Over 2,000 patriots gathered in Naples, Florida on April 15th to send a clear message to Washington, D.C.: The Revolution has begun and government must be held accountable. Speakers told the gathering that it was time to push the “reset” button on the federal government because it was spending out of control.

Responding to assertions by the White House that those protesting out of control government were akin to “rightwing extremists” who were enemies to the government, keynote speaker for the Naples TEA Party, Christian author, columnist and activist Bill Wilson told the cheering crowd, “Politicians, the Federal Reserve, and Wall Street have done more in the past 180 days to destroy our lives than the combined enemies of America have done in the past 223 years.”

“The forces of tyranny within an overreaching government now inappropriately demand a sacrifice beyond the generous capabilities and steadfast loyalties of its citizens, in so much as compelling Americans by law and policy to lay aside their faith traditions and partner with the government in sinful acts against the holy statures of the Almighty,” Wilson said. “Our actions today shall determine whether we answer this present call of vigilance by remaining prisoners to ever encroaching bondage, or if we shall stand in the face of this Goliath and bring it down with stones of freedom.”

Wilson said that the Boston Tea Party Patriots risked their lives, liberty and property to take on the most powerful government in the world over a tax of a shilling per pound on tea—less than two cents per cup. “Today, a Leviathan government hovers over us, even more powerful than our forefathers faced. This creature’s appetite has plundered industry and has laid waste to the promise of the future by accumulating a debt of over $30,000 for every man, woman and child in America,” Wilson said. “We meet here today because we no longer believe our government is accountable to the people for it has run up liabilities far beyond our ability to comprehend.”

Wilson said that the reason America has fallen so fast is directly related to electing immoral politicians who put party before principle. He reminded the crowd that George Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address, said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Washington also warned that political parties’ love of power and proneness to abuse it was “the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

“Some 213 years after Washington’s speech, we find two decades of American Presidents and politicians who have used party differences to divide America into a polarized nation,” Wilson said. “they have exploited this polarization and have shared in unrepentant religious apostasy to bring America to the precipice of losing its sovereignty to the one world order.”

Wilson called for a “Spiritual Revolution.” “It is today, with combined hearts beating as patriots, that we must foment a new revolution to save the America of our Fathers and of our children. That we are not beholden to government, but government is beholden to us, must be rekindled,” Wilson said. “We must understand, as our forefathers before us, that our destiny is our common bond and that our Liberty is inextricably dependent upon the actions of one another.”

Wilson encouraged participants to meet locally, find points of agreement, organize and take action to create a grassroots movement. “In obedience to God, in repentance, in great humility and diligence, as did our Founding Fathers, we must change the heart of the nation by changing the hearts of our countrymen.”