Defining Moments - An Independence Day Sermon

Intro: CONTINENTAL DIVIDE = advance slide

(slide show available upon request: eldonandkay@hotmail.com)

PowerPoint Intro

Metal Building – Purpose for roof … shed water…

WATER SHED…

Left… West…. Right … East

The USA has a watershed … also

(all continents have….)

All water (Spring, rivers, streams, brooks, rain, snow melt, EVEN COCA COLA) if any liquid falls on the west side… of the continental watershed… PACIFIC SEABOARD

…. EAST SIDE…. ATLANTIC SEABOARD

This WATERSHED is called a CONTINENTAL DIVIDE.

For this message, I would like to use the term… WATERSHED.

Not only do buildings and continents have watersheds,

TIME also HAS WATERSHEDS…we could call it… WATERSHED MOMENTS or…

DEFINING MOMENTS…. a "LIFE BEFORE" and "LIFE AFTER" event

This morning, I would like to look at WATERSHED (DEFINING) MOMENTS in

1. HISTORY (American)

2. HIS STORY (our LORD JESUS CHRIST)

3. OUR STORY – (each person is writing their own personal story)

I. Defining Moments in History (AMERICAN)

Just as human beings usually are born nine months after conception, there was a period of time in American history where the AMERICAN IDEA was conceived.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Then OPPRESSION is the mother of freedom.

America was an idea that began in the early 1500’s. The period of pregnancy lasted almost 300 years.

The defining moment of our beloved nation’s was its birth which took place 238 years and two days ago.

On that day, 56 men pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to lead the newborn nation into the unchartered waters of freedom and democracy.

They all signed our nation’s birth certificate = the

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!

This was definitely a watershed moment. However, if we were to isolate that specific day in 1776, on the surface, our national birthday would have seemed rather insignificant. With a lack of modern communication, nothing much changed that day in the day-to-day lives of the signers nor of the citizens of this brand new nation. In retrospect and looking at the larger picture,…July 4th 1776 looms larger than life.

That day was the equivalent of having bringing about a 9.0 quake in the world’s geopolitical reality. The uniqueness of the American dream shook all geopolitical foundations and upset the status quo fruit basket of despots around the world.

Until that day, a select few aristo…crats (no relation … Kratz ;-) ruled over the earth’s population through intimidation, slavery, bribery, murder, threats, barbaric wars, coups and other such power plays that had kept the masses oppressed, beaten down and hopeless and this, since the beginning of human history.

The truth is that throughout human history until July 4th, 1776, it could be said that the geopolitical stage of the entire world was survival of the fittest. With the obvious exception of the nation of Israel, a nation that was more “fit” enslaved the weaker nations.

The American idea was conceived shortly after the Italiano Columbus goofed up on his GPS coordinates.

I think that he must have given too much credit to the spokesman for State Farm Insurance.

Turn right

Turn left

Turn right… I MEAN LEFT

After almost causing a rear end collision with the Nina (knee-nha) and the Pinta (pen-ta), instead of landing in the East Indies he landed at the SANDALS RESORT in the East Islands of the Bahamas!

His discovery began an entourage of ships laden with common citizens headed for a place that promised them more civil liberties and freedom from oppression.

The American idea became a specific war strategy in 1776 when 56 signers signed the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE.

Remember the phrase repeated often last week: FREEDOM IS NEVER FREE!

The Revolutionary War (1775 – 1783)

American deaths 25,000 people

British military deaths total about 10,000.

To summarize this Defining Moment,

• JULY 4, 1776 is one of the PRINCIPAL WATERSHED MOMENTS in AMERICAN HISTORY as it is regarded as our national birthday.

Another DEFINING MOMENT came less than 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The second DEFINING MOMENT established what this nation would look like for the next 150 years…in other words, from 1861 until NOW!

This defining moment lasted for 4 years ... which in light of the Revolutionary War, wasn’t that long. This moment only took about ½ the time that the war for our independence from Great Britain took.

Half the period of time but many, many times the number of war casualties.

The official number of casualties in the Revolutionary War was 25,000.

The official number of casualties in the Civil War is well over 750,000!

FREEDOM is NEVER FREE

And what on earth justified such carnage in the infant nation?

PRINCIPLE! PURPOSE!

PERIOD!

It was the practical application of this truism:

“Unless one has a purpose worth dying for, they do not possess a purpose worth living for!” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.