The Origin of Freedom
by James Robison
This weekend, Americans celebrate Independence Day. We commemorate the events, people and ideas that liberated our forefathers from oppression. In doing so, many people will quote our founding fathers and read from early writings that provided the framework of our freedom.
However, our freedom did not begin with Benjamin Franklin. Nor does our liberty lie in the Bill of Rights. There are truths that were laid down long before George Washington crossed the Delaware or John Hancock signed his name on the Declaration of Independence.
These ideas are not uniquely American; they are universal. They were not written for a certain group of people, and they are not bound by religion, race or culture. The truth that was written before the foundation of the world and that possesses the power to set everyone free can be found in a single book: the Bible.
John Locke, the political and philosophical theorist whom the founding fathers most relied on as they were laying the foundations of the great American experiment in liberty, said, "The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting."
John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, said, "The Bible is the book of all others to read at all ages and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once, or twice, or thrice through, and then laid aside; but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day."
Abraham Lincoln, arguably our greatest president, later said, "Without the Bible we would not ever be able to tell right from wrong. It is not just the source of man's conscience, it is our only hope that our conscience may ultimately be satisfied."
Theodore Roosevelt, our twenty-sixth president, often quoted scripture. He believed that Biblical principles were woven into the fabric of Western civilization and were essential for maintaining order, civility and prosperity.
"Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and intertwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure ourselves what that life would be if the standards were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves."
The Bible is not just a marvelous and inspiring collection of quaint sayings and moralistic stories. It is God's own revelation of Himself and His actions in this fallen world. It is a proclamation of God's ultimate wisdom, knowledge and understanding. It is His message to all of humanity. It is a comprehensive catalog of His absolute truth -- the truth that offers real freedom to every person and lasting liberty to every nation.
This Week
Read about the freedom that Jesus Christ offers in John 8:31-36. Remind others that the liberty of every society lies in the truth of the Bible.
Prayer
“Father, thank You for the personal freedom You give through Jesus Christ and the civil liberties we enjoy through adherence to Your absolute truths. Help us, as individuals and as a nation, to remember that our only hope for freedom is in You.”
Adapted from The Absolutes: Freedom’s Only Hope by James Robison (Tyndale). Available online at www.lifetoday.org and in Christian bookstores.
