Constitution Day Reflections

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To day, September the seventeenth, 2025 is Constitution Day. and we commemorate on this day The signing of the U.S. Constitution by delegates to the Constitutional Convention that was held in Philadelphia. On September the seventeenth, seventeen eighty seven.

Now that's a past event that is a current event. Because our Constitution is the oldest. yet shortest written national constitution in the world. It is the oldest. It continues on.

And today, we see on our calendars Constitution Day. It is the reminder that on this day, 39 of 55 delegates to the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia signed the Constitution and they created a new federal government. for the nation. You may know or may not know this: that there were thirteen original colonies at this. Constitutional Convention There were twelve colonies represented.

Rhode Island did not send anyone there. And of those twelve You can see here when I say 39 of the 55 delegates signed that day the Constitutional Um con at the convention for this con Constitution to come into action. There were disagreements. They were not sure how they felt about it. And then it had to be ratified by these states, and it would take time.

But today, We pause to remember the Constitution and to talk about the value of the Constitution.

Now, As we go into this show, Just a quick reminder, I'm Dwayne Carson and it's my privilege to be your host today. We want to get your calls and your thoughts about the Constitution and the value of the Constitution. to us as a people. To us as Christians. And with my ministry, date the word today, 9:17.

I chose a verse. that I think speaks to us as a people. Psalms 9, 17, it's a strong verse. Tremendous warning. It says, the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

And with that comes a devotion that you can find on the Date to Word app. Simply the date, the word, download that app, and you'll see a verse for today's date. Horrible decisions lead to a horrible destination. And whether it's a person making decisions to live a wicked life, Instead of a righteous life, there's going to be horrible consequences. And the nation that fails to remember God, there are bad things.

And we need to. We need to remember: righteousness exalts a nation. Sin is a reproach to any people. And as Christians in this nation, we have the ability to bring blessings to our nation by how we live and conduct ourselves. And we do need to remember God, the author and the finisher of more than a nation, a constitution.

He's the author and the finisher of our salvation. And he is the one that provides for us, sustains us. We look to him.

So, today, in talking about on Constitution Day, this most valuable document, we want to talk about why it's valuable. And I have, as a guest today, the one, the only Scott Coulter. Scott Coulter, welcome to Truth Talk Live. Here on Constitution Day. What a privilege it is to be with Dwayne Carson of Date the Word, and we are talking about some really remarkable words today on this date.

Really excited to be with you today and looking forward to the conversation ahead. What a great opportunity to hear. Yes, sir. Scott, you head up a ministry called the Danbury Institute. Before we get into talking about the Constitution, tell us about the Danbury Institute because that's going to play into what I believe will be valuable insights from you regarding our Constitution.

Well, absolutely. I'm a Southern Baptist, but back before there were Southern Baptists, Baptists have always been around, and we were some of the earliest. Christians that came over to the United States seeking religious freedom from the State Church of England. And soon after those Baptists got to the States, they wanted to preserve their religious freedom in America. And so in the early 1800s, 1802, a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut got together and they wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson asking that he, as the newly elected President of the United States, that he would protect and preserve their freedom to worship and to live out their religion and to practice their religion according to their conscience, according to scripture, without any state interference.

And Thomas Jefferson wrote back to him, and wrote back to those Baptists and said, yes, of course, there will be a wall of separation between church and state. And what he meant by that is that the state will never interfere with matters of church.

Now, that wall has been misunderstood for years and years since then, and increasingly so over time, to say that Christians Should not be involved in government, but that's not what he meant. He meant that the state will not tell the church what to do or what they can believe. And I know that's the correct interpretation because just a couple of days later, he went and listened to a Baptist preacher preach a Sunday morning sermon from the dais in the House of Representatives building. And so he was all about Baptist preaching, even in the Capitol building at the time, where they were meeting for the earliest days of our government there. And so this is slightly following our Constitution.

We'll get to the earlier work here in just a minute. But those Danbury Baptists were protecting religious liberty early on in the founding years of our country. And we want to pick up that legacy today and be champions for freedom of church, freedom of religion, and the sanctity of life, life and liberty, those types of issues today.

So thank you so much for having me on. Yes, sir. If they wanted more information about the Danbury Institute, how may they go about getting it? Check us out online, Danbury Institute, D-A-N-B-U-R-Y, DanberryInstitute.org. And you can sign up there.

We put out weekly newsletters. We're on social media as well, Twitter, X. Facebook, Instagram, all of those things. Would love to connect with you by email or any of those channels. And you have an incredible partner.

in making this happen. Who is your partner in making the Danbury Institute happen?

Well, there's a team of several of us. There are six or seven of us that keep this going. But the chief partner I have is the one the Lord gave to me, my wonderful wife, Sherea, and she serves as our communications officer. And a lot of the media and front facing things that we see out there, she creates for us and helps us communicate our messages to churches and to those who are in elected office and all around the country.

Well, if you see something on Facebook, you'll see Scott's wife. You won't see Scott, thank the Lord. You'll see his wife, and she'll be the one that's communicating these messages that we need today. as we deal with the attacks on religious freedom. If you've got a question for Scott, for myself on Constitution Day, 866-348-7884.

Give us a call. If you have a thought you want to convey, here's what I believe about our Constitution and why it's so valuable. Again, 866-34-TRUTH. This is a call-in show, and you, the listener, you make this show what it is.

So we want your calls. I want to dialogue with you. And I know that Scott would love very, very difficult calls today, questions about the Constitution. And Scott, there are questions about our Constitution. As we look at...

the value of it Understanding of it. We've already dealt with it, you've brought up the fact about the wall of separation. We're going to need to talk about that.

Now, we're going to be going to a break and we're going to come back with Scott Coulter and we're going to the Danbury Institute, and we're going to talk about the value. of our Constitution as a Christian. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. I'm Dwayne Carson and today it's Constitution Day.

And I hope you're familiar with these words. We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union. Establish justice. Ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That's the preamble. And I've got Scott Coulter here. Scott, talk to us about how just significant the preamble is.

Well, absolutely, Duane. This gives us the guiding principles for what the Constitution is. And as a Christian When I look at this, first of all, as a preacher, I want to just walk through it line by line. My tendency is to just look at it and say, what is this doing for us? The way we would look at a biblical text.

But this is kind of the steering charter for what they're attempting to do in this document. Its purpose is to form a more perfect union. And before this, we were an assembly of states, but this brought our union together as a united group of states, as the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, we are doing these things, coming away from the looser and more informal Articles of Confederation, from being a confederation of states Into a union of states that is more perfect. We're striving after being a perfect and a stronger and a better. Union of states together after these shared principles, after these shared established goals.

And you look at what those are to establish justice. and to ensure domestic tranquility.

So to do what is right and to do what is good and to do what is just. From the earliest moments of the history of our country, we were setting out To do what is just and to do what's good. And really, as a lot of Christians, were the ones writing and establishing this document: to do what was right and just in the eyes of the Lord. And then to ensure and to protect domestic tranquility.

So, this was to bring about peace. And again, from a Christian perspective, we're called to be peacemakers. And this is a document to bring about peace between states and disagreements and to all live together in harmony after these shared goals and purposes, and to provide for a common defense, to defend ourselves, and to stand for what's good, and to be able to be a bastion for democracy and for those things in the world today. You can go on to promote welfare there. And so we can talk about any of these more and more, but this gives a guiding goal and a preamble here of purpose for what the Constitution is to do.

The idea of securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and for our future generations. Um Explain that to me. Absolutely, absolutely. If you think back to what was some of our previous. Documents there.

And we've talked on this show before, I believe, about the Declaration of Independence, this idea of. We believe these are inalienable rights, the right to life and to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness. And so What's important here to note is that this does not bestow upon us these rights. It does not award to us these rights. It secures these rights.

We believe these are inalienable rights coming to us from our Creator, from our Creator God. Giving us the right of life and of liberty here. And so the Constitution is not giving us rights, the government does not give us those rights. But it does secure them, it protects them, it guards them, and safeguards them and puts a fence. around any infringement upon the rights that God has bestowed upon us.

And so I think that's what that means there, to secure the blessings, the outworking, the product of liberty, not just to ourselves, that we were understanding that this would be a living and a lasting document to ourselves, but to our children and to our children's children. And here we are now, nearly 250 years away from this. And our posterity, my young children, will be beneficiaries and are already. of the safeguard and the protection that's in the Constitution for them today.

Well, I I brought that up because We do believe this document is tied back to the Declaration of Independence. And we do believe that our rights do not come from the government. But there's a tug of war going on even this very month. with people saying that our rights did not come from God. And when you look at that preamble, And what you just explained so insightfully.

Uh Our rights did come from God. Um Scott, we're going to pause for just a moment because we have a caller from Winston-Salem here, Jamal. You're on Truth Talk Live. What do you have for us, Jamal? Hi, Dr.

Carson. Pleasure as always. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir. Just.

Just a wanted to comment on the Constitution in a nutshell, I myself was not really that interested in the Constitution when I was younger. I just thought, well, we have laws anyway. What does this thing mean to me? I didn't know that. That's where our laws come from.

And want to be One of the things about the Constitution is As you guys have already stated. Our laws come from the Creator. It does not come from government. That's one of the things that makes us unique. uh about our form of government.

And also We have Christian Judeo principles woven into our Constitution. I say that because for people that want to say that this Constitution doesn't matter to certain people, That is an outdated old form of form of government.

Well, just ask other people in other nations who don't have that same kind of protection of freedom of speech. And um who don't have the same protection as their human rights. Um The one of the main reasons why we have a Free Nation is because it's written in our Constitution and we can fight to defend it. Um but Another A good part about the Constitution is it's is If you don't like the Constitution, Well, do what you can to change it because that's written in the Constitution as well. by our founding fathers that if a change needs to be made, they have room for amendments to be made to update the Constitution.

So Whether people like it or not, I know it's not a perfect document made by imperfect people, but that's one of the main reasons why we have our freedoms in our way of life today. That's so beautifully spoken, Jamal. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And we are not a perfect people.

We don't even have a perfect document. And within it comes... The ability to Make amendments, add to it, change it. And we're going to talk more about that as we go through this show. But Jamal, thank you for your insights that you've shared today.

And you're right. I'm right there with you. When I was growing up, I didn't think much about the Constitution. But as I've gotten older, I've realized, oh my, we need to know not only the Bible, but beside that, definitely below the Bible. our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, because What we have in this country is the ability, we heard it this morning at Wednesday in the Word, a freedom to preach the greatest message of liberty ever, the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's what makes our Constitution so wonderful for Christians because then it helps all the people all over the world. We share the greatest message of all time. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Well, thank you as always, and you all take care and God bless and happy Constitution Day.

Thank you, sir. And if you've got a comment you want to ask a question, 866-348-7884. Another way to remember that is 866-34TRUTH. Um give us a call. And we'll talk more about the the Constitution and the value of it.

But Scott, now we've got the preamble. After the preamble, as I'm understanding my government class, that I had a great high school senior government class, we went through the Constitution. After the preamble, you get articles, not amendments, you get articles. And of those articles, I believe there were. Eight of them.

That laid out how government would be played out. And we get three. branches of government. And when we come back, I want to hear from you. Why those three branches are government are so important.

that we don't just have a king We have three equal branches of government. That comes from, folks, the Constitution. Today's Constitution Day. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

I'm Dwayne Carson and today 9-17, maybe you've seen on a calendar today, it says Constitution Day. The year 1787, the Articles of Confederation are not working. We have won our independence. A real birthday that we go off of is the signing of the Declaration of Independence July the 4th, 1776. We're getting ready to celebrate our 250th birthday.

But after we win the war, and Yorktown took place in 1781, October the 19th, Cornwallis will surrender. And then there'll be a few more battles before we get to a peace treaty in 1783. We have the Articles of Confederation. We have presidents. I don't know if people know that, Scott, but we had presidents, but they were not very effective.

And it just wasn't working. Our first form of government really wasn't working. And they called for a constitutional convention. They came and met in Philadelphia. And in September, September 17th, 1787, they voted for this preamble, these articles.

not the amendments, the articles, which then would be sent to all s of the original colonies, thirteen colonies, Rhode Island is included, but they had to have them Ratified by the states, and Delaware was the first state. to ratify. And then number nine, it was in Article number eight, they had to have I believe it's number eight, that they had to have nine states ratify The Constitution And New Hampshire was number nine. My wonderful state, Virginia, was number ten. The state I live in right now, North Carolina, I believe was number 12 after New York and then lastly Rhode Island.

But the bottom line is that the ninth state, New Hampshire, made the Constitution ratified of which became the law of the land.

Now, with these articles, the first three, Scott, what are those first three articles? They highlight three branches of our government. What are they? first of all, that's just a fascinating walkthrough history, and you've got quite a history in so many of the early colonies.

So congratulations on your early work in America and your representation here of these colonies. This group came together with seven articles here, and they adopted these. One, two, and three are what make our government today. And so that outlines in Article one the legislative branch of government. In Article two, the executive branch of government.

That's the Presidency and the White House and how that group functions today. And then Article three would be the Supreme Court or the judicial branch of government. And we still see today all of those functioning And functioning according to the Constitution. It set up a bicameral Congress and a legislative branch that makes laws and does certain things, and an executive branch that enforces those laws, and a judicial branch that interprets them according to the Constitution.

So, when our brother called in just a few moments ago and talked about Why do we need a Constitution? We have all of these laws.

Well, the laws exist because of the Constitution, but also they come into existence, they're enforced and they're upheld or shot down, taken down, all outlined in how the Constitution works together here in these first three articles. And and you corrected me, it was it's Article 7. There's seven articles. Before we will get to the amendments.

Now, when it comes to these three branches of government, We start off the preamble with we the people, and the first branch is not the executive, it's the legislative, because that represents the People. And our government is about the people. It's taking care of the people. We do have to have the executive branch. We do have to have the judicial branch.

Uh Yeah. Sky that uh I guess I want to quiz you. This idea of three branches of government. Uh do we have a biblical verse for that? Ha ha ha ha.

Well, you are the word master here, but we see so many, so much precedence in the Bible. I think back to back to Exodus. When Moses looked at Aaron who was with him, and Jethro came to Moses and said, You need to appoint. People to oversee various groups and various references from this group or from this group. And so I think our representative government was found in that early reference there to, well, I have to look up the reference.

You might know it off the top of your head. I think it's Exodus 18. Yes. Talking about representing different people as representatives and then as judging over smaller matters and lesser matters and bringing the higher matters up to him.

So we have. representative forms of leadership there and judicial forms of leadership there settling disputes among the people. And then there's a verse in Isaiah. Isaiah 33, 22. And when I worked at a Christian school, I wanted to make sure all of our seniors knew as they were getting ready to go out Isaiah 33, 22 because it says, For the Lord is our judge.

The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our King. He will save us. And it's believed that getting James Madison understood from this verse, this is the way to design a governmental structure. That's fascinating.

I've not heard that before, but boy, that's clearly right there in the text. That's amazing.

So I learned something here.

Well, okay. I'm humbled that I thought maybe you dated the word in action. No, that's fascinating.

Well done.

So listeners, Isaiah 33, 22, you need to have that verse marked down.

Now, listeners, look. Give us a call. We want to know your thoughts today about how valuable the Constitution of the United States is to you daily. How does it impact your life daily? How does it impact you as a Christian?

866-348-7884.

Now, we've got the preamble. We've got the. Article: The articles, and um, a good friend of mine, by the way, Scott, tonight. At the Republican headquarters here in Forsyth County. They're gonna read.

Out loud, The entire Constitution, beginning with the preamble, then the articles, and then they're going to read the amendments. And there are 27 amendments. And they're going to take time. He's got it mapped out. It's going to take an hour and 20 minutes.

You can read the Declaration of Independence a lot quicker, but he's going to have them read every word of what's in the Constitution. And I wonder if we have listeners who have read the entire Constitution to know what's in it.

Now, When we come to the beginning of the amendments, we have what's called the Bill of Rights. And Scott, I would like to hear from the Danbury Institute founder. Of those 10 Bill of Rights, what really stands out to you?

Well, to go back first, I want to get to that, but first of what you just said, absolutely. We need to be reading the Constitution. We need to be reading it with our families and to our children. I teach a constitutional government class at Mid-America Seminary in Tennessee, and one of the required textbooks of my class is to read the United States Constitution in its entirety. I'm old enough to remember, Duane, that we had to read that in school, but I don't think that's still the case today.

We've got people graduating from high school that have never read our founding documents. You mentioned the Declaration of Independence. We read that every Fourth of July as a family together before the fireworks and before the barbecue. We read the Declaration of Independence. And what a great practice to read the Constitution.

It's a little bit longer. Takes a little bit here, but we can't be expected to uphold these values and to lift them high in our country if we don't know what it says. The first of the first article there is the longest. That's the legislative article. And there was so much focus on the legislative representation of the people.

As you mentioned, the executive article, the second one, was the shortest. And today, some of those things might be inverted. We might see a lot more work from the executive offices today, and maybe less from the judicial offices, and less from the legislative offices.

so much we can see about what was on the heart of the founders and what they were incorporating here. In how the actual Constitution was written.

So, yes. A hearty amen to your call to read the document and to know what it says. Absolutely.

Now Talk to us about The First Amendment. How important is this amendment to a Christian?

Well, you mentioned the Bill of Rights. Those, of course, are the first ten amendments that were made to the Constitution. And there was a struggle between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, those who wanted a strong Federal government and those who wanted a weaker federal government. And I'm one today who champions principles of limited government, small government. We encourage human flourishing and freedom when we have less government overreach and more individual liberty.

I'm a champion of the Bill of Rights that protect our individual freedoms. from too much government intrusion. And the primary one of those, the absolute pinnacle one, of course, is the First Amendment. this idea here that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of the right to the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Congress The government for a redress of grievances. And so we see here what we call the Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, all of those things saying that the government, Congress, will make no law that respects any establishment of religion.

That's religion in general. That's not Christian-specific. That's saying that we will not have a state religion or any government control religion that's mandated from the state. That's a response to coming out of England and to coming out of a state church where you were born into the church. There wasn't a moment of salvation.

There wasn't a moment of joining the church by being a citizen of England. You were a member of the church there. And of course, that collides with our biblical principles in many ways. The government will not establish a religion nor will it prohibit any free exercise thereof that religion.

So a protection of individuals and congregations and churches being able to exercise freely their religion without any government overreach there. I think that's the pinnacle of this First Amendment and really of the amendments to the Constitution that made it acceptable to those who were concerned about extreme government overreach.

Now As Christians What's so important as we think about those first words, and that's where it falls, the first words. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Friends, we believe What Jesus said, you must be born again. You must be born again. You can't be born into a Church.

That doesn't work. You have to be born again. And so We preach the gospel that a person is saved by trust in Jesus Christ, not by a church religion. more in just a moment as we talk about the Constitution. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.

Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. I'm Dwayne Carson, and today... We are talking about the Constitution of the United States of America, the rights that it gives us. And it's Constitution Day 9:17. We're also reminded from Psalms 9:17 that the wicked will be turned into hell and the nations that forget God.

And we do not want to forget God because He Kind of the architecture to Tector of the, I didn't think I said that word right, Scott. He's kind of he guided our founding fathers in establishing this government. Isaiah 33:22, we believe, was a guiding verse for James Madison: three branches of government. And then, right off the bat, Because Uh England forced people To Go to church and to give of their money to the state church. We get this first amendment that calls for Congress not making any law.

Respecting the establishment of religion.

Now, Scott, as we are in our last section now of this show and still callers, you can call in at any time, 866-348-7884. If you've got a question, Scott Coulter with the Danbury Institute, he teaches about the Constitution at Mid-America Seminary. Give us a call. We want to hear from you. But Scott, talk to us some more about how important the First Amendment is to the believer.

Well, so much is in here that's remarkable in our First Amendment. This idea of not respecting an establishment of religion, that's freedom of religion, that's A wide open field that the government will not choose. And it's hard for Americans today to understand the system we came out of. But in England, the government and the church were really the same thing. And so when you paid taxes, you were paying for the church and you were paying for the government.

And the church. Would decide what you could and could not do. And the Church of England was formed out of a split from the Catholic Church based in political machinations and maneuverings of the king at the time.

So the king became the head of the church. There was no separation of church and state.

So, this idea of separation of church and state in America is a uniquely American idea that was in response to that. But here, the government will not prohibit the free exercise. They will not make a law respecting the establishment. And that's significant because it doesn't just say you can go to church and worship and believe what you want to, but it says they won't do anything to prohibit the exercise of your religion. And so that's more than just worshiping.

That's more than just going to church, doing whatever it might be that you do inside church. It is living out your faith. It's living out your faith in the public square, in the public realm, and participating, living your life according to your biblical convictions or your religious convictions, whatever those might be. being able to live. freely a according to your faith.

That's the fountain here that then goes on and gives us the freedom of speech, which of course is a pillar of American society today. This idea that we have free speech in this country, that our speech is not policed. It's not limited by the government. It's not controlled by the government. And we can see examples all around the world today of places where free speech does not exist, where you can't criticize your government.

You can't speak out against your government. You can't be critical of those who are in power or those who are around you. There are certain things you're not allowed to say. We have free speech in this country. We have the ability to say what we believe, to speak our mind, and to speak according to our convictions.

For people of faith, that's really important to be able to share our faith, to live out our faith with those who are around us specifically as Christians. I was at a Bible study this very morning that that The speaker said we have the freedom to proclaim the gospel.

Now He then used a you know one of those I'm gonna step on your toes With all this freedom, why aren't we sharing the gospel? Why haven't we gone across the street to our neighbor? And why aren't we taking it to every person?

Now, it was a tremendous challenge, but he made that statement. We have the freedom to share the good news. And I've been in communist countries, I smuggled Bibles into China. I knew we were being watched when we went to certain places and um We had to be so careful, and there's so many Christians around the world right now that are being persecuted because they don't have the faith. freedom of speech.

It's not the freedom of religion, it's the freedom of speech. That's what makes this First Amendment so important. Um I know you can talk more about this First Amendment, but... I'd like to ask this question to you. Of the 27 amendments, Uh Is there One that kind of stands out that's more challenging to us as believers.

It's sometimes confusing. Which amendment would stand out to you as, boy, that's that's just a tough one. That's a great question. You'll have to guide me here on where you want to head with that. We can talk about the prohibition of liquor or the repeal of prohibition.

We can talk about the Second Amendment. I'm a Texan, so the Second Amendment is always a big deal down here. We've got lots of options here. Which way are you thinking to go?

Well, I'm just curious from you.

Okay, I I know we believe these things. We have them on the Constitution, but quite frankly, um. These kinds of amendments sometimes get confusing. And maybe I'm taking us back to the first one. Maybe there needs to be some clarification on what's called the the Johnson amendment.

Yes, okay, sure. I understand what you're saying there. Yeah, the Johnson Amendment is one that. That talks about What churches can say or can't say, and the freedom of speech kind of relating to nonprofits specifically and to churches and. has been used in the past to to kind of scare pastors and to say that There are certain things that you're not allowed to say from the pulpit and can't involve in political speech or things like that.

Very recently, the IRS has come out in a lawsuit in front of a couple of Texas churches And I think it was NRB, National Religious Broadcasters, that joined in on that suit, saying that this is a free speech issue and this is a religious issue to be able to preach. From your pulpits, what you believe in the full counsel of God, and to provide guidance to your congregation members, like you would a family, of how to vote and even who to vote for in moments like that. The IRS has given some clarification recently that's tremendously helpful. That says if you're a church and you're normal communication channels, then we will consider that like a family conversation guiding your children or your family on how to vote. and how to participate and not a violation of Your nonprofit status, in a sense, there.

So that's been tremendously useful in churches today across the country. Scott, as you think about Through the years the various amendments that did come After the Bill of Rights, Um Uh What other amendments came along that you would say, just as a person who studies the Constitution, I'm really glad America has that in its constitution.

Well, you know, America is not perfect. And what's fascinating about the Constitution is we set these goals and we said, we, the people, we want to be a group that protects the rights of individuals and protected freedoms and protected all of those things. And we didn't always get that right. And so we have been striving as a nation towards these goals of. of liberty and justice for all.

And so I'm very proud of the path that our country has taken, including things like the abolishment of slavery in the 13th Amendment and the equal protection and citizenship rights in the Fourteenth Amendment, and then the right to vote expanded to women in the 19th Amendment. Those are all affirming human rights, human dignity, and the value of humans created in the image of God, regardless of race, regardless of color, ethnicity, national region, language, any of that. That's what it means to be an American. And so this idea that we set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is lived out and fulfilled over time. We knew where we needed to go, and it's taken us a process and some time to get there.

And we see that through these amendments that we've adopted and ratified into the Constitution across the years.

Now As we get older, Uh there was a amendment that allowed for people to vote as young as eighteen. Um Do you find sometimes you wonder if we oughta change that one? Yeah. You know, we consider in this country that 18 is kind of when you become a practicing person of society. And so I think we have a lot more work to do to educate our young people.

to prepare them and to train them and to let them understand what they're doing. The church has to step up and our educational institutions have to step up.

So I think instead of changing the amendment there, we need to change our approach to things and help our young men and women grow up and be ready to participate in society by that age and be training them and shepherding them along to be an active voting member of society by the time they are 18.

So maybe some of the work that Charlie Kirk was doing has got to continue. To make sure that a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old, an 18-year-old, as they become eligible to register to vote. and then vote that they are not just Voting, they are educated to vote and understanding how powerful their vote is. Yeah, that's that's been a One of the Amendments I've debated back and forth. I know there's people who would love to see us move it to 16.

I know others would like to see it moved up to 25. But for the church, it's making sure that our young people are being taught. how important our system of government is. There's nothing like it in the world. Absolutely.

Our show is coming to the end. Listen, DanBurryInstitute.org, Scott Coulter, they're doing a phenomenal work. Check it out today. Take time, read the Constitution, know what rights you have. This has been Truth Talk.