A terrible thing happened late this last week. Our Nation continued its long slide into tyranny and oppression. Our Nation was founded on Biblical principles, whether you believe it or not, it is true. Those principles come directly from the fact that we are all made “in the image” of our Creator. He is just, righteous, faithful, and merciful. Without His love for His creation, us, we would be lost and without hope. He was the one who sent His Son, Jesus, to teach us the way back to Him. Jesus was the one who made our redemption, our reclamation possible. As the perfect sacrifice, He did what no one else could do, make atonement for our sins, to bridge the gap between our imperfection and God’s perfection. This is what gives us hope at the end of our earthly life as we look forward to an immortal existence, free from our trials and tribulations, from our sins and mistakes, from our pains and worries. What happened this last week is that our National leaders seemed to have forgotten many of the things that our Nation was founded upon. We were blessed with a great Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our Founding Fathers based much of what we hold as unchanging principles upon laws and processes developed and molded throughout centuries, including ideas from England, The Magna Carta, and even the Roman government. Some of the basis of our laws come from examples not only from Bible History, but from Hammurabi Babylon Codes. “This is crazy, but the lesser known Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE) predates Hammurabi’s Code (1754 BCE). From Mesopotamia, Ur-Nammu’s codes were written in Sumerian and are the oldest known written laws.” (healinglaw.com; Theodoric Von America.) The point we are trying to make is that our Founding Father’s were not simply “shooting from the hip” in hopes of hitting upon some form of government that might work, that might be better than anything devised before. They were not trying to “pin the tail on the donkey” blindfolded. Much of what we enjoy in our Nation today, or at least once enjoyed, was based on the knowledge of antiquities, in-depth research, by scholars of their day, learned men who were far from the perceived neophytes that some in our society would have us believe. And yet, this last week we saw supposed Representatives fall so far from the pedestal of National normalcy so as to leave us nearly speechless.
Where has mercy gone in our Nation? While our National leaders are sailing a rudderless boat over the falls of National destruction, they seem intent upon swatting away little nagging flies of triviality obscuring their view of massive reality. Moral Relativism is seemingly swinging The Overton Window (read our blog on November 19, 2023) toward our National demise. Where there is no absolute truth, anything and everything is possible and allowed. The morality of our Nation is based upon the founding principles we discussed earlier. If we fail to adhere to these principles, we will fail to remain the Nation under which we were initially established. So, what happened late last week that portends the potential demise of our great Republic.
Within the halls of our Nation’s capital, over two-thirds of our elected Representatives decided to set aside a basic principle that has stood unchallenged since the founding of our Nation. That principle is that an accused person is considered innocent until proven guilty. That guilt is to be determined in a court of law, not through any other form, like an ethics investigation, media bias, political persuasion, or ideological bent. At FREEDOMGOFORTH.COM, we do not claim the innocence or guilt of any individual, regardless of their political affiliation, without the full and unbiased disclosure of all the facts, presented in the proper forum. Should those apparent facts paint a corrupt picture, we will still not condemn any individual apart from due process. In our Nation, all citizens are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That is why on TV news, when a crime has been committed and the individual apprehended, that person is always given the benefit of the doubt by the stating of the “alleged” crime. Even if eyewitnesses proclaim the individual’s crime, the proof of guilt must be shown by the prosecutor in a court of law. Only following conviction in a court of law can the perpetrator be found guilty of the alleged crime and be accountable to the consequences.
Our Nation’s House of Representatives chose to disregard that any individual is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. In doing so, they have in fact become like a kangaroo court, making unilateral decisions outside of the rule of law. They have become a “rule of law” in and of themselves, setting themselves above the established principles of our Nation. Not only that, but by the removal of the individual from the House, they have disenfranchised those that placed that individual in the House as their Representative. If anyone is authorized to remove that individual, it would be those citizens who were able to vote for that Representative in their district, or of course, if a court of law ruled to convict the individual of said crimes and of processes established, and then and only then, if the removal was required. In our Nation, even convicted felons can serve in Congress. In fact, “The House of Representative has an internal rule that any member who is convicted of an offense that could result in two or more years’ imprisonment cannot vote or participate in committee activities. However, the privileges of such member can be restored if he or she is reelected to Congress. The Senate does not have a similar rule. Both the Democratic and Republican parties can censure their own members in the House and Senate, including removing them from committees, as they see fit.” (voanews.com; March 21, 2023.) Expulsion from Congress is like “taking the nuclear option”. Few have ever been expelled, more from the Senate than from the House. Here is where we will return to how the title to this blog, CASTING THE FIRST STONE, becomes relevant.
The pictures at the beginning of our blog review the Bible text from John 8:1-11. Several observations stand out in the reading of this text. First, do you wonder what Jesus wrote in the dirt? We doubt it was his mother’s recipe for unleavened bread. Maybe he wrote various infractions of Moses’ law that were not being followed according to the written text. Maybe he wrote things like adultery, false witness testimony, failure to do good to all, honoring your mother and father, keeping the Sabath or any of the 10 commandments. Maybe it was something seemingly innocuous like lying. The reality is that any transgression of the Creator’s law is a sin which separates an individual from Him. Secondly, note that all those waiting to cast stones left starting from the oldest to the youngest. Most of us who are older understand how often we have failed to live up to not only our standards, but to those of our Creator. Those who are younger maybe rely on ignorance to seemingly inoculate them from “miss-steps” and “minor” infractions they feel are insignificant and believed to be overlooked by God. We are all flawed humans and “. . . all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23.) There is not one Representative in Congress who has not sinned in one way or another, but it often is so much easier to point out the flaws in another before admitting to our own. What has happened to our Nation when our leaders prefer to “sacrifice” another, rather than to offer mercy? It was Jesus who told the hypocritical leaders of His day, the Pharisees, the religious rulers, when He said to them, recorded for us in Matthew 9:13, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6.)
FREEDOM and LIBERTY in our Nation demands holding fast to our founding principles in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. To circumnavigate or short-circuit our Nation’s true morality, allowing its dilution with Moral Relativism, leads us down a dark path toward secularism, Communism, Marxism, and totalitarianism. Stand firm with our Nation’s founding principles. Let your Representatives know of your displeasure with their cowardly actions which only helps to put our Nation in moral jeopardy.