***Watching July 4th fireworks from the front porch of our Team Yeshua Mission Base in Missoula***

where does our liberty come from?

This Independence Day, contemplate for a moment the above question? Here in Montana with our Team Yeshua volunteers, I have recently been asking this question of folks we meet in the highways and byways. While pounding some pavement in Madison County with the cross, I stopped to ask this question of a lady sitting outside a bar in the dead-end community of Pony. She replied, “I really don’t care.” I followed up: “Ok thanks. You have just confirmed why I need to keep carrying this up-side down American flag. We are a nation in distress, and it was old Thomas Jefferson who rightly trembled for this country when he foresaw a day that Americans wo uld forget or not even care that their liberty comes from the Hand of God.” What she said next was priceless: “Listen, I know who you are.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

Remembering today this encounter, however, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps the most fitting message I could deliver this July 4th is the same message printed on the back of this Gospel tract I wrote and printed for my long walk across America:

These days, there is indeed extreme danger to life and property in the USA, and flying the flag upside down has never been more appropriate. We have kicked God and the Lord Jesus Christ out of everything. We have canceled the same Ten Commandments our Founding Fathers deemed essential to national security (Israel, despite all her rebellion against God, has never dared to cancel the Ten Commandments from public life). We butcher our unborn children (60+ million since 1973). We teach our little boys that they can be little girls. We celebrate all forms of sexual perversion. Today, America is where the love of money is indeed the root of all evil, where men are cowards and the family is assailed, where dummies govern and the liberties that our fathers bled and died to secure are cast aside in the name of "health & safety." The United States of America is in DIRE DISTRESS. She doesn't have a political problem. She has a great big SPIRITUAL PROBLEM.

More than 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt forewarned: "No glory and no prosperity can save a nation that is rotten at heart." We ignored this warning. If we refuse to REPENT, the greatest danger to our lives and property won't come from political tyrants or fake presidents, but from the holy and vengeful God of the Bible who judges nations, especially those who once feared Him and now reject Him (Psalm 9:17, Jeremiah 18:9-10). Of such a nation, the LORD says, "their foot shall slide in due time" (Deuteronomy 32:35).

Yet, there is HOPE, if not for AmericA, for every living and breathing AmericAN (Jeremiah 18:7-8): You can escape God's judgment and find shelter in the MESSIAH, Jesus Christ. He died on the cross to pay for sin, to redeem the sinner, and to satisfy the wrath of God. He was buried, and He rose up from the grave, defeating death and proving that God accepted His sacrifice IN YOUR STEAD. Repent and trust JESUS OF THE BIBLE! Only He can save you TO God and FROM God. By Him, God promises to forgive your sins, dismiss your case, and grant to you eternal life. Then, your destiny won't be like that of an unrepentant nation in dire distress.

Read the Bible. Check for yourself to see if these things are true.

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3).