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A STORY THAT EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW I always like posting this BEFORE Independence Day so that maybe you can tell it to someone during whatever gatherings you might be attending on or near the 4th. John Leland was a sound Baptist preacher in Virginia at a time when there was very little religious liberty for Baptists and a great deal of persecution from the Church of England and others. Being an influential preacher, Leland agreed to throw his support behind James Madison (the Father of the Constitution) in the 1788-89 election due to Madison's promise to fight for a Bill of Rights that would include an amendment on religious liberty. Without the large Virginia vote, Madison would not have won the election and there would have been no First Amendment with religious liberty, and without Leland's support, Madison would not have carried Virginia. SO! Thanks to the wisdom, prayers and endurance of a patriot Baptist preacher and his followers, James Madison was elected, then went on to push for and get a Bill of Rights that included the First Amendment with freedom of religion (1791). But it just gets better. Had the Bill of Rights been ratified a year or two sooner, it would have been signed in New York. Had it been ratified ten years later, it would have been signed in Washington, D. C. Since the signing of the Bill of Rights meant that God was about to kick the doors of world evangelism wide open, more than at any other time in history, there was only one city suitable for the signing: Philadelphia, PA, the city of "brotherly love." But it gets even better. Revelation 3:7-8 says, "And to the angel of the church in PHILADELPHIA write . . . I have set before thee an OPEN DOOR, and no man can shut it . . ." SO! You got your King James Bible from the Philadelphia church period, and before that church period expired, you got the liberty to preach and print that Bible from a place called Philadelphia, the same place in which the "Creator" was officially acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence only fifteen years earlier (July 4, 1776)! Maybe it's just me, but that seems like something worth telling to someone.