By Robert J. Morgan
On this Independence Day, more than ever, a message of freedom in Christ is one we must share with the world. Recently, even believers have felt the kind of bondage that comes with uncertainty — uncertainty of the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty in how the nation will move forward in a time of social unrest. This presents an opportunity to refresh our memory of Scriptures that speak to hope, direction, and how we can share the message of spiritual freedom in Christ. While we know that our carnal frames of clay will never know what it is to truly be unbound, God has given us the opportunity to find spiritual freedom in Him as long as we continue to hold up His Word — the Bible.
This is an important time to look back at the important role the Bible has played as the cornerstone of American history. It is only because of this foundation that for centuries our nation has withstood the fury of the winds, tides, and storms. To find its future, the United States must recall its past and reform its present.
That our shores should become homeland to persecuted believers seeking freedom to practice their faith; that people would follow by the thousands with Bibles under their arms; that millions of people here would experience spiritual awakenings of biblical proportions; that the United States would produce generations of preachers, missionaries, educators, businessmen, businesswomen, teachers, statesmen, homemakers, and evangelists to take the gospel to the nations and turn the world upside down; and that this nation would be at the forefront of the greatest humanitarian causes of our day — this is no accident of history.
The Bible is the world’s only moral compass that points true north, as our founders knew. The hands of the compass have never changed, but somehow we seem headed in different directions today: downward into confusion, division, corruption, and a murky Darwinian morality forged by fickle societal consensus that is shifting by the hour. How strange that a nation would reject its finest founding document and exhibit a tolerance for everyone except those who still affirm the Book that resides at the heart of our history.
This is a land upon which God has shed His grace, from sea to shining sea. For this nation to now marginalize, minimize, and malign the role of the Bible in our culture leads to the second half of Christ’s analogy: “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matt. 7:26–27).
But I am truly encouraged now, seeing a new generation emerge with fortitude on their faces, Bibles in their hands, and hope in their hearts. Our nation is not beyond the redemption point. Millions of people are discovering the passion of living counter- culturally, walking with God, and truly becoming, as Jesus said, a shining city upon a hill.
Today our nation’s problems are not primarily medical or political, but spiritual. And the answers are not found in our politics or medicine but in the hope of another spiritual return to God and His Word.
Robert J. Morgan is a writer and speaker who serves as the teaching pastor at The Donelson Fellowship in Nashville. He is the author of 100 Bible Verses that Made America and many other titles. He and his wife, Katrina, have three daughters and 16 grandchildren.
