Standing For Liberty

"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1

Cherish sweet liberty! Liberty, a gift from God, is not the freedom to do whatever I want, but is the freedom to do what is right according to the Word of God. On this day, April 19th, we have three very vivid illustrations of what it means to stand for liberty. Unfortunately, two of the examples are not good examples, while the other is.

The year was 1993. On April 19, the Massacre at Waco occcured. A group of extremeists, called Branch Davidians, in the name of religious and political libery fought against federal agents and there compound was burned to the ground killing the extremeists along with many women and children. Their claim was that the federal government had taken their liberties from them and they were going to reclaim them. This was not standing for liberty. The gospel of Christ is not a militant religion like the Islamic religion. Scripture says in Proverbs, that when a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Just a couple of years later, on April 19, 1995, at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh set off a bomb which destroyed the building, killing over 100 innocent men, women, and children in the blast. This he and his conspirators did, no doubt, in the name of freedom. They blamed the government for the problems of the day and their retaliation was to murder and injure all those innocent people who worked for the government. This was not standing for liberty. This was a rebellion by a group who did not want to live according to the law.

But on another April 19th, in 1775 to be exact, another group of Americans did stand properly for liberty. These men were mostly farmers, with some tradesmen. Some were just young boys, or young men just starting their families. Some were older. The had been living under a government, the British government, which did not give them the rights of Englishmen to be represented in Parliament. They had no representation and were being taxed unlawfully. British soldiers could come in a take the fruits of their labor, stay in their homes and commandeer their property without these people having any recourse with the government. They had heard that the British were coming to their town looking for two men, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They had been warned by a man named Paul Revere. They were also looking for stores of weapons and ammunition because the British did not want the people to be able to defend themselves. So there they stood on Lexington Green, a beautiful area where their animals grazed, waiting in silence for the British to come into their town. There were less than 100 men and boys who would stand against the British troops of almost 1000 that early April morning. As the British approached, they had been instructed not to shoot, that this would be a peaceful demonstration of protest. Yet while speaking with the British Commander, the shot "heard round the world" was fired, most say by one of the British soldiers (that is if you live in America - no one knows who really shot first) and the Revolutionary War had begun. The farmers quickly dispersed with a few of them being killed in the fray. The British left Lexington and went to Concord where they would encounter a greater resistance.

Let us not forget the firm resolve and the stand for liberty that was taken that day at the Battle of Lexington. May God give us the courage to stand for what is right, to do it in the proper way. Not a way which will bring intentional harm on the innocent ones we say we are standing for, but that we will know, understand, and apply the principles of liberty in our daily lives. May God bless America, still the fullest expression of Christian liberty upon the earth.