This Story us borrowed from Bro. Anderson who pastor's in Percy Arkansas at AFT.
This story touched me so much. I have been in many "freedom" 4th of July Services but have never have had it put so beautifully as this. I asked for a copy of the story that he read so that I could share it with my dear blogging buddies!
I am so proud to be an American and a Part of this wonderful Truth of Jesus Christ!!!
~ Shannon Marie
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM SOGORADIO.COM AS PART OF THE STORY OF HOW THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER WAS COMPOSED.
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY WAS SENT AS AN ATTORNEY TO NEGOTIATE THE RELEASE OF AMERICA PRISONERS OF WAR FROM THE BRITISH WITH ONE BRITISH FOR ONE AMERICAN.
ON THE SHIP HE BOARDED HE WAS TOLD O.K. THEN THE WHOLE THING CHANGED AS 100 BRITISH SHIPS APPEARED TO FLATTEN FORT MCHENERY
All through the night, they pounded that flag and finally at 3 or 4 in the morning, with all that armament spent, the enemy fell into quiet exhaustion and waited for the dawn.
As the dawn came, there stood our flag at the top. America that night had not fallen.
Mr. Key made his way quickly inside that great fort. Once inside, he said he saw no handful of dirt in it’s original place. All of that huge armament had literally torn that fort apart.
Then he saw something that stirred his spirit. The flag, on the rampart, with all that armament aimed at it had been hit again and again. Because of the successive beating, it had dropped and a patriot, a man whose name we’ll never know, whose face we’ll never see, ran from his place of safety and grabbed that flag and held it with his own body.
He knew that all those cannons were aimed at that flag and that pole, but if the colors were down, American was done. He KNEW he would die. And he did die quickly. But another man who saw what he had done, raised from his place and he too grabbed that flag. Then another and another until by morning, what Mr. Key called a cement of human bodies held that flag in place.
Frances Scott Key took a pen and began to write.
“Oh say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? Whose broad strip’s and bright stars through the perilous fight, ore the rampart we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there. Oh say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave? O're the land of the free? And the home of the brave?”
• THE FOLLOWING WRAPPED THEIR BODY AROUND THE BANNER AND STANDARD OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM!
Heb 11:32-40
32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
