INDEPENDENCE DAY

      When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachesetts, they were looking to settle a new Colony and a new way of life, free from the dictates a State-run Church. They wanted to be free in the way they expressed their devotion to God without interference from any civil body or institution, even the British Crown. But even though the New World was being settled and tamed as a place of Religious Liberty, the King of England soon had his influence and his troops on American soil, collecting lumber, gold, cotton and other natural products of this vast new land of plenty.

      By the Summer of 1776, the colonists had had enough of the intolerance of the King of England, his greed and suppression of their various natural freedoms which they saw as common bestowal from Almighty God not by the pleasure of any earthly king. They listed their grievances in letters of protest which went unanswered and unremedied by their Sovereign across the Atlantic.

      Finally, there was no other help for their plight but to establish their own government which would specifically address their needs and allow for free intercourse in all matters which pertained to them, a truly Representative Form of Government was to be established where the aristocrat and the common man were valued equally under the law.

A detailed “Declaration of Independence” was drafted, amended, voted upon, ratified and delivered to King George the Third, declaring the thirteen English Colonies in America were, hereafter, sovereign States and Independent of England, The United States of America.    

The First Amendment protects religion from intrusive government       “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 the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

      What followed was a very intense and bloody war for just that cause. The birth of Freedom in this country was forged in the fire of revolution for a holy cause and baptized in the blood of its patriots. The new Government guaranteed freedom for all its citizens and the right to certain benefits as a free people in the world. Our Constitution gives us a “Bill of Rights” to ensure every American the most basic and fundamental freedoms, including to Freedom of Religion without usurpation from its Government. This concept was basic to the settlement of America, in the first place, in 1620 and specific to its commitment to the establishment of a new and different form of Government, in 1776, allowing for and trusting to the power of God to direct its affairs. On the grassy common, outside of Kenmore (home of Fielding Lewis, brother-in-law to George Washington -- Fredericksburg, Virginia) is a plaque honoring “The Statute of Religious Freedom”, authored by Thomas Jefferson as our nation’s greatest contribution to the recognition of religious freedom.

          The “Liberty” our forefathers so sought to bring to their posterity was that of religious or spiritual freedom, out of which national freedom would soon follow, naturally. For two-hundred years this experiment in democracy has held and remained strong. But, what of the future? What of the rights and freedoms of our future generations, our posterity? What will we leave to them of what we so greatly enjoy in this country in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries? It all depends upon how we define “liberty” and “freedom”, whether they are selfish concepts that sees only the right of the individual, leading necessarily to anarchy, or, if we see them as our foreparents did, beginning in the realm of spiritual freedom, liberty to worship God as the Bible dictates.     They sought the same “Liberty” God promised Israel for following His statutes in Leviticus 25: 10, the verse which is partially embossed upon the “Liberty Bell” in Philadelphia, which reads:

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

Many of them could say, with the Psalmist:

      Psalm 119:45; “And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.”

      Do you walk in spiritual “liberty”; are you seeking His Word to live it out in your daily walk? Have you come to the Son of God to seek forgiveness of sin and find true “liberty” in Him? You can! And, by the way, He is the only One Who can give to you.

      “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36).

      When you and I confess our sin and ask for His wonderful forgiveness, He grants it, as well as eternal and the Spirit of God comes into our very being to abide and direct.

      2 Corinthians 3:17 says; “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

      Those people of old sought to remove political pressure to be at “liberty” to seek and serve God in the manner prescribed in God’s Book, the Bible. And to be “free” to share it with others that they, too, might enjoy the “freedom” which is free to all mankind, “free” from oppression and “free” to worship without intervention or interference by government or citizenry. These were, for the most part, men and women of faith who persevered to establish a place, a homeland where they would be “free” to further the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that others might be made “free” from their sin. They were Christians and established this great land of ours upon Christian principles, their faith was in the God of the Bible and their concept of life was totally derived form the pages of Holy Writ.

The best and most beneficial way to honor our founding parents is to honor their God, follow their faith, defer to their commitment to the Word of God, and to recreate in America today what they had in mind so long ago; “One nation under God” preserved by the Hand of Providence.