By
Coach Dave Daubenmire
July 7, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet” -Robert Winthrop
Like millions of Americans, my wife and I love to attend the various fireworks displays all around the area during the celebration of America’s Independence from England. It has been our family custom over the last two decades to invade downtown Columbus, Ohio for their massive Red, White, and Boom celebration.
We looked forward to this year’s event because of the opportunity to share it with our beautiful nine-month old granddaughter who would be joining in the family tradition for the first time.
As usual, the fireworks display was terrific and watching little Reese’s eyes widen as the sky lit-up with a plethora of colors was especially enjoyable to this new grandpa. It was a perfect opportunity to reflect on how the “torch gets passed” in handed-down family traditions.
I am sure that my children would love to continue the tradition so steeped in family memories as they do a tag-team hand-off to their children. I pray that we share many more such events with young Daubenmire-offspring yet unborn. Grandkids really do give one a different perspective on life.
I only vaguely remember my own father packing us up and driving the seemingly insurmountable hour-long trek to “downtown” Columbus. When I was a kid, an hour long drive required the same planning as a vacation. We were small town folks…baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet…and my parents were somewhat wary of the “big city” and it’s evil influences. We were “country folk” and proud of it.
I often joke with my daughter Abby that her daughter Reese had hit the jackpot by being born into our family. Not that we are affluent, or have a lineage of silver spoons in our mouths, but merely the reality that our granddaughter had been born into a family where she would never lack for love. It is the cloth from which she was cut.
She was birthed into a family where family was valued, God has honored, and His precepts were foundational. Little Reese’s lineage is one where those who repeated “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” meant it.
What a leg-up she has on the literally thousands of fatherless children we saw roaming the streets in downtown Columbus on July 1st. I am thankful for the head start she has been given, but sorrowful for the culture we have left her.
Sadly, if the truth is to be told, my sweet little Reese is part of the new minority in America; the married-for-life-till-death-do-us-part intact, traditional family structure. One four-hour event in downtown Columbus exposed to me the depth to which the American culture has degenerated.
From what I observed America is toast. I don’t know if I have been burying my head in the sand, or if I have just not taken the time to really look at the fruit of a Godless, secular-culture. The rejection of Biblical values has produced rotten fruit. I fear that Reese and her generation will pay a horrible cost.
Her grandpa’s generation did not keep the flame, hold the fort, nor defend the faith. Part of the “enlightenment” that accompanied the rejection of Biblical values was the false concept that licentiousness was the apex of liberty. “If it feels good, do it” has spawned a generation that does everything because it feels good. “Just say no” lost out to “anything goes.”
The idea of “self-restraint,” as spelled out in the Holy Scriptures, has given way to “no restraint” and the life-without limits that the secularists told us would bring us happiness.
But here lies the conundrum. There are still parents in America who work diligently to raise their children with Biblical values as the foundation of life. They understand the concept of “inner control” that Robert Winthrop alluded to in the opening quote…an understanding that ALL citizens are better off if Biblical values are followed. Ultimately, the only government that ever guarantees true liberty is “self-government.” True freedom comes from being able to control what you do…not from doing what you don’t feel like controlling.
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God’s laws are protective. If everyone would follow them fewer people would get hurt.
But society has turned a cold shoulder to the building blocks of our culture replacing the pillars of decency with the neon lights of self-expression. The genie is out of the bottle and no matter how hard we try to train our children in doing the right thing, our grandchildren will share a world with a generation of humanistic-educated citizens who believe there is no such thing as the right thing.
“Who are you to push your morality on me?”
Because God-fearing Christians have remained silent in the face of a frontal attack on truth, the Bible and the self-restraining precepts it taught generations of our ancestors has been rejected as the cornerstone of the American foundation.
Make no mistake, American’s will be governed. But in our quest for freedom, we have traded inward restraint for outward restraint. Out with the Bible, and in with the bayonet.
The bayonet is coming for sure.
Our journey into downtown Columbus exposed us to an element that has been quietly lurking in the shadows. All of the signs have been visible, yet our rose-colored glasses and Polyannic attitudes have cast a false brightness into the storm clouds.
The thunder is rolling in the form of roving gangs of fatherless families trolling the sidewalks of the inner cities. Saggy-trousered teenage boys, tattooed from pillar to post, wander the sidewalks, followed by scantily-clad teenage mothers with a toddler saddled to the hip.
What chance do these precious little babies have compared to the life our Reese has before her? They are prisoners to schools that don’t educate, fathers that can’t father, and mothers who still need to be mothered. From birth, most inner city children are sentenced to a life of government dependency rather than God dependency. It has reached the point where most American’s celebrate Independence Day by displaying their independence from the restraints of the Law of God.
When the government issued checks stop, as they certain will, only the bayonet can secure the peace. But who will be wielding the bayonet?
Are we foolish enough to believe that the “men in blue” will be able to hold the line when the chaos comes? Remember the pictures of Katrina? Do you recall how the police fled the scenes for their own self-preservation?
A Godless culture has produced a Godless people. We have sown to the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.
I was reminded of a Scripture as I held little Reese that night. It comes from Isaiah 59:15 “…and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.” Is it possible that we are setting our grandchildren up? Could it be that by teaching them to govern themselves according to the Bible we are making them prey to those who only understand the bayonet?
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Boiling in the inner cities is a witch’s brew of out-of-control passions fed by ignorance, poverty, drugs, and sex. Civil disobedience is coming to America. The internal reins of Biblical values has given way to the external chains by means of the bayonet.
Winthrop said: “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.
The Bible or the Bayonet? America has made her choice.
Professing ourselves to be wise, we became fools.
Not God bless America…but God have mercy on America.
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Do you think like a Christian or a humanist? Did the Founders really separate Church and State? Is Judicial tyranny ruining America? Check out these great teachings by the Coach
� 2011 Dave Daubenmire - All Rights Reserved
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