“If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.” - John 8:36

As we approach another Fourth of July, it should be with great appreciation of those — in uniforms or everyday clothes; in legislative halls, courtrooms, or on battlegrounds; in the past and present — who’ve stood strong, fought hard, and sacrificed much for us in the United States to be free.

But again — perhaps more than ever this year, the sense weighing on many a political, social, and/or cultural observer’s mind and heart is of our shrinking and endangered freedoms.

Not shrinking because some foreign foe has impinged upon them, nor endangered by an enemy army on our shores. Shrunken by short-sighted and appallingly selfish, self-aggrandizing politicians; endangered by those who lack the wisdom (or maybe even the ‘sense’?) to know what courses of action shore up our freedoms and which endanger them. Who unwisely refuse to call our enemies ‘who’ they are, refuse to acknowledge how they operate and what they are daily doing to weaken the United States…or else who are so perversely aligned with them — or might as well be — that they are paving the way for enemies by confusing white flags for olive branches.

Almost daily — certainly if you are linked to the real tell-all news sites on the Internet — there is news of unwarranted judicial activism, such as accusing a teen of “violent criminal behavior” for shooting spitballs, while blindly disregarding hard-core terrorism taking place in American cities or American streets, whether it’s “occupiers” destroying property and injuring police or Islamists throwing chunks of concrete at Christians watching their celebration in Dearborn, MI. How can such be happening in America?!

And make no mistake, if the ‘offending’ (the new worst crime) ‘party’ is Christian, the book gets thrown even harder. America is in hard times financially, yes; no one could dispute that finding.

But far more serious is our institutions’ ability to think straight or apply the law equally. A Christian school cannot refuse to suspend gay students — or their activist mom teachers — but an Islamist father can be exonerated from murder charges for killing his daughter because it was ‘protected’ action under Sharia law.

A Christian cannot ‘heckle’ a Muslim, who can attack a Christian because his/her silently-held poster is ‘offensive’ to the Muslim religion…in America!

When such can happen, it is rather senseless to wonder whether America’s way of life or our freedoms are in peril. They are well-nigh gone. It is also senseless to wonder ‘how much longer’ we can enjoy our freedoms…they are already all but over. It’s just that in society as in life, the funeral follows the death.

Many today just have given up following ‘the news’ (as well one might, unless you listen to or read something other than the old ‘mainstream’ media). But may I remind you that watching or reading something more ‘pleasant and relaxing’ does not change the truth: If freedoms erode as much in the coming year as they have in the past year, you will soon not have anything to watch or read except what Big Brother chooses. Government will have all the freedoms.

The people — whose freedoms our government is supposed to protect — will have none.

The current trend toward not only big, but unrestrainedly liberal, socialist government is highly dangerous to cultural, social, religious, and political freedom. Our military forces have for generations died to protect each.

But this Fourth, along with hoping you will think seriously about the wisdom and desirability of the directions we’re being steered in by politicians, pundits, and activists (even some ‘preachers’) at many levels—local to national—I urge you to consider the only freedom no one can shrink: That of the soul saved, safe, and free, now and for eternity. Jesus died to win that freedom for you….

So give Him some thought on the Fourth, too….

Have a good week!