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Constitution Day: We should consider our ways
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The Tora, part of the Hebrew Bible (Wikipedia photo)
On this Constitution Day, the 222nd anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States, we Americans should consider our ways.
Constitution Day is designated by federal law as the day we recognize the signing of our Constitution on September 17, 1787. The delegates who were attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had finished their work and would soon present the new charter for our national government to the states for ratification. It was a momentous day, especially since our Constitution is the oldest existing national constitution still in use.
Considering the magnitude of what the framers of the Constitution accomplished and the history of our nation since then, we, as citizens, should stop and consider where we have been and where we are going as a nation. The words of Haggai, one of the Old Testament prophets of ancient Israel, provide some interesting food for thought:
Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
Haggai 1:5-7
The ancient Israelites had turned their backs on God’s laws and were receiving the consequences of their poor choices. In this particular instance, they were experiencing poverty and economic hardship. Today, we find our own nation at a crossroads, not just economically, but morally and spiritually. Will we reassert our freedom and the responsibility to govern ourselves according to the principles of limited government as established in our Constitution? Or will we “bow to the golden calf” as the misled Israelites did in the wilderness at an earlier time in their history? Will we Americans choose freedom or slavery?
We, the people, can reclaim the rugged individualism that built our nation and the faith on which it was founded, or we can surrender our rights by relying on the power of the state and the ability of the government to provide for us. One path is the path of freedom, the other the path of government servitude.
President Abraham Lincoln spoke to the moral dilemma in his time. In his Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer and Fasting on March 30, 1863, Lincoln called our nation back to its spiritual roots and made some insightful observations about the dilemma facing our fellow-citizens during the critical days of the Civil War.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men…to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord…
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
There are tens of thousands of our citizens – perhaps millions – who recognize these truths. Some of them marched on Washington on Saturday, September 12. Yet, we have a president who ignored these citizens. He flew out of town for business elsewhere. When one considers his recent travels and speeches, he appears more interested in promoting Islam and recognizing it, than acknowledging the spiritual, moral and political values that have made us the nation we are. Why doesn’t he talk about America’s founding principles? Is it because he denies the godly and just principles that built this nation?
President Obama’s goal is to expand government, not liberty. This is wrong and this is evil. Thank God some of us recognize it. And we will fight for days, weeks and years to see the principles of liberty restored. We have considered our ways and have come up with answers very different from those of this administration.
Will our fellow-citizens consider their ways? Will they stand and fight for their liberty, or will they surrender their freedom to the government?
Now is the hour of decision. Each citizen must determine the kind of nation they want to pass on to their children and grandchildren. The path of freedom and the path of slavery are both before us. Which path will we choose?
