"Where do Rights come from?" Pt.2

Last time, we finished by saying that according to the founding principles of this country, "Rights" come from God...that humans are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". So, to appeal to the premise that one's rights are being taken away, one has to (to be intellectually honest) look to the source of those rights.

If, as in our case, rights come from God, then one has to ask, "What God were the framers of the Constitution thinking of when they wrote it?" In our case, one MUST consider that of the 250 men that are considered the "Founding Fathers" of our country, only 12 are considered by historians to have NOT been Christian. Or that the opening session of Congress on September 7th, 1774 began with a 3 HOUR PRAYER followed by a Bible study session on the Book of Psalms. Or consider the words of Benjamin Franklin spoken during the Constitutional Convention:

"We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build their house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. I therefore beg to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance from Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business"

It seems pretty clear that the God the "Founding Fathers" had in mind was the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. So then...
1. Rights (in the American, Constitutional sense) come from God.
2. The God being recognized as the source of these Rights is the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible.
Thus, any right you claim must be held up to the nature of the God who has given it.

Our means of doing this is to examine the Nature of God as documented in the Bible. For example, if I want to invoke my "right" to get married, for it to truly mean anything, I have to consider what the God who has endowed me with my fundamental rights has to say about marriage:

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24) The Hebrew word for wife here is אשה ('ishshah) which means woman, female, wife. Jesus quotes this verse twice (Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7). Paul quotes it once (Ephesians 5:31).

The definite thought here is that marriage is between a man and a woman. The root source for marriage (the rights of liberty and happiness being expressed) is the Bible. It is our source from where we draw out the nature of God, that He is loving and has endowed us with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, these rights can only be rightly expressed in the context of the God who gave them.

Therefore...
1. Rights (in the American, Constitutional sense) come from God.
2. The God being recognized as the source of these Rights is the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible.
3. The Judeo-Christian God of the Bible established the right of marriage (remember, liberty and happiness expressed together) as being only between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:24)
To conclude, any appeal for a right must acknowledge and be in submission to the giver of that right.

To do otherwise is dishonest and immoral.

Pastor Mike