There was a time in the Apostle Paul’s life when he had been arrested by Roman soldiers out of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He was tied up and made ready to scourge, “and as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born” (Acts 22:25-28, KJV).
Within the Roman Empire of the first century, citizenship was highly desirable. So much so that some, like that chief captain, through great effort, long endurance, and large sums of money, purchased freedom and secured for themselves naturalized citizenship. Others more fortunate, like Paul of Tarsus, happened to be born into privilege as a free citizen of the Roman Empire, and this through no effort of his own. But regardless of how their citizenship was acquired, one thing is sure: both men could celebrate their freedom and all that it meant to be Roman.
Similarly, the privilege of citizenship within the United States of America is highly desirable. So much so that tens of thousands of people are attempting to cross our sovereign borders, even now, in hopes of securing a place within our comfortable, abundantly blessed, and affluent lifestyle. No other nation on the face of the earth offers the protection, the pay, the privilege, the pardon, and the prestige of America!
America is built on the Christian ideals of both political and spiritual Freedom. The uncommon heroes of our nation’s founding said as much with their own words as the wrote and spoke in support of the Biblical concept of Liberty.
Case in point: in a report given by the Committee of Correspondence at a town meeting to the city of Boston, November 20, 1772, patriot Samuel Adams wrote,
‘Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,’ in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature,... The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave... These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.(https://history.hanover.edu/texts/adamss.html)
Should it surprise us that many of our Founding Fathers were devout Christians —saved men who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for their personal and spiritual salvation?
The man known as “America’s First Patriot,” Patrick Henry, is noted for a speech that fanned the flames of independence in the heart of his friend, Thomas Jefferson. During an impassioned address to the Second Virginia Revolutionary Convention, meeting at St. John’s Church, in Richmond, Virginia, on March 23, 1775, Henry opined, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” (https://www.redhill.org/primary-sources/give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death/)
To the Virginia Convention of 1788, Henry called “Liberty the greatest of all earthly blessings,” he went on to say, “give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else!” (https://www.redhill.org)
But was Patrick Henry, like Adams, a Christian?
If you visit Henry’s estate in Red Hill, Virginia, you will see his tombstone, as well as the tombstones of several family members. But on November 20, 1798, just seven months before his death in June of 1799, Patrick Henry wrote out his Last Will and Testament, in his own hand, bequeathing his earthly goods to his wife and children. He concluded with, “This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear family, The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.” (https://www.redhill.org/patrick-henry/henrys-will/)
Three years earlier, August 20, 1796, Henry penned a letter to his daughter, wherein he wrote:
Amongst other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of their number; and indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory; because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics; and I find much cause to reproach myself that I have lived so long, and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian. But, indeed, my dear child, this is a character which I prize far above all this world has, or can boast. (https://www. baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/first-person-the-faith-of-patrick-henry/)
There is no doubt that Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, the first supreme court justice, John Jay, and many other of the great patriots that founded our country were good and Godly Christian men.
Listen to the following excerpt from a lengthy sermon, originally delivered by Dr. Richard Fredericks, of Damascus Road Community Church, but later read before the United States House of Representatives in 2001, and entered into the Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 14, pp. 20220-25.
John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice, stated that when we select our national leaders, if we are to preserve our Nation, we must select Christians. “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
In fact, 11 of the 13 new State constitutions were also ratified in 1776. All required leaders to take an oath similar to this oath of Delaware: “Everyone appointed to public office must say, ‘I do profess faith in God the father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, his only son, and in the holy ghost; and in God who is blessed forevermore I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, which are given by divine inspiration.’”
At the time of our Nation's bicentennial 1976, political science professors at the University of Houston began to ask some key questions: Why is it that the American Constitution has been able to stand the test of time? Why has it not gone through massive revisions? Why is it looked on as a model by dozens of nations? What wisdom possessed these men to produce such an incredible document? Who did they turn to for inspiration?
They spent 10 years cataloging 15,000 documents of the Founding Fathers. They found that the Founding Fathers most often quoted these three men. The most quoted was Baron Charles Montesquieu, who wrote in his Spirit of the Laws, 1748: “The Christian religion, which orders men to love one another, no doubt creates the best political laws and the best civil laws for each people. The morality of the gospel is the noblest gift ever bestowed by God on man. We shall see that we owe to Christianity benefits which human nature alone can never sufficiently acknowledge. The principles of Christianity, deeply engraved on the heart, would be infinitely more powerful than the false monarchies, the humane virtue of republics, or the servile fear of despotic states.”
The second most quoted was Sir William Blackstone, a devout British law professor who believed all laws must be proved from Scripture, and the third was John Locke, whose treatise on civil government quoted the Bible 102 times. Yet, most importantly, they found that the Bible itself was directly quoted four times more than Montesquieu, six times more than Blackstone, and 12 times more than John Locke. In fact, 34 percent of all of the quotes and the writings of the Founding Fathers were direct word- for-word quotes from the Bible. Further, another 60 percent of their quotes were quoting men who were quoting the Bible, so that an incredible 94 percent of all of the quotes in these 15,000 documents were direct quotes from or references to the Bible.
(https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2001-pt14/html/CRECB-2001-pt14- Pg20220.htm, this quote is found on page 20222)
You won’t hear that history in the media today. Kids won’t read that in their school history books. University professors will keep spouting their godless humanism and spewing their global communism on state-protected campuses in a land where their stupidity is protected only because real patriots lived and died to secure their First Amendment Freedom of Speech. [NOTE: “Stupidity” is the right word to use; by definition, stupidity is behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment.]
Incredulously, it is the apparent goal of the leftist, woke, socialist, anti-Christ agenda to erase history and eradicate Jesus Christ; they would rather supplant reality with relativism than admit that they will one day stand to give account of themselves before their Supreme Maker and Judge of the Universe.
But, the Bible says, “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!” (Isaiah 45:9, KJV). “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, KJV); and, “Prepare to meet thy God” (Amos 4:12, KJV).
But return to the speech that was read before Congress in 2001—that sermon which is now permanently archived in the United States Congressional Record. Remember, it demonstrated that far from being tenuous, America’s common, Christ-centric upbringing cannot be denied.
That is to say, the roots of American Liberty drink deep from the nourishment of Holy Scripture. The trunk of the Liberty tree is planted securely in God’s Word. Bathed in the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, the branches of American Freedom sway gently in the breezes of the Holy Spirit, ever spreading heavenward toward the Father’s eternal brightness. Consequently, America’s missionary fruit has fallen on every continent of the globe to the salvation of souls, the conversion of kings, and the glory of God.
And today, the 4th day of July, has been set aside to remember and to celebrate our God-given freedoms, to mark our Independence from England, and to remind us citizens, that America is a God-blessed nation from our birth, because the Founding Fathers sought the face of God during our conception.
On this date, 245 years ago, the Continental Congress introduced to the world the Declaration of Independence, which separated the American colonies from the British Empire. The document had been adopted two days earlier on July 2, but ratified by the Congress of state delegates on July 4th. Within one month’s time, fifty-six brave men hazarded their lives and fortunes when they affixed their signatures to that masterful Declaration. Most all had signed by August 2, 1776. (https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-declaration-of-independence)
The Declaration of Independence begins:
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.
(https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript)
It behooves us, then, as Americans, to love America, to live for America, and to not be ashamed of America. Our heritage is rich and our Liberty is worthwhile. Our Founders sought the face of God, and now, more than ever before, so should we.
Additionally, we must exercise our freedoms, enjoy our freedoms, pray for our freedoms, and fight to maintain our freedoms. We dare not take our freedoms for granted, else one day we may awaken to find that our American Liberty, alongside our God-given, unalienable Rights, have been altogether defaced, erased, and extirpated.
But most importantly, we must value our spiritual freedom in Christ Jesus (John 8:36), to the extent that we can not keep silent about the Gospel. As Believers in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we have experienced freedom from the fear of death, freedom from the consequences of sin, and freedom from the power of guilt. Our salvation (O Happy Condition!) was purchased at a great price on the Cross, by the Lord Jesus Christ, on our behalf. Others need to know this great Truth. Others need to know Jesus Christ. And you are the one with the liberty to tell them (2 Corinthians 3:17).