Recently as I was reading Leviticus 25, I came upon a note that I had made in the margin regarding verse 10—"a portion of that verse is inscribed on the Liberty Bell”—“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” It is part of the portion of scripture that details the law of the land—the year of Jubilee (vv. 1-24) given to the Israelites to return property and free slaves every 50 years. As I did further research, God impressed upon the relevance of the message to us today in America.
It was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris who chose this inscription for the State House Bell in 1751 possibly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s 1701 Charter of Privileges which granted religious liberties and political self-government to the people of Pennsylvania. The colonists were proud of the freedom that Penn gave them. The Anti-Slavery Record, an abolitionist publication, first referred to the bell as the Liberty Bell in 1835, but that name was not widely adopted until years later. Beginning in the late 1800’s the Liberty Bell traveled across the country for display at expositions and fairs, stopping in towns small and large along the way. For a nation recovering from wounds of the Civil War, the bell served to remind Americans of a time when they fought together for independence. Movements from Women’s Suffrage to Civil Rights embraced the Liberty Bell for both protest and celebration. No one recorded when or why the Liberty Bell first cracked, but the most likely explanation is that a narrow split developed in the early 1840’s after nearly 90 years of hard use. In 1846, when the city decided to repair the bell prior to George Washington’s birthday holiday (February 23), metal workers widened the thin crack to prevent its farther spread and restore the tone of the bell but the repair was not successful. A second crack formed and silenced the bell forever. No one living today has heard the bell ring freely with its clapper. It is interesting to note that men made the crack bigger by their solution. In 1915 the bell made its last trip and came home to Philadelphia, where it now silently reminds us of the power of liberty. For more than 250 years people from around the world have felt the bell’s message. Now a world-wide symbol, the bell’s message of liberty remains just as relevant and powerful today: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the inhabitants thereof.”
The question is: “What is the context in the Bible for the inscription on the Liberty Bell?” Let’s look for the meaning in God’s Word as a command to the Jewish people. Jubilee in Hebrew is yovel—a year observed once in 50 years, following seven cycles of seven-years, shmita, or sabbatical years. Like the shmita year, the jubilee is one in which no agricultural work is to be done and the land is to lie fallow. The trumpet or shofar is sounded on Rosh Hashanah—Feast of Trumpets, proclaiming the freeing of slaves and the return of land to its original owners in the Jubilee Year. Essentially, land could not be sold or leased in perpetuity. This had the practical effect of ensuring that land did not concentrate in a small number of hands, and spiritually served as a reminder that nothing on earth truly belongs to human beings. (This is definitely being violated by the global elite today.) God says in verse 23: “the land is not to be sold permanently, because the land is Mine. For you are sojourners with Me.” Economically, both shmita and jubilee entail a certain kind of social reset, preventing the over-concentration of land and wealth in a few hands. In ancient times, observing the jubilee year was an act of faith. Since the land could not be cultivated for the seventh shmita year that preceded the jubilee year, not during the jubilee year itself, the produce grown in the 48th year had to suffice for an entire population for three years—the 48th it self, the 49th (shmita), 50th (jubilee). God makes a promise in the Bible that the produce grown in the year prior to shmita and jubilee will suffice for all these years! God is our Source and Provision!
The story of the Liberty Bell is a national story, a world story. It’s a story about freedom. It’s a story that will always be relevant to all generations. We might say, it’s calling to us across the ages. God drew me back to 50 years ago to see some Divine reversals that have occurred recently. It was in 1973 that abortion was made legal in America by the Supreme Court. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson banning abortion after fifteen weeks and overturned the ruling that had made abortion on demand the law of the land: Roe v. Wade. Just today I learned of the recent reversal of other bad laws concerning religious freedom and our liberties. The Supreme Court in Groff v. Dejoy (involved UPS forcing Christian employees to work on Sunday) affirmed religious accommodations in the workplace according to their 1st and 14th amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled against the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act of 1957 in 303 Creative vs. Elemis on June, 2023 in a majority opinion that reversed mandatory state controlled message (speech) assuring legal protection of beliefs and rights of God-given right to free will. Joe Kennedy on September 1st was allowed to pray with his football team after the game in a public facility as the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in Kennedy v. Bremerton which overturned a 1971 case Lemon v. Kurtzman wrongly executed that bound students and teachers to secular purposes, promoted and inhibited speech and allowed for entanglement of government. The ruling states that both students and teachers under the 1st Amendment have Religious Liberties and that students and teachers do not shed their rights at the doors of the school. The secret plan of the enemy in high earthly places is busy counteracting God’s Divine plan for His people by robbing us of land and dispossess us from our inheritance but it will not prosper—God’s hand is raised against their evil schemes and He will prevail!
The sound of the Liberty Bell has been silenced but we as God’s people must stand fast and embrace its inscription: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” We must embrace the words of Galatians 5: 1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has make us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Over and over again, Paul uses this phrase to call believers to persevere against the winds of persecution; stand fast in your faith (I Corinthians 16: 13); in one Spirit (Philippians 1: 27), in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:8), and in the traditions we have been given (2 Thessalonians 2: 15.) We must be alert and aware of encroaching enemies to the faith. We may find them in the media, in a curriculum, in the government mandates, in movies and video games and other entertainment, in false doctrines and in our relationships. God will give us the strength to stand fast. “With no apologies, we need to put our shields together, dig our feet in, and say, ‘Not here, not now, not this time.” (Dr. David Jeremiah)
The Lord sets the prisoners free and executes justice for the oppressed. Luke 4:14-21 describes Jesus' mission to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are oppressed. God has a destiny and purpose for our nation and we must pray for God’s purposes to be fulfilled in our nation and state and that anti-biblical agreements or proclamations would fall away and those that support biblical values would take root and be strengthened. (Ex. 23: 32) We must pray that God will remove ungodly leaders and raise up His earthly host to join with His heavenly host to do battle against the forces of darkness. We must pray that God’s plans will soon be seen and freedom and liberty will ring across this land. Liberty and freedom can’t be stopped, because our Lord and Redeemer will not be stopped! May God bring freedom to this nation that has been held in captivity—to be reborn. May the soul of this nation come back to life even stronger than it was originally. May this nation be godly again and then it will be great again—One Nation Under God with Liberty and Justice for All!