[Frank Dunkle] In the summer of 1787, a group of men gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They came there with purposeful determination. Most of them believed that their country, the United States of America, was tearing itself apart. They believed that disagreements, various selfish policies among the states, if they were left unaddressed, they would lead the republic, which was a young country, to tear itself apart, that it would break up into two, three, or four or more separate countries. If that happened, these leaders who met in Philadelphia feared that these now smaller countries would fight amongst each other, that they would reach out to allies in Europe, and that soon they would become vassal states to those great powers in Europe. If that happened, all the efforts, the treasure, the lives that it took to win American independence, would go for nothing.

Now, we know that those bad things did not happen, largely because the men who gathered in Pennsylvania that summer went above and beyond the plan that they had when they gathered there. They came meaning to just revise the existing government, which was organized under what was called the Articles of Confederation. But instead, they drafted a completely new Constitution for the United States. Of course, that's why we know it as the Constitutional Convention today. I'm guessing all of our younger members here who've been through high school or studied it recently in junior high are thinking, "Yes, I knew about that." It's been written about time and again by historians. One of my favorite books on the subject is by a historian named Catherine Drinker Bowen. She titled her book, The Miracle of Philadelphia. She actually called it a miracle, something most modern historians don't call events of history. No surprise, the book was written about 70 years ago.

Now, I don't want to go as far as some people who put the Constitution up there on par almost with Holy Scripture, or some people sometimes have a little confusion about the United States of America and the Kingdom of God. I don't want to do that. But I do believe that the United States becoming a powerful and a wealthy nation, that that was partially fulfilling some of the promises that God had made to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob. I believe God had a hand in the United States becoming what it was and has been. I believe God had a hand in what happened in Philadelphia that summer. And, thus, I think there are lessons for us to learn by looking at what happened that summer and by considering the motivations of the men who did it. One of the obvious ones can be found in Daniel 4:32. I'm not going to turn there. You probably know it well. That's when Daniel was talking to King Nebuchadnezzar and he told him, "The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He chooses."

We want to never forget that no matter what's going on in the world…  And if you're like me, you've watched the news in the last few days, you said, some things are going on, and we don't know where they'll lead, God rules in the kingdoms of men. He knows what's going on. Another lesson that I don't have a Scripture to turn to exactly, but we'll see it reflected in a number, is that I believe very firmly that it's good people that make a kingdom or a country to be good. It's good people that make the government good. It's not a good government that makes its people good. That's an important thing to consider. And if that's something that fits with the founding of our country, it's worth looking at. So I'd like to share one of my favorite stories from that summer. And I believe it does show God's influence. I think, in that case, God often did work, as He often does, I believe now, behind the scenes, as we would say, that He is causing things to move, but not necessarily by parting the seas or sending lightning to strike someone, but by moving events so that people could say, "Maybe God caused that, maybe not."

I think it was easier because the men that gathered there were mostly men trying to do what they thought was good and right. They believed in a God. I believe they worshipped God as best they knew and tried to do His will. As I said, the framers of the Constitution quickly realized when they met in Philadelphia that it wasn't going to be enough to just revise what they already had. They realized that they needed to set aside the Articles of Confederation and start drafting from scratch. When they set out to design this new government, they saw they needed something that they hadn't had before, a separate executive and a separate legislature. They quickly… well, not so quickly, but eventually saw the need also for a separate judicial branch. I would say that that's one of my thoughts is I wish they thought of that sooner and delineated a little bit more in the Constitution about that. But that's not my point today.

But as the men worked, they had disagreements about various things. And, usually, they would talk it out and relatively quickly come to some agreement, a compromise, or seeing the best solution. But there was one big sticking point. It came down to deciding how the states would be represented in the national legislature they were devising, which they would call the Congress. Large states wanted what they would term "proportional representation." That is the states that had more people living in them would have more say in the government. And one way to do that would be send more delegates to the Congress so they would have a greater influence in the government. You might guess the small states weren't so thrilled with that idea. Understandably, they objected, because they said, "If there's anything we have a disagreement on, our small states will be bulldozed, and we'll end up having no say."

The small states wanted equal representation. They wanted every state to have the same influence in the government, no matter how many or how few people lived in it. That's a pretty significant disagreement. Several times the men came to that, and they discussed, and they debated, I won't say argued, but they talked it out. And a lot of times, they'd come to the sticking point and say, "Well, let's set it aside and work on something else." And the something else, usually they could work out pretty quickly. In time, though, success or failure came down to solving that big problem they had. And it's worth remembering, these men came there thinking that if they didn't find a solution, if they didn't fix the national government, there would cease to be a United States of America. So they were somewhat desperate. But they thought, "We've got to do something that's right. We've got to solve this. But they couldn't. They just couldn't seem to get there. And they were at the brink of just breaking up the conference and the men going home without accomplishing anything.

By the time they reached that point, it was well into July. The men were getting uncomfortable. I don't know if any of you are up on 18th-century fashion, but the stylish men of the day wore suits made out of wool. You know, they didn't have Dacron or nylon or dry-fit shirts. And the weather was getting hot. It was getting miserable, really, you know, partly because they'd agreed that they would hold their sessions all in closed session. They wanted to be able to talk freely, express their mind, and if someone had a better idea, to change their mind, without getting a lot of criticism for seeming wishy-washy. So they closed their sessions to the public. They kept the doors and the windows closed. They made a promise that they wouldn't talk after hours, which reminds me that they had to set special guards to go with Benjamin Franklin because he had trouble not talking.

But as you might imagine, the heat and humidity started making people uncomfortable. The men became short-tempered. As I said, they were about to just break up and not do anything. At this point, there are different versions of what happened. How was that stalemate broken? The story I like best came from that delegate I just mentioned. The oldest delegate there offered a proposition. He made a proposal. And it began with what's now a pretty famous quote, his words were… Oh, I just realized I left out something. I brought a prop. I didn't bring a wool suit. But most of the men were wearing something like this. I was going to bring the wig, but wigs are really uncomfortable.

Benjamin Franklin's words were, "I have lived a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" With that, Franklin proposed… You thought I was going to wear this the whole time. He proposed that they start beginning each morning with having a clergyman come up and lead them in prayer, to ask God to bless their work. Soon after that, they did arrive at what is known as the "Great Compromise." Again, you've probably heard it in history classes. The agreement was something that we all know of. They would make their legislature what's called a bicameral legislature. There would be two separate houses. One would give the states proportional representation. That's what we call the House of Representatives today, bigger states and more delegates. And then in the Senate, each state would be represented equally. There would be two senators from each state, no matter how big or small.

With that, the rest of the details were worked out relatively quickly and easily. They went and presented the Constitution to the States. There's a whole very fascinating story about that, which doesn't fit with the sermon, but eventually, it was ratified, and history took the course that we know. The United States went on to become a powerful, successful nation. There are other explanations for what happened that summer, though. Most historians disregard Franklin's appeal for prayer. And they appropriately mention that the delegates did not even vote on the proposition. What more modern historians will look at is the fact that we can see from public records of the day that what we would now call a cold front came through. The temperatures eased off, the humidity dissipated, and, quite literally, cooler heads prevailed. And they came to that great compromise that I described.

Which one of those explanations should we look at? You know, I can't be absolutely certain, as I said, I think God would work behind the scenes. But I also believe God is perfectly capable of controlling the weather. I also believe that this Constitutional Convention didn't choose to bring in someone to lead them in prayer. I suspect that the men felt motivated by Franklin's words to make sure that each of them began praying on their own, that they, perhaps more sincerely than ever before, called upon God, asked Him for intervention. I believe this because I believe God does rule in the kingdoms of men. And a large majority of the U.S. founding fathers believed that. They acted accordingly. It's evident that their firm beliefs led them to form a government and a nation that conformed in some important ways to godly principles. Particularly, they believe that a free people must be virtuous. To be free, people must be virtuous. They had to have character. They also believed that they needed an educated people. They believe that an ignorant people would not very long remain free or virtuous. How does that apply to us, to the Church of God, to the Kingdom of God?

Now, I do want to get into Scripture. If you'll join me in turning to John 8, there's an interesting exchange that Jesus Christ had with some of His followers during His ministry. John 8, we'll begin in verse 31. Let me read a couple of verses when I get to the right chapter. I should have put my glasses on first. John 8:31, "Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, 'If you abide in My word, you're My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'" Now, this confuses Christ's listeners. They are well acquainted with slavery. Slavery of a type existed in ancient Israel, indeed existed in most nations throughout the world for all of human history. It was very common in the Roman Empire. So they think that Christ is telling them that knowing the truth is going to change their legal status, that it could emancipate them from slavery. But these men were not actually in slavery in that sense.

So in verse 33, they answer, they say, "We're Abraham's descendants. We've never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you'll be made free?" Jesus explains that He's speaking of something greater, something greater but more abstract than physical bondage or legal slavery. Starting in verse 34, Jesus answered and said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave doesn't abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." Jesus there seems to be saying that freedom isn't just a matter of being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want. I remember when I was younger, having that idea. I could just do whatever strikes my fancy at a moment. But being influenced by Satan, as all mankind is, means that that sort of freedom, doing just whatever strikes your fancy, that inevitably leads to sin.

And most of us have memorized Romans 6:23, that tells us, "The wages of sin is death." That's hardly a freedom. But God's truth, His way of life, His plan of redemption, the sacrifice of Christ, can free us from the death penalty. And living God's way can give us our freedom that is freedom indeed. It's a freedom from conflict, a freedom from that inner turmoil of trying to decide what's right and what's wrong, that pull between good and evil. Being freed from that is a wonderful thing. That's something that no political system can do for us. No government can do it. I would say that type of freedom begins within all the individual people, and it can spread out to affect a country. And I believe the founders of the United States saw this principle, at least in a limited way.

Let me give you some more quotes. My friend Benjamin Franklin said, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need for masters." John Adams, one of my favorites of the founding fathers, he was not at the Constitutional Convention, which confuses many people, but he'd studied the fields of law and government extensively. And shortly before that convention met, he had published a series of essays on American Constitutions. Adams had this to say, "The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. And if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change the rulers and their forms of government, but they will not obtain lasting liberty." Change your government, change your rulers without virtue, no lasting liberty.

Let me add one more from another of my heroes, George Washington. I think George Washington would have a deep voice. "It is substantially true…" Oh, he'd sound like a Southerner, though, wouldn't he? Okay. Just imagine I sound like what George Washington would sound like. "It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends, with more or less force, to every species of free government." Let me summarize what these men were saying. They all realized that the specific system of this government they were trying to form just didn't matter if the people had no sound character. It's not the government that would make the people virtuous. Virtuous people would make a government work. You know, unless you've got a totalitarian form of government, imposed with brute force, the leaders appointed can't make the difference. It doesn't matter who's elected or appointed if the people they lead are corrupt, immoral, and selfish.

Let me quote John Adams, again, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." The reason I'm emphasizing all this is, I think there's a similar truth for the kingdom, for the family that God's creating. And I'd say, you know, God could use brute force and control each and every one of us. That's not beyond Him as it is most governments. But God's not creating a government of totalitarian force. He's creating a family, as it says in Hebrews 2:10. I'll read that because I think Hebrews 2:10 is a good summary of God's purpose in creating mankind in His image, in His likeness. And it's a simple phrase. It says, "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory… in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." As I said, I think that summarizes why God made us, to bring us to glory as sons. He didn't create us to be robots, or toys, or pets, but to be His children. And I believe that's the reason He gave us free will. He gave us the ability to make decisions, including bad decisions, including sinful decisions. God made us free moral agents because He wants us to be born into His family willingly.

Let's go to 1 John 3. Note that, again, what God's purpose is. First John 3, we'll read the first couple of verses. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; It has not yet been revealed what we shall be. We know that when He's revealed, we shall be like Him, we'll see Him as He is." This has been a basic understanding of the Church of God for a long time. So I'm not saying this to think I'm revealing some new truth, but I want to emphasize the point that, you know, as benefits and powers that are afforded to citizens in a free country, require those citizens to be virtuous… Yeah, at least, it requires them to be virtuous, if they're going to retain their liberties, retain their freedoms and benefits. Like that, to become children of God and to enjoy eternal life requires us to develop virtue, moral virtue. God's plan wouldn't work any other way.

You know, we don't rely on Jesus Christ to be good for us. And I've heard some churches will say, "Yeah, we don't have to obey that Old Testament law. Jesus Christ did that for us." No, we need to become holy as God is holy. Actually, if we're here in the general Epistles, turning over to 1 Peter 1, I forgot I had it in my notes right here, 1 Peter 1, beginning in verse 15. "As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct." So anyway, we often stop with, as He who called you is holy, be holy, but in all your conduct, I've always said is very important. It means don't just be holy. "Look at me. I'm holy. Holiness is exuding out of me." It's about what you do, you know, your actions.

Matter of fact, I didn't get to use this line on the students this year because I wasn't teaching General Epistles, but I've used this… if you've seen the movie Forrest Gump, still around. There's a line Forrest Gump had when people say, "What, are you stupid?" He'd say, "Stupid is as stupid does." Well, this isn't about being stupid. But I think this line could mean, holy is as holy does. If we're to be holy in all of our conduct, it needs to be in our conduct. Holy is as holy does. In verse 16, “it's written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’" We could add to that what it said… what Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:48. "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." And again, this isn't new. Since I was, you know, a young boy in God's Church, I've heard our teaching stressing that we're to develop moral character. You know, we stressed that repentance of sin doesn't just mean feeling bad about the sin but it means… the Hebrew and the Greek words literally mean to turn, to go a different way. We teach that we're to be converted.

I'm not… I don't have in my notes to turn to Ephesians 4, but there Paul talks about putting to death the old man and becoming a new man, a new creation. That's what we're doing. Otherwise, it would be unthinkable for God to grant us immortality, to give us God powers. By the time that happens, we must already be trustworthy and self-governing. And what I'm presenting here today, I think is a parallel with what the American founding fathers saw and their need… They wanted to build a government that could support a free society. But they saw the need for virtue to do that. Now, it's funny, if you read their writings, they use the term public virtue because they saw it as… okay, they wanted people to be good at home, but they wanted people to reach out their role in society. Doing things for the good of others was what they called public virtue. And there's a parallel. Our need as Christians is to develop virtue, righteousness, in order to be a part of the Kingdom of God.

Another founding father I haven't quoted yet, James Madison. James Madison is sometimes called the Father of the Constitution because he led a lot of the debates and kept the most extensive notes. He said something about the U.S. Constitution that I think could be said about us in the family of God. He said, or he wrote, "We have staked the whole future of our nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves, according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments of God."

The future of the United States, he said, was staked on the ability of the people in that government to live and govern themselves, according to the morality, the principles of the Ten Commandments. We could say, in a sense, that God the Father is staking the hope of building a spiritual family on the willingness and determination of us as individuals, to accept the moral principles of the Ten Commandments, to govern ourselves according to them. Along with that, I feel like I should say, and to allow God to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit, to make us into the new creation that we need to be to do that. Because, as all of us probably know, our best efforts to live according to the Ten Commandments and the principles there are going to fall short. It's God's power that will help us to overcome and become a new person. And that's good, in a sense. I mean, the founding fathers didn't consider developing public virtue to be a passive process. They never saw it as something that would just happen, you know, without a diligent effort.

Sorry, I saw something that I had written in my notes that I couldn't read. You know, they thought that education was vital to that. And I think we should see that. We can't expect Christ to transform us without us ourselves exerting some effort and striving to educate ourselves. He's not going to do it against our will. Now, He'll do some things against our will because God doesn't like to let us get away. I'll refer you to the story of Jonah. Hopefully, none of us have been, I would say, in that situation. None of you have been inside a fish lately, right? But God wants us to do more than come along kicking and screaming. So, I think it's vital for us to learn to understand what's right and good, to study God's Word, and develop a will to do it. So I thought it's worth considering some of what the founding fathers saw as how they developed that. They're learning and developing their will to do.

Now, thinking of George Washington, he was typical of the Southern gentry of his time. And that area of the country, public schools were scarce. All the families that could afford it, though, would bring in private tutors, and they would teach their sons… unfortunately, not necessarily their daughters, but it was a male-dominated society. But the sons would learn reading, and writing, and basic arithmetic. They would learn horseback riding. I find it intriguing, they learned to dance. And they would gather the young people around to make sure they brought in a dance master to teach them that. That taught them self-discipline. It taught them poise. It taught them how to deal with other people gracefully. The young men in that society were encouraged to develop strong opinions, but also a strong will so that they could force themselves to conform to what they knew to be right.

George Washington's famous for a list he wrote and was called, "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation." And he was a young man, I'm trying to think if he was about 11 or 12, when he wrote this down, and he copied rules from various places. Some of them are humorous. One said, "If you cough, sneeze, sigh, or yawn, do it not loud, but privately." But he included some rules we would do well to heed. One said, "Mock not nor jest of anything of importance." That's something I need to work on. Another one he said was, "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial life called conscience." That's about as much as I'll say about Washington. He's one of my personal heroes. I've read several books on him. I think he's deserving of the reputation he has as astounding father of our country, and many historians call him our best president. And all who study and give him those titles will say it was owing to his character, owing to his devotion to serving the public good that he reached that reputation.

Benjamin Franklin, though, is considered to be one of the wisest of the founding fathers. As I mentioned, he's one of the oldest, and he had less formal education than most, by far. You know, he grew up in a poor family, one of… now I want to say, I think it was 11 children. And he was one of the youngest. So, you know, he was apprenticed away and taught how to make a living as best he could. And when he was an apprentice to a printer, though, he determined he would take advantage of that setting, because print shops had a lot of stuff to read. He would devote himself to reading whatever was there as often as possible and to making good use of his breaks. Matter of fact, he determined that he would eat sparingly and drink water come break time, which you might say, "Well, yeah." But most workmen at that time would send down to the tavern and have buckets of beer brought in during break, or hard cider. Not Franklin. He wanted to have a clear head.

He became notorious for borrowing books and buying books, later on for writing some. One of the best-known books he wrote was his own autobiography. And there's a section in that that used to be assigned reading for most public schools. I'm guessing many of you, at least who are older, have, where Franklin set out a determination to develop moral perfection. Pretty ambitious, but a pretty good ambition. And I won't describe all of it, but it's interesting. He made up a chart of various virtues and a schedule. So he would work on one and track his progress. When he mastered it, he'd start on the next. And by a set time, he was going to be morally perfect.

But what's interesting, he writes that as he would make progress on one, he noticed he was slipping on the others, and he turned the focus on them, and he slipped on different ones. To Franklin's surprise, becoming morally perfect is harder than you might think. Most of you probably aren't surprised, right? We've been working on that. My point to notice, though, is not so much on the difficulty, but that he and so many others saw it as a worthy goal. He said, "I'm going to strive for this." Not many did it as systematically. But they would all say, "That's what we have to strive for." You know, it's not just, "Accept me as I am. That's the way it is, and I can't help it." Matter of fact, as I said, I've read some quotes showing that they believed everyone in the nation needed to do that. So we see virtue and righteousness, and education as an indispensable part they saw as our government. We think it's very important for developing the traits to be in God's Kingdom. To give people the power of governing, the freedom to make decisions, you need to trust their character.

I'll consider one more example. Again, John Adams is one of my favorites. He's been one of the, I guess, under-appreciated founding fathers, at least he was until… That's probably been at least a couple of decades since… Did I write his name down? David McCullough wrote a new biography that really brought a lot of people around to Adams. Like many New Englanders, Adams learned reading, writing, and basic arithmetic in local school, but he also learned Latin and Greek. And then he attended Harvard College. I'm amazed that you would typically enter Harvard as about a 14-year-old in those days. And there he studied rhetoric, logic, philosophy, natural science. And these, combined with his personal interest, led to reading a lot. You know, Adams read book after book. When he was finished… you know, most graduates of Harvard were expected to go into one of just a few fields, and medicine was one, the ministry was the most common, or the law.

Adams thought about the ministry, but then he realized, "That's not going to suit me." And so he devoted himself to studying law. He spent two years during which he became a public school teacher and studied law at night, which when I read that, I thought, "Going through law school and night classes has a long history in this country." And what's interesting, even after he passed the bar and started practice, he continued to study. He was a determined student of government and principles of law, so much so that he became one of the architects of the Constitution without even being at the convention because his writings were so well-known. That's something I think is a good example for us. We have a study of God's law in this book. And we want to make sure we understand its principles clearly and that we don't cease the study. We don't reach a point where we say, "I got it. I'm done. I don't need to read it anymore."

Oh, let me add one other thing about the leaders of the U.S. government, you know, the founders at that time. They pretty much all talked to each other quite a bit. They talked. They wrote letters. And not only did they do that, but they listened. And that's probably the most important. They were open to each other's ideas. And they very much fulfilled what's written in Proverbs 27:17. I won't have you turn there, but you'll recognize it where it says, "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." Iron sharpening iron, another good example for those of us in God's Church as we share ideas, and we discuss, and we work on sharpening each other.

Now, you might guess, being an American historian… history teacher, I like to say, I think the founding fathers were great men. They accomplished great things. And I personally think God was involved in leading them to those. But I'm presenting their examples today as an inspiration because I believe God has called us to greater things, greater things even than that. As much as I love and appreciate the history of the United States, it's not the Kingdom of God, never could be, never will be. The founding fathers, they're not sons of God. Not yet, anyways. Now, one of my disappointments about the understanding of the timing of the second resurrection is how long I'll have to wait to meet these men. But we are called to become sons of God in His Kingdom. We can learn from examples of history. We can strive to exceed them. And God's power in us will make that possible. These men saw study and learning as a necessary part of developing public virtue, and they saw public virtue as necessary for a people to be free and happy. We should see a study of God's Word, we should see following the lead of God's Spirit, as necessary to developing moral virtue, to developing godly character. And we should never leave that.

I'll reference 2 Timothy 2:15, actually, I'll turn there. But as I'm about to read it, 2 Timothy 2:15, the New King James says, "Be diligent…" I prefer the Old King James where it used the good old-fashioned word study "to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." That should be us. We should be diligent. We should study and be comfortable working with God's Word to give a correct understanding of it. But it's not enough to just have God's Word. And we have something more. If we turn to John 14, Jesus Christ, the last night that He spent with His disciples was explaining to them that though He was going to be gone, they were going to have access to His power in a greater way, John 14:26. I read this because it's not just them all those years ago, it's us here today. When He said, "The Helper,” the Greek Paraclete, “the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, it will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." Now, I corrected the grammar as it should be there, over a page or so to John 16:13. Speaking still of the Spirit, it says, "When the Spirit of truth, has come, it will guide you into all truth. Won't speak on its own authority, but whatever it hears, it'll speak; tell you things to come."

God's Spirit will guide us into all truth. But it won't just put it in our minds without our effort. We do have to pick up this book and read it. But if it guides us in all truth, remember what Christ said, "The truth will make us free." We can be free. I agree with the idea that the founding fathers who said, "In order to enjoy freedom, a people must be virtuous." Sadly, when we look at the United States, I'd say the founding fathers' predictions came true, but in a way, they didn't necessarily expect. We can look at the state of the U.S. today and see that much of the population has, I think, lost an understanding of virtue. Now I know people will disagree with me on that. But people want the type of freedom that's the type I said that we think of at first. Just, "I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. No one can tell me what to do." You know, they think of freedom as a lack of guidelines for conduct and standards of morality.

While some people think of that as freedom, I think that fits what Benjamin Franklin said when he noted that the less virtue a people have, the more need they have of masters. And that’s... Interestingly in the United States today, we have more rules and regulations than ever before, it seems. We have regulations controlling business, personal conduct, regulations about what you can and can't say in public. An argument could be made that to protect the freedom of the country, the government has become controlling and coercive. And the people of the United States are perhaps less free than they were 200 years ago.

Now, again, I'll comment, I have a lot of colleagues in academia who will disagree strongly with me on that. And I understand that. And I don't want to make it such an extreme to say that there's no good out there, because we live in the best country there is. So please, I don't want to criticize that. Matter of fact, what matters for us as Christians is not to render a verdict on this government, this country, or any other. What matters is for us to realize that each of us need to develop character. Regardless of what a government does, I need to develop virtue. If we do, we can experience that true freedom that Jesus Christ said could be ours. Along with studying and learning, like the founding fathers, we need to exert self-discipline to accomplish that goal, because we've got something greater in mind, greater than building a career, greater than founding a nation.

The apostle Paul summarized it in 1 Corinthians 9. 1 Corinthians 9, I'll begin reading in verse 24, a very familiar passage, I believe, says, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain." Now, this is a different metaphor than I've been using, but he says, "Everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it…” they exert a lot of self-discipline, a lot of effort “to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.” We’re striving to get something that's far greater than anything that can be found on earth. And Paul didn't want the members of the Corinthian congregation to suddenly embark on a fitness regimen to start training for the Olympics. Like me, today, I believe he was encouraging Christians to exercise self-discipline and training their minds, and developing their character, a strong spiritual routine.

We need to diligently study God's Word every day. We need to come before God in prayer on a daily basis, and I believe more than once a day. Discipline our minds, to meditate on God's Word. Think on His plan, His great creation, and His actions. We even need to make ourselves fast, more than once a year. I hate fasting. Well, I should say I hate the way it feels, but I love what it does. So, I got to be careful how I say that. But it's that self-discipline that helps us grow in that character. Because our goal, as I said, is far higher than winning a sports contest. It's greater even than founding a nation or designing a government. Our goal is to be holy, as our Father in Heaven is holy, to be perfect as our Father is perfect.

In 1787, when that group of men gathered in Philadelphia, they'd already devoted much of their lives to preparing and developing what they called public virtue. They'd prepared themselves to serve their country, as its leaders. But I think they understood that that meant also as its servants, and that helped them to be ready to launch an entirely new form of government. So much more, I think we want to develop and devote our energies, our time, and attention to preparing ourselves to developing moral virtue and self-control, righteous character so that we can be ready to play that part in the Kingdom of God. Let's work so that we can be there when Christ comes when that trumpet sounds, that we'll be ready to take our place.

The founding fathers of the United States, when they gathered in Philadelphia, they thought that they had to find a way to succeed or it would all fall apart, the United States would even cease to exist. And I don't think they were wrong in that. One thing I can say is, the Kingdom of God has no danger of ceasing to exist if any one of us fails. That's where I can't think of myself as so important that without me, God can't do it. You know, if Christ said, "Hey," or John the Baptist said, "God can raise from these stones children to Abraham." But God doesn't want to do it without us. He called you. Each one of you. He wants you in His Kingdom. So He's saying, "Get ready, build and prepare." And that's something with God's help we can do. We can be among the founders of a nation or a Kingdom greater even than this country. We can help found the Kingdom of God on earth.