An Overview of Government
Please watch this video that contains a great overview of Government Ideas:
When Life Goes By Too Fast
–By Ben Gilmore
— SLOW DOWN! After all, it is YOUR life isn’t it? Take dominion of it. If you don’t, someone else will be happy to do so! ” … [C]hoose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
[Josh 24:15]
Things in our American society are changing and shifting rapidly. Political upheavals one way and then another; Jobs and the economy and all the stress that causes; Family pressures (rebellious teens, faltering husbands, frustrated wives) … Nothing is standing still, everything is rushing past and swinging us this way and that! “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” [Psa 46:10]
I believe the world would be a far better place if every man would take just one hour and sit alone under a tree somewhere! THERE IS ONE GOD WORKING! Recognize that He really does love you! Realize that EVERYTHING He permits to happen to you is intended to draw you closer to Him! If you let that “sink in,” and pause long enough to have faith in that fact, you can relax a little and let some things pass without your involvement!
Our nation is under attack from within. There is every indication we have treason in the White House! I look around, and it appears to me, the hand of God is raising up a righteous spiritual army in defense of His plans for our nation.
There are prayer projects popping up everywhere. Never doubt it! “… The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” [James 5:16] Prayer DOES change things. Moses interceded for the Israelites, and God said, even He, would change His mind!
Activist movements are alive and growing across the nation. The well publicized “Tea Parties” are just the manifestation of far deeper shift in our “body politic.” Every day’s batch of e-mail offers endless opportunities to join this and contribute to support that. Most of these projects are good and are being effective. Our job is to discern where, and upon what, the Lord wants us involved.
In that regard, my passion is to contribute to the restoration and understanding of Biblical principles of government (family-, church-, and civil-government as well as self-government) in our society. Critical thinking and sound reason based upon reliable history and logic have been systematically drained out of our education for generations now!
Earlier this month I wrote about our “Principles of American Government” online course. Registration closed on 1/18/10. After just four interactive classes we are well into the three month course.
Please do yourself and someone else a good service and …
SET ASIDE THESE DATES:
Saturday, February 20 in Sacramento. Stephen McDowell of Providence Foundation is keynoting a one-day conference. What makes this conference so significant that I single it out? Providence Foundation (founded by McDowell) has lead the way in teaching Biblical Principles of Government for a generation! This is one of those teachers who will plant seeds in your understanding that will grow for years. If you are not in our area and have friends here, tell them about it and have them contact me. www.providencefoundation.com
Wednesday-Saturday, June 23-26, 2010 in Sacramento. ACH Study Groups present an American History & Government Study Seminar. Wife, Fran, and I founded ACH over 20 years ago. Four 12-hour days, back-to-back, under master teachers, skilled in presenting governmental principles biblically, historically and logically … We designed it to be “inconvenient!” Our purpose was to separate the world changer from the casual student! Well over a thousand world changers have taken this seminar. They are our major promoters. We arrange hospitality (gratis) for out of the area participants. www.achstudygroups.com
Unless there are enough leaders in this, and the next few generations, who have learned what our founding fathers learned, our ship of state is likely to remain in dangerous seas!
For His-story & Government, Ben Gilmore
HAPPY NEW DECADE! – and why you should take the PAG Online Course
–By Ben Gilmore
What a decade it promises to be! In the next ten years, historians will have written volumes about the last ten years. Though there is a massive effort to mold and shape accounts of historical events, truth has a nasty way of fighting its way to the surface.
Many believe this to be America’s, “Post-Christian” era. That view I repudiate. That which the hand of God begins, it finishes. Shortly after our high point of ratifying the US Constitution and its first ten amendments, our nation started a backslide right into a civil war.
While the rest of the world was peacefully doing away with slavery, America chose to fight a bloody war over it. A war, one could say, was between “Pride” in the south, and “Self-righteousness” in the north.
I believe our nation has yet to blossom into that which the Lord had in mind two centuries ago.
Whether my view, or that of the cynics, turns out to have been the correct one, I choose to focus upon what is true, honest, just, pure and lovely!
The cynic will be awed by the size and scope of the problem. Attempting to alert others to the danger, the cynic will seek ever more sensational examples of the problem. The result will be frustration, hopelessness , anger and (hopefully) an activist opposition effort.
On the other hand, a better approach. Recognize that the “problem” is a “consequence“. (The result of drifting away from the principles that served us so well during our two hundred year backslide.) Relearn those principles. Instill them into the next generation. Apply them to the problems we face.
Test yourself:
- Build a one line sentence defining the God of the Bible.
- What is a “law” according to Sir William Blackstone, “father of the legal profession“.
- What is behind the Declaration’s wording, “…Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
- “Family, Church, State” are all governmental. Upon what government rests the quality of each?
- If you have not learned sound principle, how do you evaluate alternative choices?
- If God’s Principle of Individuality is violated, why does the effort fail?
- Why the difference? “God’s principle of individuality” and the, “Christian principle of self-government.”
- What is your measure of Quality Character?
- Without the principle of “Private Property“, has the 10th Commandment any meaning?
- What three forms of government were combined into ours for the first time in human history?
- Why is “Local Authority” preferred over centralization?
- “Law without liberty is slavery. Liberty without law is anarchy”. What is law with liberty?
- Can you recognize “situation ethics”?
- Have you learned how to never lose a debate?
Soon (See Schedule for course dates) we begin our next “Principles of American Government” online course*. There is still time to enroll. Please Contact Ben for information.
*24 each, 75 minute interactive classes, offered twice (9AM & 6PM Pacific time) on Monday and Wednesday. Participants commit themselves to one class Monday and Wednesday plus guided reading assignments requiring 5 hours a week outside class.
HAPPY NEW DECADE! – and why you should take the PAG Online Course Read More »
A Time for Cool Heads and Critical Thinking
–By Ben Gilmore
The music plays nostalgic Christmas carols. The traditional joy of the season is all around us these days. We should enjoy it! The environment (economy, income, misuse of civil authority,…) all present a cause for gloom. This is NOT a time to consider the “half empty glass.” We MUST focus on the half full glass!
If you permit the externals to influence your internals, you are on a downward spiral. GET OFF THAT TRAIN! To quote the closing lines of Rudyard Kipling’s well known poem, “If”.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
There is one God working, The glass is NEVER empty!
—- —- “We interrupt this message for a shameless commercial!” —- —-
For the past four or more generations, the art of critical thinking and sound reason have been systematically bred out of our society. Along with it, revisionist history (lies) has drained patriotic enthusiasm about the most magnificent example of Biblical civil government structure on earth. REMEMBER: “The question is NOT, ‘Was America formed by Christians?’ The question is, ‘Has America a Christian form?’ —- Indeed it has. We must relearn what we have forgotten.
I have just completed teaching my first online course in “Principles of American Government.” We use a virtual (computer) classroom. This course was first taught at San Jose Christian College, then at Shiloh Bible College. What a thrill to have teens and adults discovering the incredible significance of what they did not know they did not know!
Please, for the sake of what the hand of God has accomplished on this continent – LISTEN UP!
95% of those who read this (you know who you are!) will gloss over and say, “That is good for those other people.” This commercial message is addressed to you.
On January 18, 2010 we will begin the next online “Principles of American Government” (PAG) class. It consists of 24 interactive 75 minute classes. Each class is presented twice a day (miss one catch the other) on Monday and Wednesday at 9AM & 6PM Pacific time. Homeschoolers wanting academic credit may register with Harrington College Prep online school. Tuition is $195.
I will be pleased to put you in touch with those just finished with the course. Let them persuade you of your need to attend. There are several places you can go for such training. PAG is taught by a master teacher who was discipled in the principle approach to education by the founders of Foundation for American Christian Education (FACE).
Unless enough individuals take dominion of the principles that guided our founders, our efforts to repair and rebuild will be futile! Please take this invitation seriously. Phone and chat with me about it.
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Contact Ben for more information or to get his phone number.
