1776 A.D.: They called it the Spirit of 1776...the Spirit of Freedom. But Didn't Jesus Bring Freedom First?
"All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince." Plato 427 B.C. - 347 B.C.
Men understood the intrinsic basic equality of humans, one to another, from a very early time, but those holding god-like or royal power and dominance over their fellow citizens have never been eager to surrender it. Plato lived around 2200 years before the American Revolution, for instance, and held the opinion that men were equal before God with regards to God's general affection felt for them based solely on their social position and birth status. But Plato's culture felt a less equitable form of government was ultimately better...or perhaps they were not yet able to produce an equitable government. It really was something of a miracle granted by God that the young United States was able to found a Constitutional Republic, a sort of government offering a great deal of functional fairness compared to most other types. Maybe having a relatively equitable government simply wasn't possible on a large scale before Jesus came and taught us, and it was no easy matter even afterward? I think that any sort of government that can be infiltrated by pirates and wolves eventually will be. Pirates and wolves greatly desire to wield power at the highest levels. It takes the inner spirit of a caring sheep herder and an incorruptible referee to wield the power of the people'w government for the people's greatest good. Such souls exist, but they are not the skilled and vicious in fighters that the pirate and wolf are. So the good guys need a backup, and the greatest Earthly backup is a populace that is trained to expect virtue and fairness from a truly young age and simply will not see their nation destroyed by the wicked. If the wicked are opposed at every level of society, it is not easy to be one of the wicked, it is not profitable to try your shenanigans, the punishments will be great when you try and fail, and you will be despised by your neighbor...genuinely despised...for trying to ruin a hard won and carefully constructed, equitable and fair-minded nation. Sheep don't rip and tear flesh and kill like wolves and pirates, but there are many sheep and they can butt very hard. As long as they have enough common sense to be on the same page as to what constitutes a wolf or a pirate, they are too formidable to overcome, so long as God is with them. This is where America is right now. The people have to have enough wisdom and common sense to rid our land of the wolves and pirates presently holding many key positions. We slept, and they took over. We have a bunch of leaders that seem to be trying to clean out the baddies, but we have to back them up as they do so, we have to let them know they are doing a great job, and please keep going! And at the same time, we have to make America a wise land again, and patriotic in a good way. We have a lot to appreciate here in America, but no nation stands firm without strong and committed citizens bracing its walls against attack.
What if the good guys aren't as good as they seem? Some claim this. It truly is hard to know great truths through your TV screen or internet news outlets these days. But one thing we can know with certainty is that the corrupt and the treasonous will certainly not stop until the last penny is stolen and the last strong wall is knocked down. So ridding the land of as many wolves and pirates as we can is a great step, a smart step, a winning strategy, and after that maybe the focus must switch to making the good guys even better. But ridding our land of the dangers we are sure are dangers is a wise effort, and today's top Democrats are a bag of filth from any perspective. Their comfort level with crime and corruption is beyond the pale, can't be doubted, and ridding the land of them from the voting booth and the court room is a tremendous first step. But better yet, if every home and church and school taught that lying and cheating and stealing (and worse) must never be done and never be tolerated, then where could new Democrats come from as the years advance? There would be a dwindling number of people that would ever even momentarily consider being a Democrat or siding with them, or lending their strength to their party. Could that political party ever be cleaned up? Only God knows, but likely it just needs bull dozed and removed. The rot is not shallow in the Democrat Party...it is very pervasive. You have a huge percentage that will commit the crimes, tolerate the crimes so long as they benefit directly, and also a huge number that will look the other way and pretend the criminality isn't real in order to buttress and protect their various treasured social positions. Most likely the Democrat Party could never be reformed in time to save this nation. Better that it is openly identified as a gang of wolves and pirates, and isolated and starved by a growingly 'virtue bound' population that simply won't vote for them. As the USA becomes more Christian it becomes impossible to vote Democrat. Even if our citizens become more infused with practical human wisdom, that alone will still cause those now wiser heads to reject all things Democrat. Democrat policy is trash, a true plague on humanity. But if the Democrat madness is ever erased from our land by the voters, the fight will be on to keep whatever is left firmly on the side of the people, not the international world powers (Satanic powers, if you wish to be truthful.)
The fight for a righteous sort of freedom-based human government is tough, tough tough. It's not a periodic battle, it's apparently a constant battle, and we know in the end that the government is taken out of human hands because we just can't manage to be good and maintain goodness. Too many wolves and pirates among us. But it's a good goal to strive for until Jesus our Lord comes to reign for 1,000 years. And even then...after that 1,000 years...human and Satanic rebellion will come boiling up out of the depths until all is subdued and placed into the hands of the Holy Father, even by Jesus Himself, so that the Father is all in all. (1 Corinthians 15: 20 - 28)
*** Here's an interesting thought: There are sites that make the claim that 8 is a number that seems to relate to Jesus in many ways. They think it is Jesus' special number for those reasons. I've looked...they seem to be right about it associating with Him more than a person might anticipate.!!! You can easily search for those sites if you're curious. And Jesus IS the SON, and He RECEIVED the Holy Spirit when baptized by John the Baptist and stated that He was OF the Father and that if you had seen Him, you had seen the Father. So He held 3 forms of God within Himself in that respect, and so the number 888 might be significant (being three eights.) Well, Jesus brought freedom through unearned forgiveness for those that would accept the terms of His covenant and follow Him. And if you double the number 888 you get 1776. And the year 1776 A.D. is the year that the Jesus-Christ-based-and-founded nation (though we model it abysmally much of the time, which is not acceptable) the United States of America, declared its FREEDOM. Yes, 2 x 888 = 1776. It may mean something, or it may mean nothing. ***
One of the truly great things about being a Christian is that we have our roots in the Jewish faith and the Jews have theirs' in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses whose words were given to Moses personally by God. Those books contain one thread of the story of creation beginning way back, as far back as you can go, at the very beginning of all of time and creation. The Book of Genesis begins its narrative there, at the beginning of it all, with God (Yahweh) creating all things with and through His Son Jesus, though we are not told about Jesus' involvement there at that time in Genesis, but rather much later in the opening passages of another great book: the Gospel of John. Interlinking threads like that are everywhere throughout the Bible!
So, to be brief in this account, the Bible relates that mankind's history from Adam, the first man, to Jesus is about a 4,000 yearlong story of mankind enslaving our own selves to sinfulness and disobedience and rebellion towards our Holy Father again and again and again. Mankind's regrettable saga is one of self-imposed servitude to sin and repeated offence to our God and Maker. Much of it is described in the Torah, the rest is found in the Bible's other Old Testament books which we have through the Jews, though Jesus is not explicitly mentioned until later, in the New Testament books of the Bible, which books the Jews do not accept. The Bible is the story of humanity, a 4,000 year-long 'trail of tears' so to speak. It's the story of mankind giving its collective soul over to the enemies of God. It is sad.... truly tragic.
But at the end of all that time of failed trial a very great price was paid for our rescue. Jesus was sent to clothe himself in the flesh of a man, to be born a baby and grow up as a man child, and then later as a grown man He taught us the teachings now found in the New Covenant described in the Bible's New Testament. And then Jesus became an atoning sacrifice for our sins using His own fleshly being. And the Father in Heaven accepted this atonement. No higher price could have been paid for the atonement of sin. This was God's son, precious to Him. The other beings in Heaven - created beings - must have acknowledged its sufficiency as well.
Freedom had been purchased for the lost souls of such sinful men as were smart enough to grasp gratefully at this amazing and undeserved second chance. Accept the Christian covenant under the terms it offered, and your soul could avoid the flames and tortures of eternal damnation. You could be accepted into Heaven for eternal life. There was actual FREEDOM from sin through Jesus, though not license to commit sin!
So then, about 5800 years after Adam the Bible chronology suggests, a certain British colony, which was coming to be called America, rebelled against England. This new and unusual land wished to live in FREEDOM and wished to worship God and Jesus in FREEDOM! And so, for this dream they battled and fought, they suffered, many died, and many were maimed as is ever true in great and terrible wars, but eventually they were granted victory. The Spirit of '76 as they called it then (a spirit of being willing to risk everything to obtain true national freedom) was successful and an unusual land was birthed by Yahweh's allowance, and it seemed with His help as well.
But here's the interesting nugget: did you know that in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 3 a list of descendants from Adam to Jesus is given? Yes, it is true. Every generation, father to son to son, is listed, and at the one end of these numerous generations it names Jesus our Lord, saying that He was 'supposed' at that time by many to be the son of Joseph who was married to Mary.
According to this Luke chapter 3 genealogy if you named Adam as human number one, then Jesus was 'human' or 'Spirit' number 76. (It actually names Jesus first and works backward through time, beginning at Luke 3:23)
He was the 75th descendent of Adam, following one particular branch of humanity, with every intervening male descendant's name listed. Jesus, who was Spirit yet also flesh, Jesus who brought freedom from sin, was 'man' or 'Spirit' number 76. And Jesus brought FREEDOM! That number, '76, is associated with the Spirit of Freedom in the United States because we rebelled against what seemed like oppressing circumstances to our American ancestors and declared our freedom in the year of our Lord 1776. And we know that God guides all of human history, altering the hearts and intentions of rulers and kings as He sees fit to suit His purposes.
To possibly emphasize this point, the New Covenant of the Bible follows the Old Covenant of the Bible, and the New Covenant is all about Jesus. You can look up how many scriptural words are in the Old Testament of a Protestant Bible and divide that number by the total number of scriptural words in the whole Bible, and the Old Testament happens to represent 76% of the Bible, rounded to the nearest whole number. Then comes the New Testament, with the FREEDOM it offers through Jesus. Again, that "Spirit of '76 thing". 184,600 words in entire New Testament of King James / 783,137 words in entire 66 book Bible of the King James, according to one source, when searching 'How many words in the King James Bible', then 'How many words in the King James New Testament?', then dividing the 2nd by the first. That gives 23.57 percent or 24% rounded. So, the Old Testament rounded would be 76% of the Bible. I didn't personally count, I only searched it. And different translations, even of 66 book Bibles, have different word counts. But the first search I made turned up this surprising result! Do your own research on this, though!
The Spirit of Freedom! Jesus, the true and full Son of God, who came down to Earth and lived as a man, and taught and then died that some, repenting of their sins and choosing to be baptized and then following Jesus' teachings about how to act towards man and God, might live. So that those who choose to commit to Jesus might obtain.... FREEDOM!