DAY 14

FOR FREEDOM – HE SET US FREE

The following are the dictionary definitions of FREEDOM:

1. The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.
2. Exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. The power to determine action without restraint.
4. Political or national independence.
5. Personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom. (Source)

On the day we celebrate the biggest Birth of Freedom the world has ever seen, it would serve us well to take another look at what Freedom really means. It was more than just the removal of crazy King George III by the Continental Army, General George Washington and some rag-tag peasants. It was a dawn of a new day where the governed would govern themselves according to a set of Principles and not under some “divine right” of corrupt kings and queens. These principles were all based on the Bible.

It was a novel concept, a new paradigm. It was not to create another theocracy like Rome, but a land where non-believers in God would not just have the same rights and freedom to live peacefully, but could prosper as well. After all, the rain does really fall equally on the righteous and the unrighteous.  During the American Revolution, it was America’s pastors who were the conscience of the burst of Freedom and I would even venture to say that the First Great Awakening – the biggest Revival in the world at the time, had something to do with it. This Awakening was spurred by men like Jonathan Edwards – who preached the greatest sermon still in this country (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, July 1741). George Whitefield and John Wesley fired up America for the Gospel and people saw that there was Freedom in the Gospel, through Christ our Lord, for the first time in their lives.

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WHO WILL STAND IN THE GAP?

The great and eloquent (!!) “wordsmith” Yogi Berra once said “a nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore” when he was at the 1955 opening of a new ice cream shop in the Bronx. The famed New York Yankee catcher from the “Hill” in St. Louis was lamenting, jokingly, the cost of a cone going up to 10 cents!

What else “ain’t worth a dime anymore”? When you think about the state of society and the future of our kids, it is enough to make a strong man shudder with fear and trembling. Do we really want our children to face what we know is a completely depraved and apostate society coming down the pike at us? We have no choice, unless End Time events spin out of control at warp speed, the anti-Christ is revealed and Jesus ends it all?

In the meantime, we have to live daily and plan and teach and guide our children. Now, more than ever, we have to teach the ways of the Lord with a more critical emphasis on Perseverance. This is the direction I sense the Lord leading me into. There is a strong Biblical reason for this. Jesus Himself says that “he who stands firm to the end, will be saved” (Matthew 24:13 NIV)!!!

What we’re seeing today is the acceleration of the “Falling Away” predicted by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians….or the Apostasy. An apostate is one who has once believed something of the Truth of God in Christ, but like the parable portion of the seed cast on hard ground, his faith never really took root to become real!

More and more, with this happening, the horrible thing is Scandal of the American church slide into oblivion! It is not just the current issue over gay so-called “marriage” which is exposing the weak underbelly of today’s so-called Christian leaders, but their entire modus operandi.

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