Let Freedom Ring

I’ve been sharing with my Sunday School class Dr. David Jeremiah’s DVD series called, “What in the World is Going On.” It includes material from Dr. Jeremiah’s book of the same name; specifically, Dr. Jeremiah points to 10 prophetic clues we can’t afford to ignore. Yesterday’s lesson had to do with what seems to be total silence about America’s role—or presence—in the end-times scenarios of Scripture.

 

Since I have so frequently expounded on The Mark Daniels Show about American exceptionalism, I believe it bears consideration that there’s a reason, perhaps, America can’t or won’t be present as and chaos ensues in the very last of days. I don’t believe that a nation founded on such Biblical principles…so dedicated to liberty, and so insistent on freedom…can possibly be in an influential position as the world ultimately surrenders control to the antichrist. Freedom itself is the cornerstone, and the very essence, of Biblical Christianity, and—in turn—the American experiment.

 

It is human nature, however, to foolishly surrender that precious gift. In the Garden of Eden, man was given complete freedom, save eating from a single tree. Through Adam’s disobedience, we received bondage: enslavement to sin and death. The people of Israel had the same kind of freedom, under the loving care of God, yet—in 1 Samuel 8—we see them clamoring for a king. Israel got the earthly monarch they requested, but as well, the bondage that so naturally follows.

 

We see this familiar cycle, and its implications, in all sectors of human life: economic, political, and judicial. One-time British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is credited by many as saying: "Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

 

Wealth is greater when freedom is great, but the greater the government, the lesser the wealth, and the greater the bondage of all sorts. That’s why our American Constitution was—in its original form—a very spare document; a comparatively small framework of ideals for “keeping a republic,” as Ben Franklin might have said. But John Adams said that our Constitution “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”   

 

So what happens, as morality and religion disappear from American life? Our Constitution grows, and is broadly interpreted in a manner incompatible with the intentions of our founders and framers. As regulation grows, so grows our bondage to government. So where are we as a nation, on Disraeli’s cycle of great nations? We have enjoyed the prosperity of freedom…but have also fallen victim to our self-indulgent lifestyle. In our comfort, we became apathetic about the future. Economically, that apathy caused few Americans to plan and save for the future. Remember: no one read the stimulus packages that Congress rammed through! Thus, we become more dependent on a government whose reckless spending is rapidly enslaving us, and driving us into bondage.

 

The Bible speaks of a Truth that makes men free. America’s social, political,  and economic freedom is derived from the very same Truth. And as that Truth is systematically removed from our public lives, we can only expect reap the whirlwind of bondage…a subjugation of our own making.