My daughter inherited a painting when her grandmother passed away. It was painted in the ’60s or early ’70s when lime greens, yellows, oranges and fluorescent colors were popular. It’s a night scene of three pirate ships standing ominously in the dark water. The black spindly masts make stark shadows against the lime-green and yellow moonlight shining on the dark-green and navy-blue water. Once as I stared at the painting, an awesome fear came over me as I imagined what it would be like to be out on the ocean in that small craft with leagues and leagues of billowing water rolling under me. A greater terror seized me as I thought of what it would be like to be in a rainstorm with the wind howling and the lightning flashing as the tiny ship rolled on the giant waves like a toothpick. It would be an experience of immense horror. I don’t know how the ancient mariners were able to survive.
Ships are wonderful things. They have carried passengers across vast oceans and down rolling rivers since the beginning of time. Discoveries have been made and wars have been won and lost on the decks of ships. Even our lives can be compared to ships sailing on the sands of time.
For 250 years, the freedom ship of America has sailed unscathed over the murky shark-infested waters of the world. This proverbial ship had her beginnings long before the Founding Fathers took pen in hand to write the immortal Declaration of Independence. This dream ship of freedom is a flame ignited in the heart of every human being since the world began. Adam and Eve sought freedom when they ate the forbidden fruit. The children of Israel yearned for liberty as they toiled to build the pyramids of Egypt, and freedom’s quest raged in the heart of Spartacus who led a rebellion of slaves against oppressive masters. When the Roman generals demanded Spartacus be turned over to them, the cry of thousands was, “I am Spartacus!” The Pilgrims escaped the tyranny of a domineering government to find freedom, and the American colonists would rather die than pay tribute to an unfair king.
The Founding Fathers fanned the flame of freedom and forged a ship that would last through the ages and weather any storm. The undergirding of the ship was built on biblical principles, natural laws and the historical records of other governments that had been successful for a time. They took sound principles from the Greeks, the Romans and even the Iroquois.
The founders were meticulous in their quest to build the right ship – the Constitution – which was constructed on six defining doctrines penned so beautifully in the Preamble.
- Form a more perfect union
- Establish justice
- Ensure domestic tranquility
- Provide for the common defense
- Promote the general welfare
- Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
The founders made sure the government was not the focus of their own endeavor. The people’s freedom was paramount, and that was to be for all time.
The ship was pitched and tarred on the outside with the Bill of Rights. With their pride at stake, brave forward-thinking men would not sign the nearly perfect document even after months of work and deliberation. These men held to their convictions. They knew a document that did not protect the rights of every citizen would, in time, be chipped away and finally destroyed by power-hungry men. The Bill of Rights was not for kings and dictators but for the common man. Every right and privilege written in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were written in blood and bought with the thousands of lives strewn on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. They were not simply meaningless words to be spoken and forgotten. They were the shield and armor for every citizen for centuries to come against the tyranny of those who would seek to dethrone the Constitution.
The framers expected God to be the sails and the wind behind the ship, moving it across the rolling, angry waters of the world. The billowing sails would fill with righteousness. The founders knew the now-popular saying, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” The laws spelled out in the Constitution depend on the honesty and integrity of the judges, politicians and presidents who enforce the laws. If these leaders become corrupt, the Constitution is meaningless. As God is the wind and sails of this freedom ship, citizens depend on Him for victory in war, sustenance in drought and relief in calamity. If an unrighteous leader rules, the people mourn, and if a righteous leader rules, the people rejoice and prosper, as it was in biblical times. That was the intention then and for the following 250 years, and it continues to be true today.
The helm of the freedom ship is a lens that looks to the future while remembering the past. George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And Alexis de Tocqueville said, “When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.” In building the freedom ship, the founders did not ignore the past as they wrote the Constitution. They embraced it. They studied the Law of Moses, the republic of Rome, the Iroquois Confederacy, The Mayflower Compact and many other sources for their new document. They remembered and learned from the past. Still today, the courts of the nation look to precedence for decisions. In other words, they look to past rulings to see what others have said on the subject. History was also to be an important component of education. The founders were determined not to forget the past because it was the light to guide the future.
This magnificent freedom ship still sails on stormy seas. It rises and falls over the waves like a giant bird, free in bright blue of the morning. Seeing it float, one would cry, “All is well.” Watching the fireworks that commemorate the maiden voyage of this proverbial freedom ship, one could cry, “All is well.” To see the freedom ship’s glorious flag flapping in the wind, one would shout, “All is well. Yes, all is well.”
Sadly, all is not well. Termites are at work.
Have we forgotten the one who provides the wind for our sails? For many, God’s laws have become a hiss and a byword and His statutes a cause for degradation and ridicule. In the founders’ day, no one thought that God’s law would be superseded by man’s laws. Many today see His laws as archaic and useless platitudes as they dance around the golden calves of our modern world. Many have laid aside the Bible and prayer to espouse artificial intelligence as a source of all wisdom. Who would have guessed that there would come a time when young people would feel threatened by the truth and would cower and cover their ears at opposing opinions? Holes in the ship are becoming more apparent. If not checked, termites will drop the mast of the freedom ship. Without a mast, the freedom ship will be marooned at sea at the mercy of typhoons and hurricanes.
The great freedom ships of the past sleep in the waters of time, cursed by the same termites we face. If we are wise, we will look to the past to learn from it. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV). We must hold on to the good in the past. If we look, America did not become the greatest nation on earth by being subject to a king, a tyrant or a dictator. We became the greatest nation because we were free to think for ourselves. We were free to follow our dreams, to create our own destinies. No one forced us to follow a path. Some succeeded, some failed, but all were offered a chance. We can’t let that freedom be taken away.
Our children must learn that the freedom ship is the greatest, most magnificent ship of liberty that has ever sailed the stormy waters of the world, but it is not free. Freedom comes with a price, and every generation must pay it, or it will be taken away.
