4ofJuly#1 Daily Insights from my Life #34

I thought of a thing to do from now up until the fourth of July, Independence Day. I will post something every day pertaining to that special day for our nation. Each will be labeled 4ofJuly in the title of the post. Just in case y'all don't know or remember, on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence...that was the day that we as a nation declared to be independent.

President Ezra Taft Benson (at the time a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) gave this talk back in October 1976. It is titled, "Our Priceless Heritage".

May I first pay honor to the founders of our beloved republic.The Declaration of Independence to which these great men affixed their signatures is much more than a political document. It constitutes a spiritual manifesto—revelation, if you will—declaring not for this nation only, but for all nations, the source of man’s rights. Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, foresaw over 2,300 years ago that this event would transpire. The colonies he saw would break with Great Britain and that “the power of the Lord was with [the colonists],” that they “were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.” (1 Ne. 13:16, 19.)The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition—the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men’s rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God. Therefore, the colonists were not rebels against political authority, but a free people only exercising their rights before an offending, usurping power. They were thus morally justified to do what they did.Finally, the document concludes with this pledge. “For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” (Italics added.)How prophetic that pledge was to be!

 When I ponder back on what those brave men did, I am grateful. Like President Benson said when he was just an apostle, God was with those great men and with the colonists as they strove and worked towards independence. I challenge all of you reading this post to remember that God had His hand in the origin of this great nation. With creating this nation, God opened the window for Joseph Smith, Jr., to ponder what church is the true church, and that led to the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I know these things are true, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.