Here’s The Important Background
On Wednesday July 8, 2020 Washington County Supervisors reaffirmed their Oath of Office to uphold, maintain, and defend both Constitutions- the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Wisconsin.
Why was this important? Some gave it the name of a “Sanctuary Proceeding,” and though that could be appropriate, because oaths of office are designed to provide a Hedge of protection around its citizens, the real issue is that the County Supervisors unanimously swore by oath against encroachments upon the Constitutions invoked.
Taking the Oath of Office historically in this country, our forefathers were instructed by the pulpits of their day to understand oaths are designed to rein in illicit actions of potential harm by office holders. Put bluntly, when a magistrate (an office holder) violates his oath of office, he becomes, at that moment, a criminal and can be chargeable to that end.
Historically and beginning with the famous sermon of the Reverend Thomas Hooker (1636) who preached from Deuteronomy 1:13 ff (on constitutional protections from Scriptural support and understanding), our people derived their understanding of the oath of office and constitutional precepts from the Word of God. That sermon produced the Connecticut charter of liberty called The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
That charter was understood and cited by our own constitutional forefathers. It had also been a model adopted in whole or in part by other colonies over the previous 150 years.
Here’s the Way it Works
All of this helped to create the understanding concerning oath-taking in our nation, right up to, and including, Washington County’s Historic Position. It is not that these individuals can slip in and out of the convenience of keeping the oath or acting beyond its authority. There is no such option. The oath represents the Hedge of Protection, upon which we must rely, binding all in Civil Office to protect their citizens. Remember, these individuals are not our gods, kings or unbridled leaders. They are not called to make even good decisions if those “good decisions” would somehow put them in violation of our Constitution(s). They have no power to become our enthroned leaders. Historically, every tyrant or every tyrant “wanna be” has claimed a crisis as a basis for assuming greater authority and with that authority comes sanctions against otherwise praiseworthy and upright people under their control.
Back in 1978, when I first preached on Interposition of the Lesser Magistrate to an audience in Pennsylvania, I was amazed at the lack of historic understanding by many in the churches at that time. The situation is no better today.
Our forefathers understood the great truth embodied in Job 1:10. Satan needed to pull down the Hedge of protection God had placed around Job. He couldn’t get at Job because of that Hedge of protection. Figuratively speaking, he used the word “Hedge” which in the Hebrew refers to a thorny fence protecting what was inside the fenced work. The reality is, God places His Hedge of protection around a people immersed in biblical ethic and understanding. The churches in America, up until about the mid-20th century, gave the people “the salt-like preservative effect” of sound Christian morality throughout the United States. That has eroded over the last 70 years especially. The Hedge of protection around Job invoked the use of the powerful blessings of God.
Throughout the Word of God that Hedge includes our Bill of Rights, 2nd Amendment, the Constitutional Framework of our government, free elections, sanctions against criminals (in or out of office), courts of justice, protections for all including the preborn, and most especially the preservative and powerfully persuasive effects of the churches. Those Hedges have been so severely eroded that, like Job, the innocent and praiseworthy citizen is in jeopardy of life, liberty, reputation and property.
At the center of this Hedge is the Oath Bound Magistrate who has sworn in conscious to protect us by upholding both constitutions. If an upper magistrate fails in his/her duty, then the lesser magistrate is to stand constitutionally against that superior because the superior is acting like a criminal in violation of oath. If the lesser magistrate violates the oath, the people look to an even lesser magistrate than he. No one may appeal to an argument that says “I obeyed the superior magistrate over me.” Why? Because no one who is oath-bound may perform a criminal act even if required of them by a Superior Magistrate presiding over them.
One Objection
Many Christians believe oath-taking is immoral per Christ’s directives in the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew. However, our Lord Jesus made it very clear in that same Sermon on the Mount, that He was not abridging the Law of God – not in one jot or tittle, and made it equally clear that before any such could be changed, heaven and earth must first pass away. So, what was Christ “changing?”
What Christ was correcting was the misunderstanding of the teaching of the clergy of his day. They taught Oath-taking could change the VALUE of any given truth. In other words, to swear by Jerusalem, or to swear by the hairs on your head, or to swear by heaven or earth was to change the value of the truth. Oath-taking does not change the value of a truth. A fact is either true of false. What an oath is designed to do is to increase the sanction against the one that breaks the oath. So, Oath-taking in a court of law, does not allow a witness, lawyer or judge to be “flexible” with the nature of a fact. All are bound to uphold truth and their oaths sanction them if they violate that charge.
Throughout Wisconsin and beyond, the people must stand with their civil magistrates against violations of their Constitutions and of the Constitution of the United States. All officials and non elected officials are to be oath-bound. That must be non-negotiable, else unaccountable officials will swarm the landscape, sanctioning people and and egregious as this may sound, running to excess, even hauling people off to detention camps like the one in Lacrosse Wisconsin. In other words this imposes ruin of a people in the name of “saving them” from something else. Remember, destroying the economy, for example, can bring famine and as it is right now in Northeast Africa, creating apocalyptic conditions where people are now beginning to starve, because their government forced them into “lock-down.” For those in American that think they can sit at home and receive checks and yet avoid famine, understand the lesson of Germany 1921-1922 and NE Africa 2020: Pumping money into an economy by mere state creation of funds, leads to double, then triple digit inflation and then rapidly accelerates into hundreds and thousands of percent rise in prices. That is beginning to occur now in NE Africa and is exactly what occurred in 1921- 1922 Germany where people were pushing wheelbarrows full of German Marks to buy a single loaf of bread. Such was the direct result of the corrupt German government who violated their oaths of office and put “papered” Germany into famine… with ruined currency.
We need the example throughout our State of those that will stand with County and City officials to uphold, maintain and defend their Oath of Office as the Hedge that protects us all.
Here’s the Audio Teaching with Wisconsinites United For Freedom this morning!
