Happy Independence Day!!!
This is a day of family, friends, fun, fireworks, and a day of great faith!
It took great courage and faith for a loose, fledgling group of people to gather themselves up to declare independence from the greatest empire of their day. It took even more faith and courage to continue the fight to victory to establish our own independent nation!
I'm sure for many in their day, they must have seen parallels between Israel's exodus from Egypt (the greatest empire of their time) and their own declaration of independence from Britain.
God was the power that led Israel to freedom and their own nation, just as God is the power that led our nation to freedom and independence from Britain! God really is our Founding Father!
In recent years, there has been an attempt to rewrite the history of the founding of the U.S. Many have said that the founders of the nation weren't even Christian. To be fair, many of the nation's founders were flawed men, but by and large, most of the founders exhibited a strong faith in God as well as a desire to create a more perfect union based on Biblical principles, freedom from tyranny, and dependence on God. We are only free when we depend on God,
I thought it would be interesting for us to take a brief look at what some of our founders said about God.
George Washington - 1st U.S. President
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."
John Adams - 2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."
John Hancock - 1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence
"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."
John Quincy Adams 6th U.S. President
"The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10)."
Have a Happy and Blessed 4th of July!
In all of this, let us remember our salvation is not found in men, self, or deeds, but in God our Father, through Jesus Christ.
Sale
