Liberty is America's second name. We have such national symbols as the
Statue Of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and the songs of liberty like My Country
Tis Of Thee-sweet land of liberty, of thee of I sing. The Preamble to our
Constitution says, "We the people...in order to establish justice, insure
domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty for ourselves and our posterity, due ordain and establish this
Constitution. Our Constitution exists to secure for us the blessing of liberty.
Our Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag ends with, "With liberty and justice for
all." The Declaration of Independence says that we have the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Why is liberty so important? It is because bondage of some kind is always
a battle. If we are not in bondage to some master or government, we are in
bondage to sin, and if not to sin, then to our past, or someone else's legalism.
We may be in bondage to family tradition, or social tradition. We are in
bondage to our culture and to our peer group. We are in bondage to fears,
anxieties, and guilt. We are always fighting to be free from some kind of
bondage. The biggest battle of the believer is in staying free as the Son has set
us free.
The battle never ceases, for the oppressor is always somewhere seeking to
bring you into bondage. The Judaisers sought to do this to the early
Christians. They tried to bring them again under the bondage to the law of
Moses. Paul had to shout in their ear, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke
of slavery." Liberty is the name of the game. Liberty is life. It is the
abundant life Jesus came to give. Liberty is the goal of almost all we do, or do
not do. To be free from sin is a goal of God for us. To be free from tyranny is
the goal of our government. To be free of all that robs us of God's best is
what it is all about, and so liberty is life.
In Isa. 58:6 God says, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen-to loose
the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed
free and break every yoke." As Christians and as Americans we are, by our
very nature and heritage, a people committed to liberty. But why do we have
it when all men have always loved liberty, and yet have not achieved it? It is
because we have a piece of paper that prevents human nature from doing
what robs us of our liberty, and that is our constitution.
In our text of Jer. 34 we see human nature for what it is, and how that
man is the worst enemy of liberty. Here we see Jews who will not let their
fellow Jews be set free from bondage. It is to their benefit to keep them in
bondage, and so they enslave those who worship the same God. It is in direct
violation of the revealed will of God and leads to judgment. What we see in
this passage is an example of why it is a perpetual battle to secure human
rights and liberty. Christian history does not differ from Jewish history, but
reveals the same danger of power being used to rob people of liberty.
The Christians who came to America to enjoy liberty did not come here to
escape the bondage of atheists or humanists, but of other Christians. In our
Western history it has been Christians who have been the greatest opponents
of religious liberty. The people who fled to America were not coming from
non-Christian lands, but from England and Europe where Christians were in
control of the church and state. These state-church Christians came to
America as well, and so the battle continued in this land for liberty of
Christians from other Christians.
The Puritans were some of the most godly people to ever inhabit this
planet, but they were convinced that the church and state should be one, and
that the laws of the land should be laws that support the church. What they
failed to realize was that other Christians did not believe this was right. They
assumed that all Christians would benefit from the laws, but the fact is, the
laws hindered other Christians to be free to worship God as they were
convinced they should.
The Puritans had all kinds of law that put Baptists in bondage. The laws
of the early colonies demanded that all babies be baptized, and that all
citizens be taxed to support the state church. As the nation became more
diverse, and people with different convictions came, there were more and
more laws passed to restrain their freedom. Laws were passed that said there
could be no preaching at night, and that none could preach without consent of
the authorities. No servant could be baptized without the consent of his or
her master, and that no one could vote unless they were a member of the
established church. America was fast on its way to becoming a nation where
one group of Christians enslaved all others.
Then God sent to these shores a man who changed the course of history
and helped America become the greatest land of liberty in the history of
mankind. His name was Roger Williams, and he was the Apostle of religious
liberty. The Puritans did everything they could to get rid of this fanatic for
freedom. They vanished him from the country, but he fled and started his
own colony. In 1638 he founded the colony of Rhode Island. It was the only
place on earth at that time where all Christians were free to worship God and
practice their religious convictions without persecution from other
Christians. The following year in 1639 he founded the First Baptist Church
in America. He laid the foundation for the Baptist being the denomination
most famous for its fight for religious liberty.
It was a long hard battle, for the state church was already deeply
embedded in America, and the other colonies were governed by Christians
who were convinced that their church alone represented the kingdom of God.
The Baptists demanded the right to worship and obey God in accordance
with their interpretation of the Scriptures. They did not want the ideas of
others imposed on them. Isaac Backus stood before the Massachusetts
legislature shortly after the famous Boston Tea Party, which was a protest
against taxation without representation. He applied this demand for liberty
to the religious realm, and he said:
"That which has made the greatest noise, is a tax of 3 pence
a pound upon tea; but your law of last June laid a tax of the
same sum every year upon the Baptists in each perish, as they
would expect to defend themselves against a greater one. And
only because the Baptists in Middleburo have refused to pay
that little tax, we hear that the first perish in said town had this fall
voted to lay a greater tax upon us. All Americans are alarmed
at the tea tax; though, if they please, they can avoid it by not buying
the tea; but we have no such liberty. We must either pay the little tax,
or else you people appear even in this time of extremity, determined to
lay the great one upon us.
But these lines are to let you know, that we are determined not to pay
either of them; not only upon your principles of
not being taxed where we are not represented, but also because we
dare not render homage to any earthly power, which I and many of my
brethren are fully convinced belongs only to God. Hear, therefore, we
claim charter rights, liberty of conscience."
What we need to see is that the battle for religious liberty is not just a fight
for freedom of religion, but for freedom from religion. We need to be free
from the religious convictions of other people being imposed upon us. This
has been the battle of the Baptists. Nobody is more likely to rob you of your
liberty than other religious people. John 5:16 says, "Therefore did the Jews
persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him because He had done these things on
the Sabbath day." Jesus had a different conviction about how the Sabbath
was to be used, and so they sought to eliminate Him. This is the way human
nature responds to new ideas, and that is why progress in the religious realm
is often so painful and costly for the pioneers who blaze new trails.
Who killed the prophets of God? It was not the Gentile kings, but it was
God's own people. Who killed Christ? Again, it was God's own people.
There is no freedom of religion until you have some means by which you have
freedom from the religious convictions of others. That is what makes
America so unique in the history of nations. We have freedom from religion
guaranteed by our constitution.
Sometimes we might think it would be great if Christians had the power to
eliminate all other beliefs. Historians are in agreement, however, that this is
the surest way to corrupt Christianity and make it ineffective. Everything
Protestants despise about the history of Catholicism began when Constantine
linked the Roman Empire and the church. Almost every bad thing you can
say about the history of the church has its origin in that marriage of the
church and state. The Church gained control of civil power, and it began to
write the worst chapters in its history of evil and corruption. Power does not
just corrupt the ungodly. The godly are also its victims, and history makes it
clear that Christians need protection from themselves. Our Constitution
limits Christian political power, and we need to be grateful that it does.
Christians who have had the power to persecute have done so, for they all
follow the same line of thinking that seems to be so reasonable. Lord
Macaulay put it into these words: "The doctrine which, from the very first
origin of the religious dissensions has been held by all bigots of all sects, when
condensed into a few words, and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this:
I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you
ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the
stronger, I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error." That is
the way Christians tend to think when they get power.
In Virginia, for example, there was a fine of 2000 pounds of tobacco for
any parent who refused to have their child baptized by the state church. The
Baptists went through horrible persecution when resisting such laws, and
they were whipped and jailed by other Christians who did not want them to
have the freedom to do it the way they were convinced the Scripture taught.
But men of liberty who had the desire for freedom began to see the Baptists
position. A young lawyer by the name of Patrick Henry got three preachers
set free who were on trial for preaching the Gospel without the consent of the
state church.
As the Baptists were dragged to court for their violations of the
church-state laws their views were being heard by lovers of liberty. James
Madison, the father of the Constitution, came over to their side. Thomas
Jefferson became sympathetic, and George Washington became open to their
plea for liberty. In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed, but
because of the Baptist fight, three years later in 1779 Virginia gave the
Baptists their independence from the state church. No longer did they have to
pay the tax to support the state church, and by 1786 the law established
complete separation of church and state. The Baptists had won a great
victory for religious liberty.
The Baptists were fearful, however, that the central government would
gain power over religious liberty and enslave them again, and deprive them of
the victory they had won from the states. So in 1788 a General Committee of
Baptists met in Virginia to discuss the new Constitution of the U. S. They sent
a delegation to George Washington, the new President. They persuaded him
to urge the congress to listen to the Baptist concern. The result was the First
Amendment of the Constitution, which says, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof."
America was at last a land of full religious liberty like no other land ever
before. The First Amendment eliminated all of the dangers of a state church.
No body of religious people can now impose their conviction on any other
body of people. All are free to worship and obey God according to their own
convictions. This has been the major contribution Baptists have made to our
nation. The American historian Mr. Bancroft said, "Freedom of conscience,
unlimited freedom of mind, was from the first the trophy of the Baptists."
John Locke said, "The Baptists were the first propounders of absolute liberty,
just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty."
We need to appreciate just how much this liberty makes America the
unique nation that it is. The great leaders of the Protestant Reformation did
not believe in religious liberty for all people any more than did the Catholic
church. The majority of Christians in history have felt that liberty should be
limited to their convictions which they hoped could be imposed on others. In
England when a Catholic gained the throne there was persecution of the
Protestants, and when a Protestant gained the throne there was persecution
of the Catholics. The only escape from this abuse of power is in separation of
church and state, and it was only in America that this goal became a reality.
In our land the largest groups of Christians cannot impose any of their
convictions on the smallest group of other Christians. We are indeed a land of
liberty.
History and the Bible make it clear that the most godly people cannot have
power over other people and not abuse that power. That is why the only way
to secure religious liberty is by a Constitution like ours that makes it illegal to
impose your convictions on others by force. Our liberty does not depend
upon the goodness and kindness of those in power. They can hate us, but they
cannot deny our liberty, for it is written that they cannot do it. We have our
liberty, not as a gift from those in power, but as a right guaranteed by our
Constitution. God demanded that the Jews give their fellow Jews liberty.
It is not just a good idea or suggestion, but it is an absolute obligation. Failure
to honor God's will in this regard led to great judgment of destruction. God takes
man's freedom very seriously. That is why it is essential to preserve the
separation of church and state. This does not mean they cannot cooperate, for
they are both a vital part of society. They just cannot have power over each
other to coerce each other into conformity. They are to be mutually beneficial
friends working together for the good of the people. The wall of separation is
to protect them from each other. It is like the wall between the men's room
and the women's room. But this is not to be interpreted to mean that the two
sexes cannot work together for the good of all. The wall is just protection so
that the temptation to abuse power is kept under control.
In the Cross of Christ I glory as a Christian, but in the Constitution I
glory as an American. In these we have the best of both worlds-a Lord of
liberty in a Land of liberty. Let us praise God for His providence that led this
nation to be the greatest land of liberty that has ever been.
