From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
Acts 17:26 NLT
It’s the Fourth of July 2021. It’s been 245 years since the Declaration of Independence. For me, personally, it’s my 73rd celebration of Independence Day. In these years, we have passed through the Iron Curtain, the Cold War, Viet Nam, and Watergate, to name just a few. This year is different. As in no previous time, I see cracks in our national structure that seem frightening and insurmountable. Either the season of the United States as a world force for good is over, or we are about to have a huge revival of Christian experience and piety. I pray it’s the latter. (Actually, both may happen.)
I’ll save the details of why I’m pessimistic about our country for a later time. For now, realize that a people cannot govern itself aright without some consensus on the principles that are non-negotiable. We have lost that consensus. We no longer agree on the difference between right and wrong, freedom and tyranny, good and evil. We don’t even agree on how we determine the difference – who decides? Whether you know it or not, you are privileged to live in the best place, at the best time of any people since the Fall of Adam. Take a minute today to say, “Thank You,” to pray for our land, and to re-read some of the ideas that created it.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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 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 effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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 their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. … (Click here for the whole document.)
Amendment I To the Constitution of the United States of America. Ratified December 15, 1791.
“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.” (Click here to read the whole Constitution. Try it. You’ll like it!)
God bless America!
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.
Psalm 33:12 NKJV
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