Galatians 5: 1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
The Continental Congress declared freedom from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. On July 4, 1776, the actual document, The Declaration of Independence, was approved. Work on the draft had begun in June. On July 8, the document was presented to the public for the first time. John Hancock’s name as president of the Congress was printed at the bottom.
As the last 243 years have passed, thousands of Americans have fought and died to preserve that ideology so proclaimed by our ancestors.
The Preamble to the Declaration of Independence explained why the colonies must break away from Britain. “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.”
The preamble to the Declaration of Independence is at times confused with the preamble to the Constitution. “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution must command our attention: “We the people.” Those words tell us unequivocally that the government is in the hands (and votes) of the people.
Should the process of free and honest elections ever be compromised, this entire nation will be compromised! The security of the freedoms assured by our founding fathers will be forever lost.
The purpose of having three branches of government, (executive, legislative and judicial) was to initiate a system of checks and balances. Each branch is accountable to the others and held to standards of accountability. Just as the Bible states the standards of accountability for mankind, the Constitution establishes those standards for this nation.
We are represented in Washington and our various state capitals by the duly elected. When they cease or fail to be the voice of those that elected them, the government will not exist as our founding fathers designed it.
Second only to the Holy Bible, our Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are as near perfect as any written documents in the history of the world. This statement of course, is only my opinion but the safeguards of accountability written into those documents are so rare; many find them almost supernatural.
Supernatural or miraculous? These documents may have had the hand of God in their penning. I may be going out on a limb here and I certainly would compare nothing to the authenticity and spiritual nature of the Bible (2 Timothy 3: 16). The uniqueness of the documents leads me to believe the United States of America was designated by God unto a specific purpose.
As the Nation of Israel was established and chosen by God to provide the world with a Savior, is it not reasonable to theorize the U.S.A. was chosen to tell the world about Him? Daniel 12: 4 tells us “Seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”
By the processes of capitalism, freedom and American ingenuity, Daniel 12: 4 is happening before our very eyes. Evidence of the reliability of the Holy Bible is ever present.
If America is God’s “chosen vessel” (Acts 9: 15, as was the Apostle Paul), our ongoing pursuit to tell the world about our precious Savior must be stated, restated, worked and continuously reinforced.
Following the preamble to the Declaration are stated accusations against King George III. The founders labeled him a tyrant unfit to rule over a free people. In making such allegations, the authors risked punishment for what the British considered a form of sedition. Many of the signers believed they were signing their own death warrant.
This brings to our attention the purposes of the Declaration of Independence. As I consider the conditions that existed at the time, the colonists were already self-sustaining, which made them an independent people before the rebellion against Britain. They were under the King’s rule but received no support of any kind from the monarchy.
The purposes of the declaring for independence included taxation without representation. The colonists were being heavily taxed but had no say in their own government affairs. In reality, they had no government.
They also believed they should have their own government and be in control of making their own laws. And third, they wanted their own political and economic independence. While there may be an overlap in these, specific cases of oppression by Britain were ever present.
Thomas Jefferson was drafted to serve in a group of five to write the document. Jefferson wrote it in June of 1776 and the others edited and approved it. Fifty-six delegates to the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. The signing began on August 2, 1776 in Philadelphia.
The rights demanded by the framers of the Declaration were stated as all-inclusive in these words. “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.”
To take our freedom and the sanctity of it for granted is an insult to our forefathers and the ones that have fought and died to retain that freedom. Jesus also gave us a freedom with no comparable.
It would be difficult to say which is my favorite verse in the bible but without a doubt, Matthew 28: 6 is at the top of the list. “He is not here, for He is risen.” When Jesus walked out of the tomb, resurrected and alive, He defeated the power of Satan and mankind’s bondage to the laws written by Moses and listed in the Old Testament.
Another verse at the top of my list is John 1: 17. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” At times we fail to realize how dramatically the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution not only changed this nation but the entire world.
Jesus changed the world, as stated in John 1: 17, in ways those before Him would never have dreamed. To initiate a world religion based on forgiveness of sin by faith through grace and mercy (Ephesians 2: 8) because of belief in HIM (Romans 10: 9-10) would have been incomprehensible to them.
The writers of the Declaration of Independence introduced the world to freedom. The concept of a democracy consisting of a free people was a new idea that in the minds of many would never work or last. In 2023, those ideals have endured many attempts to destroy them from both without and within.
Historian David Armitage has observed, the Declaration served as the model for some 193 other nations including Haiti in 1804, New Zealand in 1835, Vietnam in 1945, Israel in 1948 and, more recently, Kosovo in 2008.
The attempts will continue and a people in love with freedom will continue to defend them. Our nation is far from ending and the freedom from sin given to us by a crucified and resurrected Christ Jesus will never end.
Daniel 7:14 “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom