Our founding fathers, asking God for guidance, drafted one of the most remarkable documents
in the history of the world, the Constitution of the United States of America.
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 commandments of the Constitution.
Without the Bill of Rights, the rights, such as freedom of religion...
If you're going to be a Baptist, which means that we are biblicists, which means that the
Bible is our final authority, you have to be able to come to grips with the fact that
there are some things that we believe as Americans that we've been taught as patriots that are
not found in the Bible, and religious liberty is one of them.
Have you read the Constitution?
Do you know what it guarantees you?
Citizens of America, read it, and let's take back our religious freedom.
Well, if God established a nation, it'd be just like America.
Well, wait a minute.
Here's the problem with that.
God did establish a nation.
It's called the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
The children of Israel in the Old Testament, and it's not hard for us to go back and see
if God, theoretically, not a theory, if God established a nation, what would that nation
look like?
Hey, open the Old Testament.
It's easy to see.
The First Amendment says, Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Now let's read the First Commandment of God's founding documents.
For the nation of Israel, Exodus chapter 20, verse 3, thou shall have no other gods before
me.
Does that sound like religious liberty to you?
The First Amendment, you can worship whatever god you want.
The First Commandment, you can't worship any god other than the God of the Bible.
Let's look at the Second Commandment.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of any thing that
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth.
Thou shalt not bow down myself to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third
and fourth generation, unto them that hate me.
Were two commandments into the federal law that God is giving the nation, the newly established
nation of Israel, and they're both religious, and they're not freedom of religion.
Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for this nation.
Thank you that our forefathers built this nation on the word of God and the Ten Commandments.
Let's look at the third one.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
That sounds like a pretty religious law.
Verse 8, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
And here's what I'm trying to explain to you, and here's what I'm trying to help you understand.
The concept, the concept of religious liberty, you say, Pastor, you're a Baptist preacher.
Are you really preaching against religious liberty?
Excuse me for preaching the Bible.
I'm not preaching against religious liberty or saying that we need to get rid of it.
Look, there's lots of things that need to be done in the United States of America before
we get back to the Bible, okay?
But please understand this.
Just get this.
Just acknowledge this.
Admit this.
Religious liberty is not a concept found in the Bible.
God did not tell the children of Israel, you have the freedom to worship whatever God you
want.
The First Amendment.
Oh, no, excuse me.
The First Commandment says you don't have the freedom to worship whatever God you want.
Consider the cost of our freedom.
Your freedom costs somebody everything they had.
Freedom is not free.
Thomas Jefferson said, the tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of every generation.
Today, you listen to patriotic pastors and Christians and they make statements like this.
Well, I don't like what you have to say, but I'll die for you to say, oh, really?
Because that's what the Bible says?
I don't like you taking the name of the Lord my God in vain, but I'll turn my kids across
the ocean to die to give you the right to say that.
I don't know where you got that from, but you didn't get it from the Bible.
I don't like the God you worship, but I'll die to give you the freedom to worship that
God.
Excuse me.
I'm not sending my kids across the ocean to die.
I didn't see it in the Bible.
Maybe you can show it to me where the Bible says that I'm supposed to send my kids and
look, you say, oh, yeah, it's time to go today.
I'm a veteran.
Maybe that gives me the right to say this.
I'm not sending my kids across an ocean to give a Hindu the right to worship his idol.
I missed that in the Bible where I'm supposed to send my kids off to die to give a Muslim
the right to worship his false God, to give the Hindu the right to worship his false God,
to give the atheist the right to worship no God.
You didn't get that from the Bible.
Religious liberty, the concept is not found in scripture.
You can say it's constitutional.
You can say it's patriotic.
You can have a piece of apple pie and say God bless America, but you didn't get it from
the Bible.
God bless the pastors of California.
God bless America.