The Promise Land If You Can Keep It

1. Ben Franklin & Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia

"a lady asked Dr. Franklin, well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy—A republic, replied the Doctor if you can keep it.

https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2016/09/a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it/

Freedom is for anyone who can keep it. Few can. Maintaining freedom is difficult for the United States of America, Adam and Eve, Israel, and you and me.

2. The Garden

Let's begin with Adam's freedom. God spent six days creating the best environment He had ever created and then placed man in the center of it. God created every day and called it good. The Garden was full of every seed-bearing plant and green herb that Adam could eat. Adam's job was to tend the Garden and name all the docile animals that came to him for direction. On top of all that, God gave him a helpmate, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh to do life with. Freedom at its finest.

True freedom is being free from outside domination, not free from personal responsibility. Adam and Eve lived in paradise, a place of true freedom, no oppression, until they lost it.

One day an outside force promised them something better—life on their own and in their own making. A better life than God could give Himself. Satan planted the lie in God's Garden's well-fertile and watered soil.

Adam and Eve bit into the lie and lost all the freedoms of citizens of the Garden of Eden were afforded. They lost their citizenship altogether! They found themselves outside the land of freedom, looking in, guarded by an angel with flaming swords. Adam and Eve traded a life of freedom for a life of oppression.

God did give these two expatriates hope, though. He promised a seed in the land of oppression would throw off oppression and bring the Garden of Eden and freedom back to those who value it.

But why did Adam and Eve let freedom slip their grip? They let go. Maybe it was too many choices that freedom offered. Have you ever been caught in a decision cycle because of too many choices? Freedom almost felt like oppression because you don't want to choose one; you want it all. So, you get caught in the land of indecision until the decision is made for you? That is not freedom. Freedom gives choices, not a life of all you can eat. Freedom has limits. But true freedom must place limits by inner choice and not outside coercion.

Or maybe Adam and Eve traded off freedom because it was too much responsibility. Entrepreneurs seek freedom to plan their schedules and control their welfare. The risk of failure, wrong choices, and unplanned adversity are part of this freedom. Better than controlled or directed by an outside force. On the other hand, employees don't want to take the calculated risk; instead relegate their freedom to someone willing to take the risk and the possibility of reward that goes with it. Eve was attracted to one tree in hopes that a single tree would satisfy all her desires. Why take responsibility for the whole Garden? Did Adam and Eve hope to keep the freedom God offered them with less effort? Freedom comes with a high reward but also a high cost of living.

Did Adam and Eve have a different value system than the Garden of Eden accommodated? Were they unequally yoked to freedom? Many different governments and economic systems in this world are not compatible with each other. They can't be yoked. Like the iron mixed with clay in the image, Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The iron clay feet are where the world is on God’s timeline.

When Adam named the animals in the Garden, he also named the dogs and pigs. The fall from grace hadn't happened yet, so all creation was still good. But after creation's fall, the dogs and pigs took on another form.

Jesus said not to give dogs what is holy and not to throw your pearls before pigs. What happens when dogs and pigs enter the Garden in the fallen state? Freedom is lost!

The pigs trample the good, and the dogs turn against you, which is what mankind has done through the genealogy of Adam and Eve. We have trampled on the things of God and turned against Him. And in doing so, we have lost freedom. But God is not done with mankind. He has given birth to new people that are not dogs and pigs. God has given birth to a new creation that values the things of God and will not turn against Him. God has given birth to a new nation that can be trusted with freedom in a new Garden of Eden. A person and a nation who takes responsibility for freedom paid by someone else, Jesus. Have you kept your freedom in Christ? Or have you turned back like the Hebrews to an old oppressive system? Or like the foolish Galatians who left their newfound freedom? Freedom is for those who value it enough to keep it.

3. The Hebrew Promise Land

God delivered the Hebrews from the oppressive Pharaoh of Egypt. With a mighty hand did God deliver them with wonderous signs. Even so, it took forty years to get the oppressed to embrace the responsibility of freedom. They did eventually get their promised land. God set up a system of we the people by giving them judges. Each person was to take responsibility for working things out with his neighbor. If neighbors could not work out differences between them, there were levels of judges to assist in their responsibility to work their difference out—no king to fight their battles or take sides, or the responsibility to maintain their freedom.

Until they didn't want the responsibility to fight their battles and maintain their freedom, the Israelites demanded a king be established to take on their responsibility to maintain freedom. The prophet Samuel warned them that choosing a king is not freedom but oppression. The Israelites did not listen to Samuel and chose to delegate the responsibility of freedom to a king.

The dogs and pigs came into the promised land of Israel and devoured all that God had given. It was so evil God had to remove them from the promised land to save the promised land. They went into captivity for seventy years, a year for every year they neglected the Sabbath. The Jews had become more wicked than the people they had dispersed years earlier. In the beginning, God gave the promised land to the Jews if they could keep it.

4. The Gentile Promise Land

After the flood with Noah, the nations of the world took place. The command to be fruitful and multiply, spreading worldwide, began to take place with each nation taking on its own identity and language.

All that stopped when freedom, independence, and nationality were frowned upon, and the globalist agenda took hold. A second language developed, a fear that God would destroy mankind again through climate change, and the responsibility for freedom proved to be too much, so they rebelled against God to build a 15-minute city or tower. Population control was put in place to not propagate over the face of the earth, and they made a name for themselves as one people untied against God and true freedom.

God was so unhappy about this rebellion that He confused their common language destroying their unity, and walked away, giving every nation over to a reprobate mind to serve the creation rather than the Creator. God chose to start again with a single man, and many nations came out of Abraham's seed.

We know the story of the Father of many nations. The Jews became God's favored nation. To the Jews was giving the gospel of salvation to all nations from the seed of Abraham, and the nations left to their own at the tower of Babel.

The Jews didn't handle the gospel sufficiently to keep it short and simple, and God created a new nation from the seed of Abraham through King David through Jesus. Hanging on the cross, God put the last Adam to sleep, opened up His side, and provided a helpmate called the church to one day rule and reign with Christ in the new Garden of Eden.

All that call upon the name of Jesus are saved and given newfound freedom only found in Christ. But that, too, is a freedom that comes with the responsibility to maintain. However, we cannot maintain responsibility in the flesh only through the grace of God by walking in the spirit and not following after the flesh.

But God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Since Pentecost, God has chosen His mixed people from all nations to disciple the nations. The kingdom of God is ever-increasing to this day. But God has not forgotten the nations He left to their own at the tower of Babel, nor the other nations that had come via the Father of many nations, Abraham. The gospel is open to all that have ears to hear.

This is where I may lose some of you. I believe God did a new thing in founding the new world. I believe God was behind the establishment of the United States of America. I believe God wanted to give a natural view and nearby experience of the kingdom of God to those who have not been born again—freedom to experience. Freedom to see how people of every nation, tribe, and tongue can get along when their freedom is found in one triune God.

No other nation in history has promoted freedom and the responsibility of freedom more than the USA. No other nation in the world has dealt with the oppressors of the Garden more than the USA. No other nation represents a people from every tongue, tribe, and nation than the USA. Other nations throughout history have had a mix of people but only through war and compulsion. The USA is the only nation where people choose to come because we are a land of opportunity. I do not forget the black man and the red man. However, much history concerning the whole story has been deleted from society today.

I believe the USA is God's favorite gentile nation because we are a foreshadowing of the kingdom of God. Not because we have got everything right. Or that we are above approach or judgment. But God uses imperfect people. And if you read the Bible, you will find that no one is worthy of God's grace and mercy. All have fallen short. Only Jesus is worthy to open the books and lead many people into everlasting freedom and responsibility.

Read the book of Judges, Kings, Chronicles, and the Prophets. God's favorite Jewish nation didn't do so well. At no point in their history did they represent the goodness of God above reproach. Only Jesus has been a perfect ambassador of God and His kingdom. I have much to write about the United States of America, but that will have to wait as this article is about having freedom or the promised land if you can keep it.

The USA, just like Israel, started in a new land. Like Israel, we were founded on judging ourselves and only reaching out to judges of the land when we needed assistance. We, too, have forsook personal freedom and responsibility and are increasing the delegation of such freedom to a few people, which we call the president and Congress. We, too, have done worse as a people than what we have historically called barbarians. If we were an 'ite' in the days of Israel coming into the promised land with no Abraham to intercede, I am sure we would have been utterly wiped out because of what we allow in society today.

We, too, have allowed dogs and pigs to come into the Garden that God has given us. The pigs are trampling our freedoms, and the dogs turn against us in our streets. And all this is being done in the most Christian nation this world has ever seen. We have sent more missionaries than any other nation. Our crusades to the world consist of the gospel of the Kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus. We presented the world with the sword of the spirit rather than the sword of the flesh. But now, we are leading a second rebellion against God, like the rebellion at the tower of Babel.

As citizens of the United States, we have been given a republic of freedom if we can keep it. And as Christians, apart from natural citizenship, we have been granted freedom in Christ Jesus that must be kept. Have we neglected the freedom that God has given this United States? And even worse, have we, as Christian people, neglected such a great salvation?

The United States has undoubtedly been a promised land of milk and honey to the world's Gentiles and even the Jews. We threw off the oppression of King George and the other nations that people have escaped, only to be like a dog who has returned to his vomit. Freedom is not free. Someone has to pay for it. Freedom has been paid for us, but can we keep it?