The Source of Our Freedom

On July Fourth, bands will play, politicians will speak, fireworks will dazzle spectators as the bursting sensations stream across the sky. Families will picnic. Sports teams will compete. It will be a day of celebration as Americans honor the birth of their nation — the United States of America. 
  
John Adams would be proud. A member of the drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence and the second president of the United States, Adams wrote his wife about this day. He declared, “I believe that it (July Fourth) will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. … It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.” 
  
And so it has. Gen. George Washington ordered the guns of the Continental Army to be fired July 4, 1777, as the first celebration of national independence. The 13-gun salute that morning and evening by the army camped at Bristol, R.I., gives that city claim to the oldest continual celebration of America’s birthday in the nation. 
  
Massachusetts was the first state Legislature to recognize the Fourth of July as a holiday (1781). The U.S. Congress made the day a federal holiday, without pay, in 1870. In 1941, Congress made July Fourth a paid holiday. Today Americans everywhere observe July Fourth as Independence Day for their nation. 
  
July Fourth is celebrated as Independence Day because that is the day the Second Continental Congress adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. But actual political independence was a long time coming. It was not actually achieved until seven years later when British King George III and the U.S. delegation empowered to negotiate the end of the War for Independence signed the Treaty of Paris. The date was Sept. 3, 1783. 
  
The intervening years had taken a terrible toll on the young nation. For seven years, Washington had kept an army in the field. And he did so against overwhelming odds. Military scholars note that the British had enough military power in America to win a battle between two opposing armies. But they did not have enough troops to occupy the large land mass that was the 13 colonies. 
  
Washington’s maneuvering and his hit-and-run tactics had kept the British off balance until that fatal blunder that resulted in the surrender of the British army at Yorktown. 
  
The price of independence was high. American military casualties are placed at a soaring 50,000 with about half that number giving their lives in the cause of freedom. The new nation faced staggering debt but it was free. America had earned the right to take its seat at the table of nations. 
  
One historian observed that America was more than a geographical fact as a result of the war. The new nation was the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government and human equality. It was that vision that empowered men rich and poor, young and old, North and South to sacrifice together. It was for freedom and “freedom is the oxygen of the soul.”
  
Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of the Declaration of Independence, relied on the works of British political philosopher John Locke in declaring that humanity is entitled to the “inalienable rights” of life and liberty. Locke called them “natural rights.” These are not gifts from government, Locke argued. They are the rights of every man. 
  
Baptists and other Christians agree. Government is not the source of freedom. Freedom is the gift of God. When God made mankind in His own image (Gen. 1:26–27), He made man free. This image of God was not reserved for the few. It was freely given to all. 
  
When the Declaration of Independence argues that “all men are created equal,” it is a reference to being created in the image of God. This image of God is the basis of the dignity and worth of every person. 
  
When the declaration says mankind is “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” it includes freedom for freedom is the key to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 
  
God alone is sovereign. Nations are fleeting. Isaiah 40:15 says, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales.” It is the sovereign God who gives dignity and value and freedom to human beings. God has made man free agents, free to choose between the dark and the light, between the right and the wrong, between loving Him through faith in Jesus Christ and rejecting Him. 
  
Because God alone is sovereign, each person is ultimately accountable to God and no government can answer to the Creator for an individual. Accountability requires freedom, a freedom God gives as the birthright of every human being. No government dares attempt to take from humanity what God freely gives. 
  
So this July Fourth, celebrate America; celebrate its independence, its freedom. And remember that the freedom this nation exemplifies to the world has its origin in God who is the true source of all freedom.