America declared independence from its British masters 237 years ago. The struggle that ensued was mighty, and painful, even to the point of loss of many lives. The result of the savage war for independence was a republic that the patriot Benjamin Franklin was overheard to say the American’s people at last had, if they could keep it.

It was almost as if Franklin could look down through the decades of the nation’s future and foresee the difficulties the United States would encounter. And, encounter them we have –and we are continuing to encounter them.

There is one primary reason we the people who make up the United States of America are slamming into things that beg the question: Can we keep this republic the founding fathers handed us? The reason: We have, as a whole, again declared our independence –this time from the God of Heaven.

We have determined to allow a small segment of our society to create a culture where any god but God rules. We consider banning the Creator’s name from every public venue as perhaps the fair thing to do. We have, through our acquiescence, made the Supreme Court the absolute master of most matters involving faith.

It has been permitted to legislate from that bench the way we must carry our beliefs in public. The Supreme Court’s decisions –for the most part—boil down to allowing any name but the name of Jesus Christ to be uttered in public schools and other governmental and public forums.

At the same time, the federal courts look the other way while certain state courts install religious inculcation within public school curricula. Of course, the religious inculcation involves the Islamic, or native American, or any other religion, rather than the one, true way to God and Heaven –the belief in Christ for salvation of the soul.

While God has been incrementally removed from public schools and governmental institutions, so has rational behavior, previously guided by the moral compass provided by God’s Word, gone the way of common sense that has deserted every civilization that has rejected the Creator of all things. The result is an increase in illicit drug use among even the very youngest among our numbers. Sexual deviance and hedonism have corrupted most every neighborhood in the nation, not just inner-city areas, where crime and illegitimacy made them to be considered America’s cultural cesspools.

The evidence that this nation is beginning to reap the whirlwind to which we have sown the seeds of anti-God legislation comes to the surface of today’s headlines in a dramatic display of satanic influence.

One such proof of what has been the results of all of this is the recent beating death of Delbert Belton, a WWII veteran who was a hero-survivor of the Battle of Okinawa, one of America’s most hard-won victories against Japan. The two black teenagers beat the 89 year-old man, who died later in a Spokane, Washington hospital.

America is no longer the independent bastion of liberty that was envisioned, declared on that July 4th 237 years ago, then won through much patriotic bloodshed.

Franklin’s concern seems very close to coming to pass. It looks like we the people might not be able to keep that republic he and the others sought to assure by the institution of the United States Constitution. This is because we have, as a people, through our malfeasance, failed to take steps to stop the erosion of freedom in this once great nation.

The most manifest point of malfeasance by we the people is our incrementally turning our backs on God, and on His one and only way to redemption. That redemption–whether for individuals or entire civilizations can be found in only one source. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the father but by me” (John 14:6).

He said further about those who looked to Him for redemption: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:32, 36).

All true liberty, thus freedom, must be centered in Jesus Christ. The further individuals or nations remove from Him, the more enslaved they become. The ultimate end of such alienation from the God of Heaven will be the regime ruled for a brief time by the world’s most horrific tyrant –Antichrist (read Revelation, chapter 13).

Am I suggesting that we must turn this country into a Christian theocracy? No, but I’m putting forth the Bible truth that all men, women, and children must be free to come to the Savior for salvation. There should be no governmental impediment to that ability to hear God’s truth –and His call. This freedom is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, but has, through deliberate misinterpretation, been overridden by the U.S. Supreme Court.

America –as any people—must turn to Christ. There is no other way to true freedom –liberty found only in the Son of the Living God. Let’s declare our dependence upon Him. That’s our only hope. That’s America’s only hope.