© 2026 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

A few years ago a State Senator said to me, as I was urging him to stand against the uprising of homosexuals in Kentucky: “I tell you now, I just try to get along with everybody down here”, referring to people in Frankfort. I often hear young people saying what they’ve heard in school or the music of our day: “Let’s just compromise; everybody give a little so we can get along.” I wonder if this state Senator and these young people know that they have been deceived by liberal thinkers of our day into thinking that the foundation of freedom is compromise. This is not what America’s Founders believed!

They believed you must know the truth about every subject as the Bible revealed it. Jesus had said, “If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32) Then once you knew the truth, you must stand for that truth no matter what the cost. This was true in your personal life and it was true in your state and nation. They believed that your personal moral goodness, founded in knowing Jesus Christ as your Master and Savior, was the basis of being able to stand for liberty. If you knew internal self-government of your bodily desires, then you were qualified and empowered to walk in liberty in your community and nation. If you didn’t, you would have to be ruled by someone else. If you couldn’t control yourself, someone else would have to control you. Patrick Henry of Virginia summed this up well. He stated,

@ 2026 Don Pinson (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The newscast is full of it.  The newspapers’ main stories are about it.  Bestseller books are often discussions of it.  Why is there so much talk about government?  What’s so important about government?

Well, like most things in today’s world, we generally talk around the topic instead of defining it.  Why not go to the root of the issue and actually learn what we’re talking so much about.

The word government comes from the word govern.  The word govern is defined in Noah Webster’s original American dictionary as control.  Thus, government is the exercising of control.  The first form of government we must learn is self-government.  The art of governing ourselves means we control our appetites of the mind and the body.  Self-government in the mind means we exercise control over our thoughts and think on what is “…noble…just…and pure…” as the Bible teaches us to (Philippians 4:8).  This necessarily means we must control what goes into our minds; in other words, we control what we see, read, or listen to.  Self-government in our body means we exercise control over our body appetites.  Things like eating, resting, sleeping, and our desire for sex, are some examples of what we must learn to control.