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Pastor Jonas Clark stood on Lexington Green on the steps of his church building on April 19th, 1775, watching 600 British troops file onto the grassy area. He had taught his people for twenty years the Biblical principles of why and how to defend civil liberty. He did this because he knew the Bible taught that civil government was God’s institution just like the home and the church were God’s institutions. He stood there that day and watched nine of his men die on that field. They died because they stood and took the first volley. They had learned from their Pastor that only defensive war is just. For God to fight with them, they must not fire the first shot. They didn’t. God honored their sacrifice; the British, though a vastly superior force, were routed that day by the Colonial forces. A “shot was heard round the world” about how you defend civil liberty God’s way!
Samuel Davies, a Pastor in Virginia, was Patrick Henry’s inspiration for powerful public speaking. Laying “line upon line” the great Pastor’s reasoning both stirred and gave courage to the young boy. Later, this boy would become the statesman who would fire the American citizens to rise up and refuse to give up their liberty to teach the Gospel of Christ in this land. His stirring words, which used to be the stuff of speeches in our country, went like this:
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
(Henry, Patrick. March 23, 1775, in The Second Virginia Convention given at St. John’s Church in Richmond Virginia | The Annals of America, 20 vols. (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968), Vol. 2, pp. 322-333 | George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, 6 vols. (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, Third Edition, 1838), p. 29 | Peter Marshall and David Manual, The Light and the Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming Revell Co., 1977), p. 269)
These words were the fire which kindled American Independence and restored liberty in this land. Patrick Henry had received his inspiration from Pastor Samuel Davies. When Davies spoke to the King’s Court in London, the King spoke to those around him several times while Davies was delivering his sermon. Finally, Davies stopped, looked at the King and stated,
“When the lion roars the beasts of the forest all tremble; when King Jesus speaks, the princes of the earth should keep silence.”
(https://wallbuilders.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Lesson-2-Colonial-Period-mid-1600s-1765.pdf, p. 7)
Patrick Henry got his boldness from a Presbyterian preacher who spoke the truth to all—including government leaders! Ministers, we must boldly enter the governmental realm and speak the truth in the bold love of Christ!
Peter Muhlenburg, another Colonial Pastor in Virginia, preached a sermon on how there is a time for peace, but also a time for war. At the end of it, he pulled off his clerical robe and revealed underneath the uniform of a Continental Army Colonel. He urged his men to follow him and join George Washington’s troops. The next day 300 of them did: The Pastor took the lead in defending liberty.
American Pastors did this all down through our history until the mid-1900s. By that time, we’d heard enough humanistic teaching in the colleges and media that we began to be neutralized in our responsibility to teach the culture concerning God’s institution of civil government. As a result, we’ve watched satan push American Christianity more and more into a corner, using disordered civil government as his “battering ram”.
Bible-believing Pastors must re-enter the conflict and begin again to teach what the Bible says about the Reason for, the Structure of, and the Spirit in which civil government is to operate. This means identifying the best candidates running for office and telling their people about them. It means we ministers must show up at government meetings, including school board meetings. Will you, as a minister, obey God’s words to Joshua:
“Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee…” (Joshua 1:7)
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.