American Freedom at Stake cont...

I want to build on this notion of American Freedom. American Freedom is unique and potent but it has some standards that go with it. In order to have the kind of freedom we have enjoyed for over 230 years there are some responsibilities that come with the benefits. Those standards safe guard this liberty.

A large portion of our population has been attacking and nullifying those standards over the last 50-60 years. It has cost us a lot but these standards can be restored. It is called in old terms “revival.”

The Declaration of Independence claimed Freedom as God granted, “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.” (Emphasis is mine.)

This is a self-evident truth, that God created and intended men to be free. Our Founding Fathers claim to this brand of freedom is uniquely American. America Freedom is based on God’s idea of what real Freedom should look like. Like no other country in the world we have proven the benefits and superiority of this kind of freedom. That is, until we abandoned the responsibilities that come with real freedom.

American men and women of their time and hundreds of thousand since have been willing to die to keep it here. What’s more inspiring is that we have been willing to die to give it to men and women in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and various places all over the world. A taste of, or just hearing about this kind of freedom changes your life forever. No other system in the world will compare after you have enjoyed the opportunity to better yourself and keep the fruit of your labor to help others. Yes, that is part of God given freedom.

God given freedom is under attack. (American freedom is under attack.) The attack was first leveled on those principles that keep freedom strong and available to all. Hard work, self responsibility, and morality that protects you and keeps you from financial dependency have all been under attack without much defense.

I spoke about the uniqueness of American freedom in the last post and quoted two prominent figures in American history. They were not the only ones. It was recognized by all American’s in the early years of our country’s life. Lincoln acknowledged it in his Gettysburg Address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

That liberty of course is granted by God, the God that the Bible tells us of. This is a critical point because the principles, standards and responsibilities required to maintain this freedom are found in the Bible. They are distinctly Christian. Here is Lincoln again talking about our founding documents and how Americans might look to them in the future (that’s us):

“…[T]hey established these great self-evident truths that… their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew that battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land…Now, my countryman, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back…[C]ome back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.” (Taken from Original Intent Barton pg 250.)

May I ask the same? I beg you in coming days when the financial crisis is in full bloom remember this. We don’t need a new form of freedom. We need a renewal of our original freedom with the responsibilities of it, renewal of our claim to the unalienable kind granted to us by God. This is the foundation of real freedom. It is the foundation of American freedom. The experience of this variety of freedom convicts us that we ought to keep it at all costs and that other men ought to have it too.

God is the author of the freedom our Founders tapped into. The principles in the Bible tell us how to keep it. Our Founders understood this and laid the foundation for the greatest country in the history of the world with Its guidance. We simply must return to the study of these principles.

The ability to discern Good from Evil is found there and we cannot maintain real freedom without this ability. What would American freedom be apart from God and Goodness? It would be the same as the "freedom" the French experienced in the French Revolution; Anarchy that consumed itself. It knew no guide for discerning Good and Evil.

May God bless and keep us free.