On January 5ᵗʰ, 1967, Ronald Reagan gave his inaugural address after being elected as Governor of California. He opened by commenting on the weather and then on the ” … orderly transferring of administrative authority by direction of the people.” He then delivered one of the most powerful observations any man has ever made on the topic of freedoms. “Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It’s not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known Freedom and then lost it, have never known it again.”
In his book “The Star-Spangled Son,” P. McCree Thornton wrote in 2011, “To those who have fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.” Anyone here who has served in the protection of freedom will absolutely agree. Both of these sobering and profound statements are well worth remembering as we celebrate the founding of this great nation 250 years ago. A third well-known quote, from the second President of these United States, brings things sharply into focus. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We are the beneficiaries of a consummate freedom. And yet, each of those quotes points to an even deeper truth.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus is quoted in The Gospel of John, chapter 8 vs 31-36, where we read the following: “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Jesus states here that truth and freedom are bound together, you cannot have one without the other, and they can only be found in Him and His word. Ronald Reagan, P. McCree Thornton, and John Adams all attest to the fact that any human Freedom is a blessing, but it is a delicate, tenuous, and temporary blessing at best. We should never act like bratty, ungrateful, children when it comes to the liberty we enjoy in this great nation, but we should likewise never allow ourselves to be arrogant and ungracious people and allow ourselves to think, like the Jews Jesus spoke to two thousand years ago, that we have any true, lasting, freedom as a result of our nationality, our cultural heritage, or our own effort. All of those are insignificant, a blink of the eye across the vast expanse of eternity and under the crushing weight of our own need.
Like the Jews Jesus spoke to, we have never been enslaved to anyone, but also like those people, we will never know true freedom, “A peace that passes all understanding,” until we submit all to Jesus, walk in His will, in His ways, and in His Word.
Let us not take any freedom, temporal or eternal, for granted, and let us always be thankful for those freedoms, and for who truly provides them.