A Tribute to America

Yesterday Funeral

Reflection honor the life of the person LeRoy Brandt

Gun sulute

The playing of “Taps”

Flag service “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”

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What are we to think about these things?

What happens when we don’t think the president is grateful, what happens when nation isn’t grateful?

Army motto This we will defend. The phrase was first used in 1778.

What were they defending in 1778? What are we defending today?

20 year anniversary of 9/11. Motto: We will never forget. What were we supposed to remember?

Over last few years we have seen incredible division in our country.

BLM and Antifa destroyed inner cities in riots from sea to shining sea.

Fear of illness has caused us to destroy our economy and turn against our neighbor.

The legalizing of abortion has turned the safest environment in all of human into a place where 61 million people have been slaughtered over the last 50 years.

Some people look at the flag and are reminded of slavery, bigotry, and Jim Crow laws.

If we think about the recent events in Afghanistan. The humiliation of our country, our fighting forces, and our honor, what are we to do with all of this? Were we right to invade Afghanistan? Were right to leave?

What does this flag represent?

Thinking about these questions can be hard.

In March of 1775 in Virginia there where a number of patriots meeting in extralegal convention debating whether to outside of the blessings the British Government to authorize, arm, and put in a defensive position a well-regulated militia to secure the rights and liberties of Virginians.

This was not easy for all the people to accept.

Patrick Henry spoke in favor,

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

Sometimes, we have to be willing to consider things we don’t want in order to go down the path we ought to.

Opening Illustration –

George Washington - A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

1. The Republic for which it stands.

a. America is not a democracy.

i. https://thenewamerican.com/republics-and-democracies/

ii. Republics and Democracies

iii. By Robert Welch

iv. But it was a great Englishman, G.K. Chesterton, who put his finger on the basic reasoning behind all the continued and determined efforts of the Communists to convert our republic into a democracy. “You can never have a revolution,” he said, “in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.”

v. And in 1931 the Duke of Northumberland, in his booklet The History of World Revolution, stated: “The adoption of Democracy as a form of Government by all European nations is fatal to good Government, to liberty, to law and order, to respect for authority, and to religion, and must eventually produce a state of chaos from which a new world tyranny will arise.”

vi. While an even more recent analyst, Archibald E. Stevenson, summarized the situation as follows:

vii. De Tocqueville once warned us that: “If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event will arise from the unlimited tyranny of the majority.” But a majority will never be permitted to exercise such “unlimited tyranny” so long as we cling to the American ideals of republican liberty and turn a deaf ear to the siren voices now calling us to democracy. This is not a question relating to the form of government. That can always be changed by constitutional amendment. It is one affecting the underlying philosophy of our system — a philosophy which brought new dignity to the individual, more safety for minorities and greater justice in the administration of government. We are in grave danger of dissipating this splendid heritage through mistaking it for democracy.

viii.

b. A Republic, if you can keep it!

i. The historical development of the meaning of the word republic might be summarized as follows. The Greeks learned that, as Dr. Durant puts it, “man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.” The Romans applied the formerly general term republic specifically to that system of government in which both the people and their rulers were subject to law. That meaning was recognized throughout all later history, as when the term was applied, however inappropriately in fact and optimistically in self-deception to the “Republic of Venice” or to the “Dutch Republic.”

ii. The meaning was thoroughly understood by our Founding Fathers. As early as 1775 John Adams had pointed out that Aristotle (representing Greek thought), Livy (whom he chose to represent Roman thought), and Harington (a British statesman) all “define a republic to be … a government of laws and not of men.” And it was with this full understanding that our constitution-makers proceeded to establish a government which, by its very structure, would require that both the people and their rulers obey certain basic laws — laws which could not be changed without laborious and deliberate changes in the very structure of that government.

iii. When our Founding Fathers established a republic, in the hope, as Benjamin Franklin said, that we could keep it, and when they guaranteed to every state within that republic a republican form of government, they well knew the significance of the terms they were using. And they were doing all in their power to make the features of government signified by those terms as permanent as possible.

c. Constitution and Declaration of Independence

i. Our Republic is not determined by the action or inactions of the President. They are not determined by the decisions of the Supreme Court or even the laws passed by Congress.

ii. Our Republic is described by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. As long as the principles of those two documents live in the hearts of the people of this nation, we have a Republic.

2. One nation under God Indivisible

a. Our Rights Come from God.

i. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

ii. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

b. Put God first, unity will be blessed.

i. Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

ii. The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. Alexis de Tocqueville

iii. 2 Chronicles 7:14

3. With Liberty and Justice for all.

a. Liberty or death! 2 Corinthians 3:17; John 8:31-36

i. Patrick Henry It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? 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!

ii. 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

iii. John 8:31-36 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

b. Justice sometimes requires civil disobedience.

i. The Christian’s allegiance is not to government, it is to God. Colossians 3:23

Colossians 3:23 NKJV

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

ii. Justice is not what government says it is.

1. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t bow down and were thrown in a fiery furnace.

2. The midwives in Egypt refused to kill the male children.

3. Peter and John preaching when they were told not to.

4. Jesus drives out the money changers and people selling animals.

Closing Illustration – Don’t come to America, become America

Closing Thought