Observations©
Donald S. Conkey
Date: August 16, 2007
# 933 – Observe the Constitution’s Birthday (811)
A month from tomorrow, September
17, is a day we should take note of, and discuss both privately in our homes, with our children, and publicly in our churches
and service or political organizations. It is the 220th anniversary of the day that the Constitution of the United
States was adopted and signed by thirty-nine of the fifty-five delegates to the constitutional
convention on September 17, 1787.
Most refer to these men as America’s “Founding
Fathers.”
September 17, 1787
was the day freedom and liberty was ‘restored’ to an enslaved world ruled by tyrants. This day was similar to
the day Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt anciently which
lead to the establishment of ancient Israel, a nation where
a theocratic republican form of government was first established by Moses, under the council and leadership of Jehovah.
I mention this subject now because there may
be a service organization program chairperson in need of a program topic for their September 17 weekly meeting – or
a church pastor in need of a sermon subject for their September 16 service.
If so,
I suggest the birthday of America’s Constitution would
make an inspiring and interesting topic. Program chairpersons could hand out the Constitution (available free at Congressman
Price’s Canton office—or the DVD,
‘A More Perfect Union” available at www.nccs.net) and discuss the Founders six goals for America
outlined in the Preamble. Pastors could use James 1:25 for their text. It refers to “the perfect laws of liberty,”
or “the Law of the Covenant,” as biblical scholar Dr. Cleon Skousen wrote in The Third Thousand Years. This group
of fifty-nine laws, according to Skousen, are a “permanent part of the Gospel,” separate and distinct from the
“Law[s] of Carnal Commandments,” those ‘schoolmaster’ laws fulfilled in Christ.
Those
‘perfect laws of liberty’ James referenced are the laws Thomas Jefferson implied are the foundation of America’s
freedoms and liberties when he inserted into the Declaration the words, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,”
words seldom comprehended today. Skousen suggests the Founders saw their role as ‘restoring’ to the world those
‘perfect laws of liberty’ they found scattered throughout Moses’ four books. The Founders believed the Ten
Commandments describe the relationship of “two sacred and eternal principles – the relationship between God and
man, and the relationship between each man and all other men.” Powerful ideas the Founders were trying to emulate when
they wrote the Constitution.
September
17 is a day few Americans associate with their freedoms and liberties, as they do with July 4, America’s
Independence Day. Yet September 17, while not a national holiday, is one of the most important days in the history of the
United States and of the world. Important enough for Congress
to pass Public Law 108-477 that mandates that all institutions receiving federal funding ‘must celebrate’ September
17 each year as ‘Constitution Day.’
Both
secular and biblical history strongly suggests that both ancient Israel
and America were led by God to reintroduce liberty to worlds
then enslaved by tyrants. Established as a theocratic republican form of government, Israel, led by Moses, was governed by
those ‘perfect laws of liberty’ for 230 years (note the time span – on July 4, 2007 America celebrated its 230th birthday), the very laws and form of government
(republican) that inspired the Founders to declare their independence from England, and eleven-years later create America’s
unique Constitution, now a document and beacon of liberty to freedom seeking people worldwide.
Then,
tired of the corruption often associated with ‘self-government’ the Israelites, rejecting Jehovah, went to Samuel
and asked for a king. The day they asked for a king was the day they slowly began to lose their freedoms and liberties, those
implied by Jefferson that are ‘unalienable,’ then spelled out in America’s
Bill of Rights. Could this same scenario be happening here in America
today as the war of words continue to rage over God’s principles of freedom deeply embedded in America’s
founding documents by America’s Founding Fathers.
As our
service organizations and churches celebrate this important event they could include a summary of the similarities between
ancient Israel and America,
between 1776 and 1787. Similarities show both peoples were living under a tyrant: Israel under Pharaoh, the colonists under
King George III; both turned to their God, the Lord God, in prayer, for deliverance; both
were approximately three million in numbers; both spoke a common language and shared a common religion; and both had to cleanse
the land they inhabited from a people who had openly rejected God’s universal laws.
And some
now think another similarity is in the making – a loss of freedom for America
because Americans, like the ancient Israelites, are in the process of rejecting their God. Let’s hope not as we celebrate
the birth of a Constitution that has brought to the American people unprecedented prosperity and freedom.
