© 2025 Don Pinson | (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The Pilgrims landed in America over 400 years ago. But do you know why they came to America? Was it to start a new life? Well, yes; but what kind of life? Was it so they could be free? Well, yes; but what kind of freedom were they looking for? Because most of us don’t know the answer to these questions is why we continue to accept—or even vote for—more and more of the slavery from which they were fleeing.

Perhaps you would say, “They came here for religious freedom.” And you would be right—but, what kind of religious freedom? Did they come merely so they could sing songs to God and study the Bible in their own gatherings? No, they came with a much broader desire than that.

© 2025 Don Pinson | (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

Ever hear of Hadrian’s Wall?  It was a wall built across England in the 2nd century.  It was named after the Roman Emperor Hadrian because his Roman armies, while occupying England, could never defeat the people of Scotland in those days.  Though the strongest, best-equipped army on earth, the Romans simply could not overcome these ‘freedom-loving’ mountain people called Picts.  The Roman Commander, in trying to explain to the Emperor why Rome was not occupying Scotland, stated that these “red-headed Picts” would die in a ‘heartbeat’ rather than live in subjection to someone else.  They loved freedom so much they would rather die free than live enslaved.  So the Romans built this giant wall all the way across England for the purpose of keeping out of southern England these freedom-loving Picts; lest they invade the south and stir up the English to rebel against the Romans.

But that’s not the end of the story.  After the Romans left England, several centuries later it became the goal of English kings to conquer the Scots.  King Edward of England marched his armies against the Scots in the early 1300s.  And though he succeeded in executing their popular leader, William Wallace, better known to our generation as Braveheart, Edward’s forces were no match for Scotland’s fierce warriors of freedom.  Not long afterward Robert the Bruce conquered the English army and preserved Scotland’s precious liberty.