Lessons from History

One of the most interesting apps I have on my iphone is called "Daily History."  I love history so this is an easy way for me to recall those special events that happened on a particular day.  I was drawn to yesterday's statement: "June 11 - 1775- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Livingston, and Roger Sherman constitute a committee created to write the Declaration of Independence."  Now, we know that Thomas Jefferson created that first draft of the Declaration - a document that was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.  But, have you ever considered how that document came to be.  It really is a compelling story and one that many of our young people never hear any more. 

For nearly 150 years, the American Colonies had been under the governance of Great Britain.  Oh there was some autonomy with regard to local matters, but taxes were paid to the King.  And, for the most part, relations between the Colonies and the Crown were cordial.  The Colonies even helped the Crown achieve a victory in the early part of the 18th century - a war we know as The French and Indian War.  But, following the war, relationships between the Colonies and the Crown began to cool.  Parliament expected the Colonies to help pay a greater share for the costs of the war - for, after all, they were the great beneficiaries of the war.  So, in 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act - a bill that would raise funds to pay war debts.  This was the first internal tax placed upon the Colonies by the British government.  The response from the Colonies was negative.  Yet, more taxes would follow, culminating in the Tea Tax in 1773.  Enough was enough, the colonists declared.  The response was what is known as the Boston Tea Party with its cry, "no taxation without representation."  Britain responded with a punishment upon Boston in the form of the Intolerable Act.  In response to this Act, the colonies convened the First Continental Congress in 1774 with the purpose of drafting a letter of response to King George and Parliament protesting Britain's treatment of the Colonies.  The letter was rejected outright.

On April 19, 1775, the first shots of what became known as the War of Independence rang out on the hills of Lexington and Concord. Years later Ralph Waldo Emerson would declare this as "the shot heard 'round the world."  (His "Concord Hymn" written in 1836).  The Second Continental Congress was convened later in 1775 in Philadelphia.  Some of the greatest leaders this nation has ever produced were gathered in Independence Hall for debate on the Colonies response.  When one reads the list of those men - John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Roger Livingston, Roger Sherman, just to name a few - one stands in awe.  As the historian Joseph Ellis writes in his book titled "The Founding Brothers" the birth of our nation could not have been accomplished at any other time because the leadership simply was not present. 

Friends, the American nation did not accidentally arise.  There was a God-centered purpose at its heart.  It cannot be denied that those delegates to the Second Continental Congress sensed the direction of the Almighty in their deliberations.  Perhaps they were not all Christians, as we know that term today, but they knew that God (whom they often described as Providence) was guiding them.  All one has to do is to read those words that grace that document known as the Declaration of Independence:  "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.."

Friends, I have often, in my teaching, equated America with Old Testament Israel.  Both were born out of adverse times - Israel was enslaved in Egypt; the Colonies felt they were enslaved by Britain.  Both desired to be set free from that enslavement.  God raised up leaders - for Israel, it was Moses and later Joshua; for the Colonies, it were those courageous men who met in Philadelphia, and for an army later led by George Washington.  And for both nations, their foundational documents were centered upon principles of moral right and wrong as received from God.  Yet, as one continues the parallels, Israel certainly had those moments when it abandoned those foundational principles and sought to be independent from God.  The results were disastrous, as the books of Judges and First and Second Kings record.  Israel found solid footing when they returned to God and to those principles they knew were from Him.  America, too, has stumbled.  There have been times when it has sought to be freed from those foundational principles.  The results have been disastrous.  Yet, God was pleased to rekindle the fires through revivals and awakenings. 

Our nation is at a crossroads.  There is a defiance in the face of God these days.  The judgment of God should be expected.  But might we see a time of revival before?  Could there be a Third Great Awakening here in the United States?  May our prayer be so.