Home
Use your BACK button (or click the Home link above) to return to our home page.
Dan's Thoughts On Independence Day
In this time of year when we celebrate independence Day, I'd like to share some quotations and have us think a little bit deeper than we usually do about who we are as a nation, who God is to us, and to give thanks.
The Founders trusted in God as they made the momentous decision to declare independence from Great Britain:
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...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 the 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...
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
They knew it was of central importance for the new nation to protect religious liberty, making it the first of the five freedoms in the very first amendment to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
General George Washington, in one of his General Orders, in 1778, said:
"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian. The signal instances of providential goodness which we have experienced, and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good."
President Abraham Lincoln, in his proclamation for national day of fasting and prayer, 30 Mar 1863, said:
"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
Benjamin Franklin summed it up very well when he said:
"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"
Do you know the last verse of the Star-Spangled Banner? I'd like to dedicate it now to all the brave men and women defending and protecting our homes and families...whether in the military, or serving as first responders (police, fire, medical).
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
One Nation
Under God
Indivisible
With Liberty, and Justice, for All.Let Freedom Ring.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD. (Psalm 33:12, NIV)