Liberty That Lasts

It's hard to let a good holiday go to pass, so I'm going to talk a little bit about the Fourth of July holiday today to introduce the sermon anyway. I know that all of you have plans for the holiday, and I know as I was growing up it was one of the holidays we very much enjoyed.

We were usually with family, and certainly fireworks was always part of the festivities. But we always took time, or my parents did, to make sure we understood the history behind the holidays that we were celebrating. So I know that all of you know the history of America, and I know that you know the story of how the revolution took place, the Declaration of Independence, and all of that. So I'm not going to talk about that today, but here for a few minutes I want to go back before there was the United States of America and talk about the few centuries and the 1600s and 1700s what life was like for people then.

Because we all know what life is like today. We live in a very unique and advantaged time in the history of the world. We're free to come and go as we want. We're free to gather here and worship God as we please, without having to be secret about it, and having to make any excuses about it. We're free to move from one place to another. We're free to be educated in however we want to be. But the world wasn't always like that for people, and up until there was the United States of America, it was more of a tyranny and more of an autocratic type society that most people in Europe lived under.

There were kings, there were emperors who pretty much controlled everything. If you were born and happened to be born into a lower class, chances are you were going to stay right there. You probably weren't going to have much of a chance at education. You probably weren't going to be able to develop the talents, even if you had them naturally, because society just wasn't set up that way. Where you were born usually was where you were going to stay. The king controlled the economy of the country. All the taxes, of course, came to him. He made sure he was well taken care of in his courts, and his friends usually were around him in that society.

But as far as the working man and the common class, if you weren't up in the upper crust of society, life just wasn't all that good. You worked hard, you had food, but you certainly didn't have the advantages and the opportunities and everything that we do today. And certainly in the area of religion, you had very limited choice. The king was the head of state, but he was also considered the head of the religion of the state as well.

So if he happened to be Catholic and favored the Catholic Church, that was where the people were going to worship. In England, it was going to be the Church of England when they rebelled against the Catholic Church, and that's where you went. There wasn't freedom of speech, there wasn't freedom of assembly, there were none of the freedoms that we have today. That's why they were all built into the Bill of Rights. So life before the United States of America was pretty mundane, if you will.

And if you look at the history of the world, not much happened, not much progress in those thousand years, or the 1700 years, until America came on the scene, and a group of colonists began to resist the tyranny and the things that King George III was trying to impress upon them. The taxes and the other things that they had fled away from to come to this land that had been undiscovered and undeveloped, and they weren't about to allow or didn't want to allow that same type system to come over into the land they had been, that they had come to love and come to enjoy living in, where they were in control, where they had an opportunity to develop their abilities, develop their talents, and be able to do things that they would never have been able to do in their other countries.

So it was a unique experiment in America, and the world was beginning in Europe to catch up with the kings who had long controlled everything. People had begun thinking that there were rights that every man had, and not just a few, but it certainly hadn't come to the point where it would have where it did come when America was founded and when the revolution took place and America won her independence. That change, the United States of America, transformed the world, made it a completely different place for everyone to live in. Even if they were still under a monarchy, now there was hope. Now there was something to look out for, and something that was working in another part of the world. Let me read from a book titled The Age of Democratic Revolution, written by R.R. Palmer. He says, there's little doubt that the American Revolution of the 1770s and the formation of a republic in the 1780s served as a profound example to all European observers. Hundreds of books, pamphlets, and public lectures analyzed, romanticized, and criticized the American rebellion against Great Britain. American independence fired the imagination of aristocrats who were unsure of their status while at the same time giving the promise of ever greater equality to the common man. The American example served as a great lesson. Tyranny could be challenged. Man did have unalienable rights. New governments could be constructed. The American example then shed a brilliant light. As one French observer remarked in 1789, this vast continent which the seas surround will soon change Europe and the universe. And indeed, it did. Things have never been the same in the world since the United States of America was formed and the Constitution of the new government was put in. It became a land of promise and it became a beacon in the world of what could be when the yokes of bondage, when the yokes of tyranny, when all those things were removed from people and they had the opportunity to go out and develop and use the talents they have and improve themselves. An opportunity they hadn't had before that. And you can look at the world history and you can see the boom in the world once that happened. The Industrial Revolution began in the 1700s and it was fired in the 1800s as well. And it's been just a constant ongoing um barrage of new inventions, new ideas, things that we couldn't even imagine. I remember back when I was young we got our first color TV and what a big deal that was to look at a TV that was actually a good size and color. It was like, how incredible is this that this box that we used to watch is now in color? Now everyone's got a color TV, right? I mean it's just kind of like that's just a normal thing. 15 years, maybe 20 years ago, I remember when the company I was working for first introduced intercompany email and it was like, well what a novelty is this? I can type something into a computer, it can go into another station, no secretary has to type up the memo, no intercompany little envelopes that have to go, no waiting back for a reply, it can come back in minutes. Who knew at that time that pretty soon we'd all be connected? I can send a message to you and get a message back in a minute, literally. And it's a good thing for the church as we are interconnected through internet, but there's things out there today that would have never happened if we were still under the rule and the same type of governments that were out there in the 15 and 1600s. That type of idea, that type of invention, that type of creativity would have never been allowed to happen. And yet, we live in a world today that is just amazing with what it has the capacity and the capability of doing. Turn with me back to Daniel 2. Daniel 2.

And we'll begin reading in verse 20. Daniel 2, of course, is the chapter where Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of this great statue, and none of his wise men are able to give him the interpretation of it. But Daniel comes forward, and he understands. And this is what he says to Nebuchadnezzar before he gives him the interpretation. Daniel 2, verse 20, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his, and he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what's in the darkness, and light dwells with him. He changes the times and the seasons. He changes the kings. He raises them up, and he takes them down. The world was in a state of change in the 1700s. It was God who ordained that change. It was God who was leading people to a new world. It was God who was inspiring those founding fathers that we have that had said great things and that did great things. But it was God who was changing times and seasons. It was time for a new land, a new government, a new way of life to dawn on the earth. We can think, and we can marvel, and we can certainly be thankful for the sacrifice that all those men did. We're the benefactors of all that they did and more because we live in a great land and have had a great life because of it. But it was God who was ready, and it was God who ordained the change in the time and the seasons.

You know, as you look back over the time of America and you read through some of the details of the battles that were won, many people will talk about how, you know, certainly this was God's hand in this battle leading the people. I remember one specifically where there was a fog that came across to separate the British Army from the American Army to allow them safe escape across, I think it was the Potomac River, maybe it was a different battle I'm thinking of. But many occasions like that, as you could begin to see the, as you could begin to see, the tide change and America form. And after the independence was won and the people had to get together to form a government, they used a very good basis for that government. Now, I brought up before and I brought up again the latest issue of the good news talks about America's biblical roots.

And I'm not going to take the time, or I'm not going to repeat anything that's in here, but I would encourage you to read that because it gives you very many good points and good statements. There's many people in the world today who will say, our founding fathers weren't Christian. You know, as I was looking up some quotes before this magazine came out, I could find any number of websites that say, no, the founding fathers weren't really, this is the mistakes they made and, you know, they recount those things. But the history is pretty clear of what they used and what type of men they were. Let me read a few quotes from some of the founding fathers, and even not the founding fathers, on what the basis of our government is. In 1778, James Madison, who was the fourth president, said this, we have staked the whole future of American civilization, a civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.

That's what he said. In 1832, some 50 or 60 years after the Declaration of Independence, Noah Webster, who put together the dictionary that we're familiar with, said this, the principles of all genuine liberty and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. Can you imagine someone today in our government standing up and saying that and acknowledging that that was what was built into that Constitution, into our governing documents? George Washington said, without faith, there is no freedom. Without God, there is no liberty.

Those founding fathers, they knew the Bible. They knew what was in it. They didn't know everything. God didn't open their mind to understand everything that we did, but what they read, they paid attention to. They knew the principles of success. They knew the principles that were contained in there, and when they went to set up a government, they used this book as their guide. Proverbs 1, verse 7, says, the foundation of wisdom is the Word of God. They knew where to go.

They went to there and they applied the principles into what they were doing and what they were forming for a government to run. Any number of people today can deny it, but the facts are irrefutable. That's what this country and its government and the liberty that we've enjoyed for so many years is based on. It's based on principles that are found right here, principles that God left for mankind. Now, turn with me back to Genesis for a minute. In Genesis 12, verse 8, God made a promise to the Father of the faithful, Abram, way back in the beginning of the Bible here. In Genesis 12, verse 2, he says to Abram, I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you, and in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed. All the families of the earth will be blessed. Well, we know that prophecy came true from Abraham's lineage came Jesus Christ, and because of his life and death, all of us have salvation. All of us have an opportunity at eternal life. All of us can have sins forgiven. Can't discount that at all. There is also a physical part of that promise. In you, all nations of the earth will be blessed.

We take a look back at the history of Britain. Take a look back at the history of America, and you can see how that promise has come true. The British Empire, when it was extant in the 1800s, reached the far corners of the earth. History shows that even though there were mistakes made in the British Empire, like any government run by man, wherever Britain went, the country was left better off. They became prosperous. They became wealthy. They became an industrialized, as the world would call a successful nation. When Britain left, time showed that oftentimes the nation reverted back to some kind of lesser level of standing, if you will, by the world's standards. Britain reached the far ends of the earth. And who can argue with what America has done? We have been, and we give aid to, who knows what countries, color trees you and I probably even heard of, we give aid to. We reach and we touch nations around the world. And because of us, and because of what America became, and the government and the society that was built here, based on principles founded in the Bible, became a beacon to the world. And it's still a beacon to the world today. Maybe the light's not shining quite as brightly today, but still a beacon. Still out there and still a nation that people look to as a leader and as a benefactor, and certainly a nation that does well in the world, does well in the world. Let's turn back to Deuteronomy 33. You know at the end of the book of Genesis that Jacob, as he was about to die, gave blessings to each of his twelve sons. Let's read Moses' account in Deuteronomy 33 and specifically for Joseph.

Of course, in Genesis 48, Israel, when he was blessing the two sons of Joseph, said, let my name be on them. Let them be Israel. And so here's what Moses says about Joseph and prophesies for him in verse 13 of Deuteronomy 33. Joseph, he said, Blessed of the Lord is his land, with the precious things of heaven, with the dew and the deep lying beneath, with the precious fruits of the sun, the precious produce of the months.

America has often been considered the breadbasket of the world. England in its time was also considered that. And we still ship out enormous amounts of things to countries around the world. God has richly blessed this land, this land that was just sort of lying over here dormant at the time the pilgrims and some other came over. God has richly blessed it. Going on in verse 15, he's blessed it with the best things of the ancient mountains, the precious things of the other everlasting hills, the precious things of the earth and its fullness, the natural resources that we take for granted, the things that have helped fuel industry, the things that have helped make us wealthy, the underlying things in the earth that have led and given us such great benefits as a nation as the commerce has been built. God put it all here, and Moses said that this would be a blessing that inured to the descendants of Joseph. In verse 16, the second line says he's blessed them with the favor of him who dwelt in the bush. God has been with America. God has been there in its foundation. God continues to look over it and put his blessings on it. And we'll talk a little bit about that later. It says, Let the blessing come on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers. His glory is like a firstborn bull and his horns, like the horns of a wild ox. Together with them he shall push the peoples to the ends of the earth.

And indeed, Great Britain has done that. Indeed, America has done that. All over the world, all over the world, were known, involved, and helping people. They will push the peoples to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.

Can't deny that God's blessing has been on this country.

And it all began as he was directing the times. As times and seasons and kings began to change. And now a new country, a new system, is on earth. Now a place where people can see what people can do. And now in this country, something that couldn't have happened in the 15, 16, and 1700s, the Word of God could be preached to all the world. The Word of God could go out to everyone without fear of reprisal from the king, without fear of being arrested. God was preparing a country to fulfill his promises, the physical promises, to Abraham, but also so that the work could be done, as it has been done well, out of this country.

It all started with a cry for liberty. Remember Patrick Henry? Give me liberty or give me death. It became the key word, the mantra, for the people, give me liberty or give me death, because they had a vision and they thought liberty would be the thing that would fuel their future. In a way, they were right. But it wasn't Patrick Henry or anyone back then who first called for liberty. Turn with me back to Luke 4. Luke 4, verse 18. Jesus Christ speaking, and he's quoting from the Old Testament here. He says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of the poor. To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Two thousand years ago, when Christ started his ministry, he was saying, I've come to bring you liberty. I've come to set you free from everything that has held you back, everything that has held you in one position where you are not achieving what you could, not reaching the potential that you have. I've come to set you free, he said. I've come to give you liberty. Let's go back to Isaiah 61, the scripture from which he is quoting there. Isaiah 61. And in verse 1, Again he says, The Spirit of the Lord, God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And the day of the vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. He came to proclaim liberty to reverse what was going on. No more mourning. When we're at liberty, there's joy. No more ashes and ruin lives and ruination of everything else. But when we're at liberty, beauty. Things building, things increasing, things getting better. The same history that we've seen in America on a physical sense. Christ says, when I set you at liberty, all those things you've experienced will turn around, and all the positive benefits will be there for you.

You know, you look at America and what it was founded on. And as we talk about this, we can see what the idea of liberty was that our founding fathers had. They believed in freedom. They believed in liberty. But they believed in the liberty that they saw in the Bible.

I wonder what some of our founding fathers would think if they visited America today.

If they saw what we call freedom today and what we call liberty today, I dare say they would be shocked. They would not call it liberty with some of the things that we do today. Was it this week that the Supreme Court heard a case on whether it was a violation of freedom of speech to not sell violent video games to minors? And the Supreme Court said, oh, freedom of speech says you do sell those to whoever want them. Surprising verdict to me. Yes, in an era of freedom of speech, sell whatever they want and give them the whatever they want. I wonder if the founding fathers would agree with that decision based on their definition of liberty. Would Christ make that decision based on His definition of liberty? Let's go back to John, John 8, and look into a conversation that Jesus was having with the Jews of his time. And in this conversation, He's talking about freedom, and He gives us some clues on what it is to be truly free, truly at liberty. John 8, verse 31, says to them, Jesus said to the Jews who believed Him, if you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

The truth will make you free. Now, in those two verses, He gives us two important points. If we're going to be truly free, there's a couple of things we need to know. From God, from Jesus Christ, who created us and who set all things in motion. First, He said, the truth will make you free. Well, Jesus Christ said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

And in John 17, verse 17, it says, sanctify them by truth, your word is truth. So we know what truth is. Truth is right here, in this book that's lying on your laps.

Truth is there. And if you're going to be truly free, truth has to be at the basis of it. The founding fathers seemed to get this to the best of their understanding. They implied, or they used principles from the Bible in coming up with their governing documents to guide them on how the nation would work. And Christ said, if you're going to be free, if you're going to have a freedom that lasts forever, it's going to be based in truth. Truth will set you free. Back in verse 31, He gives us the other point. He says, if you abide in my word, you're my disciples indeed. And then He continues the thought, if you abide in my word and you live and you know the truth, it will set you free. So it's not once free, always free. There's something we have to do to keep freedom. Freedom isn't just there once and stays there the rest of our lives. Freedom, like so many other things in life, is something that we have to continue to look at, continue to work toward. And He says, if you abide in my word, if you abide in my word, remember back in John 15? We talked about God's grapevine maybe a year ago. And we talked about Jesus comparing Himself to the vine, and we're the branches. Remember, we're attached to the branches and through the vine we get all the nutrients we need. And without those nutrients, no branch ever produces fruit. It never produces what it can produce if it's ever detached from the vine. And so He says the same thing, if you want to be free, abide in me. Stay attached to me.

Let me read a couple of other translations of abide just so that we get it. The Amplified Bible translates this verse that this way, if you hold fast to my teachings, if you live in accordance with my teachings. Well, that makes it pretty clear, right? The Living Bible says, if you live as I tell you to, you'll be my disciple indeed, and you'll be free.

If you want to be free, if you want lasting freedom, if you want lasting liberty and all the good things it can produce, Christ says, abide in me. Let's turn back to Psalm for a minute.

Psalm 119. Psalm 119, beginning in verse 41.

Of course, the longest chapter in the Bible, and David records many things in here, but in verse 41 of Psalm 119, he writes, Let your mercies come also to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your word, so that I have an answer for him who reproaches me. For I trust in your word, and take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I have hoped in your ordinances. So shall I, he says, keep your law continually, forever and ever, and I will walk at liberty, for I seek your precepts.

I'll walk in liberty, David said, as long as I seek your precepts, as long as I live by your law, as long as I keep attached to that vine, and as long as I follow the example that's set for me in the word of truth. If you want freedom, if you want liberty, then it's something that has to come by us staying close to the word of truth, clinging to it. Without clinging to it, liberty is lost. Freedom is lost. It disappears. There's only one way to sustain it, and that's through the truth. Let me quote again what James Madison said.

He said, we have staked the future of our government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God. He knew that if the liberty that was in America then was going to be sustained, people were going to have to keep obeying God, keep with the same principles and morals upon which the country was founded. That would sustain it. That would produce all the good things that everyone in that land then, and I think everyone in this land now, wants it to produce. Freedom and liberty is the key to productivity, happiness, joy, and everything the human race wants. But it's not that easy to do, is it? Let's go back to John 8 and continue the conversation that Christ was having with the Jews back then. He tells them in verse 2032, the truth will make you free. And of course, they have a reply to him. In verse 33 of John 8, they answered him and said, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, you'll be made free? Well, in their mind, hey, we're free already.

We are Abraham's descendants. Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you, who will be made free, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. Well, we know that concept. And a slave doesn't abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. So what he's saying, you may be part of that now, but if you're a slave to sin, you're not going to abide forever. You're not going to be here forever. The freedom you think you have isn't going to be here forever. But a son, a disciple, the one who keeps himself attached, he will abide forever. Therefore, verse 36, if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know, he says in verse 37, you're Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you.

Abraham's descendants, free, but Christ sees there's something not so free about these Jews, not so free. He sees an attitude in them, and he knows what they want to do. Verse 38, I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen with your father.

They answered and said to him, Abraham's our father. And Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you'd do the works of Abraham. If you were Abraham's children, if you were truly free, you'd be following the example that he said. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God.

Abraham didn't do this. When Abraham heard the truth, he said, Abraham received it. You say, you're Abraham's children, but when I give you the truth, what you want to do is kill me. Were they free? Were they being all they could be? Or was there something about them and the attitudes they had that was holding them back from seeing, holding them back from learning, holding them back from the potential that God had for them? Christ saw who they were, and he realized they think they're free, but they're not really free. Verse 41, you'd do the deeds of your father. And they said to him, we were not born of fornication. We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you'd love me, for I proceeded for earth and came from God. Nor have I come of myself, but he sent me. Why don't you understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word. You're of your father, the devil. Now, the desires of your father, you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and doesn't stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. And he said, and yet you call yourself free. And yet look what you're slave to. Christ is saying to them, you want to kill me. You're not free. Abraham would have never wanted to kill me. Abraham would have listened to the truth. Abraham would have turned on a dime when he realized what he was doing wrong. But here were these Jews who thought they were free, and yet they were slaves to a very bad attitude. And you can just feel the tension as this conversation went on. As Christ was showing them, you're not free at all. Freedom comes from the truth, accepting it, learning it, and living by it every day of our lives. That's what freedom comes from. And yet these Jews who thought they were free weren't having that freedom at all. They were being held back from everything they could be because of this attitude and because they were going to reject what Jesus Christ had to say. They were in bondage to sin.

You know, life is very simple when you get it all boiled down. There's really two ways we follow in life. Moses said it in Deuteronomy. Christ says it over and over in his Gospels. We either follow him, the way of life, or we follow Satan, which leads to death. There's no middle ground. There's none of our own way that's there. We're following one, and if we've been called of God and we have a Holy Spirit, we have the opportunity for life, potential, and everything good that God has to offer. And the other way is the way that leads to death. One way leads to freedom. Christ said it.

He is the way to truth. He is the way to freedom. The other way leads to bondage, leads to oppression, leads to unsatisfied lives, leads to things that lead nowhere. Turn with me back to 1 Peter 2.

These Jews that Jesus Christ were talking to believed they were free because of their lineage. And Christ showed them they weren't. 1 Peter 2 and verse 16.

Well, let's start with verse 15, since that's where the sentence begins. Verse 15, verse Peter 2, This is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice.

You're free, but don't use that liberty as a cloak for doing something else.

That's what the Jews were doing. They thought they were free, but hiding behind that freedom was this attitude of, we'll kill you because we don't like what you're saying.

Hiding behind liberty. Hiding behind a concept that we're free, but then doing everything that doesn't lead to freedom.

I look at our government today, the land of the free. We tout liberty, and you hear it probably every week on the news somewhere. Freedom of this, liberty of this, we're a free land, free to do whatever we want to do.

Would the founding fathers have approved and seen as freedom, ratifying, as some states have, same-sex marriage? Would they have said, well, yes, you're free to do that. Free to do that. That's what freedom is. Of course they wouldn't have. Of course they wouldn't have, because it's the truth that makes you free.

And nowhere in the word of truth do you find that being called good or righteous.

Somewhere along the line, our country, just like the Jews, and all of us at some point in our lives, have confused liberty, true liberty, with license.

Our country today has forgotten or drifted away from what true liberty is.

Liberty isn't the freedom to do anything you want, no matter what you want.

That's license.

Nowhere in the Constitution do you find license, listed as something that is a right of the people.

On the contrary, with the verbiage that we've read and the statements that we've read, we see just the opposite.

If this liberty is going to be sustained, it's going to be sustained as people keep the word of God and the Ten Commandments.

That's how it'll be sustained.

What our founding fathers have looked and had a case brought to them and said, with one set of attorneys saying, it's a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy.

Well, they've looked at that and said, well, you know what? That's freedom. If she wants to abort her child in so many months, then that's right.

Of course they wouldn't have. It's not a principle found in the Bible. That's not liberty. That's license. Societies can't sustain themselves. Freedom isn't the lasting freedom when freedom becomes license instead of true liberty. True liberty is based on truth. True liberty is based on seeking God's presence, precepts, and putting those in your life and living by them.

And America, which was founded on some pretty solid principles somewhere along the line, has lost their way. Somewhere along the line, we call license liberty.

And license isn't liberty. Paul says, license isn't liberty. Don't let freedom be a cloak for vice.

But let it be as bondservants of God.

Keep yourself serving him if you want to continue in liberty.

Let's go back to Galatians 5.

Galatians 5.

And in verse 13, Paul writes, You, brethren, have been called to liberty.

And we don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. Don't use liberty as an excuse to do whatever you want to and satisfy your own desires, whether they're right or wrong.

Don't do it, he says. That's not liberty. True liberty doesn't hide behind a word and then say, whatever I want to do, I'm free to do. That's not what true liberty is.

Don't use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. But, he says, through love, through love, serve one another.

Through love, serve one another.

Down in verse 19, he gives some of the things, the sins, the vices, the people can become slaves, too.

It says, The works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

The true land of liberty, those things won't be there. And almost everything in that list, except for a few, would be considered part of our freedoms in America today, wouldn't they?

Only a few of those things in that list could you be arrested for and convicted of.

We live in a land of liberty, but somehow liberty has turned into license. All of us have been guilty of some of those things that are there in that list sometime in the past.

And if it weren't for God calling us and His Holy Spirit, we'd still be subject to it.

We could dig ourselves out of the hole that we find ourselves in.

You know, some of those things we look at, and we think, well, you know, people fall, people make mistakes. But you know, there's a lot of people out there who would tell us today that they are slaves to things that aren't just right.

I've worked for 15 years with a doctor, a brilliant surgeon. Saw him help a number of people, and he's a great person as well as a great doctor. First time I met him, I walked into his office and in his own building that he owned, and he shut the door and he lit up a cigarette. And I thought, well, this just, I mean, you don't smoke in medical facilities, right? That went out with the dark ages, so to speak.

And he said, he goes, well, you guys just have to bear with me. He goes, this is my building. And he goes, I don't smoke anywhere else in this room. This is just one of the things I do. And I tried to quit. I can't quit. Now, I got used to it over time, and, you know, he just, he just, that was just him. And he always had his little place where he smoked, even though, even in hospitals it said no smoking, he did it.

And I, you know, he got married while we knew each other. He's had a couple of kids.

And when he had a couple of kids, he wanted to quit smoking. He didn't want to leave that legacy for them. He didn't want to leave that legacy for them. And his wife never smoked, and so she was on his back as well.

But, you know, he never was able to quit. And he said, I just can't. I just can't do it. I have to keep smoking, even though I don't want to.

Now, how free was he? How was free was he?

You know, very successful in every sense of the word, but here he was, plagued and in bondage to this little, what is it, three-inch rolled up piece of tobacco. And it rules his life. He has to hide it. He has to explain it. And things like that.

There's plenty of other people that are addicted to other things that we would consider vices.

We have alcoholics anonymous, people that have misused the substance.

And any one of those people, if you walked into a meeting, would tell you, I'm in bondage to this. I can't control it. And you know what the first two points, and maybe I have them reversed here, in that 12-step program and many other 12-step programs like it. First, they have to admit there's a problem. Well, that's based in truth, right? And they have to seek a higher power. They come to the point they realize, I don't have the power to control this. I can't pull myself under this. Just like the slaves that were back there in Egypt, just like the slaves that were here in America, they couldn't pull themselves out of that situation. They had to have a higher power bring them out of it.

There's any number of addictions today. There's drug addiction. There's gambling addiction. There's sex addiction. There's shopping addiction. I mean, here's one where you can turn on some financial advisor TV shows and you find these people who just can't get out of the stores. And they run up credit cards. And they certainly have the right to do it, and they probably think, boy, I'm glad I live in a free country so I can go and buy whatever I want. But are they free?

Or are they buried under a mountain of debt and slaves to something that they can't control?

Years ago, we lived in Nashville, Tennessee.

When our older two kids were small, we lived there. And we used to go to Opryland. It was a nice amusement park that was there in that area and had some nice rides. Years later, we went back and thought, oh, we're going to spend a few days in Nashville. We'll spend some time at Opryland.

Opryland wasn't there anymore. Opryland had been bulldozed because the profits on Opryland weren't great enough. You know what they put in place of Opryland? A shopping mall. A shopping mall with all these outlet centers. And when I thought, how on earth could people want to come to Nashville and shop? But you know what? The profits were even more than they thought they would be. And so they thought they'd made the right decision. And I thought, what a statement is that? That instead of going out and doing something, people would rather shop. And yet that's extant in America today. Anything that controls us or slaves to. Christ said He wants to set us free from all those things.

No more bondage. No more being under the control of something or someone. And He wants to provide a liberty that lasts forever. Not just a liberty that lasts maybe 200, 300, 400 years, however long America exists, but a liberty that lasts forever. On verse 22 of Galatians 5, we find some of the sentiments and some of the effects of living in true liberty. The fruit of the spirit, the spirit that God gives us, is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Those all sound like very good things, don't they? If our life was filled, then the lives of all those around us were filled with love, joy, peace, long-suffering. That would be true liberty, wouldn't it? You can kind of just feel the energy in those things. You can feel the ability for growth, development, and potential. You can't feel anything except oppression when you read the list beginning in verse 19. God says He wants to give us those things. You know in verse 23 there's another key to freedom. The last of the fruits that Paul mentions there is self-control. Certainly not the least important, but he says self-control is the fruit of the Spirit, something God gives us. Take self-control to say no to a cigarette. Take self-control to say no to the things that we know we shouldn't be doing. And God says He'll give it to us because He wants us to be free. Let me read a few more quotes. This one is from John Adams. He says, the only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and this needs to be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now. They may change their rulers. They may change their forms of government, but without virtue they will not obtain lasting liberty.

Samuel Adams said, if virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security. Knowledge, truth, virtue, living a moral life and not hiding behind liberty or the concept of liberty and saying everything is okay. Benjamin Franklin said, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. True freedom, lasting freedom comes from the truth, comes from obeying God, comes from following the example of Jesus Christ. There's a song that you're all familiar with. It used to be in our hymnal, and if it was still there, we would have sung it today. It's called America the Beautiful. If you all know that song, right? I mean, you can't live in America and never heard that song. There's a lady by the name of Catherine Lee Bates who wrote that song, and she wrote it for the 4th of July in 1895, and it struck a chord with the American people. She didn't put it to music, but as it gained popularity with the people, Samuel Ward met up with her, and they put the words to music. And you know the words, especially the first verse you know very well, but let me read the second verse of America the Beautiful to you, something that Catherine Lee Bates saw when she looked at America and as she was sending or writing a tribute to the land she loved. She says, O beautiful for pilgrim feet, who stern in passion stress, a thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness. America, America, God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law. Think she knew what true liberty was? You think she understood that liberty was going to be maintained and sustained as people kept a law? Do you think that she looked at liberty and said, it's an excuse to do anything we want to do, no matter what? When she says, God mend thine every flaw. The flaws that lead to oppression, the flaws that lead to slavery, the flaws that lead to us being held down and held back. Just like the millions of people who lived in the Middle Ages and right up until the time America was born and the world began to see, where there's some freedoms people can progress. And she says, confirm your soul, America, in self-control.

Turn with me back to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. Now, let's pick it up in verse 1. This is, of course, Timothy's list of attitudes that will be prevalent on the earth in the end time. He writes, or this is Paul's letter to Timothy about attitudes that will be prevalent on the earth at the end times. He writes, Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient appearance, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control. Oh, not a good sign. In the midst of all these other things that we wouldn't want to be part of or have anyone say, that kind of defines us, is without self-control.

Where in America today is self-control preached? Where in America are the courts saying, that's not freedom, that's license, that's not liberty, that's license, and America wasn't founded on license. The truth of God isn't founded on license.

The truth of God, the liberty that Jesus Christ came to proclaim, is based in truth and takes self-control that He gives us to pull us up and to help us escape from the slavery to sin that we would have without Him. Back in Luke 9, verse 23. Christ speaking, and it says, He said to them all, if anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. Let him say no to himself.

Let him deny what he wants to do. That's what it takes to have liberty. That's what it takes to have lasting liberty, lasting freedom, lasting joy, happiness, peace, and everything people want. Let them say no. You know, there was an experiment done several years ago now, decades ago, I guess. I may have mentioned this here before, but it's been a while, where they were looking at small children to see what kind of traits they had inherited in them, to see how that played in their lives as they went to school and then later on in life. And they took these children and they put them in a room, put a camera on them, had a bowl of candy there, M&Ms or something like that, and they would bring the children in one by one. And they would tell the child, okay, I'm going to leave the room for a few minutes. Don't touch that candy. Don't touch it. And if you don't touch it, when I come back, there was something else that they were going to give them. I don't know if it was the whole bag of candy or whatever, but there was something that was going to happen if they didn't touch that candy. And some of the kids that they put in there really didn't do it. They didn't touch that candy. And you know what? As they followed them through school, they saw that those children did very well. And later in life, they were successful in what they did because they had something in them that they could say, no. And when they were told, no, don't do it, even though they could have gotten away with it because there was no adult standing and watching them, they didn't do it. Other children came in and some of them would start eating one or two. And we're smart enough to leave some behind, so probably thinking, well, they're not going to know I took any. But you know, and some just couldn't control themselves, and they ate all of it, is what the study said. But what they found then is those children went to school. Now, this isn't every single case, but on average what happened is they didn't do as well because self-control is such a huge indicator of success. And you know, not every single one of us has self-control. Not every single one of us was born with it, but every single one of us can develop it. Every single one of us can develop it. God called us. God's given us and will give us all the strengths we need to attain true liberty. Self-control is one of those things. The ability to say no to ourselves is one of those things, and He wants us to be able to do that. I won't take the time to turn to Romans 8, 7 and the verses that surround that. You know the power that the Holy Spirit gives us. You know when God calls us, He gives us the strength and the might to do things we couldn't do by ourselves. As He lives in us, as He develops us, and as we yield to Him and cling to that vine, and as we abide in His precepts, we'll find more and more of the liberty and all the things that are attached to it. All the things that our founding fathers wanted for this nation and all the things that Christ wanted for His people when He came and proclaimed liberty as well. Let's go back to John 8. Let's go back to John 8.

He's looking at looking at on the conclusion of the conversation between Christ and these Jews.

He's shown them that they weren't free at all, but He's given us and them the keys to how we can have lasting liberty. And He tells them they're slaves to sin, and we've seen how we can be free from that once and for all. Verse 51, He says this to them, Most assuredly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. He'll never see death.

That's a pretty bold statement. What Christ is saying is that people that follow Him, abide in Him, will have eternal life.

They will live forever. The things that we work on today, the character that we're building, the projects and the affection that we have as we look forward to the Kingdom, the treasures that we lay up for ourselves by doing the things that Christ and God tell us to do, those things will continue. They may be momentarily interrupted by a physical death, but the fear of death is not among those who are truly free. When Paul was about to die, he was free. He knew there was a crown of righteousness laid up for him, and he wasn't worried about it because he knew his life would continue.

How much freer can you get than that? That even death doesn't interrupt what God is working.

There's no government, no president, no constitution that can promise you that at all.

Only one being in the universe can free us from the things that lead to death and free us from the pain and the sing of death forever.

True and lasting liberty comes from one source, only one place, not from the Constitution in America, not from the Constitution of any other government, not from anything we may write or believe. It comes from Christ. It comes from the truth recorded in the Word and living by every word in it.

True and lasting liberty. The Founding Fathers would have hoped that America would go on forever. That the script that they were writing and the documents that they were writing would provide for a lasting liberty. Will they? Only time will tell. Well, they told the nation and words preserved for us what it will take for that liberty to go on.

But will America listen? We know the words from the Bible that tells us how we can have a lasting liberty with nothing, overcoming or subjecting us or suppressing us again. I'll turn with me back to Daniel 12.

Daniel 12, verse 2.

This is following the detailed prophecy in Daniel 11. And speaking of the end time, it says in verse 2, Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, those who have and will cling to true liberty, and some to shame and everlasting contempt, those who follow another way and have never understood, there's one way to everything a human wants. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. The truly free will shine forever and ever. Back in Daniel 2. At the conclusion of Daniel, explaining to Nebuchadnezzar what the vision that he saw meant, he concludes with verse 44.

Daniel 2, verse 44. In the days of these kings, the four world-ruling empires that Daniel led Daniel to see and that he explained to Nebuchadnezzar. In the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. It will last forever.

It will never end. The principles that it's founded on and the people that populate that kingdom will know the keys and it will last forever and ever. The kingdom shall not be left to other people. There are no other group of people that's going to come in and conquer that kingdom like happened to every kingdom on earth that eventually fails. This kingdom has the answers. This kingdom knows the way to true and lasting liberty. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. That's the kingdom. That's the government. That's what you and I have been called to. Forever. Lasting freedom. Lasting liberty. It's all there. All we have to do is say yes to God and allow him to lead us and do the things that he tells us to do.

On this Independence Day, think about America, but think about the way to true liberty and thank God that his kingdom will be the land of liberty that all men have always sought.