By Coach Dave Daubenmire
October 15, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. Psalm 20:7
Sometimes when I sit down to pen a commentary I wish I didn’t have to. I don’t know why the Lord has laid this yoke upon me, but I try to be faithful to the gift and the calling that He has put upon my life. They are irrevocable you know, the gifts and callings of God, so I might as well embrace the work He has left on my desk.
I can’t explain it but sometimes I feel like I have on a different set of glasses. Not rose-colored mind you, but more like binoculars that help me see things that are farther down the road. I can’t explain it, but I know it to be true.
I have always been amazed by guys who can “fix things”, mechanically that is. I can spend all morning trying to figure out how to get my riding lawn-mower operational and then my brother-in-law pulls up, takes one look at the engine, and diagnosis the problem. It is his gift, and I sure wish I had it.
But my gift is a little different. Although I have never been to seminary, or spent time at the feet of great theologians, the Lord has gifted me with the ability to “connect the dots” in regards to the application of Biblical principles as they relate to cultural issues. I think it makes some folks mad, especially the “credentialed pulpiteers.” I know how they feel. I have experienced the same thing with my brother-in-law. I’m the guy with all of the degrees yet I can’t figure out that the spark plug needs cleaned before the engine will start.
Education without application is like tires without air. One without the other leaves one feeling a bit flat.
(I’m still not sure I am making myself clear.) Solomon put it this way. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Wisdom is the application of knowledge. “Understanding” is the offspring of the union of application and knowledge.
I remember praying a few years ago “Lord, help me see and understand things that others don’t see and understand.” I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not He answered that prayer.
The solutions to the problems facing America are so clear to me. The cause/effect of our cultural collapse is so easy to diagnose. Like my brother-in-law has often said to me while working on a piece of my equipment, “Everything is connected together. All you have to figure out is where the chain is broken. If it isn’t working there has to be a reason. Just follow the trail.” Sorry to be simplistic, but that is how I feel about America. Everything is connected…but we refuse to follow the trail.
So follow along with me as we lift up the hood, check out the spark plugs, and see if we can figure out how to get this baby running. It is my opinion that we are trying to replace the wrong parts. Pardon the corny phraseology, but we are putting the chariot before the horse.
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”
America’s problems are spiritual, they are not mechanical. We can not get out of this problem merely by changing the horses (parts).
We have tried that cure before. Substituting Republicans for Democrats, or liberals for conservatives may change the direction the chariots are pulled but it gets us no closer to the finish line. Political parties and politicians are merely the horses that pull the chariot. Changing them has brought us nothing more than a false sense of hope. Every election we change a few of the horses, hope that things will straighten out, and then lament the fact that the stallions we put into office end up being nothing more than the same old nag.
Trusting in horses has not worked.
Although the word chariot conjures up thoughts of a carriage in which someone rides, a chariot was actually a weapon of war as demonstrated in this video of Charleton Heston in Ben Hur. In our American constitutional republic the constitution has become the chariot, the weapon of choice, for those who want to over-throw this nation. Many patriotic-Americans have labeled themselves “constitutionalists”, and are trusting in that great founding-document to win the war against an ever-expanding, all-powerful government. “If only they would follow the Constitution…”
Although their intentions are good, the reality is that chariot (constitution) is prisoner to the horses and the direction that they choose to pull it. No matter how much we love to point out “original intent,” “separation of powers,” and “government of the people…” the chariot gets pulled in directions that it was never intended to go. The Constitution in which we trust is the very weapon that the horses uses to over-throw the will of the people. Extra-constitutional edicts such at “the separation between the church and state,” the “penumbras” of the constitution, and “equal protection” clauses have run the chariot over those whom it was created to protect.
As long as horses are pulling the chariots there is no hope, and no sense of generational permanence in that document upon which our nation was founded. Allowing its clearly spelled-out principles to be changed at the whim of the latest I-know-better-than-you judge has caused this foundation stone to be crushed into sand. We all know what happens when one builds upon sinking sand…
Trusting in chariots has led us into a swamp. The Constitution is not a stand-alone document. James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution” said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
George Washington said “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
Some men trust in chariots…..
Recently I have been asked to speak at several “Tea-Parties” around these parts. Word has spread very quickly about the zeal, passion, and clarity with which I articulate The American View of our national dilemma. The hearts of men and women are moved as I paint the picture of the consequences of our national rejection of Jesus. But my impassioned plea for “remembering the Lord” has tugged on the bridle of the horses who are not “Christians.”
Some of my recent “invitations” to speak have included a request to “tone down a bit” the “religious part” because some of the “coalition” does not hold my same “religious” views. You see, it is easy to change the horses, or fight with the chariot, than it is to harness the rebellious heart of individual men and women.
Needless to say, I told them what they can do with the horse they rode in on…
The god-haters have told us that our Constitution is a “living, breathing document” designed to change with the times. That attitude is the same one that gave us “living breathing” marriages and mortgage contracts. The US Constitution was a contract between a people and their Creator from whom the rights of the people had been endowed. A contract is only as good as the people who sign it.
Funny isn’t it, our once solid American dollar is in a free fall because the gold that once under girded it has been removed. Remove the firm foundation and a building is destined for collapse. For over two centuries the ordinances of God were the pillars upon which this nation stood. Remove those supports and the Constitution is not worth the paper it was written on.
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." Jedidiah Morse
I know what my brother-in-law would say… “Better firm up that foundation.” Nothing short of a spiritual transformation can save this nation.
Some men trust in horses, some men trust in chariots….
We need to remember the name of the Lord. Does any national leader have the courage to say so?
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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
© 2009 Dave Daubenmire - All Rights Reserved
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Coach Dave Daubenmire, founder and President of Pass The Salt Ministries www.ptsalt.com and Minutemen United www.minutemenunited.org, is host of the high octane Pass The Salt radio show heard in Columbus, Ohio.
In 1999 Coach Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU for praying with his teams while coaching high school in Ohio. He now spends his energy fighting for Christian principles in the public domain.
E-Mail: coach@ptsalt.com
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