to the book of Galatians. Galatians chapter number five. And I want to read just one verse this morning. And I have never been a one verse preacher. I'm not a great speaker and talker. So I like to have a lot of context and a lot of scripture to kind of help me along the way. But for some reason it seems lately I've preached several times from just one verse. And I want to preach from just one verse this morning. And you hear all the time from this pulpit how important that context is. And it's important in every passage that you deal with. But specifically here in the book of Galatians, because of the subject matter that Paul was dealing with, context is so important. So I'll mention a little bit of context regarding this verse. I didn't even mention it earlier in the service, but of course, you know, this week we celebrate our national independence. And I love just reflecting, that's one of the purposes of holidays. It's not always just a day off and a day to get together with family, and I love those aspects of them. But one of the purposes is to reflect over what they represent. The nation of Israel had a lot of set-aside days, holidays that they would observe, and they meant something to them. And in our nation, we have been blessed with a holiday on July the 4th that really means something to us. And I'm thankful for it. And a part of it we should take and reflect. That's some of what I'll do this morning that's gonna be really different from how I normally preach. Some of you probably know I've been teaching for the last several years in our Sunday school class on Baptist history. And it's become a big part of my studies. And it's really, really intrigued me. And I certainly don't know near as much about it as a lot of people who have studied it in depth. But history is a very, very important thing. I like history. I'm not one of those people that just enjoy reading. And I have to make myself read and study sometimes. And it's such a tough balance, too, because you're only given so much time in this life. and you're trying to divide that time and you don't want to take away from your study the Word of God. But I have been blessed for that to be a big part of my studies in the last several years. And a lot of history, I think, in our nation that we are unaware of. I say we, a majority of our nation and a majority of Christians are unaware of some of the history that's in our nation. So honestly, a lot of my message this morning, I want to reflect on some of the history. I hope I'll give you something to think about this week as we do celebrate our independence. But of course being America is great, but being a Christian is greater. So I hope maybe we can make some comparisons to that in our text. So Galatians chapter 5, look with me in verse number 1. Here's what Paul says. as he begins to close this letter he said, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. You can probably guess that the word I'm interested in is the word liberty and this passage will probably be preached a lot in a lot of churches throughout our country today and a lot of times when we think of liberty we do think about the national liberty that we have in America But of course Paul is talking about spiritual liberty, liberty in Christ. So really all I want to preach on this morning is living in liberty. I'm thankful for the social liberty that I live in. We have been so blessed. But I'm more thankful for the spiritual liberty that we live in if we're saved. And I hope you'll reflect as well on your own life. And you may be here and you've never experienced spiritual liberty. And I'm telling you, the Lord wants to set you free. He wants to deliver you. So that'll be our thought this morning. Let's pray together before we're seated. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity that we have to be in church today. And thank you for how that you've blessed us. And I'm thankful for this week that's coming up and thankful for our nation. I'm thankful for what we'll celebrate on Thursday, and I'm so thankful to be an American. I know a lot of times we use the word proud, and I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that, but I feel this morning more thankful to be an American than I am proud. You've been so blessed. Consider this thought of liberty, and I pray that you'd help us to examine our lives and where we stand spiritually. There's probably a few people this morning that are here They live in a free country, but as far as their life and their soul is concerned, they've never been set free. And today would be a great day for them to experience that liberty that you've provided for us through the cross and through salvation. Lord, just have your way in the service. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for standing. You can be seated this morning. Now as I mentioned, I'll give you just a little bit of context because I don't want to say too much about this verse without giving you the context of this letter. And if you've studied the Bible much, you've probably done a little bit of study here in the book of Galatians. There are a lot of issues that we're dealing with right now in our church culture that are dealt with here in this book. Really, the same problem that Paul was dealing with with these churches is the same problem that we still deal with in different situations in different areas of our Christian life. This letter was written, some of the letters you'll notice are written specifically to us particular church. This letter was written to several churches in this area of Galatia. And this is a strong letter. I don't know that I would say this letter is as strong as the first epistle that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. That was probably Paul's strongest letter in the Bible. So I don't know that this letter is quite as strong as that, but this letter would probably take second place on the passion that Paul had as he wrote this letter. He was really upset because these believers in Galatia had been led away by what we'll refer to a lot of times as Judaizers. People who were trying to get them to go back under the old Jewish traditions and Jewish customs and a lot of things that you'll see the Pharisees were involved in at the time of Christ. They were trying to get themselves back under that bondage. And it was really just the works of the flesh. I may mention this again at the end of the message, but the works of the flesh are in two different parts. There's bad works and there's good works. And both of them can be a problem in your life. A lot of the times when we think about bondage, spiritually speaking, and in regards to our flesh and our old man, we think about bad works. And many of us, before we were saved, we were under the bondage of some sort of sin in our life. And we were set free from that. Really, a lot of what Paul was dealing with in this text was not bondage to bad works, but bondage to good works. And on the surface, you think, how in the world could you be in bondage to good works? But it's the self-pride and the self-righteousness of these Judaizers that were to having confidence in their love. The Christians in the world at this time were no longer Jews. And of course, God had blessed the nation of Israel. And it was through the nation of Israel that salvation had come through the birth of Christ. And they were God's chosen people. But a lot of those Jews are having a hard time letting go. In fact, one of the strongest parts of this letter that was written to these churches is when Paul talks about his disagreement with Peter. And you'll find that recorded in Acts chapter number 15. And there was a strong disagreement between James and Peter in Jerusalem and the apostle Paul because of the way that Peter was catering to these people who were what we call again Judaizers. And there was some contention that took place. So that's really the setting of this book. And when you're talking about liberty and you're talking about bondage, that's the two words that's used in our verse here, chapter five and verse one. He talks about to stand fast in liberty and not to be entangled with bondage. And those words are two opposites. To be free is to not be in bondage. To be in bondage is not to be free. I think we understand that very simply. So this is kind of his closing remarks. of setting things straight with these Judaizers and some of the foolishness that was going on and telling them don't get entangled again with those old works, whether it's sin that the Lord's brought you from or whether it's trying to make yourself sell those words. One of the things I hate about the usage of this letter in the day that we live is that it's used to try to justify a lot of loose living. There are a lot of people who don't want to live a holy life and they'll run to the book of Galatians and they'll say, we'll see Paul saying that we've been set free from having to live right. It doesn't mean that we've been set free from holiness. We have been commanded to follow holiness. That's not what Paul's talking about. He's talking about self-righteousness and having confidence in the works of our flesh. Let me maybe frame it this way. before I talk about some of the history of our nation, but really what Paul was dealing with in some sense was nationalism. These were Jews who were basing all of their spiritual foundation in who they were and whose family they had been born in. Again, that was the problem with the Pharisees. And they couldn't let go of this nationalism of, we are the nation of Israel, even though They were not a free nation at this time. They were under the bondage of the Roman Empire, but they couldn't let go. It was a more spiritual sense than a social sense, as we've seen today. But this was really nationalism, that we're a Jew, and we're going to still demand that you have to be circumcised to be a Christian, and we're going to try to impose all of these Jewish customs. That to me, I've already said it, I think it goes without saying, but I'm thankful for the nation that we live in. I'm so thankful. We have seen a very distinct change in our nation in the last several years. We've always had an element of sin in our nation because our nation has never been to a place where everyone was saved. So there's always been problems with our nation. You can't look back at our history very major problems that we've had socially, but we have been blessed with a nation who has, generally speaking, been founded on the principles of the Word of God. We've been blessed to be considered a Christian nation. There was a lot of debate about that when Barack Obama was our president, and he mentioned overseas that our nation was no longer a Christian nation, and a lot of people got upset about that. But honestly, it's the truth. I don't know that we could still consider ourselves a Christian nation when we see some of the things that are going on in politics and the things that are going on in our world. But we have been blessed. I want to share with you just a little bit. I'll try not to spend too long on this but I want to share with you maybe a little bit of the history of our nation as regards to Christianity. Another statement that's been made by a lot of writers is that we're not just a Christian nation but America is also a Baptist nation. And I think that could mean Baptist at one point or the other, but because of the foundation of our country, because of the way that it was established, I don't think that would be a necessarily wrong statement to say that our nation was at one time a Baptist nation. You're probably aware, at least to a certain degree, of secular history and how our nation was formed. Christopher Columbus sailing and exploring our continent. And then, really, when you think about the birth of a Christian nation, I believe that the birth of our nation really starts with the Reformation. If you know anything about the Reformation, it took place in the early 1500s. And the one theme of Christians throughout history since the cross has been persecution. When you look in the book of Acts, in the book of Acts it was persecution over and over again. Paul was beaten and they were thrown in prison and a lot of persecution they faced and a lot of them were martyred. All of the disciples of Jesus, with the exception of John the beloved, it seems, were martyred for the cause of Christ. So persecution has been a theme of Christianity. In about the 1st century, the Catholic church was established. When you look at the history from the cross to where we are now, Catholicism was the dominant religion of our world. I mean, Satan knew what he was doing. We don't have time to get into the history of Catholicism, but Satan knew what he was doing in the Roman Catholic Church, and there have been millions of people who have been deceived because of the Catholic Church. It's so adaptable. When you study the history of any country, You'll find that the Catholic Church would adapt themselves to their society so that they could get a stronghold of religion and many of those people would accept them and they would be deceived. It happened even in our very own country. Catholicism has played a big role in our nation. But the Reformation was when what's considered the Protestants began to pull out. We know Martin Luther was the one who really was the catalyst of the Reformation in his 95 Theses. He was a Catholic who decided to take a stand. Man, Martin Luther had a lot of problems and a lot of things that we would disagree with, but I'm thankful for the stand that he took against the Catholic Church. Now, I will say this, and you've probably heard this said enough that you haven't memorized, but as Baptists, we're not Protestant in the fact that we came from the Reformation. Our history goes all the way back to the cross and all the way back to the book of Acts. I believe that. And even though it's hard to trace because of the persecution that took place in the church, I believe there's evidence that we can take all the way back to the book of Acts of our history. But there were a lot of good things, I guess you would say, that came from the Reformation. You have men like Martin Luther, who the Lutheran church is named after, John Calvin, who was also a great leader of the Reformation. But the Reformation is no longer interested in the deception and some of the blatant lies that had been taught from the Catholic church. You'll also find England's history. If you've studied any British history, it's really interesting how England was involved in the Reformation. King Henry VIII was the one that was in leadership at that time. And he really just took advantage. It's a really interesting story. I won't go into all the details. But he wanted to get a divorce and the Catholic Church wouldn't let him divorce his wife. He tried to appeal to the Catholic Church. so he just took advantage of the whole Reformation thing and mysteriously God at this perfect time showed him a vision that he was to be the new leader of religion in place of the Pope and he decides to establish what was known as the Church of England and just I mean I read an article one time of somebody praising him and his leadership and I thought how in the world you can't see that this guy just wanted to divorce his wife so he starts this entire state church in Britain. That's exactly what happened. And it was very, if you know anything about the Church of England, when you read an Anglican, that's somebody, that's a part of the Church of England. What we now know is the denomination of Episcopalian. That's what was Anglican and became Episcopalian here. in America, so those are all tied into the Church of England. But Henry VIII establishes this new church in England, and it became a dominant church of England that was established, began to persecute the Christians that were in England. Now, I'm trying my best not to bore you, but that is really the beginning of the birth of our nation. because what happened was those people that were experiencing persecution in England, you can read books like the Fox's Book of Martyrs, you can read of the people who were burned at the stake and people who were persecuted because of their involvement in Christianity or their involvement of the translation of the word of God. We know in 1611 was when the translation of the English Bible was authorized and I'm thankful for that because of the... the role it plays in our life, but there was a lot of persecution that was taking place. And those people left England, we know in 1620 was when the Pilgrims left, and they originally had went to Holland and they traveled from England to America, what they called Plymouth Rock, there in the Cape Cod Harbor. They traveled to America and they were looking for religious liberty. One of the things you'll notice about the beginning of our country is there were two groups of people that opposed the Church of England. One would be called pilgrims. That's the ones that sailed over on the Mayflower. They were considered separatists, meaning that they had separated themselves from the Church of England. They said the Church of England is no longer salvageable. We're completely separating ourselves. Not long after, the Puritans were the main religious leaders in our country for quite some time. Puritans were people who had opposed the Church of England. But their philosophy was that they were going to purify, that it was still salvageable. So they didn't completely separate, but they have a different way of thinking from the Church of England. But I'm telling you, no matter what, and you can study all of this for yourself, no matter what society tries to teach us, our nation was founded on people who were seeking religious liberty. People who wanted a place to be able to worship God according to their conscience. Now, I understand there was a project that you probably remember hearing about. It was called the 1619 Project. And they tried to twist the narrative of our nation that in the colony of Virginia, our nation began with slavery and that's always been a part of our nation. And I'm not going to lie, slavery was a terrible part of the history of our nation. Slavery was a terrible part of the history of the world, and slavery is a terrible part of the history of any nation that you want to study. It was a terrible thing. But they'll try to twist the narrative that our nation, and there were places, places like Virginia where tobacco was being grown, and there were a lot of people that were coming to Virginia just to make money. I'll give you that, I understand that. But I'm telling you, our nation was birthed out of New England, and New England was birthed from people who were seeking religious liberty to be able to worship the Lord. 1620, you have the pilgrims about a preacher from England. And he led this group to what's now Boston. And they began to establish a colony there. And they came. They were Puritans, and there would be a lot of things that we disagreed on. But they came to this country looking for a place that they could worship God without the oppression of the Church of England. One of the interesting things about men like John Winthrop is they had the idea that they were going to create a nation that was a perfect marriage between religion and politics. They really thought, when you look at the, especially in Boston, do you know this? A lot of people don't know this, but in Boston, there was not complete religious liberty in the state of Massachusetts until about the 1840s, before there was complete religious liberty. There was a stronghold in that area. And you'll read after Puritan writers, a lot of them, again, were good men. They did some great things. But they had this idea that they were going to establish a nation that was perfectly married with politics and religion. And they started what was called the Congregational Church. And in New England, and then also throughout a majority of the 13 original colonies, the Congregational Church was usually the established church in civil government. And John Winthrop referred to America, or at least the colony there of Boston, it was going to be a light on a hill. It was going to be a new Israel. It was going to be an example to the world of how you can have a perfect politics and religion mixed together. Well, there were people who came and the Baptists were one of those that began to hollow out the flaws of that. You had Baptist men. One of the first ones that you'll read about if you study history was a man by the name of Roger Williams. And there's a little shadow that's cast over his life because he didn't stay Baptist. He was Baptist for a while and then he got off into some really crazy doctrines at the end of his life. But he came to Boston just a year later. I think it was 1630 when Winthrop and those people came from England. And then Roger Williams came to Boston in 1631. And all of a sudden he begins to preach Baptist principles. And you understand that the reason we have the name Baptist is not that we gave it to ourselves. But it was a name that was given because we stood against the infant baptism of almost all world religions. You'll read the word Anabaptist throughout history, and not everybody that was Anabaptist would believe like us. And really, we're just Bible believers. That's what I want to be. I think that's what this church wants to be. And to us, it don't mean much because there's been so many Baptists in our nation. But the reason it became a denomination is because it was a big deal to stand against the infant baptism in the 1600s. It was a big deal when people said, I'm not baptizing my baby. So the word Anabaptist means re-baptizer. So they started throwing off on those people who believed in believers baptism by calling Anabaptist or Baptist re-baptizers. And, of course, it's not re-baptism because an only legitimate baptism is a salve, somebody who's been saved, who's a believer. So, you know, you could get off into all those studies. But it's really interesting. There were Baptists, not just Baptists, but there were other people who made their way. But they begin to experience persecution, even from these Puritans. that had thought they were going to make this perfect church-state relationship, they began to persecute these Baptists. You'll read stories, there was a man by the name of John Clark who came shortly after Roger Williams. Roger Williams, when he preached here in Massachusetts, he was banished, and believe it or not, he didn't show up to the day that he was supposed to be shipped back across the ocean. He ended up going to Rhode Island, which was just considered wasteland to those people that were in Massachusetts, and he established the colony of Providence, Rhode Island. One of the really interesting things about Rhode Island, there's so much Baptist history there, but it was one of the first places of religious liberty. John Clark, he was a doctor. He was a great, great Baptist preacher. Very, very respectable man. But he left England as well. He was a physician. He comes to Massachusetts. There's a big controversy that was taking place over, Antinomianism and Calvinism, things a lot of people don't know about Rhode Island. But Rhode Island, it was the first place, the first Baptist church that was ever established in America was in Rhode Island. If you wanted to go to the first synagogue that was ever in America, you would have to go to Rhode Island. If you wanted to go to the first Catholic church that was ever in America, you'd have to go to Rhode Island. What God did in Rhode Island, it was really the first place in history that had religious liberty. And these people who were traveling to Boston and then realizing the persecution that was taking place there would go over to Rhode Island and that's where There was finally a place where people could practice worship to the liberty of their conscience. So it's just interesting how all of that began to develop here in our nation. And you'll read stories about men like Obadiah Holmes. You're probably familiar with that if you've studied any Baptist history. He was actually beaten. He was fined first for coming in. He was from Rehoboth, Massachusetts, but he came into Boston to visit another church member, a fellow Baptist. of a fellow brother in Christ, and he was fined, him and two other men were fined for being there, and he refused to pay the fine to the point that they took him to the Boston Square, which would have been right across the house, what they called the whipping post, right across from house from John Wilson, who was the congregational preacher in Boston, and they beat him with 30 lashes for not paying the fine that he had been given for practicing religion that was against their law. A lot of that took place right here in America. And a lot of the colonies, eventually even in Virginia, there was a lot of persecution that took place. And it was honestly, in the beginning, I don't think sometimes we realize how fragile the beginning of our nation was. Now I say that, but I believe it was God's providence. I believe it was God's hand that protected us and kept us together. But there could have been things go different ways that would have never, if it would have happened, it would have never resulted in the nation that we know today as the United States of America. I'm trying not to bore you. I won't go into all the details, but you can work your way up. You go from people coming here, and again, it wasn't exclusively. There were people who came in here with bad intentions. There were people that came to America that just wanted to make money and wanted to take advantage of the success. I understand that. But I'm telling you, most of the people that came to our country were people who were seeking religious liberty. That's what our nation was founded upon. One of the things you'll notice about our nation, it's a nation of documents. When those pilgrims landed there in Plymouth Rock, They, before they even got off of the ship, they put together what was known as the Mayflower Compact. One of the first documents that a society established Jesus Christ as being their king. Him being their leader. You had the Rhode Island Charter that was also big document of religious liberty. There was so many documents and primarily you'll find the Word of God was at play in all of those situations. You go on in our history, you have the Great Awakening, everything that took place and the Great Awakening took place in the 1740s. You had men like George Whitefield who wasn't even a Baptist, he was an Anglican preacher. But they wouldn't let him preach in England because of his message and his style of preaching. So in England he had started to preach in fields and he would have thousands of people that would gather in a field to hear him preach. Then he came to America and he began preaching in fields in America. One of the quotes of George Whitefield you've probably heard is he was quoted in saying that all of his chickens had become ducks. because he wasn't a Baptist, but everybody that was getting saved under his preaching was becoming Baptist. And he had a huge impact to him. He was an Anglican. Jonathan Edwards was a Congregationalist. He never was a Baptist, but man, he was a great preacher. We know him for the message centers in the hands of an angry God. He was an incredible preacher. And God did a work in our nation. I'm telling you, when you look at the timeline of our nation, There is no way that circumstances and coincidences could have put everything together. In that great awakening, there were people saved, people like Shubal Stearns. If you've studied Baptist history, particularly in the South, Shubal Stearns made his way down to the central part of our state, what's called Sandy Creek, and there was a revival that took place. He started a church there, and North Carolina was just a frontier. and there was a revival that began to sweep through that area. His church went from just a handful of believers to over a thousand people attending his church. It was amazing what God did. There were controversies that took place. If you read any about just secular history, you'll find in our own state history, there was what was called the War of the Regulators that took place just prior to the Revolutionary War. That war was in that area, that little battle was in that area when Governor Tryon marched a lot of the military up to fight that battle. But it began to scatter and one of the interesting things, there's some really interesting history even on our very own church. If you know the history of our church, our church was established in 1796. And what happened when all of that conflict was going on, everything that was kind of leading up to the Revolutionary War, there was a group of believers who came across the mountain over toward what's now Johnson City, Tennessee. And then the Lord began to work in revival over in that area. And from there, there were associations. The Holston Association began, and it covered our whole area. And then they began to split off, and our area in the Southern Baptist, at least, is what's known as the French Broad Association. And our church was established just from revivals. It's so far back, it's hard to find a lot of history, but there's enough history to know that much. And it's amazing how God just began to work in the great awakening. It's almost as if God knew that there was fixing to be some rough times in our nation. It's almost as if he knew there was some monumental things going to happen and revival sweeps across our land and people are getting saved. Even in the founding of our nation. When you look at the time leading up to what we'll celebrate this Thursday on the 4th of July and our independence as a nation, a lot of our founding fathers were not Christians. Some of them were Christians. Very few, very few of them were Baptists. Very few of them we would see it all eye-to-eye on doctrinally. But God used our founding fathers in our nation. God used their wisdom and discernment in establishing a nation. There's some really interesting things in regards to the Baptists. You'll read about men like Isaac Bacchus. Isaac Bacchus was saved in the Great Awakening. And whenever the, or not the Constitution, but whenever Continental Congress had gotten together and they had begun to discuss what they were going to do about about the oppression of Britain, and one of the things you'll have to notice about the Revolutionary War, I know sometimes there's a big debate on should it have been fought, should Christians fight, but really the Revolutionary War was more of a defense than a rebellion, because this was our land, this was England, The ones that were fighting against us, they had not come and risked their life and shed their blood to build this land. So it really was, you know, and I know there's a lot of opinions on that, but it was really a defense of our own land that God had given us. And there was a lot of talk that was going on. But you had men like Isaac Backus who was a great Baptist preacher in our country. And when the convention, not the convention, but the Congress, Continental Congress was taking place, he and two other Baptist preachers went to Congress and they said, listen, while we're giving our grievances to Britain, we want to give our grievance for some freedom in this country. Because Baptists were still being oppressed. The people that were with Shubal Stearns, a lot of that revival had went into Virginia. And there was a lot of persecution that was taking place in Virginia just prior to the Revolutionary War. And you'll notice a lot of our founding fathers came from the colony of Virginia. And Baptists started to voice their opinion. And Isaac Bacchus took a group up there to the Congress and said, listen, if we're going to fight this war, we want to know that we're going to have freedom that you have when we're fighting. There were men, John Adams. I respect John Adams in so many ways. He was an incredible lawyer. But John Adams hated the Baptists. He told them that the stars would fall before the Baptist preacher by the name of John Leland. And when the Constitution was being drafted, John Leland was a preacher from Virginia. He was very, very instrumental. In fact, he probably could have won He probably could have won James Madison's seat at the Constitutional Convention, but he talked to James Madison. He said, if you will make sure that in the Constitution there's religious liberty for Baptists, then I'll endorse you as a candidate for that seat in the Constitutional Convention. That's why when I say America is a Baptist nation, you have men like Thomas Jefferson, who he really probably wasn't a Christian, probably wasn't saved. But there are stories of him going to Baptist churches and sitting in on the business meetings. And when he had his part in forming our nation, he decided it should be structured like the meetings of those churches. And I'm telling you, at the time of our birth as a nation, God was doing so many things. And again, God was using people that weren't Christians, men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madsen and Patrick Henry. A lot of those men may not have even been saved, but they had a recognition of God and they had a recognition for the Word of God. And woven all into our history of our nation, you'll find the Word of God and the principles of the Word of God, the Bill of Rights. Do you understand that without the Baptists, there probably wouldn't have been a Bill of Rights? But they said, men like James Leland said, John Leland, he said, there's no religious liberty for people in this constitution. That's when the Bill of Rights was added. The Bill of Rights was added primarily to the work of the Baptists that were in Virginia, of saying, we need to make sure if we're gonna support this, that there's religious liberty. And I'm telling you, you can argue about everything that happened, but you can't argue with this, that when our nation was birthed, it was birthed on the principle of religious liberty. It was birth in the principle for the first time ever, there was a place where you could come and you could worship God and how your conscience led you and what you thought. Now, of course, we haven't been a perfect nation. I mean, I already mentioned the Civil War that took place in the 1800s, a horrible mark on our nation that we were so divided. A lot could be said about that. We've not been a perfect nation, but we've been a nation that God has used for religious liberty. Here's what I'm gonna say, and I'm gonna try to preach a little bit of Bible before I close, all right? Here's what I'm gonna say, though. One of the questions I have is, why did God let America be established? Now, sometimes if we're not careful, I think we've done this as Baptists. We've had the John Winthrop mentality that I mentioned earlier, that our nation is gonna tell people what they should believe. Now, I'm all for having a Christian nation. But you understand that we're people, and people are flawed at their best. And there's not a perfect... We're probably never going to see what we have seen in our nation again. Our nation's changing. It's very, very divided. If you study some of the religious atmosphere of the Civil War, there are a lot of similarities going on even in our churches that was going on in the time leading up to the Civil War. We're a nation that's become very divided. I don't think, I mean, we have, you know, now we have Google Maps, so I don't think there's anywhere left that's not been explored. I don't think we have anywhere else to go unless maybe this global warming will hurry up and melt somewhere we can go live on. But I think we're out of luck when it comes to that. We're not going to be like the pilgrims. We're not going to have a place that we can sail to and we can find religious liberty again. It's very possible we're going to see things change in our nation to the point that we will face persecution again. It's very possible, as quickly as things have changed recently, it's very possible we'll get to a place, I think we're at a place where there's no longer, we're no longer a Christian nation. We may get to a place where we no longer have religious liberty in our nation. Things are changing very quickly. But here's one of the things I think, I think the mistakes we make sometimes is all, sometimes we're not careful, and I want you to understand what I'm saying. I think I maybe mentioned this several weeks ago or so, but I don't want to be misunderstood, but sometimes we just put too much hope in our nation. Sometimes we think this is our heaven, and it is great. America's great. I believe God's hand. I'm not saying God's hand wasn't in our country. You ask, well, why was it? Let me say this before we get in our text. That's bad when you've been preaching for 30 minutes and say that before we get our text. But let me say this. I think there's no way it could have been coincidence. When you look at how it's laid out, you have the 15th century, in the 1400s, the printing press was developed. In the 16th century is when the Reformation takes place. In the 17th century is when the pilgrims come to America. in the 18th century is the Revolutionary War where America is born. To me, it's no coincidence that all of that took place so closely together. You want me to tell you why I believe God established America? I don't think, I really don't, don't get your feelings hurt, but I'm not sure that God established America so we could have just a little piece of heaven here before we go to heaven. And I'm thankful for that part of it. I tell you why I believe God established America was for his word to be proclaimed. And I think that's the reason we'll probably see our demise is because we've taken our focus off of His Word. But you had to have the printed press to have the Bible. to have it printed. You had to have the Reformation. You had to have a country where it was, if there wouldn't have been a free place for the Bible to be proclaimed. When you study right after the Revolutionary War in the early 1800s was when you had men like Adoniram Judson who dedicated their life to go to Burma and go to the mission field. There was a wave in New England of revival that called missionaries across the world. And in the early 1800s, you had the gospel just, I mean, no coincidence, just as soon as our nation was born, you had the second great awakening and you had the gospel being taken to places that had never heard it. They'd never heard the message. That's amazing to me. Places who were heathen. Places like Indium where William Carey went. Places where they were practicing all of this. And the gospel had never been there. And from this country, God established missionaries. that would take and translate copies of the word of God into the languages of those people and they would give their life, they would sacrifice, they would sacrifice everything they had to take the gospel and it was all because of America. I believe that's the reason America exists. It's not for us, and I'm thankful for it. Again, I'm not trying to offend you on Independence Week. It's not for us to sit around and be proud to be an American. I'm proud, I'm thankful for that. But it's not for us to sit around and just enjoy our freedom. I believe God established this country so the word of God could be proclaimed throughout the world before he comes back to get us. And I don't think that's very long from now, when he comes back to get us. So what about this idea of liberty? And I'm closing. It's 12 to 10, I'm supposed to be done by now. He says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. I want you to notice three things real quickly. I thought about the founder of our liberty. Sometimes I think that we get so focused on our national liberty that we forget about our spiritual liberty. We forget about the fact that God did not, He didn't come to this world to give us a nation that we could be free, and I'm thankful for our nation, but He came to this world to give us spiritual liberty. He came to set us free from sin. The founder of our liberty, I'm thankful for our founding fathers, but the founding of our liberty is in one person and that's Jesus Christ. He said to stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. He's the one that has given us true liberty. And it doesn't matter what, here's the thing, I don't feel too depressed because it doesn't matter what happens to our country. Our country can outlaw reading the Bible. Our country can outlaw going to church. They can take away our social liberty, but I tell you one thing they can't do, they can't take away our spiritual liberty this morning. because our liberty is not in my government. Our liberty is not in the president. Our liberty is not in our local area. Our liberty is in Christ Jesus. He's the founder of our liberty, and who he sets free is free indeed. I'm thankful for the freedom we have in our liberty. I think about the founding of our liberty, but also the forsaking of our liberty. I feel like I spent way too much time historically and haven't left very much for this verse, but I do want you to notice this one part. He says, But there's a danger when we have liberty of forsaking it. And I don't mean that we can get lost again, because once we're saved we're eternally secure. But we've seen it even in our own country. You think about, I guess most people are just ignorant of history. so ignorant that they can't see it playing out over and over again. But you look at our country and you think, why are we forsaking our liberty? It's exactly what we're doing, I believe. I believe exactly what we're doing is we're turning our back on the freedom that God has given us. But when you have liberty, there's a tendency to forsake it. And he's telling them, when it comes to your spiritual liberty, remember your founder is Christ, but don't forsake your spiritual liberty. Let me give you this last one and I'm closing. This is really the whole point. Maybe all the history we talked about will help emphasize this point. But I want you to notice he mentions the fight for our liberty. This verse starts with two words. He said, stand fast. The picture I get from those two words is him saying, that was one of the things he said. He said, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Why haven't you stayed in the truth that you've known? Why have you been so easily deceived? And basically Paul's admonition to them is, when you have liberty, stay in it. Stand fast. Fight for it. Here's my question to you as I close. Are you fighting for yours? At least every man should feel this way. I would be so quick to fight for my family. When you think about it, I'm telling you, it's crazy how weak our nation looks. And it hurts our pride a little bit. I can't believe that we've let our country look this weak in front of the world. But it's scary how quick things could change. And sometimes I think about it again. I don't want to be doom and gloom. But sometimes I think about it. What if we get invaded? And I think about how quick I'd be ready to fight. I would be ready to fight to defend my home and defend my family and to defend what we have in America. I think every man in here would say amen to that. Every man and some of you have fought. Some of you have given a large part of your life to dedicate toward our defense and I'm thankful for that. Why are we so quick though to fight for national liberty and we don't fight for our spiritual liberty? Some of us this morning, we have submitted ourselves into the bondage of things that God has set us free from. Whether it's sin or whether it's self-righteousness, whatever it is, we dealt with it in this text. It can be either or. But why aren't we fighting for our spiritual liberty? Why aren't we fighting for the freedom that God has given? Why is it we'll just give up, we'll give ourselves to any old sin, any old temptation, any old thing that appeals to our flesh, we'll just stick ourselves right back under the bondage and the condemnation of the sin? That's not what we need to do this morning. We need to fight just as hard as we would fight for our national liberty. We need to fight. One of the reasons many of us are here is because of our nation. And we need to make up our mind that I'm gonna stand fast. in the liberty that Christ has given us. I'm thankful for our nation, and I hope that you'll think about it. I hope this week that as we celebrate, you'll think about the history of our nation. I hope maybe I mentioned some things that'll cause you to study. We've been blessed. You can jump online, and you can type in some of those names I mentioned. There's a lot of information on them. Study it yourself. I'm thankful for the heritage we have. I want to hold on to, and here's the thing. Do you know where we have lost? I think this is true. That where we have lost our liberty and our nation has not been socially, it's been spiritually. We've lost our social freedom because of our spiritual decline. Because our churches are dead. And we're not on fire for God anymore. And that's when you see the evil around us begin to rise up. That's when you see all this wickedness take place. When the church is not where she's supposed to be, that's when all these things start to change. I believe it all goes back to the way we respond to our spiritual liberty. Have we fought for our spiritual liberty? Let's stand together. Ms. Regina, you make your way up.