Independence Day

Independence Day

In about 2 weeks this nation will be celebrating Independence Day. We’ll see parades, fireworks shows, U.S. Flags, people decked out in red, white, & blue, etc… My question is this. From what or whom are we celebrating our independence from?

I’m going to assume that most of you reading this have never actually read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety. You’ll find the full text here: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html . I highly recommend reading it at least once. Let’s take a look and some of the key points:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to 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 effect their safety and happiness…

Wow, those are some strong words! So according to the Declaration of Independence, at some point, when governments overstep their God given responsibilities it becomes necessary to the people, or the governed to separate themselves from the government, to alter that government, to abolish that government or to institute a new government based on self-evident truths given by our Creator. Looks like the writers of the Declaration of Independence weren’t big fans of evolution or the so called “separation of God (I mean) church and state”. Let’s look a little further at some of the indictments against the King of England:

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He 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:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And 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.

I really didn’t intend for this to be a political blog but I think it’s of the utmost importance that we know our history, the good as well as the bad. Some one once said: (and I’m paraphrasing) “Those who don’t know their history are destined to repeat it”. In Deuteronomy 6:12-25 God commanded the children of Israel of this very same thing. Not to forget that it was God that delivered them out of Egypt, it was God that delivered them from the oppressive rule of Pharaoh. If we know anything about the Old Testament we know that the Israelites didn’t always practice this. They fell into a continual cycle of forgetting God, rebelling against God, being judged by God, and then crying out to God, turning back to God, and then forgetting God again.

It’s so amazing to me how 239 years after the Declaration of Independence was drafted the people of this country are suffering the same oppressions as the original colonists suffered when we were under the rule of the British Monarchy. So what happened? The same thing that happened to the children of Israel, as a nation we’ve forgotten our history, forgotten God, and right now we’re under the judgment of God. The biggest problem is it seems like there are very few crying out to God or turning back to God. Who’s making an appeal to the Supreme Judge today in America? What lawmakers are reinforcing the unalienable rights endowed by our Creator? Where are the Americans who are firmly relying on the protection of Divine Providence, and mutually pledging, their lives, fortunes, and their sacred honor?
In 1776, this nation decided to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29), and with firm reliance on God, declared their independence from the tyrannical rule of the British Monarchy. Over 230 years later it seems that this nation is doing just the opposite and obeying man rather than God. God warns us of that Jeremiah 17:5,6:

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength whose heart departs from the Lord, for he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see good when it comes…

Instead of following the example of our forefathers by declaring independence from tyrannical government, have declared independence from the very One, the ONLY One that can deliver us.
We’ve declared our independence from the only true and living God of the universe and are painfully reaping the consequences.

If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?
Psalm 11:3


May the Lord bless you and keep you.