Welcome, on this July 4 weekend. Tomorrow we will be celebrating one of the remarkable documents ever created, the Declaration of Independence. We give God thanks for our freedom. And we pray that in our own small way we will contribute to the coming of the day when all the world’s people will be free.

There is a delightful story about an elderly lady who had always wanted to travel abroad. She’d never even been out of the country, so she started the process by getting her passport.

She went to the passport office and asked how long it would take to have a passport issued. The clerk told her that she would have to take the loyalty oath first. “Raise your right hand, please,” he said.

The lady did as she was told.

“Do you swear to defend the Constitution of the United States against all…