Moments in History When God Intervened: God's existence in the formation of America

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Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

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Everybody. We're going to be wrapping up our conversation regarding God in American history. Is that a myth? Is that real? We'll talk about it.

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You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com. And today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us that's like saying Amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast here, and we're going to be talking about our fourth and final discussion regarding our founding as a nation the involvement of God. A lot of people want to argue about that today and I want everybody to take this to heart. People want to argue about the existence of God in the formation of America and I want you guys to know that is an argument that began to very, very loosely arise in about 1925 and it's escalated since. There's a reason for this Number one I avoid American history that is written after 1925. I just don't trust most of the authors because many of them are revisionist, and many of them here's the reason why. It's not because I'm being a bigot or I'm being a stinker or I'm being self-blinded to other views. I don't care about other views, I only care about the facts. I'm going to go with John Adams and I'm going to agree with him when he said facts are stubborn things.

So from about 1925, 1929, there was a movement in the public school system to begin to change the narrative. And, by the way, there was a lot going on in America at that time, in or around that vicinity of time, like the Scopes Trial and the ejection of God and creation out of the mind of America's education system. But one of the things also was the commencement of revisionism, and that was and it's in effect now more than ever their winning, and that is to erase God from the founding of America. The beautiful thing is, it can only happen to a silly person. That attack can only happen to a silly person. Let me explain to you what I mean by silly. Silly meaning. I don't want to know anything. I want you to spoon feed me something. Give me a 15-second sound bite and I'll be okay with that. It doesn't have to be true. Just tell me something. And if I have a predisposition, in other words, if I don't believe in God and if I don't want to believe that this was a nation founded upon Christian values, then tell me something that backs up what I want to hear. And people grab that and they run with it. So today, our public education system is running with a godless America.

Why are they so anti-founding father? For example, every single one of the sillies are anti-faith, anti-founding fathers. They will never mention a constitutional republic. They always mention democracy. We've mentioned that before. Big, big, big, big, big talk on democracy. But you better watch out, because, but trust me, those of you on the other end of this camera right now the last thing you want is a pure democracy. It's absolute despotism. We have a constitutional republic where not a handful of people are in charge at least supposedly. We're supposed to be in charge, we, the people. And it's the greatest political experiment the world has ever seen the United States of America, but let's talk about in the ending of our series. Let's talk about, in many ways, how it began.

So when you talk about the founding fathers, our founding fathers were guided by who they called their founding fathers and you say, well, that's weird. You mean, our founding fathers had founding fathers? Oh, yes, absolutely, and they didn't shy away from letting us know who they were. The original founding fathers were the pilgrim fathers that got off the Mayflower, but before they got off the Mayflower, they created the Mayflower Compact. So if you want to know facts about America and its birthing, take the time to read the two paragraphs of the Mayflower Compact 1620. Isn't it sad? I have to warn you, by the way, that there are people and this is increasing, there are people who have taken the original and they've edited it and they've put it online. So watch out. So Google are searching for the original Mayflower Compact. It's very, very sad. Thank God it's enshrined in Washington DC, where people tour and see it every day. But you'll find out that right there, written in English, is the fact that we've come here to proclaim the gospel upon this continent, and we're doing so to the glory of God. But let's move forward. Those are the guys that our founding fathers said were their founding fathers. So let's move to 1787.

1787, far and removed out from 1776. 1776, when we declared our independence from England. Technically, even though there had been some military skirmishes leading up to that, the wheels of liberty and freedom had been politically in play from about 1773. Maybe even earlier. Somebody might even argue that the wheels began rolling in or around 1765, and what is known as the Boston I'm sorry, yes, the Boston Massacre. There was the Boston Tea Party and there was the Boston Massacre. So the wheels of political liberty and freedom were already turning, and there was a guy who was the leader of the gang. He was a rebel. In fact, he was number one on King George III's death list. If you find this guy, his troops were ordered. If you find this guy, no trial for him. Hang him the day you find him, and that was the order of King George III. Regarding Samuel Adams, in my opinion he's the biggest, the greatest hero outside of Washington himself, of our nation's founding.

But so, 1787, we have the Constitutional Convention that's taking place and this is what's going on. If you were to step into the room, it was crazy. Number one you've got 13 colonies, completely independent. They've got their own government, they've got their own representation, they've got their own economies, they've got their own currencies, they've got their own judicial systems. They are complete, intact, separate colonies, and they also have differing, varying denominational beliefs when it comes to God. So get me wrong. They believed in the Bible. They had the Geneva Bible. They would later go and add the Thompson Bible, but they're united on the doctrines of the Word of God. That's the only place that they were really united on these colonies.

But when it came to denominational persuasion, what flavor are you? Do you worship standing up or sitting down? Do you open your eyes and look up to heaven, or do you bow your head and close your eyes? When you pray, do you baptize forward or backwards? Do you sprinkle? These are the things that they argued about. Some were Anabaptists, some were Constitutionalists, some were Methodists, some were Quakers.

One thing they all made sure of oh boy, this is going to be controversial, but it's 100% true is they made sure that no one in leadership in all of the 13 colonies, no one was a Catholic. Isn't that amazing? Here's the reason why they said there is no way that we could have a Catholic be involved in what we're doing, because we're relying upon God to guide us and the Catholic is looking upon the Pope to guide him. So we don't want they called it potpourri, not potpourri like flower smell Potpourri the control or influence of the Pope in the governance of the colonies. And so that's why.

By the way, many of you are too young to know this, but in my lifetime there was a big shakeup in America because a president or somebody was running for president and he was a Catholic. It had never happened before. What are they going to do? What are we going to do about it? And that guy wound up getting elected, and we're talking about John F Kennedy. John F Kennedy, or otherwise known as Jack Kennedy, president Kennedy was a Catholic, first Catholic in American history. That was a big deal.

But here's, they're so split. The Northern colonies are saying freedom, liberty, let's do this full bore. The Southern colonies are saying with you all the way, but this slave talk, wait a minute. We need slaves. Massachusetts, everybody. Listen to this Again.

I'm sorry if I come across sarcastic sometimes, it's just because I get so excited about the facts. Did you know that Massachusetts never had slavery? Did you know that Sam Adams and John Adams did you know they never had slaves? Never. They hated it from the beginning. From the beginning, they saw that it was wrong. The Southern states had slaves. Now, many of those slaves not all many of those slaves were inherited by some of our founding fathers. For example, jefferson inherited his slaves. Washington inherited his slaves from his family. Before you call them rich white guys who were slave owners, you need to finish the sentence. They were rich white guys who were slave owners who clothed, fed and, in many cases, took very good care of their slaves while at the same time juggling two worlds at the same time, as I need to take care of these people, because if I throw them out, they'll starve to death and or be captured or killed, but on the other hand, I need to work toward their freedom.

There was a huge argument between the colonies about the coming together of this nation. They bickered about currency. They bickered about trade. They bickered about who's in charge. Leadership Listen to this a big one, which is why we have, by the way, the Electoral College, which is a genius invention, by the way. This is another asset test. When people freak out about the Electoral College, you need to know for you need to know instantly you're talking to either A somebody who doesn't know a thing that they're talking about and they say it's wrong. It's wrong, or they do know what they're talking about and they're not really American.

That's a strong statement, but check it out and see here's the reason why it's so good is because some of the wealthier colonies, they said we should have a bigger say in government. So when we, when all of us 13 come together, our voice counts for many voices because we've got more money. For example, massachusetts and Virginia were the powerhouses economically and militarily and so they said our vote should count for like 10 votes. Well, some of the smaller states, like Rhode Island, said excuse me, I thought we're all going to be equal on this. And so they hammered, they fought, and all of this bickering and fighting, they couldn't come to an agreement. And by now listen up, by now there's an old man sitting in the room. He's somewhere in or around, maybe even north of 80, 81, 82 years of age. His life had been filled. In fact. I encourage you to read about his life, any writing about his life that really covers him before 1925.

Read about Benjamin Franklin his upbringing, his childhood, the abuse of him. He ran away. He went to Europe. You need to learn about that. He learned to trade printing. He worked at a family member's printing press. But his achievements I may be wrong about this, but there was a time in not too distant history where Ben Franklin held more patents than any other American. I don't know if that's still true, but it was true, for I think over a century, maybe two centuries. Ben Franklin invented the bifocals, for example, for your eyeglasses. Ben Franklin invented swim fins for your feet. I appreciate that Ben Franklin invented medical devices for prostate surgery.

Ben Franklin, ben Franklin in London, england. Ben Franklin saved the cathedral, st Paul's Cathedral in London. He saved it by inventing the Franklin rod. Did you know that the house that you live in right now or the office building that you work in right now, has a Franklin rod in it? Every building in America, now the world, has a Franklin rod. That means when lightning strikes your house, it doesn't blow your house up anymore, it hits the Franklin rod that is inside your home. If struck by lightning, it takes the lightning bolt right down through your home and into the earth and it dissipates underneath your house. Ben Franklin did that. Did you know that, ben Franklin? I'm totally getting off topic. Did you know that Ben Franklin was the first one to put in gas lighting in the streets of Boston? Ben Franklin, he's the first guy that closed up open sewers. There were open sewers. Ben Franklin had them closed up.

Did you know that Ben Franklin invented the post office, ben, among so many other things, remarkable stuff. I could go on and on about Ben. I'm not supposed to, though. We're talking about a split. This old guy says hey, you know what? We're not making any headway here. We've been fighting for two weeks. No, two weeks, that's not true. We've been fighting for some say four and a half weeks, some people say five and a half weeks, depends on who you're reading.

Ben Franklin basically stands up and he rebukes everybody. This is totally impromptu. In the moment, I witness accounts. This is what he says. This is spoken from his heart. He didn't have it in writing. Ben Franklin said on Hang on, I have the date, it's 1787, but forget the date. The date is actually preserved. For us, it doesn't matter. You do some homework yourself.

And this situation of this assembly groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth and scarce able to distinguish it when it presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hear the two once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity in consulting in peace, of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings he's referring to the Bible that except the Lord builds the house. Well, now he's referring to Psalm 127. They labor in vain. Who build it? I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interest, our projects will be confounded and we ourselves shall become a reproach. I therefore beg leave to move that we henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our deliberations Be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of the city be requested to officiate in that service.

Ben Franklin, cited by public school teachers as being a secularist, and the atheist or the deist in the group, him in Jefferson, and that right there in his own words, ought to tell you that Franklin was a wild man in his young age. He liked the ladies and there's rumors that he fathered an illegitimate child in Europe. All that stuff, let's say. Let's say it's all true. What about your life? What have you done?

Franklin had a Christian upbringing, but he didn't obey it, but it was in his head. Isn't it amazing? In later years in life, it's him and John Adams that agreed that we have no king, but King Jesus. I find that awesome. So you know what? He didn't start out well, but he finished well. So we need to be careful how we beat up on our founding fathers. It'd be kind of cool if they came back and started beating up on people today who are misrepresenting them, trying to cancel them. You know that kind of stuff. When I say beat up, I don't mean punch, I mean give truth, because a punch you can heal from, but truth, oh truth, gets down in there and changes things up, and so the amazing thing is, we got to be careful that we don't neglect the faith, the presence of faith in our founding.

Now, when he made that declaration, by the way, they stopped right then and there, and George Washington actually helped lead them across the street to prayer, and prayer then started and if I remember right don't quote me, don't quote me it was either an hour and a half or it was three and a half hours long prayer meeting and they went back after prayer. Guess what happened? You can read about the eyewitness accounts. They unexplainably began to agree. They came to either reconciliations, harmony or compromise to begin a government. I think that's awesome, because this is where you know the argument about. Well, they only believe that a black man was three-fifths of a human. You need to read why they got that. They agreed to that because the boneheads down south, they didn't want a black individual to count at all. So the Northern states, the Northern colony, said okay, give us that. Will you at least give us this? All right, we're not happy about it, we'll give you three-fifths. Think about that. You got to start somewhere and they did. And so our founding fathers for weeks couldn't come to an agreement. Once they did, they came out with the United States Constitution. Shortly after that, they're going to come up with the first 10 amendments. Remarkable, but this is kind of fun.

In the weeks that followed, guess what happened? They not only opened up every day in prayer, but they began to walk to the local churches of all the denominations and they would have prayer meetings at these other churches. Imagine, there was a prayer meeting at Calvary Chapel. There was a prayer meeting at First Baptist. There was a prayer meeting at Second Baptist. There was a prayer meeting at Lutheran. There was a prayer meeting at the Methodist.

Isn't that awesome? I just I love that kind of stuff. That kind of gets people both upset and excited at the same time. It gets me excited when God moves in. He pushes aside peripheral issues, and I think that's just awesome.

And then, listen, wrapping this up, it's this Franklin was referring to Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain who build it, and America is a great story of this truth. So I'm just going to invite all of you to start standing up and speaking up. Don't allow stupid to run you over. Don't let stupid run you over. And there's a lot of really stupid people today. They're really loud. They don't know what they're talking about and here's a big, big tip they have never read the Founding Fathers in their own words.

All of these documents are available for you to read in their own language. When I say language, it's in English, but in their own hand. We have the National Archives. We have the Library of Congress. You can look at this stuff online. Read them. So listen. If you're uneducated, we can fix that, but if you're choosing to be stupid, that's on you. Don't do that.

So I want to end because I had an amazing opportunity to go to Washington DC. It was awesome, washington DC. Now watch everybody. For those who think that there's a separation of church and state in favor of politics, there's actually a separation of church and state in favor of the church. Read the First Amendment. Based on the First Amendment, the United States government flew me to Washington DC to go into our nation's capital and to stand before the 113th Congress session, one meeting one, and to open up that brand new Congress in prayer, based on Franklin's recommendation that was adopted and carried out ever since.

And so what I want to read to you is that prayer I offered up before the United States Congress, and here it is. Oh and, by the way, listen carefully. I have to confess I do believe that when I put this prayer together, you have to do that. You have to submit the prayer to the chaplain's office, because they don't want weirdness, and so I really appreciate that, because the chaplain, he's on it. It is great. So it couldn't be too long, couldn't be too short, it had to be biblically accurate. Okay, so check this out.

I borrowed from about five different prayers. Most of them are from Washington himself. I'm confessing right now. I borrowed because I'm thinking you know what it's their house. I'm going to borrow from the founders and I think that will both bless them and bless God.

Almighty God and Father, if it be your will that we be revived as a nation, hear my prayer. I ask you to make us a thankful people, that we would bless you, the author of abundant mercies. Enable us to display a gratitude for all your goodness by endeavoring to fear and obey you. Bless us with your wisdom in this house. Success in our battles and let our prosperity be tempered with generosity. We pray that you would keep the United States in your holy protection, that you would incline your hearts to cultivate a spirit of peace and obedience to both you and your government, and that you would cause us to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly in the love that is characteristic of your son, the author of our blessed faith. Grant us this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen, and Congress said amen, and I want to believe that God hears that still to this day. As long as God is on this on his throne, the opportunity of revival is to us to pursue.

And so, listen, we conclude this. I hope this stimulates you to look and research more and more history, not so much just for history's sake, although history is awesome, but, like the Bible, america has such a godly heritage and our nation has such a unique beginning of no other nation in the history of man like America. So you need to consider that the next somebody wants to punch the Statue of Liberty in the nose. We need to realize this is the most unique nation on the face of the earth, apart from Israel itself. God bless you guys.

Oh, listen, if you are blessed by this stuff, if you want to share this. I encourage you to do that. It's very encouraging. I know this sounds weird, right, but the more people that view, the more people who subscribe, the more encouraging it is to us. It tells us that we're not speaking into a black or empty hole. So listen, if you like this, then let us know that and you can share it with others. That would be awesome. And, by all means, as we always say, it's time to live out what we believe in. That's what America needs to see, and it's time for you and I to live out our faith like never before. So, god bless you guys. Until next time We'll have a whole new topic, a whole new series. Take care.