Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Aug 26, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492632583903

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this session here is on the history of the relationship between church and government. And it's been one that over the centuries has had a lot of twists and turns. We'll head here. Recorded secular history shows that religion and government have typically been closely aligned until the last two centuries. The alignment between religion and government has been something that has been pretty much a given until the last couple of centuries.

Take, for example, the pharaoh. The pharaoh in Egypt. What was the relationship between religion and government regarding the pharaoh? Who is pharaoh considered to be? A god, a deity, right? And matter of fact, the whole country worked towards the end that Pharaoh would have a good afterlife. The whole priesthood was really focused on Pharaoh and kind of the upper echelon of the Egyptian civilization. And that same thing was true of pretty much every ancient civilization as you look at their background. That's true of civilizations written of in scripture in both the Old and New Testaments.

What was thought of the Emperor of Rome? He was a deity. They didn't care what religion you had as long as you included in that that the Emperor was a deity. So it had been for essentially centuries, many centuries, assumed that there was a strong connection between religion and government. That was just an assumption in biblical times. Some old New Testament nations, the ruler was to be worshipped as a god. Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc. And that was considered the normal way of thinking of things.

Now, we step into the apostolic era, the first century. Judaism had an exemption from the usual enforcement of religious laws in the Roman Empire, especially the required worship of the emperor. They did not require the Jews to worship the emperor. The Jews got exemption from different things.

Can you imagine, here you are, you're trying to run the Roman army. And it's Friday afternoon, and you give the order, we're going to pack up and move. And what are the Jews going to do? No, I'm not moving. It's Sabbath. I'm staying right here. Oh, boy. So they just say, hey, look, this is a real hassle. It's time to distribute the food. What do you have for dinner? you might have pork and oh boy you know so they just said hey this is not worth the hassle Jews have an exemption.

Initially the church was seen as a minor group within Judaism and so Christians initially had an exemption. Why would they consider them a minor group within Judaism? Pardon? First of all, they're a smaller group initially, yeah, and for the first roughly a decade, all the Christians were Jews, right? So it was easy to assume, well, it's just a smaller group within Judaism and we'll just treat them as if they were Jews, because in fact, in great part or entirely, they are.

So they treated the Christians as Jews because they were in great part Jews, and even after the Gentiles were first introduced, it was not immediate that a great number of Gentiles came to be saved until the Apostle Paul went out in his ministry. The Jews expressed rejection, increasingly, of the church as part of Judaism. So the Jews are saying, hey, wait a minute, they're not a part of us, right? And the Gentiles began to dominate the numbers in the church, especially with the Apostle Paul going out into the Gentile realms, and the Jews strongly rejecting them as a part of Judaism, even to the point of being violent. And so increasingly, The Roman government began to see the Christians as, hey, these aren't Jews. They don't get the exemption. You guys have a problem. Now, one thing to look at is what does the New Testament teach about government? Be subject to the government and be model citizens. It's out of Romans, Romans 13, Titus 3, says authority is given by God. Jesus talks about that in John 19.

Pay your taxes. And by the way, that incident in Matthew 17, this was the temple tax which was actually a voluntary tax. There was no penalty if you didn't pay it. That's why it was asked They came to collect the temple tax, and it was asked, you know, does Jesus, you know, pay the temple tax? Because it was voluntary.

It was not a, you know, you're going to pay up or there's a penalty. It was not enforced. Setting aside government mandate is required and justified only where the mandate is in conflict with the biblical church-age principles, since God is the higher authority. So what would be, for example, a point at which you would say, no, I'm not doing that, even though the government requires it?

Yeah, worship of Caesar was a biggie. And we look at it and say, well, of course not. However, it was looked upon as a patriotism. as a patriotism. Whereas the Christians thought, wait a minute, this isn't patriotism, there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. And so they would turn it away, but the Romans saw it as patriotism. And so therein lay the conflict.

Now, the fourth slide is accusations against Christians. Excuse me, let me take a look at this. Here is a letter written right after the New Testament era to the Emperor Trajan. Here is one of the territorial governors, not sure how do I deal with Christians. So it was something that was still being developed. How do we deal with Christians? What are our ways of dealing with their refusal? to honor the Emperor's deity. Let's see here. Oh, this I think is, yeah, you have it on page two, this chart here.

And the main thing is, is empire-wide persecution started in 250. In other words, it tended to be regional. But it's empire-wide persecution started in 250, but empire-wide acceptance of Christianity as the official religion started in 313. 312, Christianity was an allowed religion. 313, it was the official religion. 324, it was the only religion allowed. So quite a reversal. 10 waves of Roman persecution and then it switches from being allowed, then the official religion, and then in 324 the only permitted religion.

Here is a Roman libelous, a certifying required emperor worship. In other words, you'd have a certificate that said, yes I went and worshipped the emperor. If you didn't have that certificate, Then the idea was, you know, you're outside the law. You go down and get one now or, you know, you're going to lose your life. And, of course, there are Christians. Christians generally refused. There were some Christians who made a fake certificate, which wasn't terribly accepted among Christians. Trajan the Emperor, here in Pergamum, had a temple. Here's the temple of the Emperor Demetian in Ephesus. And there are other examples. You would go to one of those emperor temples to do your worship and get your certificate.

Now, accusations against Christians in the Roman Empire. One of them was that Christians were cannibals. Why would that accusation be made? That Christians were cannibals. Yes. Pardon? Yes, they would take the body and the blood of Christ, right? So that the rumor got around, well, they're cannibals. They're eating people. Disruption of business, what would that be? Disruption of business. Yeah, in other words, a certain thing, I'm not going to do that. So that would be disruption of government relations. How about disruption of business though? Pardon?

Yes, in other words, we find an example of that in the book of Acts. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, right? This big protest goes from the Agora to the theater right nearby. Why? Because this idol making business, which is really big business to us, we have silversmiths and stone workers and people making things out of ivory and all that gets shut down when these Christians come in.

So disruption of business. Yeah, Stan? Yeah, yeah. And we even had up until very recently in Colorado, you know, you can't do car deals on Sunday, right? Incest, why would that accusation be made? Here these Christians gather together and they call one another brothers and sisters, right? Brother, brother, yeah, here's brother, sister, greet one another with a holy kiss. Woo! So incest. Anti-family. Why would they be looked upon as anti-family? What about Christianity would come across as anti-family?

Okay, Jesus made that statement. Yeah, following me is more important. Imagine a circumstance here. It was considered the norm. It was considered the usual arrangement that whatever religion the husband would embrace, and there might be several, the wife would follow along with that. Now what happens when the wife becomes a Christian? The wife becomes a Christian and the husband sees it as a domestic insurrection. Anti-family would be the charge. You're breaking up families. She won't follow his gods. Atheism. Why would Christians be accused of atheism? Do Christians believe in God? only one. Yeah.

And so because you don't believe in all our gods that we've got, we've got temples to all these different gods, and you won't do any of them, then you must be an atheist, right? Lack of patriotism. Remember, one of the things we said was that going into the Emperor's temple and doing the, you know, procedures such that you honored the Emperor as deity, that was considered an act of patriotism. And so because you refused to do that, you were unpatriotic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Antisocial behavior.

It was considered the norm, if you were a part of a guild, that the guild would hold their meetings in the pagan temples. And they would have orgies and things like that as a part of the guild meetings. And of course you wouldn't, as a Christian, go into such a meeting and so you must be anti-social.

These Christians are recluses. This guy becomes a Christian and doesn't come to our guild meetings anymore. Well, it's not so much that they were excluded, it's that the Christians wouldn't go to them. Right? Yeah, you're not going to come to our meetings and you're not going to join our... Yeah, and that means that as a Christian you can't be a part of the guild and you can't set up a place at the marketplace.

And so, I'm sorry, that just won't work. Right? And then finally, the cause of disasters. Why would Christians be the cause of disasters? That's right. We would offend the gods by not worshiping them. Christians wouldn't go to any of the temples. They'd stay away from them and didn't worship the gods. Therefore, the Christians have brought disaster on us. This earthquake we just had, that's because these Christians offended the gods. So all these accusations would be made against Christians. We look at them and say, what?

But that was common during that era. Okay, stepping into the next time, 312 being the time when Christianity was declared illegal, up to 590, which was the beginning time of Pope Gregory the Great, Not so great, but anyway. The division of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire went from western and eastern halves administratively back when it was a pagan empire. Okay? 284 AD. By 395, the empire began to crumble. Seriously.

The Western and Eastern Church's connections to the Roman Empire beginning in 313 A.D. meant as the Empire split, so increasingly did the Church. The Church split, the West being Roman Catholic, the East being Orthodox. This is Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox. all those Orthodox churches. The church began to split as well because the church was militarily and politically aligned with the government.

The Roman Emperor was called the Pontiff Maxim before there was any acceptance of Christianity. He was the Pontiff. So what is one of the titles for the Pope? The Pontiff. And by the way, that is from a Babylonian priest title. The chief bridge maker, pontiff.

The divided empire was further subdivided into areas and each of those smaller areas was called a diocese. Ever heard that term? And each diocese was headed by a vicar. That was the governmental structure, and as the government broke apart, the church structure ended up just adopting the Roman governmental structure and titles. Here is a Pontiff Maxim coin from the Roman era. Here is Pontiff and then Maxim. So there's the title, and both the emperor and this being sitting here on the back were deities, right? So that simply was adopted as the title for the Pope.

So Constantine was the one who declared Christianity legal in the Empire in 312, the official religion in 313, and the only permitted religion in 324. And by the way, at that point in time, only about 10% of the population was Christian. So they were forcing 90% of the population to be Christian when they weren't. And so it began a bunch of compromises, taking the pagan religions and traditions and things like that and adapting them to Christianity. Pagan temples were converted to church buildings and pagan symbols to Christian.

Okay, let's say I have a temple to the Sun God, and on the front of the temple I'll have a big circle, big disc, right? Well, if you just take that off, people are going to have a hard time adapting to Christianity. But if you have a big circle and you just put a cross over the top of it, then they can handle the transition a little easier. Ever seen that? That's where that came from.

The 312 to 590 period, continuing decline in the political unity of military power of the Roman Empire. In 407 AD, most Roman soldiers were withdrawn from Britain, some chose to stay. Not as Roman soldiers, but just, you know, they had connected up with the people of the British Isle, and that had been their home, essentially, for generations.

In 410 AD, Innocent I persuades, and he was the Bishop of Rome, persuades Alaric the Visigoth to pillage Rome, but not burn it. please don't bother us too much, right? 452 AD, Leo I persuades Attila the Hun to leave Rome untouched and move on. So what happens then, the Bishop of Rome ends up being the hero, the savior. And the same guy, a few years later, persuades Gyseric the Vandal to only pillage but not burn Rome. Now the Bishop of Rome is our hero. Rome the empire replaced by Rome the church. By 550 AD, the empire was all but ruined and began to dynamically define itself under shifting military powers.

The Roman church adopted the form of the Roman government in many elements of structure, district, and title, including the diocese and the vicar arrangement. Increasingly, the bishop became someone who ordered what happened in their district. Here was the Roman Empire titles and structure, and you see the corresponding structure in the Roman Church, including the Pope being called Pontifex Maximus. The Senate became the College of Cardinals, and you see on down the list there. The citizens and non-citizens were equivalent to the priests and the laity.

From 590 to 517, almost a thousand years, you have, and this is on page two, you have this structure. Here's Leo I that we talked about, the one who talked two different raiders into diminishing or passing, diminishing their attack or passing on their attack on Rome. And you have the series of other major and pivotal popes along the way. The crowning of Charlemagne was one of them, 800 AD, kind of a pivotal time.

And Boniface VIII, 1301, this was right after the time of the Crusades, He put out this Unum Sanctum, and we have a quote of it here on page 3, that there is only one holy Catholic and apostolic church who are compelled by faith to believe, we are compelled by faith to believe and hold, and we firmly believe in her and sincerely confess her, outside of whom there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. Furthermore, we declare, state, and define that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of all human beings that they submit to the Roman Pontiff.

What does the Bible say is the means of salvation? How are you saved? Faith, okay, faith, and what must you believe in? Yeah, Jesus and His work. He died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again. Is there any biblical statement that says you have to believe in the church? You have to put your confidence in the church. The church is the channel of salvation. No, there isn't. It's between you and God, and it is God who then, through the Holy Spirit, puts you in the church. That's the biblical teaching.

1 Corinthians 12.13 But this makes the church the channel of salvation, not the biblical picture. Where do you see Christ in that? You don't. So they've taken it out of Christ and into the church itself. Yes?

What is the word Catholic in that context? Catholic means universal. Yeah, similar. The term Catholic was initially meant to be universal was the term. We've come to relate it more to the Roman Catholic Church in our thinking, but that was the original intent. Apostles' Creed, which by the way the Apostles didn't write, but okay. Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's because the concept is that that's associated with Roman Catholicism, where in fact the word actually meant universal, right?

The Crusades, 1096 to 1248. It had only been decades before that the Pope and one of the archbishops of the Orthodox Church had mutually excommunicated one another But then the Muslims began their renewed attack against the Eastern Church. And so the 1096 start of the Crusades was done on the basis of an appeal to the Bishop of Rome, help us, the Muslims are killing us, literally. And so Rome then sent soldiers out of Europe in to battle against the Muslims and to take back Jerusalem. There are a series of Crusades.

We'll go into more detail on the Crusades later, but this is the general pattern. The early Crusades went through Constantinople and then down to Jerusalem. Later Crusades went across the Mediterranean and then through Egypt. So we'll get into more detail on that later.

There were periods of turbulence. The organized church maintained its political ties. This is on page three of your handout, and I'll switch to that. The church held growing political power, crowning kings, and issuing edicts. I remember when I was doing business back in the 1980s going over to Bomberg, one of the cities in Germany, what was then West Germany, and the people of the city wanted to build a city hall.

And the bishop kept telling them, no, I won't let you build a city hall. The bishop was the one they had to go to to get those decisions approved. They kept persisting and requesting, we need to build a city hall. And he said, You can build it in the middle of the river, thinking that that would mean that they could never build it. Well, guess where they built it? In the middle of the river. They put a foundation down there in the river, and that's where the City Hall building stands to this day.

And it's because the bishop had the regional governmental authority. That was the way it worked, yes. Yes. Yes. There wasn't anything else in Germany. Yeah. No. The bishop had done this back in like the 1300s. Yes. About this same period of time we're talking about here.

Religious deviance was enforced by the organized church's police power through the political system. So in other words, somebody was a heretic, you send out enforcers to go and take them out. And they would have cities where there was a significant number of people who were considered heretical, and they would just go and slaughter them all. The abbot, in one case, told them, slaughter them all, God will know His own.

From Prince Vladimir's conversion in 988, the Russian royalty was connected to the Orthodox Church. So that was a strong connection and influence. From 1500 to the Russian Revolution, around the year of World War I, czars were especially connected to church actions, the church eventually becoming a segment of the Russian government. So you had in the eastern realm connections between government and religion as well.

Now, from 1517, the time of the beginning of the Reformation under Luther, until 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia, the end of the Thirty Years' War, Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, and Reformed Church established or maintained political and military ties. That brought on wars in the middle 1500s. Some of those subsided and then got stirred up again in what was called the Thirty Years War.

The Anabaptists, and we would be considered among them, although I'm sure we would have disagreements about their beliefs, we would be considered among them because we don't do infant baptism. The Anabaptists were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Reformed Church to the point where during the Reformation period, four to five thousand of them were killed. Some others were not killed but tortured for refusing to baptize the infants.

Yes? Back in the previous slide about the Orthodox Church in Russia, I thought It is now. Well, because what happened is the Tsar was overthrown during the Bolshevik Revolution, okay, around World War I era. And then came in Marxism, which was indeed atheistic. But prior to that, the Russian Orthodox Church was actually a part of the Roman government and the ties were strong. Wars broke out in Europe between Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and Roman Catholic aligned political domains. Wars and wars and wars and wars. This period ended with a 30 years war, 1618 to 1648.

Nancy and I stayed at what had been an old millhouse across the river in Bomberg. We were right there at river level. Actually, our floor was below the river. And we looked across the river and there was this huge palace. And we asked some people, you know, what is this huge palace? I mean, it just goes on and on and on. They said, oh, that's the palace of the guy who sold munitions to both sides during the, you know, all the sides during the 30 Years War. He made lots of money. The Thirty Years' War was ended because huge percentages of the population were being decimated. In some regions, over half the population was killed in the Thirty Years' War. It was horrific.

It was finally stopped in the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648. Now, that stopped the battling in great part between the different regions, but it didn't stop the countries from enforcing religion within their own domains. You see the difference there? We're not fighting with each other, but we're still enforcing religion within our own political domain.

Here's a map just to give you an idea. I didn't put a copy in your handout. Here are all the different breakup groups from the Thirty Years War. I mean, everything is patchwork. The center of the Thirty Years' War was in Germany. However, let's see, it shows some of the different groups there. Lots and lots and lots of different groups, all battling each other and going back and forth.

Pretty much all of Europe was involved in the Thirty Years' War, even though the center of fighting was in Germany. You see, here's the different ones, including some names that you may not even recognize, but Bavaria, Saxony, you know, all the way down Sweden, France, England, Transylvania, which these days we usually think of Dracula, but anyway, Spain, the Pope had forces, Poland, all of Europe was involved in this horrific battle. Imagine a war going on for 30 years. I mean, you'd have a whole generation you know, rise up during the middle of the war that had never, you know, even been around and be involved in fighting the war that began before they were born.

Yes. Yes, only it was all of Europe. It was all of Europe. And like I say, the decimation was so bad that in some cases, over half, like 60% of the population in some regions was killed off. It was horrific and a brutal time. Well, no, what you have is you've got some major areas, you know, here's England, Spain, whatnot, where you have large areas, but the center of the fighting broke up. Germany and surrounding areas into very small little regions because you'd have this nobleman go this way and this other nobleman go some other route and be the Calvinists fighting the Lutherans and then you know fighting the Catholics and it was all a bloody time.

Okay from 1648 a piece of Westphalia to the present. War between the political domains over political and military and religious alliances and dominance ended in great part with the Peace of Westphalia. I say in great part because it didn't completely end it, it just substantially ended it compared to what it had been before.

The religious control within a political domain did not immediately cease. In other words, we may still be actually persecuting, even killing people within our own domain if they're not of the right religious group. So that continued even after the Peace of Westphalia. Many governments maintain religious alliances, controls, and financial support for specific churches. Here's 52 years after the Peace of Westphalia, that treaty, the church in Europe was broken up in this way.

Here's the Anglican, Calvinist, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Muslim sections of Europe. And one of the things related to the question you just brought up is, look, here's Ireland. Southern part of Ireland is Roman Catholic. The northern part, Anglican.

So, you know, there's the difference there, and there's the root of a lot of the fighting. So that's how that settled, and the consequence of that is still being felt today, even though the churches have no longer the connection to government that they once had. Culturally, that's still there. Yes. Yes. Yes. In other words, it was essentially a British influence in Northern Ireland, different from the southern part of Ireland.

Now, Let's take a look at the theistic view of government. The assumptions in the theistic, that is, belief in God, are that God exists as revealed in Scripture. Next, moral absolutes exist based on God's character as revealed in Scripture. And by the way, that impacts us even today, even though we don't have alliances. A lot of the battle areas in government are related to, do I believe in God or not? And do I believe that scripture has any validity or not?

Mankind is sinful and apart from the life and salvation of God will express that sinfulness. In other words, it's a perspective. Does society have a sin problem or is it something else? We're just not evolved far enough, right? Governmental authority is given by God. Something that, you know, say Romans 13, Titus 3 Jesus in John 19 states. And finally, there is therefore a basis and need for moral definition in law. That is, societally we have laws. We don't operate off of grace.

Now, the naturalistic view of government, the assumptions are God does not exist or has not revealed himself so as to be known. Maybe there's a God, but we really have no idea. Sort of an agnostic view. The naturalistic Bureau of Government says there are no moral absolutes, mankind's political systems alone being the definition of what is moral or otherwise. It depends on what does the majority say. What can we get through Congress? Ethics and law are based upon mankind's own determinations and are therefore arbitrary, being established by means of power and governed by pragmatism. What do we mean by pragmatism? What's pragmatism? Yeah, the word practical is essentially what controls, from a practical standpoint, what works, what can be made to work.

So not to actually put a label on any of this, but if you really look at this, the theistic view is As a generalization that can be said. because they don't see that as being a moral absolute. Having said that, there are those who are more politically on the left end who do believe in God, and there are those on the right who are atheists. In other words, that would be a generalization that one might make.

Here we have still on our bills, here's In God We Trust. It's still in print. Whether we actually do or not is a different question. Among Christians there is presently a great divide And this is an important one. You will see this pressed upon people. Dispensationalists, and at Holly Hills we would say we are dispensationalists, see the world as hopeless until Christ reigns literally on earth at the Father's appointed time.

Government is only there to maintain a hedge against evil. Not eradicate it, not fix it. Maintain a hedge. A number of post-millennialists, those of what's called a reconstructionist view, preterists, see things getting better and better as the church takes control of political power to establish Christ's reign on earth through Christians.

So that's another Christian view. It's not what we present here at this church, but that is another Christian view. And that's a great divide. Have you ever had Christians pressing you, oh, we've got to do this, and we've got to get out there and get control of the government, and we've got to vote this way, and we've got to get the people in the power who are Christians, etc.? And that's the second viewpoint here. where you'll find Christians pressing really hard on this point at times and telling you that if you're not taking control of the government that you're failing in your Christian duty. We would say, no, that's not my job.

Here's the Apostle Paul. He comes into Ephesus. Does he go and try to take control of the government? No. We see no effort for him to do that at all. So I see biblically that's not at all what's called for. Here's what God says, 2 Timothy 3, 13-17, But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Are things going to get better and better? No, not until Jesus comes. Right? You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of. And then he points him to Scripture. He points Timothy to Scripture. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable. So, no, the answer is not take over the government. And the answer is not things are going to get better and better. The answer is, you know, God has provided his work. Go there. Right? Yes. On the previous slide, I'm not sure why they call it post-Columbian. Well actually, they would say there is no future millennium.

Let me characterize some of this. There are people who are of this persuasion that look at, they would say that Satan is bound now. You are right now living in the new heavens and new earth. You enjoying it? That is the teaching. And so post-millennialists basically say, look, we've already had this millennial time. It's already in history. You're now living in a time when Satan is bound and we're living in the new heavens and new earth.

Get going. Get busy. Yes? Christ has already come back. That's right. Christ has already come back. All that's history. You just need to do your job. They would characterize it different ways, but they would say it's already been done maybe in the first thousand years of Christianity. It's already a done deal.

Satan is bound. You live in the new heavens and new earth. You need to get busy. If Satan is bound, I don't know who keeps letting him loose. Yeah, they would say it's your job to get out there and take control of the government and make things better. I talked to one fellow of this persuasion. He says, every time I paint my house, I make things better. Yeah.

So, anyway, I think the perspective is we live in a certain time that's exceptional where there's a distance between church government. Interestingly enough, people will appeal to the First Amendment, and they'll talk about freedom of religion, and of course that's being interpreted now as freedom from religion.

But when that First Amendment was passed, most of the states had, into the 1800s, had some adopted state religion. So the federal government was not allowed to adopt a religion, but most of the states had one. So each state could have a different one? Yes, each state was allowed to have its own, but that First Amendment was simply to say the federal government could not.

That goes back to states' rights? Yes, it goes back to states' rights, and states continued to have an official state religion, that would be carried out, in other words, you would have an Anglican come in and do the prayer as you opened up your legislative, state legislative session, for example. And they had an official state religion into the middle 1800s, to just before the Civil War era. Yeah.

That totally makes sense because there was limited government. Government was supposed to do protection. The federal government was limited. The state governments, however, were still allowed to have some connection to an official denomination. It didn't mean that the state enforced that, in order that you could choose to be something else. there was an official adoption by not all but many of the states as to which denomination they were aligned with. Tom?

Yes, there was money spent to support the official church. One of the first purchases that the United States Congress made was Bibles. Yeah. One of the early purchases that they made after settling things with Britain was, let's buy a bunch of Bibles and get them out there to people. They were working under a tyrant. Yeah. Also, you know, you're talking about the state seals. Yes. Biblical model. Yes, many of them have a biblical model.

The state constitutions throughout our 50 states universally have a recognition of an Almighty. I know of no exception to that. So it's interesting, our concept now, we've got to get religion out of everything, that was not what the First Amendment was about, and that was not understood to be the practice in the earliest days. Yes? giving to charity in general is the practice among those who have the greatest religious expression if you will. We still have close to 90% of the population that says they believe in God. It obviously is not affecting a lot of people, but nonetheless, that's the case.

Okay, let's pray. Lord, we are thankful that you have in fact instituted governments to be in place. We pray for our own government, especially in this election year. And we do pray in that, especially for the freedom to continue to spread and tell the gospel and to teach among ourselves. And Lord, we do thank you for the liberties that we have enjoyed.

And we just entrust the rest of our morning here to you, in Jesus' name. Amen. Yes, on the inner part of the eye. Let's pray about that right now. Lord, we do pray for Ellie Emerson with this cyst operation that's anticipated this next Thursday. And we do pray also for Autumn and Ben through this as well. We entrust that situation into your hands. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.