The Real American Revolution

Thank you, Mr. Call. I can tell John I'm willing to trade. I mean, I like to be flexible.

It's funny, I've been called on to do a prayer impromptu at the last minute. Never been called on to do a sermon impromptu at the last minute. And I want to say, I'm very glad to be back and wonderful to see a full house. It looks like we have some, well, I know some visitors, but I think they're all people that we're welcoming back, and I guess that's me. I'm in that category now, too. But I've mentioned that several people were on the home office. Some people asked me, are you still going to Portsmouth? And I said, well, yeah, I am when I can, and I'm enjoying that. I told them it's nice to keep your feet grounded in a normal congregation. And I've got nothing against Cincinnati. One of the things I've said, you know, I've been in the big, sandy congregation. I attended in Pasadena for a couple years. And like I said, wherever the college is and the headquarters of the church, it's a little different. I mean, it's just the way things are. Of course, maybe, well, I'm there at the home office. I haven't been there for services more than I think three times in the last year. So I'm not sure if I found out how normal it is there. But I am happy to be back. Boy, it's been busy. I can't believe the last month. And it seems like forever since I've been here, but I forgot a month ago we were having services in the park. So it's been even longer since being in the building. I know it's just spruced it up just for me visiting, right?

I love the look of the gravel out there and the work. Matter of fact, from up here, most of you don't stand up here, but the mission statement is clearly outlined. It looks very good from here.

But during that month, I think since then we had the one week of continuing education.

There at the ABC classroom, that was my first time to be there for the week. And it was an exciting time for me. It's amazing. We'd call it more season-mature students come in, and they were so excited to be there, even though many of them come year after year. When I got up for the orientation, I thought, I should be calling on one of you to give the orientation, and I'll sit there and listen and see how it goes. But that went well. And one thing I'll say, Steve Myers and Daris McNeely returned from their trip to Italy during that week, and then jumped right in, and they were just so excited about the things they'd learned and how they were putting it in their classes, and it bubbled out in their presentations. So I'd say for those of you that are going to be here in a couple weeks, I think you'll get to experience that. It should be a very exciting and fun time. Of course, then we had a week of camp. I think last week when I was in Pressensburg, I was telling people some of how camp went. I'm guessing you've probably heard from those who were here, but it was another, I think, terrific week at Camp Catubik. The weather threw us some challenges, but I think it did well. I know I had some of the most fun I've ever had at playing Capture the Flag, because it was like playing on a big sponge. It's sort of this low valley that was really saturated. We actually had some sod bubbles, I was calling them, where the water is under there and it's all squishy. It didn't hurt if you fell down because it was so soft. So we had a good time, enjoyable there. I've been working at getting ready for ABC. Two days ago, I started moving into my office, and it still feels really odd to say my office. If any of you have visited the home office for the last month and a half or so, Mr. Antion had his name and my name both up there on the nameplates, and he was gradually moving mine over and his out. So when I came back from camp, it was just my name. Whoa! That really seemed bizarre. Of course, I didn't get a chance to move in right away. They moved all the furniture to the middle and they painted the walls and then moved them back.

I think Thursday, Richard Kenebec gave me keys, so now I can actually get in. So that seems to make it real. Now I'm allowed in the building.

As I said, starting to put books on the shelf and things like that.

So it's going well, and I've got this clock in my mind where I'm counting down to the end of August when we'll be starting classes. I would appreciate, of course, I'll appreciate your prayers always for the success of ABC. When I got in, I started looking through the files of the students coming in, and one thing I noticed is we have a preponderance of women. It just goes that way sometimes. So I looked. I said, we need five more men. Now, more would be good, but I said, I'm going to go to God and ask for five more men. Five more young men. And I invited several people to join me in that, and I'll invite all of you to join me in that. But from the time I determined that, and I started praying about that, the next day we got an application in from, I think, a 22-year-old young man, and we've gotten two more since then. So I think God is answering. I'm not sure why He didn't give me all five at once, maybe to remind me to keep it up. So if you'd like to join me in that, I'm not against any additional women, but a couple more men would be good for that.

Sorry, I thought for a second I was going to say, I'm taking time away from the fellow coming after me, but that's just John McKinney when he gives the closing prayers. So, well, actually, I do want to get into prayer, but I thought it's been so long I wanted to catch you up. I do think about here and all of you fairly often. But today is the 4th of July, Independence Day. And I actually asked Mr. Call, I said, I've got an idea for a sermon I'd like to give, and he graciously allowed me the time. So being a historian, a history teacher, whose focus is the late colonial, early republic period, the time period I studied, this is right in the middle of it. So one of my favorite subjects is the American Revolution.

And there are some other names we use sometimes. Sometimes we talk about the Revolutionary War.

Or I've seen some historians be very particular and say it has to be called the War for American Independence. All of those names are accurate, and they mean slightly different things. So, at least to history professors, to all of you might be saying, well, you're just throwing words around.

But which name that I want to use will be important to which spiritual analogy I want to draw. And I thought there are a lot of options. I love military history. As many of you know, it would be fun to analyze the various battles and the troop movements, to tell the stories of perseverance. Of George Washington realizing that he needed to keep his army intact, rather than charge ahead. If he'd have attacked the way many people wanted, he would have had his army wiped out very quickly, and American independence wouldn't have happened then the way it did. Now, of course, there are stories of God intervening dramatically. One of the best is one I've talked to Darris McNeely about, because he likes to study history also. Many people know that there was the fighting around Boston with the Battle of Bunker Hill, even though it wasn't actually on Bunker Hill. But, you know, in the siege, and finally the British left, George Washington realized they're probably going to New York next. And he established his defenses on Long Island. But, you know, he was kind of a rookie at that business, and the British found a weakness, and they turned his flank, and the army was in Pelhamel retreat, once again in danger of being totally wiped out. And they needed to get across the East River. The only problem is, the most powerful navy in the world was anchored right there, and if they're trying to cross in boats, you know, when that navy is ready, they could just train their cannons on them and destroy the whole American army. But before they could do that, this heavy fog moved in. It's a fun story. It's like pea soup. You couldn't see hardly your hand in front of you. And so the British ships didn't dare move up the river. They might collide into each other, might fire the cannon at each other, but it was perfectly safe for the Americans to ferry their entire army across on the Manhattan Island and get away. Actually, I wasn't planning on talking that much. I was gonna say, I've covered lessons from battles and other sermons, so I'm gonna leave that behind. One of the obvious choices is talking about some of the great men and women involved. Historians have looked back at American history in that period, and they say, that's something almost unique in human history. That so many great leaders, intelligent, talented, devoted people of character, were on the scene at one time and in one place. It's almost unheard of. And for them to work together and cooperate the way they did, to defy the world's only superpower at the time, declare independence, and then last out the battle and win and form a new government. We had people like George Washington alone as a character study that, matter of fact, sorry I keep getting distracted, but I was thinking about moving into the office. Mr. Antion inherited a lot of books that were in Dean Blackwell's collection. Books that were valuable, but they didn't want to put in the ABC library because he's got this huge collection on American leaders, especially presidents. And so they're still there in the office. I said, don't get rid of them. I'll take them. The only problem is when am I going to find time to read them? And half of them are about George Washington. He really is... Well, I'll say one thing I've told students over the years as I've taught American history is I said, we call some of these great men because they really were great. They weren't converted Christians the way that God is calling us to conversion now, but they did great things and are worthy of us studying and learning from their lives. And as I said, Washington is one. There's people like John Adams who is grossly underrated. Little-known military leaders like Daniel Morgan and Nathaniel Greene and others. And now Alexander Hamilton is one of my favorites.

But I decided not to talk about that, except for the few minutes I've been telling you about it now.

Of course, the revolution provides a great opportunity to talk about fulfilled prophecy.

The birthright promises that God had given to Abraham, passed on to Isaac, then to Jacob. Of course, we know Jacob adopted Ephraim and Manasseh. He put Ephraim before Manasseh when he transferred those blessings. And of course, at the end of Jacob's life, he called in his twelve sons and he told them what would befall them in the last days. He said of Joseph, he's a vine by a well and his branches run over the wall. We've interpreted that to mean that they would be a colonizing power. And of course, Great Britain established colonies all over the world. At one time, the sun never sat on the British Empire. So we could look at how the amazing fulfillment of the prophecies of the blessings being conferred, then withheld for a certain number of times, which it seems to match that seven times that's in Leviticus 26. And then suddenly those blessings overflowing, like bursting upon the scene on the British Empire in the United States of America in the 1800s. And I have spoken of that before, so I realize I'm spending almost more time telling you what I'm not going to speak on today than what I am. But I thought it was worth saying, you know, if you want a key spiritual message into a particular day of the year, boy, this one gives you an opportunity. And the Fourth of July is, well, I would say one of my favorite holidays. You know, if we look at holidays that aren't holy days, how many do we keep anyways?

Of course, almost none. But this is one where we don't have to worry about pagan origins. We don't have to worry about, you know, were fireworks agentially used to worship false gods? Or no, none of that. It's a day we can be proud to be Americans. Citizens of this great country, even though there's times in the last week, it's made me feel like maybe it's not so great. And that's, you know, it's worth commenting on. I'm glad that the course, the Council of Elders, came out promptly with a statement of what we believe in for marriage, about marriage, what it is. And I think it's worth saying, you know, excuse me, I've had a discussion. It's interesting in the media department there at the home office, there's a lot of younger people because they've got the training and the talent that, you know, we're using them to help us preach the gospel. But I've seen a little bit of a divide among older members of the church with younger and how they look at America. Because those of you who've been in the church and in this country a lot longer than us, you are even more upset than most of us about what's happening in the country. Because the country's been so good for so long.

I know my age and younger, we sort of grew up in the church saying, well, of course, it's going to fall apart. Our country is going to go into depravity. We're going to be going into captivity at some time, so we're not necessarily surprised and not necessarily mourning in the way that maybe we should. Because the United States has been a great country, has been blessed by God.

But it's worth us noting as it steps down from the greatness that it had, as some of our leaders are turning away from things that our country used to stand for, we want to remember that the United States of America never was the kingdom of God. It's always been dominated by false religion. By false religion, I mean a brand of Christianity that still bears what we believe is the mark of the beast, worship on Sunday. And I'm not wanting to cast aspersions on our leaders or on our country all this time, but even when America was at... yeah, I'm trying to talk too fast. When America has been at its best and strongest and closest to worshiping God as people knew, it still hasn't been what God is going to establish when Christ returns and establishes the millennium. So we can look at the good things in our country and celebrate those, but remember what's ahead is going to be so much better. And God has called us to that. That's where I want to say, you know, we can look at the faults of our country. Our forefathers have done some things right.

They did some very good things, and so I do want to focus on some of that today. I finally decided what I did want to talk about is what some historians have called the real American Revolution.

And they use that term real American Revolution, boy, that gets harder to say than it is to type, to discuss a vital change that happened in the thinking of Americans, and I want to use it to draw a spiritual analogy with a vital change that is necessary in our thinking. And I want to say is necessary because many of us, I'd say most of us, have already begun that, maybe progressed very far in it. But I want you to bear with me as I make that analogy. So when I talk about the real American Revolution, I'm not talking so much about the battles. You know, I love the war for independence. It's fun to study, but I'm not talking about that or about political votes, about government organization. But rather, I do mean that widespread change in the way Americans saw themselves and saw their place in the world, how they related to it. If you think of that as the real American Revolution, well, thinking of that as the real American Revolution is what inspired John Adams at one point to write that the American Revolution didn't happen in 1776. He said it started in 1765. It started in 1765. So to get there, I want to review a number of the major events that many of you might remember from history class. And I put a note here to say, I'm not going to turn to very many scriptures early on. Later we'll get to that. So bear with me. I'm moving there. If you brought your American history textbook, that might have been more apropos. Actually, I know some people tell me they love it when I discuss history in a sermon. If you're not one of those people, please bear with me. I'll try to make it as interesting and painless as possible.

Let's talk about a brief history of the American Revolution. Now, we want to look back from the time that the first British settlements were established in North America until the time of independence. Almost over 150 years passed. Jamestown was started in 1607. Think about that. Over 400 years ago, Plymouth was the first New England colony. That was established in 1620.

It was almost 150 years later we reached the end of the French and Indian War. In Europe, they called that the Seven Years War. That's a little bit of a misnomer. Americans called it the French and Indian War because they were fighting against French and Indians, and they ignored the fact that there were just as many Indians fighting on their side with the British.

But I don't want to look at that. I want to consider how much changed during that century and a half.

Towns in small cities had grown up and prospered. Farms had been carved out of the forest land, and many of them had become very productive. Hostile Indian tribes that had inhabited all of North America, many of them had been defeated and pushed away from the eastern half of the country. Or some that stayed on the fringes had been induced to cooperate. A lot of Indian tribes based their economy now on trapping animals for fur and selling them to the white men, rather than living off the land as they had before. One thing had not changed, though, and that these so-called colonists, and I say so-called because the name colonists stuck, they lived in what were called colonies, but most of them were born and raised in America. For that matter, by 1776, their parents had been born and raised in America, and their grandparents, many of them their great-grandparents, and yet they still considered themselves Englishmen. If you'd asked someone living in Boston what their nationality was in, say, 1740, they would have said, well, I'm an Englishman, a citizen of the British Empire.

And the fact that they'd lately fought a successful war against the French Empire made that seem all the more clear, except some different attitudes had arisen. They discovered some difference of opinion over how they should be fighting that war. And those differences started planting seeds in people's minds that would blossom into a revolution.

For one thing, I'd say it had been easy for these people in the colonies to think of themselves as Englishmen until thousands of real Englishmen wearing red coats, the red coats of soldiers, thousands of them showed up, and now they realize, hey, they're a little bit different than us. They talk a little different. They think different. Do things different.

Could it be that, you know, some of us aren't Englishmen the way we thought?

Now, when that war was over, as I said, we get into the 1760s, British government officers had took note of the things that had changed in all these years. Rather than these colonies being a group of struggling, starving settlements on the eastern seaboard, they noticed the colonies were thriving. In many ways, they were quite wealthy. They weren't cash wealthy. They didn't have a lot of money in their pockets, but they had a lot of productive land, a lot of livestock. They were able to produce everything they needed. Now, governing and protecting these colonies had costed and was costing the British Empire a fair bit of money, actually considerably more money than they were raising on taxes from the colonies. And that was a concern. They'd spent a lot of money on this war against France, and they realized, hey, these colonists are doing pretty well.

Maybe they can help pay some of the bills here. Americans were paying far lower tax rates than anybody in Britain at that time. That's something we don't tend to emphasize a lot in our American history classes. So, for those reasons, which to me sound kind of logical, the British Parliament passed some laws. In 1764, they passed a law that we in America call the Sugar Act. Actually, the official name was the Revenue Act of 1764, which isn't a very exciting name. The next year, they passed the Revenue Act of 1765, which we call the Stamp Act. Now, both of these were made to raise revenue. The Sugar Act basically changed the import tax on mostly molasses that was coming up from the Caribbean. The Stamp Act required basically the purchase of certain stamps, legal stamps, for all legal transactions. It could be a marriage license, a birth certificate, anything you would do. Kind of like we have now today, actually. You have to pay a tax for anything you want to do. But it extended to newspapers. Every newspaper would have to have that stamp. It was, I can't remember, was like a fraction of a cent was the cost of the stamp. Playing cards required it. And the idea was this would be spread out among all the people, and it would be very low tax on all the people, but all together it would raise some money and help pay these bills.

Nobody in the British government expected it, but there was a huge reaction in America.

The colonists were outraged. How dare they do this? One of the first things they did is they started an economic boycott. They think they're going to do this to us. We're not going to buy their stuff anymore. And it was pretty successful in those first years. We're not going to buy anything imported from Britain. But also mob action broke out. That's a term I like to use, you know, mostly in the cities.

Now, they were meant to look totally spontaneous. People are upset, and suddenly they gather, and there's rioting. It turns out, as you study later, often there were ringleaders who carefully planned the spontaneous riot. The name we most associate with those is Samuel Adams. Before he became famous as a brand of beer, he was a real guy who did help orchestrate this revolution. In Massachusetts, the man that had been appointed to become the chief, not chief, but chief, stamp officer, was a man named Andrew Oliver.

He was a wealthy merchant, importing and exporting. He was a, I want to say, young man. I think he was in his late 30s, early 40s, and the job of stamp officer was going to pay pretty well. He was happy to get the job. Until he realized that there was a riot going on. A mob had gathered at the warehouse that he owned down at the harbor and trashed the place.

And they were feeling pretty good about themselves then, so they decided, let's go pay Mr. Oliver a visit at his home. They gathered on the front yard, and they're tearing up the lawn, start throwing rocks through the windows. And then they decided to help themselves. They came right in the front door, smashed the windows, smashed up the furniture, discovered the wine cellar. That's when things got interesting. They drank it dry, and some real harm probably would have come to Mr.

Oliver and his family, except when the mob was coming in the front door, they were going out the back, and they didn't look back. So, needless to say, he decided to not accept the job of stamp officer. Stamp officer. That's the name I usually use. There was an actual name for it. Connecticut had a similar experience, but not quite as violent. There, a man named Jared Ingersoll had been nominated to accept the job of stamp officer, so he got, you know, he didn't live in the capital city of Hartford, so he was riding horseback to to get to come to the capital.

On the way, he's rolling along the road, there was a clearing, and there was a mob of people there. This stops, you know, are you Mr. Ingersoll? Well, yes, I am. We understand you're on your way to Hartford to accept the job of being stamp officer. Well, yes, we don't think you should take that job. Well, no, it's a very good job. I want to take that. No, no, we don't think you should take that.

We really want to urge you to decline. As this discussion goes on, someone produced a rope, a heavy stout rope with a noose tied in one end, and Jared Ingersoll decided that he didn't want to be stamp officer. He decided he was going to turn around and ride back home. And things, similar illegal activities happened all through the colonies.

So when the date arrived, when the stamp tax was supposed to go into effect, no one could buy stamps even if they wanted to. So there's one of two, you know, three main ways that Americans protested. You know, they had the boycott, they had this mob action. They also, most of the colonies, sent representatives to New York City to for a group of delegates that they called the Stamp Act Congress.

And the Stamp Act Congress made a formal appeal to Parliament and to the King, basically telling them why Americans were reacting this way. And that's an interesting thing, because if we see the debates and the discussion there, and we can actually read the letters and diaries of people living there, it tells us why Americans reacted the way they did to these taxes. And I'll say the British assumed that the Americans just didn't want to pay their fair share.

Those cheap Americans, they don't want to do what's right and pay their taxes. Or some of them said, well, it's the stamps they're upset about. If we form the taxes in a different way, they won't be so upset. But I want to say Americans, it turns out, were willing to pay their fair share.

They weren't even so upset that it was a stamp tax. You go back a few years, Massachusetts had had its own stamp tax. Before this, Americans weren't so upset about having to buy stamps. And that tells us something important about this passage of history. It was not how high the taxes were. No, now, everybody there would have been willing to pay less. Just like I'll bet all of you would be willing to pay less, am I right? I know I would. What it was was who imposed those taxes and why. Or, as I like to say, it was the principle of the thing. It really was the principle of the thing. This is, they encompassed in the rhyming phrase, no taxation without representation. Most of you remember that, at least, am I right? And I've taught this so many times. I don't want to talk down to you, those of you who all know this all very well, you can consider it a nice review. But this whole idea of no taxation without representation is based on an integral part of western civilization. That's the idea of private property. That we can each own stuff that is our own. And I'd say that comes from the Bible. We have the, I wrote it down, the eighth commandment, I believe it is, says, thou shalt not steal. Well, stealing is based on the fact that people can own things and you don't take their stuff. What I have is my stuff and you can't take it without me giving it to you. Someone takes my stuff without my consent, that's stealing.

Are taxes stealing, then? Well, we all have to pay taxes. And I don't remember deciding one day, I want to give a lot of my money to the government. But our thinking is that, when you have a representative or a democratic government, the idea is that people did give their consent through their representatives. We all have the opportunity, theoretically, to vote for those that go to Washington, D.C. We voted for them, they vote for taxes, therefore we've given our consent. Okay, and that's actually why in our United States government, only the House of Representatives, which is the most representative branch of the government, they're the only ones that can initiate a tax bill. The president can't impose taxes if he follows the Constitution. I don't want to get sidetracked there, but he doesn't legally have that power, nor does the Senate. It has to start from the House of Representatives. Well, the Americans were already thinking this way back in the 1760s, and they said, hey, we don't send anybody to Parliament. We're not represented there, so Parliament shouldn't be able to vote taxes on us. That's taxation without representation. Another way of putting this is, Americans wanted government by consent of the governed. That's a vital part of American culture. Government by consent of the governed.

In contrast, a lot of oversimplified accounts of the American Revolution just say, oh, the colony's revolted because they didn't want to have a king telling them what to do. Well, the truth is, it wasn't the king, and the king wasn't the one that imposed those taxes. Actually, if we study the history, we'll find that still at this point, most Americans remained strongly loyal to King George III, and they would remain loyal to him until they finally felt forced to vote for independence. And of course, that would fit with their thinking, because the king didn't have the right to start a new tax any more than our president does. Once again, under the Constitution as it's written. But the Stamp Act Congress, and later the Continental Congress that followed it, was begging the king to protect them from Parliament.

You know, at first, as we moved into this period that we call the Revolution, Americans looked at the local British officials as their adversaries. These people are overstepping their bounds, they're not treating us right. But then, Parliament started passing the laws, and they said, oh, Parliament is our adversary. And the members of Parliament are overstepping their bounds, and they would appeal to the king. It wouldn't be until they saw the king as the adversary that independence became an issue. But that was short-circuited at this time, because in 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. Now, you might say, oh, that the formal appeals from the Stamp Act Congress convinced them. You know, they talked about the principle thing. Well, actually, you studied the writings of the men over in Parliament, and it wasn't that. It was internal politics and that economic boycott thing. The one thing I didn't spend much of any time talking about, that really hurt, because a lot of merchants were in Parliament. They said, hey, we're losing money on this. Let's get rid of the Stamp Act. Hold on, I wrote something here that I can't read. Oh, yeah. What I was saying, though, those in America who'd paid attention had started to see, we've got a different role in the world than we thought. Especially when, at the same time, Parliament repealed that Stamp Act, they passed a law called the Declaratory Act. I always liked this one. The Declaratory Act says, okay, we're not going to tax you now, but we could if we wanted to. So, Parliament can do whatever it wants whenever it wants it. It doesn't say in exactly those words, but Americans were saying, wait a minute, I don't like that. But since they weren't using the power right then, time went on. Now, yikes. Here, I thought this was going to be a short sermon. I gotta...

Let's move on, then, because Parliament still had bills to pay. So, they said, well, the Americans don't want to pay for these stamps, but they haven't really protested against import taxes. So, let's raise import taxes. Let's tax a lot of the stuff that they normally buy from us, because now they're starting to buy since we took off the stamp act. So, they put on a lot of import duties on things like glass, lead, paper, paint, tea, and so on. These were known as the Townsend duties, if you're keeping track in your history book. They were named after the British secretary of the Treasury, Charles Townsend. And it's funny, I read that, and the Charles Townsend. Why does that name ring a bell? Because I watched TV in the 1970s. You guys remember a show called Charlie's Angels? Wasn't it Charlie Townsend? Was the guy that they talked to on the phone?

And I think you've got to have lived in just my era and become a history teacher before you ever make that weird connection. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same Charles Townsend.

Anyways, these taxes were for revenue. They still violated the principle of the thing, but Parliament was hoping most Americans wouldn't notice the difference. And sadly, they were right. Most Americans let it go. Except, and this is important, except a lot of merchants became very skilled smugglers. They found ways to get around a law that they didn't think was just. And Americans supported them at that. And our good old friend John Hancock is one of the more foremost about that. He was a young merchant who became very skilled at hiring smugglers and having his ship skirt the law. As a matter of fact, I remember for years they still had a boycott on some of those things, those who would live up to it. I think there's a story of John Adams when he was involved in a lot of these affairs coming into a coffee shop. John Adams didn't really like coffee much, but that's what they had. And he said, don't you have some properly smuggled tea that I can have? And from the story, I don't remember ever actually got his tea. Anyways, I want to move ahead in time to the next major event that had did have a big impact. Because over time they learned, of course, with the smuggling, these import duties weren't that effective. So they started taking them away. And eventually all of them were repealed except for one. The tax on tea. They left the tea tax there partly to serve the same role as the declaratory act. Okay, we're not going to tax you, but we could if we wanted to.

And Americans kept smuggling their tea anyways, or they learned to drink coffee.

So it didn't matter much until 1773, when I wrote the date down, but that's one of the few that I can remember because of the rhyme. Tea in 73. Parliament changed the way they administered this tax for a reason that had nothing to do with the Americans. Actually, it was because the British East India Company, one of the first corporations in the world, was having financial troubles. And the British government wanted to give them a break. So they changed the way the tax was administered. And I'm not going to go into the details because they're boring even to me.

But it was enough to make... so it was like actually a little cheaper for the Americans to buy the tea, but they would be paying the tax. And it would give the British East India Company an advantage that it bailed them out. Think of it as like when General Motors was going bankrupt a few years ago and the government bailed them out because they were too big to fail. The British East India Company was too big to fail. But Americans now were awake. Hey, you're trying to bribe us with cheap tea to get us to pay this tax. No! It's still taxation without representation. It's the principle of the thing. We're going to stand up for what we think is right. Government by consent of the governed. So, and most of the harbors, the Americans said, we're not letting you unload that tea. Ships can come in, but they're not unloading the tea. Okay, a lot of them turned around and went back, but in Boston they had a very hard-headed governor who said, no, that ship is not leaving harbor. And America said, it's not unloading. He said, it's not leaving. Now, they're at a stalemate. And most of you know how they broke the stalemate, right? A few Americans decided to dress up as Indians, board the ship at night, and dump the tea in the harbor. And of course, I like the, uh, what's a movie I saw when I was a kid? Johnny Tremaine, was it? They like to emphasize that there was no destruction. Nobody was hurt. The only property that was damaged was a lot, a padlock that had been damaged. But they dumped the tea in the harbor saying, we're not standing for this.

And that led to severe retaliation by the British. When Parliament learned what had happened, they passed a set of laws that are known as the coercive acts. Basically, we're going to force you to do what we want. Boston and Massachusetts was put under basically martial law. They clamped down very hard. And again, this is something that pushed Americans, or the colonists, to start seeing themselves differently in relation to Britain. They started seeing that Britain didn't have their interests at heart. Maybe they want to be a citizen of something else other than the British Empire.

When the coercive acts were passed, of course Americans protested again. They boycotted, and this time they started doing something different than before. They also started forming and drilling militia companies. Most of them already owned guns, so they didn't have to worry about that. But they started practicing, learning how to march, how to fire together, and gathering stockpiles of weapons and ammunition. And that's what led to it, basically what we call the shot heard around the world on April 19th of 1775. That's a date I remember because my sister was born on April 19th. So now you, like every history class I've ever taught, knows when my sister's birthday was. I'd probably never remember Lexington and Concord, except for that. But the British learned of a stockpile of gunpowder and weapons at this small town about 12 miles or so away from Boston called Concord. So they sent some troops across the harbor by night. That's why one of the... you remember the lanterns up in the Old North Church? One if by sea, two if by land... no, one if by land, two if by sea. You've got to remember the poem. And of course, that didn't matter. The Americans still weren't caught off guard because of Paul Revere and Charles Dolls and the other guy whose name I never remember. But they went and warned, the British are coming, the British are coming. You know, a bunch of colonists rouse up, go out in Lexington Green. Lexington is a town between Boston and Concord. I like to tell this story. Of course, they rose. They were the Minutemen. They had to be ready in a minute's notice. Well, the British soldiers weren't Minutemen. They were taking their time marching. So the Minutemen gathered. It's like three in the morning. They're standing around in a while saying, man, this is getting boring. Let's go to the tavern and have a drink, you know, and warm ourselves up. Now, there's no story that they got really drunk, but alcohol was involved because finally, a couple hours later, now the British are coming. They form back up on the green again. They're ordered to disperse. The Americans don't want to disperse. A gunshot goes off. To this day, nobody knows who fired that first shot. But, of course, shooting then happened on both sides, and the war was on.

From that time forward, the revolution became dominated by military conflict.

And all the stuff that's the most fun to talk about happens. But what I want to point out is that while the fighting went on, so did what I'm calling the real American Revolution.

The people had gone from feeling that local British officials were their enemy, to believing that Parliament was their enemy. And finally, when the King sided with Parliament, Americans felt they had no choice. They had come to believe that they were being oppressed by a government that did not have their best interest in mind. They did not consent to that government. They didn't consent to its laws. And when that happened, Americans changed from thinking themselves as Englishmen to considering themselves Virginians, New Englanders, South Carolinians, and so on, and eventually to thinking of themselves as American citizens.

And so they voted for independence. And what was just another day in the calendar, 4th of July, has been Independence Day ever since.

Sue and I were discussing that in the car. She said, when did we start celebrating that? And if I remember, on July 4th of 1776, it started right away. I'm not sure when Congress made it officially a national holiday, but it's been a national holiday all that time ever since.

And as I said, the fact that they acted on the principle of the thing, you know, they had a well-reasoned sense of right and wrong. It wasn't just selfish economics.

That's one of the things that does make me proud about our forefathers. As I said, they weren't just, nah, I don't want to pay taxes, so I'm going to fight a war.

They went ahead, you know, on a principle.

And now that I've breezed through all that, and I wrote a note, I should probably apologize that I'm not going to talk about the Battle of Bunker Hill or Washington crossing the Delaware or Valley Forge, because they don't fit with the particular lesson that I want to draw out. What does fit, again, is that our the Americans, our founding fathers, were driven to revolution by a principle. They believed it was wrong to have to pay taxes on which they had no vote. No taxation without representation. It wasn't about being too cheap to pay taxes. It wasn't about the money. It was about the principle of government by the consent of the governed.

With that in mind, think about why we choose to obey God's law and live by it. Do we do so just to avoid the penalty? And that's not a totally bad reason, you know, because we don't want to die and stay dead forever. You know, do we obey God just because we want the blessings that come from obedience? And it's certainly not bad to have blessings. But I would say, if that were the main reason, or the only reason, we might be like the colonists who obeyed rules imposed by a foreign government only because they didn't yet have the power to revolt.

I don't believe that is the case. You know, I think that we do, and if we don't yet, hopefully we will accept God's law and his government. And we call that sometimes buying in. Or, I would say, consenting. We need to believe that God's way is our way. And that's when it makes it much easier to follow Acts 5.29. I was really happy, actually, when the Council of Elders mentioned Acts 5.29 in their statement on marriage. It's because it's long been one of my favorite scriptures. You know, that's where Peter and the other apostles said, we ought to obey God rather than men. We ought to obey God rather than men. It doesn't mean disobey men in every case, but if there's any conflict, you choose God's way first. Like the colonists over time came to stop seeing themselves as Englishmen and started believing they were Americans, we all, I think most of us already have, but we're in the progress of doing so even more, of seeing ourselves not as ordinary people living on this planet, but we're seeing ourselves as part of the Kingdom of God, citizens of God's Kingdom.

Now, one of the things I want to point out, though, of course, one thing for Christians that will never parallel the experience of the American Revolution is the establishment of a new government in which we participate in inventing the government and the laws. We're not ever going to have to do that because God has done it. When it comes to His way, we don't need representation, as in no taxation without representation, but that doesn't mean we can't have government by consent of the governed. I do want to turn to Isaiah chapter 33. Isaiah 33 and verse 22. I like referencing this when we talk about government, and it's hard to read this without thinking of our federal government and its three branches, but it shows that if we're in America, we separated the powers because we didn't trust people. There's no need for separation of powers in God's government. Isaiah 33 and verse 22 says, the Eternal is our judge. The Eternal is our lawgiver, and the Eternal is our king. He'll save us. God fulfills all three branches of the government, judicial, legislative, and executive.

As I said, when Americans went on to form a new constitution because we weren't part of the British Empire, they said, oh, we need a division of power. We need checks and balances because humans are humans. As it says in Jeremiah 17.9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Our founding fathers realized that to some degree. They believe that the same power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So they set up a government with divided powers.

And I say the American Revolution was finally complete. John Adams said it started back in 1765. I don't think it was completed until 1789 when the new constitution was finally written up and adopted. It was adopted actually in 1790. We had our first election in 1790. Boy, I should know these things. Yeah, when you're teaching your kids, it sticks in your memory a little more. It's been a while since I've done a history class. But in America, we separate these things.

They designed a large house of representatives so that people could vote and they would have buy-in. They also, of course, realized that the Founding Fathers said, well, we want to separate the power, but we want things to be done efficiently. The administration and leading the military needs to have one guy in charge. So we'll give the president those kind of powers. Remember, at this time, they weren't thinking of... Well, I'm almost contradicting myself because they're thinking of the office of the president. They wanted to make sure that whoever held that office wouldn't become a dictator, wouldn't just grab all this power and run things the way he wanted. So they made him dependant on reelection. He's only elected for four years and then has to be reelected. And Congress had to enact taxes and had to enact laws. And if you study the writings of the people at the Constitutional Convention, they actually were thinking about limiting the president's powers much more. Maybe we should have a three-man committee and we shouldn't let the president have the power of the veto or there's a lot of things they were considering. But one thing changed their mind. They saw the person that was presiding over the convention and that was George Washington. And they looked up there and said, well, he's who we're going to vote to be president. So if Washington's going to be president, we can give him the power because we trust Washington. We know what kind of man he is. And they said, let's give the president, the office, more power because we trust the man that will hold it. Do we have... Well, I shouldn't ask the question. It's not a question. I'd say we have that and much more and proof and experience that God, that Jesus Christ is worthy to be a king with all power. We could turn to Psalm 34 just to see a statement on that. And of course, I want to draw the distinction. It's not like we have a choice in voting someone else to be king. Jesus Christ is king. But we don't have to have any qualms or worries about that. Psalm 34 in verse 8. Another verse that I kind of like says, O taste and see. Sometimes that couldn't be interpreted. Test and see that the Eternal is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him. You know, you could put in the vernacular and say, check it out. God really is good. You can trust him. And that's right. We can consent to his government. We know the person that's wielding that power. I like, matter of fact, Matthew 19 verse 17. I'm not going to turn there, but Jesus Christ said, no one is good but God. Well, no one is going to be in charge of the government other than God. So that's okay.

Let's turn to Nehemiah chapter 9 also to see something about God's laws. That's actually back towards the front. I always turn the other direction when I get to there. Nehemiah 9 in verse 13. This is part of Nehemiah's prayer to God, but I believe it was inspired by God and put in the scriptures and it does reflect God's thoughts. Nehemiah 9 in verse 13 says, You came down also on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them just ordinances, true laws, good statutes and commandments. That's what God gives. True judgment, good laws.

And it's not that the law just exists in some isolated state of goodness. Why is it good?

We can see that if we turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6. What makes the law so good?

And we can say the answer is that it works for us. It's not just God telling us what to do arbitrarily. Why does He tell us to do the things He does and tell us not to do certain things? Deuteronomy 6 in verse 24.

The Eternal commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive to this day.

Again, Frank McCready cites this verse. I think there's another verse that says it at the very end, but God gives us His laws in His ways for our good. And as we saw, we can test it out, and it is good. And so, can't we obey these laws willingly, not just by force?

I think we can. I think we do. That doesn't mean that it's always easy. Let's turn to Romans chapter 13, though, to reinforce this some more. Why it is we see these laws are good, and why we want to consent to them. Or we should want to. And again, I say we should, and I believe we do.

I'm not trying to convince all of you. I could say, you're all here. You're keeping the Sabbath. You see the benefits and the blessings from it. Romans 13, starting in verse 8, it says, Oh, no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. But I'm glad he didn't stop there, because it's not just, Oh, I have this warm, fuzzy feeling, and that's all I need. He said, No, the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. Don't murder. Do not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. If there's any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.

And I think that's one of those where you say, A equals B, so B equals A. You could say, fulfilling the law shows love to neighbor. They're equal. So that's why we do it. And of course, Paul is talking about how to love your neighbor. If he wanted to include all of the law, he would have included the greatest laws, as Jesus did in Matthew 22. They're both there together in Matthew 22 and verse 37. Matthew 22. Well, if we back up to verse 36, the Pharisee asked him, Teacher, which is the great commandment of the law? And Jesus said, We'll love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and the great commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

I thought, wouldn't it be great if all the laws passed by Congress, or all the laws ever passed by Parliament, or every diet or assembly, House of Delegates, House of Representatives, were good?

And if all those laws were good because we knew and could trust that the congressmen were good? Yeah, wouldn't that be great? We're not there yet.

You know, congressmen will say the laws are for our good.

But I think, you know, back in the 1760s, the members of Parliament who passed that Revenue Act of 1764 and the Revenue Act of 1765 and the Towns and Duties of 1767, I'm sure they all said, These are for your good. And they probably meant it. I don't think they were lying. Actually, something that we don't often talk about on the 4th of July, but since I'm not just a preacher, but also a history teacher, it's worth pointing out that many Americans believed that those laws were for their good. Some people think it might have been as many as one-third of Americans were still on Britain's side through all this. Others say, no, it wasn't quite that many. We know at least a third to a half or a bit more did not believe that those laws were for their good. They didn't consent to those laws. And it wasn't government by the consent of the governed.

But having the Bible say that God's laws are good doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's going to accept that as the case. Certainly, large numbers of people on the planet right now don't accept that. Especially, as I said, the law concerning the Sabbath. Out of all the people living in Southern Ohio, how many are keeping the Sabbath right now? I mean, there's, what, have we got about 70 or 80 of us here? I'm sure there are some small groups in some other areas, so we're not the only ones, but the vast majority aren't. We could probably go to most cinemas and find bigger crowds of people who are watching. I don't know what movies came out this weekend. I missed it, but soon I've been wanting to go see that new cartoon one. I'm not keeping up. I don't even know the name of it. But anyways, we're here today obeying God's law, but as I said, is it because we're forced to? While we're resenting the requirement? If that were the case, we'd be like the colonial Americans who paid import taxes when the British customs agents were there, but who became expert smugglers and avoided compliance when they could. Those people were submitting to government by force, but they wanted government by consent.

And because they wanted that so much, they set up their own government.

And I'm not saying that they were wrong to do so in that case. As a matter of fact, I'd say to some degree, God believes in government by consent of the governed because we know his word talks about having a lake of fire. He's not going to force anybody to accept his will and his way of life that they just plain don't want it. He'll say, I'm giving you a choice. Just like God had Moses say to the children of Israel back in Deuteronomy, you can choose life or death, but I want you to choose life. Please choose life. That's much better. I think the Americans living in America after the revolution who didn't consent to the new government, who still want to be part of the British Empire, a lot of them picked up and left, and they resettled in Canada. And it's funny, I wrote that and I thought, hmm, this is probably the only time in history where someone in a sermon can equate Canada with the lake of fire. And I'm not trying to do that, but I thought, I'll bet I get a laugh if I point that out. They're not the same, by the way, especially if you go to Canada in January, you'd say, this is nothing like the lake of fire. But anyways, as I said, God's not going to force people, but what a better way there is. We can consent. We can consent to God's governments and laws. We can adopt His standards as our own. And as I said over and over, hopefully we already have. This idea is encompassed in this passage. I want to go back to Romans, chapter 7. We often read this in a very different context. Romans 7, let's read first verse 12. Romans 7, 12. I'll put my glasses on and I'll be able to read the numbers.

Therefore the law is holy. The commandment is holy, just and good. Of course, that's why we should accept it. The law is holy, just and good, but unfortunately we aren't quite there yet. As it says in verse 14, we know the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, sold under sin.

What I'm doing, I don't understand for what I want to do that I don't practice. It's what I hate. That's what I do. Paul's saying that even though a baptized Christian may sometimes still sin, there is a difference, though. The difference is we don't sin because we want to. We want to do what's right. If we read in verse 16, if then I do what I don't want to do, I agree with the law that it's good. If you have the old King James, you get the wording that I wanted. It says, I consent to the law that it's good. And as I said, we usually read right through this verse pretty quickly because we're reading the passage to understand the conflict that happens because we're still flesh and blood and we struggle and there's a process of conversion. It takes time for us to mature spiritually. But the fact that we agree in our hearts that God's law is good, that's what we want to become, that's very powerful. It's saying we consent. We see ourselves as kingdoms, as citizens of the kingdom of God. I knew what I wanted to say there. We're citizens of the kingdom of God rather than living under the prince of the power of the air. We're not having God force His way on us. We willingly consent just as the Americans did to the government that they formed after they declared independence from Britain. Interestingly, when God calls us, we have to fight a battle for independence, for freedom. The battle is with our human nature, though. We go back to Romans 6, just back a page for most of us, Romans 6 and verse 6. It says, knowing this, our old man was crucified with Him, that is with Jesus Christ, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Sinning is like being in slavery. You jump to verse 11, it says, Likewise, though, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God and Jesus Christ our Lord.

During the revolution, colonists equated Parliament's laws and regulations as being in slavery. That's why Patrick Henry famously said, Give me liberty or give me death.

Fortunately, we don't have to fight this war on our own. Jesus Christ's sacrifice gives us the victory. As a matter of fact, I should have looked up that scripture. I think it's in 1 Corinthians somewhere. God gives us the victory in Jesus Christ.

But we do have to willingly consent. We have to choose to be in God's kingdom.

Thinking of that, I was thinking, is there a story that shows that? Actually, there is one of someone who willingly chose to leave one kingdom and become part of another.

The example I'm thinking of is Ruth the Moabite. Ruth was born a Moabite. I'm going to turn to Ruth to read just a little bit of it. She was born part of that kingdom, and nobody asked her ahead of time. Hey, do you want to be born a Moabite? No, I think I'll be born somewhere else. None of us have that choice. No one asked her if she wanted to be subject to the king of Moab and to those laws. But Ruth, part of her life, she met a family that eventually would give her a chance to make a choice. There's Ruth. Let's read the very first part of it. We see, it came to pass in the days when judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. The land we're talking about is Israel.

And a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to dwell in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech. The name of his wife, Naomi. The names of his two sons, Malon and Killion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They went to the country of Moab and remained there. And then tragedy hits. Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died. And she was left in her two sons. Now they, the two sons, they took wives of women of Moab. The name of one was Orpah. The name of the other, Ruth. They dwelt there about 10 years. Now one thing that occurs to me, we don't know if Ruth had any say in this. Ruth or Orpah. Could well have been arranged marriages. Perhaps Naomi talked to their families and, you know, they arranged to pay the dowry and the young women were married whether they liked it or not. And they were still in Moab. They lived there about 10 years. A land ruled by its laws, dominated by Moabite culture, by a pagan religion. But things would change. So we see in verse 5, then both Malon and Killian also died. So the woman, Naomi, survived her two sons and her husband, which is incredibly sad. Then she arose with her daughters involved. Remember this is about 10 years or so after they'd left. She, to return from the country of Moab. For she heard there that the Lord, the Eternal, had visited his people by giving them bread. So the famine had ended in Israel. Crops are coming in. Therefore she went out from the place where she was and her two daughters-in-law with her. They went on the way to return to Judah.

And Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, oh, go back to your own house, back to your mother's house. And the Eternal deal kindly with you, as you've dealt with the dead and with me. And the Eternal grant that you might find rest each in the house of her husband. In other words, not the husbands that had died, but hopefully you'll be able to remarry. So she kissed them and they lifted up their voices and wept. And of course it goes on from there, you know, to they first say, no, we're gonna go with you. And she says, no, you know, look, why come with me? I don't have any other sons for you to marry. The thing I want to focus in on now is that they have a choice. All their life they've been part of Moab, living under that law, that rule. Now, do you want to be part of Moab? Or do you want to go to this other kingdom, Israel? At first, as I said, they say they'll go, but Naomi wants to convince them otherwise. In verse 14, they lifted up their voices and wept again. Orpa kissed her mother-in-law, meaning she kissed her goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, look, or Naomi said, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods. Return, go after her. And then Ruth said that this famous passage that we often read, and I like to read it on any excuse I get, and treat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you, for wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. And most importantly, your God will be my God. And where you die, I'll die, and there I'll be buried. The eternal do so to me and more also, if anything but death, parts you and me.

So she adopted the God of Naomi. Good choice! It turned out that that God happened to be the God, the only one that's really real. He was the creator of the universe, the self-existing one.

That's the God who's called us. He's opened our minds. But he doesn't want to force us to live under his government and under his laws, just like Ruth wasn't forced. But you could say we have a much greater opportunity. We're not looking at just lands and physical laws. We're looking at spiritual principles. And God has called us, saying, you know, well, he's not telling us to go back. I'm sure Satan is saying, come back, come back. You know, look how good you'll have it, you know? Live in the kingdom of the prince of the power of the air. But if we consent to God's way of life, if we willingly submit like Ruth did, what a difference it'll make. And do we? Do we consent to the government of God? We should. And I think we do. On the 4th of July, Americans celebrate the independence of our country. And hopefully we also celebrate the wonderful blessings that God has bestowed on our people, on this nation. The American Revolution largely occurred because people didn't want to be taxed without their consent. They didn't want to be governed without their consent.

They wanted to be free from an oppressive government. So they formed a new one, one to which they did consent. Likewise, we need to realize that we need to be free from sin.

And we need to consent to being ruled by God's laws. These are laws of love, laws for our good. Ruth the Moabite made a similar choice thousands of years ago. She chose to live under God's government and God's laws. She consented to that government. As I said, I think that's what we do. I know that's what I do and what we're all in the process of doing. And we know that there's going to be a resurrection of all people. All people who have ever lived who haven't yet known God's way will be given that chance. And I think of those people that I mentioned earlier, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, they're going to be in that group. I look forward to meeting them, to talking about the ideas and principles they stood for. And I look forward to them doing what we've done, consenting to live in God's government, to choose that government and that law. It makes this day even all the more exciting.

Thank you.