The Key To Freedom

The story I am about to tell is fiction, but it is funny and it has a point.

After 38 years of marriage I thought I knew everything about Lavonne. But I

discovered something new when we got back from our trip to Washington. I

was putting things away and I was pushing something under her side of the

bed when I discovered a box that was in the way. I asked her what it was and

she just told me not to get into it. I kept carrying things in from the car, but

my mind was on that box. When she went down for another load I quickly

grabbed a peak into that box. I was really surprised and mystified for in that

box there were three eggs and 500 dollars.

When Lavonne came back up I told her I was just too curious and could

not resist looking into the box. I asked her why there were three eggs in it?

She just told me that when I would preach a sermon that was not very good

she would put an egg in the box. I thought after 30 years of preaching that

only three eggs was not bad at all. But then I asked her what the 500 dollars

was doing there? She explained, "Every time I get a dozen eggs I sell them."

The story isn't true, but it is an excellent illustration of the need to laugh

at our selves, and to realize that the best preacher and the best leader, and the

best Christian are nothing without God. Sarah laughed when the Angel of

the Lord said she would bear a child in her old age. What a joke that God

would use her feeble body to change history. If you want to see the sense of

humor that God has, just look at the heroes of history in and out of the Bible.

Paul knew his history when he wrote, "God chose the weak things of the

world to shame the strong." This is what the 4th of July is all about. It is

about celebrating the freedom that the weak have won from the strong.

The 13 colonies were divided and weak, and they were going up against

the greatest military power in the world on both land and sea. The men who

signed the Declaration of Independence knew they were signing their own

death warrant, for death was the penalty for defying the crown of England.

They were men of great stature like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and

Thomas Jefferson. But the fact is, they were all weak in many ways, and they

knew that without the providence of God they did not stand a chance.

The Declaration of Independence was composed by using phrases from

the popular sermons of that day. Listen to it and you can hear the clear sense

of dependence upon God. "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all

men are created equal.... We, therefore, the representatives of the United

States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme

Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name and

by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and

Declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and

Independent States.... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm

Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each

other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

What we need to keep in mind is that these noble words were forged in

debate. Jefferson, the deist, did not want so much about God in the

Declaration, but he was out voted by the others. Many did not want to

approve of the Declaration, and there were eloquent voices that spoke against

it. John Adams called it the greatest debate of all and he argued vigorously

for its acceptance. When congress voted nine of the thirteen colonies voted

for it, but that was not enough, for it had to be unanimous. So the debate

went on and on until all of the colonies agreed, and thus they became the

United States of America.

The more you read of the history of our nation the more you realize the

heroes of our history were not gods come down to earth, but they were weak

and fallible men who knew they didn't have a prayer without the providence

of God. It was their dependence upon God that enabled them to declare their

independence from tyranny. Dependence upon God was the key to freedom.

It was a joke to think this puny body of people could win a war with England,

but that is just the kind of joke God loves to play on the tyrants of history.