Friends, this day in 1776 is the day we celebrate the secession of – eventually – 13 already-existing republics from an empire that had grown ever more despotic and injurious to the natural rights of the people of those 13 countries. Ambassadors from 11 of those 13 countries voted to unite in a Declaration of independence, wherein their common complaints were set forth for all to see. The form of that declaration was one familiar to the gathered representatives as it had been established by accepted historical precedent.
Today, there are 50 states, each of which is populated by a citizenry whose rights are oppressed in a degree of despotism George III could not have conjured up in his most monarchical and maddened fantasy. Yet, the citizens of those erstwhile republics do next to nothing to break the bands of tyranny hanging heavily on their necks.
That is our choice and, I believe, we will answer to Almighty God and His Son, Jesus Christ, for our unmanly disregard and dissolution of the liberty vouchsafed for us first by our earthly fathers and most certainly and surely by our Heavenly Father’s gift of His Only Begotten Son. Surely for our stupor and sacrifice of that blood-bought freedom we will be held accountable.
I won’t tell you not to celebrate the anniversary of July 4, 1776; it was an inspiring day in the history of our ancestors. I will say, however, that to celebrate that day and to proclaim our freedom is a most grave and galling insult to the men and women whose lives, fortunes, and sacred honor were on that day and for decades thereafter placed willingly on the altar of freedom. We draw nigh unto freedom with our lips while our hearts and habits are far from it. Our Independence Day celebrations are whited sepulchers, displaying freedom without, while containing nothing but the bleached and rotted bones of ignorance and indifference within.
May we repent. May we awake and arouse our faculties in the difficult and divine disgorgement of our liberty from the hands of tyrants and their sycophantic servants. May we be our fathers’ children and once again refuse to crouch down and meekly lick the hands that feed us.
Amen and amen.