© 2019 Don Pinson | [Download]
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This time of year we often hear the words:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with…justice
From that time forward, even forever… (Isaiah 9:6-7)

These words, taken from Isaiah 9, express the longing of every thinking person on earth.  Most everyone wants justice and order and peace:  In other words, good government.  Every conscientious person wants the kind of government which will produce these things in a society.  Every good person wants good government.  Then why is good government so hard to find?

Number one, good government is hard to find because, as William Penn, said,

“Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined [also].  Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad…But if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.”

(Penn, William. April 25, 1682, in the preface of his Frame of Government of Pennsylvania | A Collection of Charters and Other Public Acts (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1740), pp. 10-12 | Gary DeMar, God and Government – A Biblical and Historical Study (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1982), p. 115.)

So governments go bad because man has Continue reading →

© 2019 Don Pinson | [Download]
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When Davey Crockett was a Congressman he learned a lesson we desperately need to relearn in our nation.  He once voted for some $20,000 to be set aside from the national treasury to be given to families in north Washington, whose houses had burned.  It seemed to be the compassionate thing to do.  But later, back on the campaign trail, a well-respected farmer told him he could not again vote for him.  When Crockett asked him why, the man, Horatio Bunce, replied that he had violated the Constitution by voting that money for the destitute families.  Bunce then began to explain that the Constitution allows Congress only the right to vote appropriations for the duties which the Constitution enumerates that the government has the power to do.  It gives no power to give money to those citizens who need help.  Bunce said to Crockett, quote:

“The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man…

“If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper.  You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.  No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.”

(Harper’s Magazine, 1867, as written by James J. Bethune, pen name of Edward S. Ellis)

Davey Crockett learned a vital lesson that day:  If the people didn’t agree to something in the original Constitution—or haven’t amended it since concerning that power—then the Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court has no right to do it—PERIOD!!!  This view of the Constitution is called Original Intent, and it is the only view that will preserve our liberty!

In the Bible, we learn that we must Continue reading →