The Declaration of Independence

On July 4th each year, America celebrates Independence Day. By acknowledging our independence from England to become a separate and distinct nation in the earth, we also acknowledge our dependence upon Almighty God. John Adams, our second president declared:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

John Adams considered the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a holy Day, not just a holiday.

Samuel Adams considered the father of the American Revolution, commenting on the signing of the Declaration, stated:

We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.

This was not a revolution that just changed men to be ruled by other men. This was the fulfillment of the battle cry, "No king, but King Jesus!" It was in effect the pronouncement to the world that America would be One Nation under God. Ronald Reagan warned, "If we ever forget we are One Nation under God, we will become one nation gone under."

On November 20, 1772, in the section of The Rights of the Colonists entitled, "The Rights of the Colonist as Christians," Samuel Adams declared:

The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, the rights of the Colonists as Christians may best be understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of The Great Law Giver and the Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.

In other words, our rights and responsibilities as Americans were first revealed in the Scriptures and later established into our Founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. This is a notion rejected by many Americans today, but it is true history.

Another indication of this view comes from John Quincy Adams, our sixth president. In a speech 50 years after signing of the Declaration he stated:

Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Saviour of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before.

The Declaration acknowledges God Almighty in four different capacities. First, it acknowledges God as Lawgiver. It states, "To the laws of nature and nature's God." This appeal to higher law became the basis for Independence. To comprehend the magnitude of that particular phrase utilized by Thomas Jefferson, one must look to Sir William Blackstone who was the first one to coin it.

Sir William Blackstone was a renowned English jurist who wrote the highly influential work called, Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone defined the laws of nature and of nature's God as:

Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being ... And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will ... this will of his Maker is called the law of nature. These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil. This law of nature dictated by God Himself; is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this... The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found in the Holy Scriptures ... {and} are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation (Thomas Jefferson penned of nature's God as a substitute for the law of revelation) depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

According to Blackstone, the inspiration behind the laws of nature and of nature's God, the creation itself testifies and teaches man there is a Supreme Designer that created the universe. The immutable laws contained within nature reveal a Creator that man is to be subject to by virtue of being a dependent creature. In this, Blackstone was in complete agreement with the Scriptures.

Romans 1:20 states:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

Psalms 19:1 affirms this truth, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." But because man's reason is corrupted by sin, according to Blackstone and the Bible, the Lord did not leave revelation to chance; He made a direct appeal to mankind through what Blackstone called the law of revelation. The Ten Commandments, God's moral Law, was God's way of appealing to man objectively to confirm within man what he instinctively knows to be true, but because of sin man suppresses that truth and exchanges it for a lie. Therefore God sent His most perfect revelation of Himself to mankind via the second person of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches that Jesus is the expressed image of God (Hebrews 1:3). He is the Word of God made flesh. He is Emmanuel, which interpreted is, "God with us!" That is why Jesus could honestly say, "If you've seen me, you have seen the Father." In other words, Jesus was the visible manifestation of the invisible God. According to Blackstone, unless laws were based upon these two premises, they were not laws at all and "no human law should be suffered to contradict these."

Our Founding Fathers acknowledge God as Creator:

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.

This was a radical departure from the Beast, pagan rule, centralized power, and divine rights of kings, which leads to statism and civil government as god mentality that threatens us today. No, according to our Declaration, rights come from God and it is government's duty to protect those rights.

This statement also rebukes two other notions modern America has embraced to our harm. First, our rights as Americans are not derived from evolution. Why? If evolution is true, nothing can be wrong. Why worry about truth or lies, tyranny or freedom, if evolution is true? Random selection and cosmic chance, which constantly evolve cannot provide a fix standard to judge anything. You can never reach sensible conclusions, if life is in a constant state of flux. It is like building a house on a foundation of shifting sand.

Secondly, our Founding Fathers believed in self-evident truth. This is anathema in today's society. We live in a post modern age, which believes there is no such reality as truth. So, America has turned to relativism, tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism instead. Without truth, however, there is no basis for freedom, liberty, science, logic, and morality. All truth is God's truth and if we know and embrace truth, it has the power to liberate. This is the promise of Jesus, the belief of our Founding Fathers, and one we must act on today.

David Barton demonstrated recently that if politicians do not have this foundation right, they will be wrong on all other issues. If they do not defend the right to life, they are incorrect on both foreign and domestic issues.

Our Father's acknowledged Almighty God as "the Supreme Judge of the world." To hold public office before the Constitution most Colonies had to take an oath based upon a belief of future rewards and punishments. In other words, to justly rule amongst men they had to take an oath based upon the realization that God's justice would ultimately triumph in both time and eternity. They had to acknowledge that man, even if he escaped justice on earth, would ultimately be judged and held accountable in eternity. The thought being, if God did not judge sin and reward righteousness amongst men and nations, no incentives to guard against corruption and injustice exist.

Our Constitutional Fathers believed the same. George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights stated:

Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven upon a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins, by national calamities.

This helps to explains the string of calamities that are striking America with increased intensity and frequency. Every idol America now looks to is being judged by a Holy God. Environmentalists that worship the earth are in a state of mourning as the oil continues to decimate their idol in the Gulf. The idolatry of worshipping the almighty dollar is being smashed as God is draining the wealth of our nation. In short, God will not be mocked. We have sowed to the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind.

They ended the Declaration with these immortal words, "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."

Brethren, those who signed this Declaration, in essence, signed their death warrant. It was considered an act of treason. In lawless times, those who keep the law are considered the outlaws. They ran their lap of the race and passed to us a legacy of freedom and a heritage of liberty.

The same forces of tyranny at work in their day are threatening us in our day. Foes within our American household and enemies from without seek our demise. Those who signed this document are dead and it is our turn now. It is time that we look to the same God they did and pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to secure a future and hope for our children and grandchildren so help us God!