The founding fathers of the United States on July 4, 1776, not only signed the Declaration of Independence, they pledged to one another their lives, their fortunes and their "sacred honor." This was an act of tremendous courage and commitment seldom equaled in world history. Men from scattered locations in the Colonies bound themselves together to carry out a cause to a triumphant, or to a bitter end. While we might understand the great commitment of a person's life or fortune, the idea of "sacred honor," which these men considered their greatest possession, has been lost to many Americans today. Honorable men were men who refused to lie, steal, commit adultery, and especially to break their word. These people, who had the same desires and needs as all of us, looked upon these actions as simply wrong, and in spite of temptations to do otherwise, they knew that they would lose their honor, not only before others, but especially before themselves if they gave in to those temptations.

Now these men also called their honor "sacred," which means holy, or pure and incorruptible, a purity they saw as coming from God Himself. God is a holy God; He cannot be touched with evil or disrespect; and these men took God's commandment seriously-"you be holy, for I am holy." In other words, these men, as they said at the end of the Declaration, saw God as the final and greatest witness to their lives.

As we think of the changing of the year from 2009 to 2010, many of us will make resolutions about improving various aspects of our lives. For many this is just an amusing pastime, but for others it is a very serious matter of truly trying to overcome some bad habit, such as spending more than we make, or solidly establishing a good one, like setting aside some savings every month. Now, while New Year's resolutions can be a very good thing, they often demonstrate a basic approach to life that is in itself less than effective because it is reacting to some problem or bad habit we have discovered in our lives. What we are doing is sliding through life's normal events and then reacting by the seat of our pants when something bad (or good) shows up, and ending up wondering why the cure is so often worse than the problem, or turns the good thing into a bad one.

The earth on which we are privileged to live is a fantastic production of the Creator's hand. The unbelievable variety of physical things from "simple" (try making one) atoms of hydrogen to the complex combinations of thousands of individual molecules (each made up of millions of atoms) that make up the physical chemicals of biological life bear witness to the unimaginable intelligence of their Designer-Creator. Indeed, only a divine Person of immense power and wisdom could possibly have come up with a tiny part of this universe. The universe literally shouts out the greatness of its Creator at every turn of our attention.

Add to the physical universe the mysterious spiritual life force that animates all living things (animals and humans have differing souls, one dies, the other returns to God at death), and you have a universe that will always escape the most powerful microscope. The heavens literally do "declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork," and, "there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard" Psalm 19:1, 3). Everywhere we turn, we are face to face with God, thus making the unbeliever without excuse and deserving of hellfire for his refusal to glorify God and be thankful unto Him (Rom. 1:20-21).

There are several important lessons to learn from the recent disaster in Haiti, lessons that actually are common to the series of disasters that seem continuously to plague mankind, but to which most of us just seem to close our eyes and minds. The first of these lessons is humility. We simply do not run the world, and it is foolish arrogance to think otherwise. We have no more power to stop earthquakes than have previous generations. Yet, we live in a part of the world where things go the way we want them to go much of the time so that we begin to think that we are the cause of our own success. How ironic! We hunker down helplessly one day under an ice storm, not able to stop one raindrop, and the next day we are deciding to spend billions on manmade "climate control."

The fact is that God controls the world, and He not only does not consult with us, He tells us why things happen the way they do. Jesus specifically tells us that the age in which we live will be characterized by "wars and rumors of wars," because "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places" (Matt. 24:6-7). This is exactly what has been happening the last two thousand years and yet many of us tend to look down upon those who take the Bible to be true in what it says. This is the second lesson-we have no means of understanding history if we do not listen to the God who rules it.

Well then, why do these bad things happen? I'm glad you asked, because God tells us that He brings these disasters upon the earth to wake us all up to the fact that we are sinners who need to repent and seek forgiveness from Him. Jesus said, "those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were sinners more than all men who dwelt in Jerusalem, I tell you, No, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:4-5). In verses 1-3 of the same chapter He says the same thing about people who were cruelly murdered by Pontius Pilate. In other words, "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23), and there is no human being, man, woman, or child who will escape it, because we are all sinners. Some would like to tell us that death is normal, but the vast outpouring of sympathy for victims of disasters tell us that this is poppycock. None of us likes the idea of dying.

These verses in Luke 13 also tell us that folks who suffer disasters are not worse than the rest of us. Are they sinners, worse than the rest of you? Jesus asks, and answers His own question with "No way." Another time His disciples asked, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, because he was born blind?" Jesus answered "Neither one, but that the works of God might be displayed clearly." Not only are these things under God's control, God's purpose is that by knowing this we will have real comfort in the face of our own uncertainty. Imagine the difference between Daniel going into the lion's den, or David going into battle with the sure knowledge that God is with him, compared to the terror of believing that this is just a roll of the dice.

The fact is that we do have the comfort of God's presence no matter whether we survive great danger, or we die, as we all will some day. This is because while the "wages of sin is death," Romans 6:23 goes on to say, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." You and I can go through life knowing and believing the real God, or we can make life a roll of the dice. This choice is ours, but reality isn't. Haiti did happen.

The Broad Influence
of John Calvin

The name of John Calvin is justly famous, but it is also infamous to those who reject biblical Christianity. Indeed John Calvin is today seen in the academic establishment far more often as the problem rather than as part of the solution, as he is often blamed for everything this establishment sees as "bad" in our society. What the secular establishment sees as "bad," of course, are things that are good, such as restraints upon sexual sins, honesty in monetary affairs, and a church that lives out of the Bible.

For millions of true Christians, however, Calvin is a great hero, A great teacher of biblical principles, and the father of a Christian society of decency and order. Calvin was, of course, interested in far more than what we think of narrowly as "theology." Calvin sought to apply all of the Bible to all of life, a principle that has stood the test of time and is alive and well in those churches that still hold to Reformed principles. Calvin worked hard to apply the principle of the overwhelming greatness of God as the Creator and therefore Center of the universe not only in religious exercise, but also in his own personal life (and in that of other Christians), and in the conduct of civil affairs.

Ah, the Fourth of July! A wonderful holiday right in the middle of summer that celebrates both the birth of the United States and the uniqueness of our nation. The birth of the United States is indeed an amazing event. A group of men, sent from the various colonies, carefully deliberated on what their action might be in the face of a growing tyranny by their mother country, England, but also on principles upon which they might found a much better nation. They wanted separation from English rule, all right, but they wanted much more-they wanted a nation that might ban tyranny itself.

To fulfill their ambitions for a nation of free men, these colonial representatives produced the Declaration of Independence (the document signed on July 4, 1776), a document based on inter-colonial correspondence that had been going on for several years, correspondence that included a long series of booklets called "The Federalist Papers." When the Declaration was finally written by Thomas Jefferson, it was the result of a strong consensus among the delegates to several principles that were in direct contradiction to theories of government by monarchy or any other form of dictatorship. To enforce their convictions on these principles, the assembly declared its principles to be beyond question or debate. It said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The principles announced are justly famous:

1) "All men are created equal," no person is by nature higher or lower than another since they are all created by the same God (thus titles of "nobility," such as "prince" or "princess," are forbidden to American citizens).

2) All men have the same rights given to them by their Creator God. These rights are "inalienable," that is, they may not be abridged or taken away by any one or anything because they come from God. When someone removes those rights, they not only are sinning against God, they are subject to the righteous rebellion of those whose rights are being stolen (this justified the American revolt against England).

3) These rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Even though England was a land of some freedom, the colonists had seen enough oppression by unequal taxation, laws passed to punish previous acts, debtors' prisons, etc., to be fed up and to realize that all such were simply wrong. (Interestingly, while the original Constitution of the U.S. forbade unequal taxation, the 16th Amendment passed during the First World War established a governmental right to unequal taxes in the disguise of the ever popular lie about "taxing the rich.")

4) The fourth principle of the Declaration of Independence is that "governments are established to secure these (God-given) rights to the people." The job of government is not to rule over or take care of the people, but to make certain that neither it, nor anyone else, would interfere with the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the people.

These are unique ideas, truly to be celebrated. But, where did such ideas come from? Today it is seldom acknowledged, but when we read the Federalist Papers and other writings, it is clear that the Founders of the United States got most of their ideas out of the Bible. Our nation received its liberty and prosperity not out of a money bag called the "Federal Government," but out of a book, the Holy Bible. Modern historians often talk vaguely about Greece as the "cradle of democracy." The founders of the United States, however, specifically rejected Democracy-where everyone votes on everything-as leading to mob rule. They gave us a Constitutional Republic, a nation ruled by laws, of which the Constitution is the supreme law, laying down what is right and wrong before anyone votes. Subsidiary laws are made by representative legislatures but must conform to the Constitution. The foundations for such government are found in ancient Israel, 500 years before Greek democracy, when Israel elected Saul and later David as their kings, whose constitution is found in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Martin Luther, a theologian, already wrote, "The Freedom of the Christian Man," in 1520.

The Declaration of Independence declares that our unique rights as human beings come from God. We must not forget to thank God when celebrating America.

Rev. Robert Grossmann
Providence RCUS, Vermillion, SD
From a newspaper column, July 13, 2009