Thank you for joining us for our five days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. Today is Day 901 of our trek, and it is Wisdom Wednesday. In honor of Independence Day in the United States, I am going to delay our next essay and instead provide you with an overview of the Declaration of Independence.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. While we cherish the freedom that we have in the United States and are thankful to be born and live in the United States, true freedom can only come from God through Jesus Christ. Galatians 5:1 reads, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”
The significant aspect of the Declaration of Independence is that it changed the American “rebellion” against Great Britain into a “revolution.” From April 19, 1775, until July 2, 1776, the war was being fought so the colonists could regain their rights as Englishmen, which had been taken away by the British for the past 12 years, from 1763-1775. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the resolution by Richard Henry Lee from Virginia that “these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved…”
This was truly a revolutionary statement. John Adams felt that July 2 would be the day that would be “solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shows, games, sports, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other…”
July 4 is the day that has been chosen as our “Independence Day.” That was the day that the Second Continental Congress approved, but did not sign, the Declaration of Independence mostly written by Thomas Jefferson. It was actually signed on August 2, 1776.
