We are on a series of messages and this is the second message on John Adams The second president of the United States of America Before we go there, I'd like to go to the Bible and read a short passage that Paul wrote to Romans The Roman people were a very judicial type people. The Roman government was a very powerful government all over the world at this time, at least the western world and the mid-eastern world. And Paul tells these people this message. He gives this message to these people. Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil behavior. Do you want to have no fear of authority at all? Do we want to live in anarchy? No. We're doing that for the last year in America. But for evil, do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise for the same. For it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword, for nothing or in vain. Capital punishment is what it's talking about. For it is the minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon those who practice evil. Wherefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. For because of this you pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render all that is due to them, and tax to whom tax is due, and custom to whom custom is due, and fear to whom fear is due, and honor to whom honor is due. Now, we're studying the presence of the United States and what effect they had on the world around them. America is a very infant nation, basically. An infant nation. We've had one president now, Washington, George Washington, which was a, he was a conservative, so to speak. He believed in a government that was strong enough to meet any obstacles we had in foreign powers. but not so strong that it became an oligarchy. An oligarchy is a Greek word which means rule by a few. The House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court were never meant to be an oligarchy. John Adams was a man that was a very religious man. He was a Puritan. He was born October 30th, 1735. His idea of government was a larger type government than this would be. He would be a Democrat today, but not a Democrat like today. I want you to understand that. The Democrats today are nothing like what our founding fathers would have even envisioned a party would be. George Washington tried his best to stop America from being a party system. He said it would only divide America. And boy, did that prophecy come true in our time. John Adams was the Vice President of the United States for two times, for two terms with George Washington. John Adams was George Washington's pick to be the next President of the United States. Now, John Adams was an extremely honest man, very honest, very pure in mind and heart, but he had problems with criticism. He had immense integrity. I'll tell you how honest he was. He was the defense attorney for the British soldiers accused of perpetrating the Boston Massacre. He said that every man was entitled to legal representative as anyone else, no matter who it was. John Adams, he had quite a few famous statements that I could name all of these off, but my messages on these presidents is not an inept study of their lives. I want you to understand that. You can read a whole book or several books on John Adams' life. And his wife, the letters that Abigail and John Adams, Abigail and John Adams were greatly in love with one another. He represented the British soldiers and, by the way, they were not convicted of murder, the massacre. John Adams said that it is more important that a man is considered innocent until proven guilty than anything else altogether. He said that many Guilty people will go free, but it's better that many guilty people go free than one innocent man be prosecuted. It's very important that the innocent are not prosecuted. Adams was a early member of the Continental Congress. He devoted his whole life to politics. Now, as John Adams was growing up, his father was a farmer. John Adams' family never owned slaves at all, period. They never owned slaves. He adored the practice of slavery, but he recognize the right of the colonies and other areas to practice what they practiced. Now, according to politics today, nearly every founding father of our nation will be taken off as a hero. In some way, every founding father of our nation is a hero. And John Adams is no exception. He was sent to France along with Benjamin Franklin to try to cultivate an alliance with the French against the British. Adams also was instrumental in acquiring a loan to help the United States carry on and to support itself financially. He was a lifetime servant of America. I want you to understand. He was what we might call a Democrat today, a mild Democrat today. As he was growing up, he was honest. His father wanted him to become a minister of the Puritan church. He didn't want to be a minister. He said he knew many corrupt ministers and lazy people. A lot of them were lazy. He wanted to be important in his life. He wanted to leave a legacy. His life, he said, wanted to plant seed of freedom in this country. He wanted to be known as a great man. He spent his life serving others. He became a school teacher. And then, after teaching school for a while, he started studying law. He said there were many eminent law men, lawyers at that time, and he thought that he'd like to rub elbows with these people that delved into the study of law. He was a student of Greek and Latin, what we might call the educated Romance languages. He could read all the classics in the language that they were written in. He was not a war hero even though he was in the legislature backing all of the rules, backing everything. He was the anti-staff act at that time. And one of the greatest things in his career is that he voided a war with France. And France was looking for a war with America. And being an infant nation, America could not afford a war, and many of the other founding fathers did not have his foresight. They wanted to go to war with France. The French had aided the Americans in their quest for independence, but yet they were attacking America in the Navy, our naval vessels. The French diplomats asked the American government for a massive loan. In effect, a bribe so that they wouldn't be attacked, a bribery for peace. Also during this period of time, the Muslims over there were attacking American ships, and America was having to pay tribute to release the captives of the Muslims. So this whole story about protection money is old. It didn't start with the Godfather. It started with the Muslim. It started with the French. Adams always put America first in all of his ideals. He was the author of the Sedition and Alien Act. The Sedition and Alien Act. And he imprisoned people, and this was an act in 1798, and he imprisoned people that spoke out against him. He wanted to cancel their idea of freedom of speech, if it was aimed at him. Does that sound familiar today? What happened to President Trump on Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? Every time somebody spoke out in confrontation with the election, by the way, the first election that was contested was his election. The Alien Sedation Act of 1798, the Federalists controlled Congress. The Federalists were what would be called Big Government, or the Democratic Party. They restricted immigration. And they allowed for the deportation of non-citizens who were considered a threat to the well-being of the United States, which is a real good idea. Don't you think so? But, strong adversity of conjunction, but. It also criminalized writing, printing, uttering, publishing, any false or scandalous malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States or the President of the United States. Against either the House of Congress or the Senate of the United States or the President of the United States with intent to defame the said government or either House of said Congress or the said president, or to bring them or either of them into contempt and disrepute, or to excite against them, either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States. That's all I got to say. For five years, the press railed against President Trump before he was elected and after he was elected. Now he didn't set this in order, did he? He figured truth would win out over lies. Now this idea to serve up sedition against the President or the Congress of the United States, the law set as penalty a fine up to $2,000 and two years in prison. While the controversy raged over the act, the Adams administration set about enthusiastically to enforce the Alien and Sedition Act. of 1798. Matthew Lyon of Vermont got four months in a heated, unheated Vermont prison cell and a thousand dollars fine for saying that the Adams administration was demonstrating an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish adverse. Now by the way, they had brought all kinds of charges against him. By the way, John Adams was the first president to ever reside in Washington, D.C., in the White House. He came in there when it was not much more than a swamp, a malarious den. Benjamin Franklin Bach, editor of the opposing newspaper, the Aurora, was arrested for criticizing the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, quarrelous Adams, but died before his case went to trial. Virginia resident James Callender wrote in his book, The Prospect Before Us, that Adams was a repulsive, pendent, a gross hypocrite, an unprincipled oppressor, and in private life one of the most egregarious fools on the continent. the claims in some ways were true. Callender was declared that Adams' administration was one continual tempest of malignant passions and that the grand object of his administration had been to exasperate the rage of contending parties to culminate and destroy every man who differs from his opinion among the American He was sentenced to nine months in prison and given a $200 fine. Another man, Anthony Haswell, who reprinted sections of Aurora charging that Adams' administration considered Tories, men who fought against our independence, who shared in the destruction of our homes and the abuse of our wives and daughters, to be worthy of a confidence of the government. In November of 1798, a Massachusetts resident named David Brown led a group in setting up a Liberty Poll reading, No Stamp Act, no Sedition Act, no alien bills, no land tax, downfall to the tyrants of America, peace and retirement to the President and long live the Vice President. Who was Thomas Jefferson? Brown was fined $450 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. John Adams did voluntarily relinquish his office to his successor from his opposing party. Now, I want you to understand this also. That at this period of time, two people ran for President of the United States. And I think, in many ways, it ought to be this way today. Two people ran for president of the United States, or three people. The first one that got the most votes, and that was the electoral college now, by the way. It wasn't the vote of the people. Remember that George Washington was unanimously elected, unanimously elected. No opposers. They all wanted him. He could have been elected again and again and again, but he chose to go for only two terms because his service was voluntary. He wanted to go back home and go back to work and go back to his life. His life was not a life of politics. John Adams' life was a life of politics. He was a lawyer. He was an honest man. but he didn't take well to criticism. Like I said before, his family had never owned slaves, but he did not oppose the slave-owning states at that time. He was college-educated. He had a law practice. He was married to Abigail. He was an opponent of the Stamp Act. Remember that he was a counsel or the lawyer for the British Boston Massacre. He had become a revolutionary. He believed that America needed to be free from any foreign powers. He was a member of the Continental Congress. He helped write the Constitution of the United States. He worked with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and many others in doing so. He had been a commissioner to France, ambassador to the Dutch Republic. He was instrumental in the Treaty of Paris. He was also an ambassador to Great Britain. His failed peace commissioned the XYZ affair, as it's called. And then it became the Quasi War, the Fries Rebellion. He was the first president, I said, that moved to the White House. And like I said, it wasn't really a palace at all. They were living in a much better home at home instead of there. It was a mosquito infested swamp. Some people called it a malaria prison when they were there. A malaria prison. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became enemies while they worked together. They had worked together and they were friends and allies and then because of the sedation, Alien Sedation Act, They were really separated for many years. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, on the same day, July the 4th, 1826, 50 years after the 1776 to 1826, 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. In many ways, he served this country selflessly. Becoming President of the United States, it is said the only school for the presidency was the presidency. The only school for the presidency is the presidency. So everything that happened, as he learned, as he suffered in his life as President of the United States, He suffered. He suffered humiliation, and he did not like to be humiliated. John Adams was almost like royalty. Many of his opposers would say of him, he wants to marry his son off or his daughter off to some allying prince of Europe, or princess of Europe. and bring the United States into a kind of a hierarchy again. He was fond of pomp and circumstance. He liked to dress finely and with his wigs and etc. He did that. You have to realize his family had come from England. George Washington dressed such also. They had fine clothes. They looked like British royalty. Remember that they tried to make, America tried to make George Washington king, and he said, no way. He said, I just fought a war over this business. John Adams was not a man of hard labor, and he was kind of round, heavy set. And they teased him about that also. Now, it is said, before any debate in the House, when Vice President John Adams was Vice President of the United States, that he insisted on addressing the chamber, a lecture on the constitutional responsibilities of the Senate. During debate, he was arbitrary and prejudiced in his defense on whatever issue it was, and he talked to his people, to the lawmakers in attendance, as if they were school children, like he was still a schoolmaster in the school. I'm gonna tell you something, that don't go over with people very well, but that was the kind of person he was. He believed in justice, he believed in what's right and wrong, and he looked at his opinion as the right opinion. And he didn't want anybody objecting to it. Such a man like that was bound to bear criticism, wasn't it? Now there was a controversy over whether states could reject laws passed by the federal government, and it wasn't resolved until the Civil War in some ways. The Civil War was a war over states' rights, not over slavery. It became a war over slavery. Now the Sedation Act was a law of the land of America until March the 3rd, 1801. That they specified in the bill for its expiration. And guess what? That would be after the end of John Adams tenure as President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson became president the next day and pardoned those who were still in prison on sedation act charge, and their fines were repaid. John Adams' record as president of the United States in many ways was very good for America. It would be very honorable if presidents of the United States were being as honest as he was. It would be very wonderful if the press would be as honest as he was. But, on the contrary, it was the stain that he left on the President of the United States with the Alien Sedation Act is the black mark on his tenure as President of the United States. He helped America to maintain and to do what America needed to do. He tried to keep us out of wars. And a lot of the congressional, those people in the Continental Congress were against him. They called him a coward and a weakling. But he was thinking ahead. He hated to be thought of, all men hated to be thought of as cowards at that period of time in history, weren't they? You remember what many of the, some of the presidents, Many of the lawmakers engaged in what? Dueling. Dueling. Engaged in dueling. Now that is a real, real dangerous sport, I'm going to tell you. Riding Brahma bulls or bucking bulls, the Professional Bull Riders Association, that is an extremely dangerous hobby and occupation. But I'm gonna tell you something, when you, because of your honor, you go into a duel with a man and you take pistols or knives or swords, that's real dangerous occupation. That's a real dangerous, besides, it's real dangerous. But they did. Now, John Adams didn't fight any duels, but he fought duels with words. And his honor, his bravery as a man really mattered to him, as it did all American men. What he did and what he went overboard with the Alien Sedation Act was wrong. But have we seen many wrongs in America today? Should a man be considered innocent until proven guilty? Yes. Should people actually be prosecuted for crimes? Yes. Many times in America today, look at the anarchy. He didn't believe in anarchy. He did not believe in anarchy, but the Democrats today believe in anarchy when it's on their side. Portland, Oregon is on fire again. Cities all over the nation are on fire with anarchy. John Adams would not support any of that at all. We had a revolution one time to get away from the tyranny of England. And now we have the tyranny of lawmakers, don't we? Every one of the former presidents of the United States made some kind of contribution to the world. So shall we today, we hope. Our Father, we send this message out. I pray that it honors and glorifies you. And we thank you for this man, John Adams, that was our former president of the United States of America. that did his best to establish this government, to establish the preamble and the Declaration of Independence, that all men would be free. A man that never owned a slave, a man that believed in you and your son. And Father, we thank you for all the blessings you give us. And Father, please forgive me where I failed you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Yeah.