1 Peter 2:11-17, The Blessings of Liberty (1)

We have considered the idea of “remember from where you have fallen” the last few days.  Those words were from Christ, and given to a church (Rev. 2:1-7).  As we come to another celebration of Independence Day in the United States, many people are looking back in our history and believe that we have fallen.  This “falling” is seen in at least two areas: falling from the freedom our forefathers purchased by their sacrifices; and falling from the righteousness we believe was owned and exhibited by our forefathers. 

I want us to think about our freedoms first.  Here are some quotes focusing on our liberty as Americans.

·       It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. (Author unknown.)

·       We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. (Robert J. McCracken, formerly pastor at Riverside Church in NYC, a preacher of ‘civil’ religion, a classic liberal.)

·       Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  --  History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. (Dwight D. Eisenhower.)

·       My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. (Adlai Stevenson, Detroit, 1952; twice lost the presidency to Eisenhower.)

·       Freedom is the oxygen of the soul. (Moshe Dayan.)

·       There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. (Charles Kingsley, liberal clergy, evolutionist.)

·       Just, harmonious, temperate as is the spirit of liberty, there is in the name and mere notion of it a vagueness so opposite to the definite clearness of the moral law. (Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1927; don’t miss the title of the book.)

·       Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream.  It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.  --  Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.  (Ronald Reagan.)

·       They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.  (Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759)

·       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. (Declaration of Independence.)

·       We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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. (Preamble to the US Constitution.)  (Just a comment before moving on: the various objectives of the Constitution, as stated in the Preamble, have considerable Biblical support.  Government is supposed to establish justice [1 Peter 2:14], insure domestic tranquility [1 Tim. 2:1-2], and provide for common defence.  This is a special, not inerrant but very special, document in all history.)

The founding fathers staked a case for unalienable rights, including liberty.  And they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.  In fact: five signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died; twelve had their homes ransacked and burned; two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured; nine of the fifty six fought and died from wounds or the hardships of the Revolutionary War.  Of people like this the Bible says, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die (Rom. 5:7).  These, and many, many others since then, have died to provide for their posterity the blessings of liberty.  We should celebrate this as a nation.  And we should, as Eisenhower said, see in this generation that it is earned and refreshed.

Above, we quoted Rom. 5:7.  To set us up for tomorrow’s post, I want to quote the next verse, Rom. 5:8: But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  In the end, the blessings of liberty will elude us apart from the sacrifice of God's Son!