Independence Day?!

TUES., JULY 4, 1995, 6:34 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is the great summer holiday in your culture, the remembrance of the declaration of independence from kingly rule. Hence there was never a king to rule this land. A representative democracy developed with a spirit of cooperation, yet never without competition. Conservatives now have more power than liberals, and you wait to see how that will affect your life and the conditions of life in your land.

But today everyone should be united in celebrating independence, an independence that was achieved through a military victory, with My acknowledged help. Many of the patriots of those 1770’s were Christians, and many felt that I, as Almighty God, had brought them to this land and had given it to them. It did not belong to England and its king, even though their religion had been “learned” there. And it did not belong to the natives, for theirs was a simpler, non-Christian way of life.

So a war was fought. It was bloody…and yet simple by your standards today. It achieved independence, and this was declared. Then came a constitution and a bill of rights, a three part system – legislative, judicial, and executive. The system was one of checks and balances, with a competition for power. The ultimate power was to be in the electorate, accompanied by the “confession, “In God we trust.” Yet there was to be no establishment of religion. Though the competition at that time was within Christianity, it encouraged a secularism, an independence from any form of established religion. And the competition continues in these present times.

Many whose relationship with Me was based in the Reformed tradition… Calvinists… were active in this fight for independence, feeling that I had chosen some of them and welcomed their commitment to Me, as well as to political freedom. Yours is not a dominant denomination now, and many of you have accepted the dominance of secularism as preferable to the dominance of some form of Christianity.

For My Church now has many “forms,” with competing and opposing styles of governance and in beliefs, interpretations, and doctrines. Your “form,” in the spirit of representative democracy, prefers a secular government over one dominated by a competing Christian “form” with more power… for example, Roman Catholic or Southern Baptist.

This is not a religious holiday, though there is still an underlying assumption that I helped in the War for Independence. What if I, as the Risen Christ, should return to earth on this day, amidst the patriotism and the fireworks? Would I be welcomed? Or would I not “fit in” to the spirit of this holiday? Would I urge you to remember and study war no more? Would I ask… even demand… that you give up your independence for more dependence on Me? Yet would I still refuse to take the government upon My shoulders? I guess you can see that this might not be the most propitious day for Me to return.