What traditions were then President John F. Kennedy thinking of when he penned these words for this speech.

Kennedy was, yes a flawed man, much like the rest of us in the human race. Not a lot different in his sinful ways than Donald Trump or even you and me. He was fraught with temptation, but he knew or maybe only hoped that there was forgiveness and that there was justice. He knew that there was coming a day of judgment before his God. But in the interim we must maintain a just and free society. One which must protect the innocent. These things had been basic to the American traditions and its way of life.

The knowledge of the day of judgment has been at the heart of our founding and of our laws. There was free will that God extended to us to live a life that would hopefully produce good fruit. One that would hopefully learn from its mistakes. Allowing others to live as they determined to be right before God according to their beliefs was a tradition of our founding.

Yes there was sin in this world, but sin that brought pain to our fellow man was not to be tolerated. The sin that man committed against himself and against his god or God, was left between him and his God. Those were traditions worth fighting for, and the God given freedom to live and let live was the motivation for conducting wars against those who would attempt to impose their will on free mankind, even to include a civil war.

It was the purpose of the United States to protect the rights of others even their right to sin, so long as that sin did not do physical harm to those others, to whom it was the sworn duty of the nation’s leaders to protect.

That duty to protect brought us to civil war to eradicate an internal evil that was harmful to men: to those who were being sold and purchased as slaves. Even though slavery was a long tradition of mankind it went against what this country stood for (freedom for all men, who did no harm); and Government took up its duty to protect all citizens from any evil doer, who might harm them. Making sure that they were given those same freedoms for all. In this case the enemy from within was defeated, but they were not cured from their own sin. That was not the Governments purpose. The government left that job to God and His preachers.

But even though this government of the people did at times deal slowly, with its own inept government laws, those, which did harm to their fellow humans: to those who looked different; still it worked toward justice for all. As a Government, it has restrained itself from dealing unjustly. There then was the understanding that even the government’s own flaws must be examined, and dealt with.

There was also the recognition that government is made of men and that sinful ways had entered into the laws of our land, and that they needed to be eradicated. Unfortunately these sinful ways have once again morphed further into our freedoms. Today these government traditional ways have all but been overthrown. Our traditions and the purpose of our being are under attack: keeping us an interactive free people, with freedom to debate the issues at hand is being undermined.

If we do not once again work to maintain our traditions of freedom of speech and equal Justice for all; then there will be no reason for God to assist us in the maintenance of this constitutional Republic.

The question is: can we as sinners do what is right for all the people? If we are led by men who have experienced God’s Grace perhaps; if we are not then we are no better than any other society where sin reigns supreme. This country once was used as a sender of the gospel; now we are in great need of Christ Jesus.