For over a century, Americans learned what freedom meant. For the next two centuries they lived it. Now, in this century, we are in danger of losing it. There are troubling times ahead for our nation.

Now, more than ever, we need those timeless stories of faith, courage, and freedom from the Bible in our lives. They are the stories that touched the hearts of our Founding Families; they are the stories that laid the foundation of freedom; and they are the stories that will revive the spirit of liberty in the hearts of this generation; leaving their imprint on generations to come.

“Perhaps,” as KrisAnne Hall has suggested, “our job is not necessarily to win this fight but to prepare the ground; to make the soil fertile and sow the seeds so that Liberty may thrive when the battle is done.”

When we lay that foundation as our Founders did – firmly rooted in the Bible – then the foundation will be sure; and it will be evidenced in the hearts and actions of our children.

When our sons and daughters raise their hands to defend the Constitution of the United States, to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for the cause of freedom, then we will know liberty is secure, because we will know our children know what it means. They will know because they will remember the stories we read to them; because they will remember the love of liberty we shared with them. They will know, because they will remember that story they once heard us tell about a man named Paul, and they will know they were born free!

Horace Greeley declared, “It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.”

Knowing this, it is no wonder the destroyers of liberty fear it so much.

Is There Hope for America

It seems every day brings more and more dismal news. The riots across the nation, violence in schools, and the senseless shootings in Charleston, all seemed to crescendo with the tragic decisions of the Supreme Court last week. It makes a person hesitant to even get out of bed in the morning. The final nail in the coffin for me was the rainbow White House. Taking the very symbol of the promise God gave his children and using it to announce to the world—and proclaim to God Himself, “We reject you!” was just too much for my heart to take. It is a tragic representation of the times in which we find ourselves.

How do we dispel such darkness? How do we combat such blatant disregard for all that is good? Many of us have begun to ask ourselves, “Is there any hope for America?”

With all my heart I believe the answer is YES! But I also know that hope doesn’t lie in Washington. It lies with us!

I know it is a hard truth to swallow but the fact is, the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage and Obamacare are a direct result of the 2012 presidential election. Thousands of Christians sat on their hands and refused to vote. Millions just didn’t vote. Regardless of how you felt about Mitt Romney or his religion I guarantee you, you would not have seen a rainbow White House if he were president. Our choices have consequences.

This isn’t about parties, politics, race or religion. This is about right and wrong and standing up for truth. There are many players in this war but there are only two armies–God (light) and Satan (dark). The time has come to realize this and decide which side we’re on. We can no longer hide our heads in the sand, we can no longer sit on the fence, and we can no longer afford to fight amongst ourselves.

The Supreme Court ruling doesn’t change or alter God’s law that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that it is ordained by God. This is the truth that unites us. It is the truth we need to stand for and it is the truth we must teach and nurture in our homes and proclaim in our churches.

This is our opportunity for people of faith to come together regardless of party, race or religion, and stand united for our children and our families. The enemy is at the gate. This is not the time to be divided. It is not the time to retreat. We must continue to fight the good fight. We must continue to stand for truth and spread goodness.

We don’t, however, need to exhaust ourselves fighting the wicked. God has told us He will take care of that. He will fight our battles if we are on His side. When King Hezekiah faced insurmountable odds against the Assyrian army God proclaimed, “Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed… for there be more with us than with him: With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.” (KJV 2 Chronicles 32:7)

We don’t need to fight harder. We need to fight smarter!

As my friend Marlene Peterson of Libraries of Hope so eloquently stated, “There’s only one way I know to dispel the darkness—turn on the light!”

We can’t sit in darkness and convince the darkness not to be dark. But we can eliminate the darkness by flooding it with light! That light must come from our homes, from our churches, and from our own hearts. Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” So let’s create the future we want to see.

Home has become more vital than ever in teaching and nurturing the values and virtues that we hold dear.

Our children will be under siege—even more than before. This is a government ruling and government schools will be subject to it. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates for the same sex agenda in our children’s schools. The U.S. Department of Education made clear their intentions when they celebrated the court’s decision by adding a rainbow to their logo. There are definitely dark days ahead. This is trench warfare and if we don’t protect our trenches, we may lose our children. It is imperative that we teach our children the principles, values and virtues our nation was founded on. In these dark days we can absolutelynot afford to abdicate this responsibility to anyone else.

We would never dream of sending our children out in the dead of winter and depend on someone else to provide them with a coat and gloves. Why would we send them out in the cold world and expect someone else to teach them right and wrong?

I cannot express strongly enough the vital role that home and family plays in our nation. As C.E. Sargent proclaimed, “A nation is but a magnified home.” (C.E. Sargent, Our Home, 1888) If we want to know what the future will look like 20 years from now, look in the homes today. Deserting our home or neglecting our family is fatal to our nation!

Author Neal Maxwell cautioned that if we desert our child “in order to help defend civilization against the barbarians, we may well later meet, among the barbarians, [our] own neglected child. (Neal A. Maxwell, Wherefore Ye Must Press Forward, Deseret Book, 1977)

America is the last bastion of hope for the world. If the light of liberty and virtue is vanquished here, the entire earth will be filled with darkness. It doesn’t matter which way the world goes, it only matters which way we go.

We need to strengthen our homes, our families, and our churches. When we do, our light will shine like a floodlight dispelling darkness from the inside out.

There will be darker days ahead, but we need not fear. There is hope for America. It is you! God will fight our battles. The outcome is already there. We just need to decide which side we’re on. We need to turn up the light–in our own hearts and in our homes. We need to stand together, stand for truth, and spread goodness. That is how we will win this war. When the days seem dark and the odds insurmountable, remember we are not alone. There are more with us then there are with them.