Season 3 Podcast 38 Virtue and Freedom

Virtue and Freedom

If the majority of the people become evil, then liberty will naturally fall and all hopes of equality with it.  Speaking through Isaiah, the Lord said, 

“To whom have I put thee away, or to which of my creditors have I sold you?  Yea, to whom have I sold you?  Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.”  (Isaiah 50:1) 

Satan entices men to enslave others in a variety of evil ways too numerous to list, but true slavery comes when both body and spirit are enslaved.  Man can only enslave the body.  Isaiah warns us that through sin we may also enslave our soul.

It is God who wants us to have life, liberty, and happiness on earth and eternal life, eternal liberty, and eternal joy in heaven.  All his laws give new life to freewill and expand freedom, agency, liberty, and equality.  

I love the Preacher’s words:

“11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

Only in an environment where “time and chance happeneth to them all” can freedom flourish. Earth is a proving ground preparing us for eternal things.  Earth is a mere shadow of heaven.  What we do here has eternal consequences.  America is no accident.  It was instituted by God so that his children could expand their knowledge and intelligence, demonstration their obedience to the teachings of Christ, reach their potential, and exercise their freewill.  America was established to give us freedom of religion, freedom, of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience. America was intended to be a light to the world, a beacon of hope, a champion that would hold His Banner of Freedom to the world which is Christ, our Savior.  

Washington clearly understood the true source of freedom.  In his First Inaugural Address he said,

“I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”