Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY NUMBER 240! The following article is part of a series on FREEDOM in America. The first four articles appeared recently in the Hood County Newspaper during the four weeks leading up to this past Memorial Day. And now this fifth article has been added to the series to bring us up to our July 4 Independence Day celebration. We pray that these articles will bless you and cause you to be thankful for our God-given FREEDOM.
FIVE: THE FRAGILITY OF FREEDOM
America has been known as a place of FREEDOM for the past 240 years counting from July 4, 1776. In the history of the world there have been few countries that have identified with that special word FREEDOM and the ones that have tried it have had difficulty holding onto it. Maintaining a state of FREEDOM is a struggle. In fact, it's as much of a struggle to hold onto as it is to first acquire it.
To understand why this is, we have to understand WHAT it is. FREEDOM is defined generally as the right to act, speak and think as one wants to without any restraints. It's the absence of bondage on all levels. But for it to work on a practical level requires a related CODE OF CONDUCT involving a system of voluntary, self-imposed restraints that govern how we are to use our FREEDOM. The CODE OF CONDUCT provides a framework of basic values that regulate how we are to use our individual FREEDOMS when they conflict with the individual FREEDOMS of others.
In previous articles we saw that the best FREEDOM comes from God. It was His idea and its existence requires His presence (2 Corinthians 3:17). People on the other hand because of our nature will ALWAYS try to control others, impose bondage and decrease FREEDOM. And, unless God is present in it, then what people try to pass off as FREEDOM isn't pure FREEDOM. It isn't the best FREEDOM the way God designed it. Among other things it's subject to change whereas God's kind of FREEDOM is absolute and never changes. Everyone knows what to expect.
The way He designed FREEDOM was for the principles of life we find in the Bible to be the necessary CODE OF CONDUCT. If people try to use any other restraints, then FREEDOM won't survive. It can't survive because any other system of conduct has been designed by people and we haven't been given the ability to do that successfully. Six thousand years of world history clearly confirm that. God is the only One in the universe who can design a true and lasting CODE OF CONDUCT that will produce real FREEDOM.
And so, the FREEDOM that God provides is a delicate balance of several factors: the absence of bondage, the application of a bible-based CODE OF CONDUCT and the presence of God. We the people then must take God's perfect balance of true FREEDOM and connect it to an appropriate system of government that will oversee the FRAGILE balance of its components. It is government's assignment to protect that FRAGILE balance, to see to it that it's maintained in the face of all the opposing forces that will try to cause it to break apart.
One of the main opposing forces is that it's the nature of people to try to control other people, to convince them or force them somehow to agree with our view of things, to accept our values and ways of thinking. Then also, some people come to dislike their bible-based restraints and want to redesign them. That's what "political correctness" is: an attempt to redesign the system of restraints that God has developed for us, to institute a secular CODE OF CONDUCT to replace the bible-based, God-designed original. And thirdly, it's the nature of people to think we can do a better job than God so we find ways to reduce His PRESENCE in our governance. We SEPARATE Him out of it so we can increasingly govern ourselves.
The government's role then is to see to it that these opposing forces aren't allowed to upset the FRAGILE balance. The problem is, mankind is incapable of governing itself effectively without God and without His CODE OF CONDUCT. Without those critical components, people left to themselves will eventually cause real FREEDOM to be destroyed. We are helpless to do otherwise. Real FREEDOM is too FRAGILE to withstand the abuse of people once we set out to eliminate God and His CODE OF CONDUCT from it. Look around at the rest of the world and see the results of secular separation from God.
As we approach our annual 4th of July celebration, we should take a moment to reflect on what our Founding Fathers actually did for us. They didn't just overcome an unrighteous King and His ungodly system of governing through his military. No, they also implemented a very FRAGILE experiment. They designed and introduced a system of governance based on a careful balancing of these three essential components: 1) a people who would accept reasonable restraints in exchange for an opportunity to enjoy the inalienable (absolute) right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; 2) restraints on individual conduct in the form of principles of life found in the Bible; and 3) a system of representative government that could protect the FRAGILE balance by encouraging the PRESENCE of God in every aspect of American life INCLUDING most importantly the government itself.
Here we are 240 years later and the balance is tottering a bit; but we still have a relatively FREE representative government. There have always been a group of people who aren't willing to accept bible-based restraints. They strive to find another system of conduct they think they would prefer to live under and to force the government to separate itself from the things of God. They haven't realized yet that the only system that really works, the only one that provides real FREEDOM is the one that involves God. Even if they're atheists they would do better and enjoy greater individual FREEDOM under the system the Founding Fathers originally envisioned that's based on biblical principles and being connected to God then they would under the godless system they think they want.
As we celebrate Independence Day this year, the Body of Christ is finally beginning to evaluate what our role should be in pursuing and rehabilitating the FRAGILE balance we started out with 240 years ago. Do we continue our strategy of passivity believing that balance will somehow be re-established by insisting that God take care of it when He ALREADY told the Church to be salt and light? Or do we take appropriate ACTION as our Founding Fathers once did and try in love to regain the balance through Christian, bible-based activism? Were the Founding Fathers passive in their work to establish the original balance in 1776? No, they certainly were NOT passive. If we now advocate passivity in our day for dealing with the FRAGILITY OF FREEDOM, do we not then put ourselves in disagreement with the Founding Fathers and people of God who built a country through righteous activism?
It seems this 4th of July as though the Body of Christ is perhaps waking up to realize that without our active pursuit, the balance that constitutes God's kind of FREEDOM will eventually be lost. We see now that it's FRAGILE and that if we don't actively pursue the balance, our ability to share the Gospel WILL also be lost because that's the ultimate objective of those opposing forces. We're seeing now that we can't just focus everything on sharing the Gospel while we ignore the means that make sharing it possible. Without the means, there will again be no sharing. Let us pray that God's kind of FREEDOM can still be preserved in America!
NEXT WEEK: THE PURPOSE OF FREEDOM
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on July 10. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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