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The God Our Forefathers Spoke of · 5-Minutes of Good News

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Christians.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is Dallas Beacham.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Stand by for good news.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: When early Americans spoke of God, Providence, Creator, Almighty Judge, or the Supreme Ruler of the Nations, they were usually speaking from a world shaped by the Bible.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We should be historically careful.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not every founder held the same church membership, and not every public man expressed doctrine in the same way.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the moral vocabulary of early America was not empty or vague.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was powerfully influenced by the God revealed in Scripture.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: The God who said in Exodus 3.6, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: That matters because schools do not grow in a vacuum.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: They grow out of what a people believes about truth, human nature, and moral responsibility.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: If there is a creator, then children are not accidents.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: If there is a lawgiver, then morality is more than opinion.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: If there is a judge, then choices matter.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: If there is a savior, then every soul has worth beyond measure.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: The early American schoolhouse stood in a culture where such beliefs were commonly understood, even when people failed to live up to them perfectly.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Passed the same year the Constitution was drafted.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It declared religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the order religion, morality, and knowledge.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The early nation mind did not view education as merely mechanical.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Good government and human happiness were connected to moral and religious formation.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, they understood that a republic needed more than clever citizens.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It needed virtuous citizens.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean America was a church.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean every citizen was converted.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean government should force the conscience.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it does mean our forefathers generally understood liberty to require virtue, and virtue to require a moral foundation.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: They did not imagine that children could be taught forever without asking what is truth?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is right?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is good?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And to whom are we accountable?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: A school may teach many useful things, but if it never teaches the difference between wisdom and foolishness, something essential has been lost.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the good news.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The God who guided faithful parents then is still God today.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has not retired.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 22, 32, Jesus said, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus Christ is still the light of the world.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just as he said in John 8 and 12, and wherever his people teach truth with humility, courage, and love, a lamp is lit for another generation.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We do not honor the past merely by talking about it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We honor it by obeying God in the present.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's message has touched your heart and causes you to have a good day.