As we commemorate the day of our Independence from Britain, it may be helpful to be reminded of the sufferance of the Founding Fathers and what was going through their minds as they decided to take on the most powerful political and military force on the planet. They said, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” What happens when that “Prince” collectively becomes the Supreme Court, the Congress and the Executive Branch working in concert with one another toward a world order foreign and detrimental to the people they are charged with representing and to the Constitution they vowed to uphold? What are citizens to do?
The Declaration of Independence is a masterful document that served as the true “preamble” to our Constitution. It begins by saying: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 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.
“–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.” The signatures of 56 men were written on the Declaration after this sentence: “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.”
In other words, they risked everything. They counted the cost. They understood the will of God. They acted. This Independence Day, please take time to remind yourself and others about the sufferance of those who made such a pledge on their Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor. Please contemplate our national condition. Please seek God. For as Peter and the disciples said in Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” And recall the words of James 1:25, “But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” The body without spirit is dead, faith without works is also dead. Please consider your destiny.
