Cecil A. Fayard

Elliott Baptist Church

July 4, 2004

The Intent of the Founders

Psalm 33:12

INTRO: As we think today about the original intent of the founders of the United States, it is a certainty to me that they never intended what is happening today in this nation.

1. They never intended that prayer be removed from the public schools.  

2. They never intended for the Bible to be cast out of education.

3. They never intended for the Ten Commandments to be removed from pubic buildings.

4. They never intended for men without principles or morals to be in leadership positions.  The first Supreme Court Justice John Jay said, "Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers."

5. They never intended for Christians to be discriminated against because of their beliefs.

If the above items were not the intent of the founders then what was?  Mr. Seth Lipsky in the July 2, 2004, Wall Street Journal said that, "the original intent of the founding fathers was to annoy today's liberal.  Is this saying that the Founding Fathers were conservatives?  I believe it is!  The Founding Fathers were moral and physical conservatives as we shall see.

I. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED FOR THE BIBLE TO BE RECOGNIZED AS GOD'S DIVINE RULE BOOK (II Tim 3:16).

1. Our Founding Fathers believed that the Bible is the Word of God, a divinely inspired book.

1. The Founders expressed their love of the Bible in these quotes as well as others:    

1. George Washington:  "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.

2. Andrew Jackson:  "That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests."

3. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813):  "In contemplating the political institutions of the U.S., if we were to remove the Bible from schools, I lament that we would be wasting so much time and money punishing crimes and would be taking so little pains to prevent them." (1791 Educational Policy Papers).

4. Daniel Webster: "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible our country will go on prospering and to prosper.  But if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

5. William E. Blackstone: "The Bible is stamped with a specialty of origin and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors."

2. The University of Houston took ten years collecting and researching 15,000 writings of the Founding Fathers.  They found that more than 34% of their quotes came right from their Bibles and 60% came from authors who got their ideas from the Bible.

3. Again I want to quote Noah Webster, "The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority.  The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer."

4. Today the ACLU and organizations like it are doing great harm and bringing great suffering to their country.

2. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED FOR GOVERNMENT TO BE FAIR AND BALANCED

1. The three forms of government in the United States are Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.  This is how the Founding Fathers set it up.  They got this straight from the Word of God in Isaiah 33:22.  

1. Today our system is out of balance because of non-elected Federal Judges who are ruling this land.

2. We now have a power grab with Judges handing down laws instead of decisions.  The President, Congress, and the Supreme Court must stop these un-elected Judges.

3. The authors and signers of the U.S. Constitution believed that the people were better suited to guide their own destiny than un-elected kings.  So they created a republic in which citizens elect the leaders to make the law.  

4. Federal Judges,  un-elected officials, would simply decide cases and apply the law Home School Legal Defense Assoc.)

3. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED FOR CITIZENS TO OWN GUNS  

1. It has been said, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

2. The anti-gun lobby wants to take away your gun.

3. The second amendment states, in part, that, "…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (August 1789)

4. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED FOR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS TO BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF OUR SOCIETY.

1. All around Washington, D.C., the Ten Commandments can be found.  Especially at the Supreme Court Building, above the porch of the building in Moses the lawgiver, and on the two large oak doors entering the court, the Ten Commandments are engraved. Above where the judges sit is a display of the Ten Commandments.

2. Quotes from the Founders:

1. James Madison:  "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it.  We have staked the future of all of our political institutions. . . .upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." (1778)

2. Noah Webster:  "The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments."

 

5. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED FOR STATES TO HAVE SOVEREIGNTY

1. Today, the Federal government usurps the rights of the states.

2. Our Founding Fathers meant for the U.S. Constitution to complement the Constitutions of the individual states.

1. The U.S. Constitution had to be ratified by the states.  In this process, the states voiced their concerns about states rights.

2. Rhode Island wanted a Constitution that would "guarantee to each state sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this constitution delegated to the United States.

3. The ratification delegates from South Carolina stated, "This Convention doth also declare that no Section or paragraph of the said Constitution warrants a Construction that the states do not retain every power not expressly relinquished by them and vested in the General Government of the Union.

5. THE FOUNDING FATHERS INTENDED THAT THIS BE A CHRISTIAN NATION

1. Listen to the words of William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony:  "We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, & Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king & country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia. (1620, Mayflower Compact).

2. Quotes from the Founders:

1. James Madison:  "Religion. . . .is the basis and foundation of Government."

2. John Adams: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

3. George Washington:  "A True religion affords to government its surest support."

4. John Adams:  "Religion and virtue are the only foundations.  . . of republicanism and of al free government."

5. John Quincy Adams:  "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

3. In the Declaration of Independence, we find these words that speak of our Founders dependence upon God, "Nature, God, Creator, Supreme Judge of the Word, and Divine Providence."

CONCLUSION: Friends, we must sound the trumpet; we must stand for right and defend the intent of the Founding Fathers.