Hello, this is pastor gary from first baptist church of laplata. On this day in history 230 years ago, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, known as the “Bill of Rights,” were ratified. All ten of the amendments are important, but believers tend to focus on the first amendment which recognizes the freedoms of assembly, press, religion and speech—all vital to the practice of our faith. Our Founding Fathers’ definition of religion was different from the definition we use today. We now think of religion in terms of different faiths, but the Founders considered there to be only one true religion, Christianity, and the freedom of religion was the freedom to worship according to any Christian sect. Atheists today, who are ignorant of this fact, insist that our Founders did not want freedom of religion but freedom from religion—especially Christianity; yet nothing could be further from the truth! The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are recognized by our government but do not come from our government. Our rights come from God; if our rights came from the government, the government could take them away. Since our rights come from God, and God is unchanging, our rights are secure. We must beware: there are always those who want to usurp God’s authority replacing it with their own. They want to be the arbiter of rights guaranteeing rights for themselves and revoking them from others. May we not only cherish our right to worship God, may we exercise it regularly!
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