The greatest document written by man

The Price of Liberty

TEXT- "Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)

What is the greatest document ever written by man?

1. Many would immediately identify the Bible, but Gods Word was not written solely by man. It was divinely inspired, meaning it had dual authorship. The Bible was written by God and man.

2. But what is the greatest document ever written by a human? Some might say Martin Luther's 95 theses tacked to the castle church door at Wittenberg, Germany is the greatest document because it inspired the Protestant Reformation.

3. Some would say that the Magna Carta signed by the English King John was the greatest document because it provided liberty for England.

But I believe the greatest document written by humans in the history of mankind is the Declaration of Independence, the birth certificate of the United States of America.

Now the United States Constitution is a magnificent document and no nation in history has such a charter of incorporation. But, the Constitution is, in reality, an outgrowth of the Declaration of Independence---and could never have been written without the courageous and brilliant composition of our national birth certificate.

Listen to these words: "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." (Signed August 2, 1776.)

And these concluding words: "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." And 56 American heroes signed it... for which many of them paid with their lives and fortunes."

Yes, I believe this is the greatest document ever written -- not for its beauty, even though it is penned in beautiful, prosaic English; not for its simplicity and clarity, although it is understood by the smallest child; and not for its judicial logic, though lawyers and courts still examine it thoroughly and often for its legal brilliance.

I believe the Declaration of Independence is the greatest document ever written because of what it has produced. The Declaration of Independence is a soul-liberating document that has revolutionized the world.

The Declaration of Independence is the greatest document because: It promised the greatest good; It influenced the greatest number of people; It provided the greatest quality of life; It gave birth to the greatest nation and that nation provided the greatest freedom in history; and...it led to the greatest advancement in the civilization of mankind this world has ever known.

As you examine these self-evident truths, you will discover that our founding fathers believed in four basic Christian tenets; and they included their Christian beliefs in their declaration of independence. What did they believe?

1. They believed in a Creator.

2. They believed God created them in His own image.

3. They believed that Gods supernatural act (i.e. the miracle and sanctity of life) to create mankind should continue to be extended to every person.

4. They believed in absolute truth which they called inalienable rights or self-evident truths.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Derrick Johnson, the prominent Christian composer and arranger, researched this question and found the following:
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.
These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on
the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't just fight the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted...We shouldn't.

So, take a couple of minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid . . .LET'S ALL REMEMBER THAT FREEDOM IS "NEVER FREE"!!!!

Our war for independence from Great Britain began with no one giving us any hope of overpowering the worlds leading superpower of that day. But our forefathers were men of great faith.

Soon after those opening shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the cry, "No king but Jesus" was heard throughout the colonies. This spirit is illustrated in the life of a young, backwoods freedom fighter named Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen was not always a brand of exquisite furniture.

Allen was studying for the ministry when the early embers of revolutionary fire began to burn. He moved from his native state of Connecticut to Vermont where he became the Colonel of a citizen’s militia group that called themselves "The Green Mountain Boys."
After learning that the war had begun in Massachusetts, Allen and his boys took it upon themselves to attack Fort Ticonderoga. Here is his personal account of the capture of that British fort:

"The garrison being asleep, except the sentries, we gave three huzzas (shouts) which greatly surprised them. One of the sentries made a pass at one of my officers with a charged bayonet, and slightly wounded him. My first thought was to kill him with my sword; but, in an instant, I altered the design and fury of the blow to a slight cut on the side of the head; upon which he dropped his gun and asked quarter, which I readily granted him, and demanded of him the place where the commanding officer kept. He showed me a pair of stairs in the front of a barrack, on the west rack, to which I immediately repaired, and ordered the commander, Captain De la Place, to come forth instantly, or I would sacrifice the whole garrison; at which the Captain came immediately to the door, with his breeches in his hand, when I ordered him to deliver me the fort instantly.

"He asked me by what authority I demanded it. "I answered him, In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress."

Such was the spirit and courage of our Founding Fathers. From Concord Bridge to Ticonderoga, from Bunker Hill to Valley Forge the story was the same. Men yearning to be free and believing that God would give them their hearts desire wrestled a nation from the grasp of tyranny and established "free and independent States" based on recognition of and reliance on God. It was an experiment that could not have happened without the evident blessing and assistance of Heaven.

As we look at the condition of our land today, it hardly resembles the appearance of those glory years. We tolerate governmental intrusions that would have been regarded as unbearable by Colonial America. We accept meddlesome regulations and burdensome taxation in a way the Founding Fathers could never have. Saddest of all is that the spirit of faith and fearlessness appears to have almost vanished from among our nations leaders.

Some things haven’t changed, however. God is still holy. Freedom is still worth fighting for. Faith and fearlessness are still qualities of genuine patriots. And, as long as some of us have breath, the spirit of independence will forever live.

One is struck by two facts when reading the Declaration of Independence and other Founders' writings: first, their intense, public spirituality and comprehension of a linkage between national virtue and national blessings. Second, that Americans today have so little appreciation of the philosophical foundations of our unique heritage.

But, why should anyone be surprised, when the writings of the Founders, which American school children were taught for 175 years, are no longer studied. Today's state-run schools and revisionist writers have systematically expunged an accurate portrayal of the spirit of the founding era from American history, as Virginia's Standards of Learning scores graphically attest.

Walt Barbee, a great modern Virginian, said "Indeed, who in our modern generation has even heard of Benjamin Rush, Thomas McKean, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, John Witherspoon, Richard Henry Lee or Charles Carroll -- all prominent founders and signers of the Declaration of Independence? Do they not have anything to say worth hearing today?

Consider Benjamin Rush. When he died in 1813, the whole nation mourned the loss of a man regarded as one of the top three American Founders, ranked alongside George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. A noted Philadelphia physician, Dr. Rush helped found five colleges, including the first women's college, and the first black college. He trained over 3,000 physicians, was a chemistry professor, a renowned writer, the "father of public schools," Surgeon General to George Washington's Army, Treasurer of the U.S. Mint, opened the first free medical clinic, helped found the first American anti-slavery society, and helped write the Pennsylvania Constitution.

In addition, Benjamin Rush was a well-known, dedicated Christian who founded the Sunday School movement in America, and America's first Bible Society. The religious worldview of Dr. Rush is typical of most of the founders, as is well documented in their writings. In fact, not one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence was an avowed atheist.

Even Benjamin Franklin, who called himself a deist, does not fit the modern definition of deism. Among the many convincing evidences, consider Franklin's motion at the 1776 Constitutional Convention for morning prayers, in which he said, "I have lived, Sirs, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men."

Is there any benefit to looking back and examining the American Revolution and the spirit which produced it?

President Woodrow Wilson offers perhaps the best answer: "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we don't know where we have come from or what we have been about."

As Douglas MacArthur noted, no nation in history which lost its moral and cultural core was able to recover from decline. Our Founding Fathers passed to us the spiritual torch of freedom. May we never let that light go out.

In the past generation, we have seriously abrogated all our covenants with God. We are no longer a Christian nation. We have sinned as a nation and must claim II Chronicles 7:14.

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