If a citizenry doesn't know the purpose, function, and limitations of the State, then the State can do whatever it wants to do because the citizenry doesn't realize anything improper is being done. For there to be any indignation towards acts of tyranny by the State, one must know that tyranny is taking place. Unfortunately in America today, most citizens wouldn't recognize tyranny if it came up and bit them on the end of the nose.

Tyrants bank on such ignorance, and the legislative agenda of the political class thrives under such conditions.

Aldous Huxley, in his book, Brave New World, wrote of a citizenry of slaves who would love their enslavement. Huxley writes, "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." This is precisely what our federal government has been trying to do to the American citizenry for decades now.

We saw an example of this just the other week. After the Obama administration strong-armed their health-care bill through Congress, they immediately sent out their minions to convince the American people of "how this will benefit them."

This legislation is an attack on freedom and a power-grab by the federal government. From a biblical and Constitutional point of view, these new laws are not legitimate to the purpose and function of the State, and go outside the limitations of the State. But sadly most Americans do not care. They've become accustomed to having the State wipe their noses from the cradle to the grave.

Who can cure this ignorance? Surely not the members of academia or the media. They in fact are busy schooling the nation in accepting the totalitarian State.

The pulpits in our nation once instructed the people in the purpose, function, and limitations of the State through yearly election and artillery sermons. These sermons were routinely preached for over 100 years in our nation. Clergymen understood that God's Word addressed all matters of life, including the matters of civil government.

Today however, most pulpits are silent about God's Word when it comes to State government. In fact, most just teach unlimited obeisance to the State, as though there are no limitations of State rule. By default they teach that whatever the State rules legislatively is the will of God.

This kind of clergymen was even prevalent during the Revolutionary War era. The Rev. William Gordon of Roxbury, Massachusetts preached regarding such men in 1794 when he declared "Though the partisans of arbitrary power will freely censure that preacher who speaks boldly for the liberties of the people, they will admire as an excellent divine, the parson whose discourse is wholly in the opposite, and teaches, that magistrates have a divine right for doing wrong, and are to be implicitly obeyed; men professing Christianity, as if the religion of the blessed Jesus bound them to bow their neck to any tyrant."

America's present-day pulpits need to repent of their idolatrous views regarding the State. True Christianity always produces liberty. Even the Scottish philospher, David Hume, a bitter of enemy of Christianity, had to concede this fact. Hume wrote, "The precious sparks of liberty were kindled and preserved by the Puritans in England, and that, to this sect…the English owe the whole freedom of their Constitution."

The pulpits are the means whereby the people will be instructed, from a theological foundation, in the purpose, function, and limitations of the State. When a citizenry's view of the State is theologically-driven, the State can no longer get away with doing whatever it wants to do because a citizenry informed in the purpose, function, and limitations of the State will not tolerate or countenance tyranny.

As Thomas Jefferson rightly wrote, "Ignorant and free has never been and will never be."

Matt Trewhella is the pastor of Mercy Seat Christian Church (http://www.mercyseat.net) and founder of Missionaries To The Preborn (http://www.MissionariesToThePreborn.com) both of which are located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He and his wife Clara, reside in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, and have eleven children.

To hear an actual "Election Sermon," go to MercySeat.net; click on 'sermons,' click on 'government,' and go to An Election Sermon.

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