We celebrate now the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
America’s founders who signed the document inspired by providence knew that they would be hung if defeated by the greatest armed force in the world. They knew also that defeat was nearly certain.
Leading them was our first president who ultimately in the wake of that unlikely victory and birth of a new nation would turn away from those who would make him king. Behind them was the common man, a militia, 25,000 of whom would be the first of more than one million who would give their lives to pass the gift of the founders on to generations of Americans to follow.
America’s forefathers who gave us these precious freedoms and Constitution were almost without exception men of God.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,” wrote John Adams. “It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” Benjamin Franklin, when asked what kind of government the founding fathers had created responded , “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
The health of our Constitutional Republic, its survival, is dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people. An informed population across the ages is imperative, Franklin meant, because the decline of character across time of many of those who seek positions of governmental power and wealth was as certain as a sunrise.
Call it prophetic. Our new nation then, belonged to the people. This aging nation, now at 250 years, is threatened by those with power who love the darkness and believe that Americans work for them. If you are sickened by the term, “public servant” as (self) defining our elected officials, you are among the vast majority.
Christ, who the founders including George Washington turned to often for divine guidance against a tyrannical foe, said this about such men, and now women, in leadership.
“Leave them. They are blind leaders. When one blind person leads another both will fall into the same pit.” His metaphor emphasized the danger of following those who lack the spiritual insight or pursuit of the truth as was embraced by the founders. We balance now on the edge of that abyss.
Like the founders who gave us the Great Seal of America that has the eyes of the eagle, always, turned to the olive branch with arrows at the ready, we also seek peace first. As God commands. This militia, then seeks only to pass on the freedom that comes only with light and with the truth.
Our second amendment though, an inalienable or God-given right as the fathers reaffirmed with their signatures, is also never mans to take away. It is assurance that our ongoing quest for peace has a last option against those who would take your freedoms, and your peace, from you.
This is a time when America needs us all to be part of an informed population who will pass this great gift of the founders on to the next generation. Find strength where the founders did. In this, you are never alone.
