Independence Day

Fourth of July is about far more than fireworks, parades, and picnics. It is justly celebrated by our nation as the day that the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed to the world. The Declaration was and is a truly remarkable document produced by a remarkable group of men providentially gathered together in the British colonies, which became the fledgling new nation, America. Listen to the stately language of this declaration:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

And then they scaled the heights:

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. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .

And then after listing the abuses of the British Crown, they proclaimed,

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; 

As we celebrate our national birthday, let us each resolve before our heavenly Father to preserve our freedom and pass it on untarnished to our children and our children’s children.

Have a great Fourth of July. 

Richard Land.