As Americans and Christians, it is important that we revisit the roots of our freedom from the control or influence of another country, individuals or entities. This week our nation will celebrate 248 years since our Founding Fathers—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe and Benjamin Franklin, together with several other key players of their time, structured the framework for this Republic signed on July 4, 1776. Our forefathers fought for our rights to have freedom to worship, and the preachers of the Black Robed Brigade fought for it with a Bible in one hand and a weapon in the other. They understood the Source of true liberty and deliverance as Galatians 5:1 states: “with freedom did Christ set us free.” These principles were clearly laid out in the Declaration. It is important for us to go back to this important document that appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world and to confirm His Divine Providence for this nation and the Church.
As I went back and read the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, I believe that God is drawing us back to our foundation and to the principles that established this nation as “One Nation Under God.” Let us consider certain passages of truth that is our call to awaken and inspire us to action for such a time as this. “All men are created equal…endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure theses rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is they duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…The history of the Present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…He refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good…opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people…has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within…obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers…made Judges depend on his Will alone…erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance…has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation…imposing Taxes on us without our Consent…depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury…excited domestic insurrections amongst us…undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions…A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people…deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity…appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” As you read the Articles of this Declaration, did the Holy Spirit convict you of the perils that again threaten the viability of this nation and our freedoms?
One of our Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin responded to the question: “Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replies, “A republic, if you can keep it.” His response suggests that the creation of a republic is not a guarantee of its success, and that it requires constant effort and vigilance to preserve its principles and institutions. Has apathy fallen over this land and its people until our republic is in peril much like it was in 1776? As I researched the details of the Declaration of Independence and its founders, it was brought to my attention another providential event in our nation’s history. Three of the Founding Fathers and former presidents died on July 4th—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe! Michael Meranze, a US history professor at UCLA said: “People interpreted their deaths in a religious manner.” On July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died within five hours of each other. Adams was 90 and Jefferson was 83. They were political rivals but in 1818 their estrangement was broken and they began writing each other. Adams wrote Jefferson, “You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.” Joseph Ellis a historian observed that they each in their way “came to embody the American dialogue.” While they embraced the American dialogue, history reveals that neither of them embraced a relationship with Christ. Adams referred to the Cross as an engine of grief that produced calamities. But his friend Thomas Jefferson was worse and wrote that Jesus was a blasphemous fable and that the Bible was a collection of paltry and contemptible tales. Jefferson, like AI of today took upon the task of rewriting the Bible leaving out what he deemed fraud. However, I go back to the quote from A.W. Pink: “God is working out His eternal purpose, not only in spite of human and satanic opposition, but by means of them.” In the draft of the speech Jefferson prepared to make on the day of his death he said: “May (the Declaration of Independence) be to the world, what I believe it to be, the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.” In 1826, Rep. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts delivered a two-hour eulogy in Boston suggesting their deaths were a sign that God was protecting the nation: “As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of His care?” On July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the 5th President died at the age of 73. Alexander Hamilton called it a “coincidence that has no parallel: three of the presidents who have left the scene of their usefulness and glory expired on the anniversary of the national birthday, a day which of all others, had it been permitted them to choose (they) would probably had selected for the termination of their careers.” Indeed, God puts leaders up and takes leaders down to perform His Divine purpose and plan. Our times are in God’s hands! As A.W. Tozer said, “The whole history of the world is discovered to be but a contest between the wisdom of God and the cunning of Satan and fallen man.”
After reading this is there any doubt that God has His hand upon this nation? God has ruled and overruled in the history of this nation ordaining that it be a client nation for the Gospel to the whole world. God has not abandoned the call upon this nation, but it appears that this nation has abandoned God. We have remained silent when prayer, the Bible and the Ten Commandments were removed from schools, when abortion was legalized, when marriage between a man and a woman was attacked, when the creation of male and female is undermined, when churches were mandated by the government to close because of COVID, when Christians are censored from speaking the truths in the Bible and declared domestic terrorists by the government. As the words of that old song “It’s Time to Pray” calls us: “It’s time to pray to the God who watches o’er us: It’s time to seek His help without delay; the world is dark for the clouds of war still threaten; It’s time for all America to pray. If we would keep the flag of freedom flying, secure the peace for which we all are crying; It’s time to pray—our sin and wrong confessing; It’s time for all America to pray!”
It is time for us to go back 2000 years and remember the greatest Independence Day in history when Christ came to this world, shed His blood on the Cross for forgiveness of sin and rose on the third day freeing us from the power and dominion of sin and death. I John 3:8 declares Jesus’ purpose: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.” True freedom comes only through Christ. Christ liberated us from the bondage in which we were born. Jesus came to give us “freedom” of access to the presence of God. Because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden, all humans are born in bondage to Satan and separated from God. John 3: 16 makes it clear that God so loved the world that He was willing to send His only Son—Jesus into a fallen world to proclaim liberty to all mankind that whoever would believe and trust in Him as Savior would come into a relationship with God as His child.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 61: 1-2 in Luke 4: 18-19 when He made this Declaration of Independence: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. To set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” When Jesus shed His blood on the Cross, He declared victory against the enemy of all believers! His blood is forever declaring Mercy, Grace and Victory to everyone of us who will receive it!
Let’s break down this Declaration Jesus made. 1. Jesus came to preach the Good News of deliverance, liberty and freedom to all—the poor and the rich—to everyone. 2. Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted. Jesus understands our heartbreaks because He experienced the rejection, cruelty, and even the literal splitting open of His heart by a Roman soldier with a spear. (John 19: 34) The shed blood of Jesus has the ability to overcome every obstacle, every trap, and every accusation of the enemy! Jesus heals our broken hearts through His broken heart if we come to Him! 3. Jesus came to deliver us from anything that holds us captive: drugs, alcohol, impurity, food, exercise, religion, family, work, fear, thrill-seeking, and a million other things. We can be captive to depression, to the darkness that comes with it, to the isolation and loneliness that we feel. We can take all that holds us captive and causes us guilt and shame and lay it at the feet of Jesus. We must “cast our cares on Him for He cares for you.” (1 Pt. 5:7) 4. Jesus wants us to fix our eyes on Him—to look at Him, to focus on Him, to stare intently at Him. (Heb. 12:2) Jesus is how we take our eyes off of ourselves and our feelings, off of our hurts and bruises, off of our weaknesses and failings, off of how we are doing at any point in time, or of any progress or lack of it. We are healed by Jesus’ wounds, that is, at the Cross.
That Christ died for our sins and rose on the third day is the most important thing in the Bible, the most important thing in the whole world, and the most important thing for healing our hearts and setting us free—true Independence Day. We are to see Jesus’ suffering, His agony and blood—His death in our place. We are to see His love, His refusal to turn back because of the shame of the Cross. And we are to look at His victory over death, His resurrection from the dead, His ascending into heaven and sitting down at God’s right hand. These are the things on which we are to focus. And as simple as it seems, this is how God both mends our broken hearts and sets us free! IF YOU WANT TO KNOW REAL FREEDOM, YOU HAVE TO KNOW JESUS! Our greatest weapons today are the Word of God, His Wonderful Name, and the Precious Blood of Jesus. The Blood of Jesus is the foundation on which Christianity is based. We can live in a continual place of victory over every onslaught of the enemy by acknowledging the victory that Jesus has already given us through the power of His Blood and His Name. This is the day of the overcomer—Jesus came to set us free—free indeed! We are accepted in the Beloved! We are bought with the price of the Son of God’s own life at the Cross, the Light of the world, who has set us free from the prison of darkness. We are a cherished child of God. We are not our own anymore. We have the assurance that God is in charge. We are at peace knowing that God is sovereign over all things. We are to walk in the Spirit, trusting God for each struggle no matter how many or how big or how small because we have seen His goodness and His amazing love at the Cross. God has been preparing us for this time all our lives and now we are to armor up, pray up, stand up and share the Good News that JESUS SETS US FREE with everyone! Let us declare it out with every breath—let the whole world hear it—the Hallelujah Anthem of the free—the Son has made us free—let freedom ring!