Part 22: The Foundations Of Our Freedom Series

Great Prayers of the Old Testament

Part 22: The Foundations of Our Freedom

Psalm 11:1-7

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared April 14, 2025)

*This week we celebrate our Declaration of Independence from England on July 4th, 1776. On that same day over in England, King George III wrote these words in his diary: "July 4th, 1776: Nothing happened today." (1)

*Poor King George couldn't have been farther from the truth! -- Because up in Philadelphia, Congress adopted our Declaration of Independence.

*It begins with these words: "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. . ." The United States of America was born on that day.

*Now 249 years later, we are celebrating the birth of our free nation. But in times like this it is important for us to know the foundations of our freedom. And the Word of God can help us in today's Scripture. Let's get started by reading Psalm 11:1-7.

MESSAGE:

1. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FOUNDATIONS OF OUR FREEDOM IS GOD'S GUIDANCE.

*There should be no doubt that God guided the hearts, minds and steps of those who came to explore and plant their lives on this side of the world. When Christopher Columbus came to the New World in 1492, he embarked on the longest voyage ever made out of sight of land. And Columbus did that, not because of what he had learned from navigational charts, but because of the compelling drive of the Holy Spirit.

*About himself, Columbus wrote, "I am a most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous presence." (2)

"Columbus discovered America by prophecy rather than by astronomy," the New Encyclopedia Britannica quite accurately explains. It was, after all, the Holy Bible that convinced Columbus beyond any shadow of a doubt that the earth is round. Some 800 years before Christ's incarnation (and more than 2,200 years before Columbus' own birth), the prophet Isaiah had written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit: "It is He [God] who sits above the circle of the earth." (Isaiah 40:22). And Columbus understood basic geometry well enough to realize that a circle, any way you looked at it, had to be round.

"Let God be true, but every man a liar," the Bible declares in Romans 3:4, and Columbus felt called by God to prove to the world that man had mis-calculated and that God's Word had been true all along. The earth was a circumference!

*Christopher Columbus wrote a book entitled BOOK OF PROPHECIES, in which he copied down Scripture pertaining to bringing the gospel to unknown coastlands. The following is an excerpt from his Introduction to the book:

"At a very early age I began to sail upon the ocean. For more than forty years, I have sailed everywhere that people go. I prayed to the most merciful Lord about my heart’s great desire, and He gave me the spirit and the intelligence for the task: seafaring, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, skill in drafting spherical maps and placing correctly the cities, rivers, mountains and ports. I also studied cosmology, history, chronology and philosophy.

It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from there to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because he comforted me with rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures -- encouraging me to continually to press forward, and without ceasing for a moment, they now encourage me make haste.

Our Lord Jesus desired to perform a very obvious miracle in the voyage to the Indies, to comfort me and the whole people of God. I spent seven years in the royal court, discussing the matter with many persons of great reputation and wisdom in all the arts; and in the end they concluded that it was all foolishness, so they gave it up.

It is possible that those who see this book will accuse me of being unlearned in literature, of being a layman and a sailor. I reply with the words of Matthew 11:25, 'Lord, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hath revealed them unto babes.'