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Your “Tax Freedom Day” is approaching · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Wednesday, April the 15th, 2026, and you've joined us for Denison Forum's Daily Article Podcast.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome!
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, air-rating today's Daily article, authored by Friend and Cultural Theologian Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're unhappy about paying federal income taxes today, blame the 16th Amendment.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're expecting a refund and wish the filing day was earlier, blame Congress.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1955, it moved the date from March 15th to April 15th, reportedly, so the government can hold onto your money longer before issuing your refund.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's some related good news, tax freedom day will soon be here.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: As the tax project website explains, this is the day when you have earned enough to pay your combined federal, state, and local tax contributions for the year.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It typically falls somewhere between the second and third week of April, though it's later for people who pay state income taxes.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the rest of the year, you can finally begin working for and paying yourself.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, I'm grateful for the benefits of the tax as I pay, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. noted, quote, The Tax is the price of what we pay for civilized society, in quote.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't want to try to replicate what the government does with the money I pay from roads to schools to police and military forces.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've traveled overseas enough to be deeply grateful to live in America with all our flaws and failings.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, it feels liberating to think that everything I earn from this point forward is mine to do with as I wish.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: My friends in Cuba have no idea what it's like to experience such autonomy.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: For most people across most of human history, individual freedom was more a...
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: than a reality, from subjects of the emperor or monarch, to feudal service working lands owned by their lords, to vast populations ruled by autocrats and communist dictators, an alienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for anything but these two aforementioned hands go together.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have the freedoms we experience in America in significant part because we pay for them by supporting the government agencies who do for us, but we would otherwise have to do for ourselves.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know all of this, of course, whether you thought about it lately or not, the idea that we get what we pay for, that we are consumers who purchase our lifestyles through what we earn, is woven into the fabric of our culture.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: No element of our daily lives is immune from such transactionalism.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can sever our relationships even with those who love us most if we divorce or abandon them.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now to my point, I believe this capitalistic mindset to be the greatest single impediment to spiritual awakening in the Western world.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a sobering fact that the greatest movements of God's spirit today are occurring in places where Western style democracy is least prevalent.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have witnessed personally the revival sweeping Cuba.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Multitudes of Muslims around the world are turning to Christ after seeing visions and dreams of Jesus.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fastest growing church in the world is in Iran.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The underground church in
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's what these miraculous movements have in common.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are happening where people are desperate for only what God can do.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Awakening's in Western history have followed the same pattern.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Prior to the Great Awakening's of 1734, 1792, 1858 and 1904 and O5,
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was widespread immorality, delays, and even economic and spiritual depression.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: For more on this, see our book The Fifth Great Awakening and the Future of America.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: A link to it is in today's podcast episode notes.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The awakening that began in South Korea in the 1950s was a direct result of the devastation of the Korean War.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our problem today is that transactionalism and grace are enemies.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more I believe, consciously or subliminally, that my spiritual activities and good deeds purchase God's favor, the more I distance myself from his best.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not because he is a feudal Lord who insists that his subjects bow to him and subjugated dependence.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its because grace is the only way and infinitely wholly and perfect God can relate to beings
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eggher, son of Jacob from Proverbs 31st one, is not well-known, but his ancient questions from verse 4 are still relevant.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who has wrapped the waters in a garment?
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who has established the ends of the earth?
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Think about it.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything you can do at the creator of the universe needs?
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have anything with which to purchase anything from him?
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are like children, borrowing money from our parents to buy them Christmas presents and thinking that they are now in our debt.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because people who write and read articles like this one tend to be more religiously active in others, we can especially be tempted by the unstated sense that we have earned what God only can give.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tim Keller famously wrote, The Gospel is this, We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet, at the very same time, We are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: As a result, Keller noted, if you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then Keller put his finger on our problem, but that kind of spiritual humility is hard to master.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: We come to God saying, look at all I've done, or maybe look at all I've suffered.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: God, however, wants us to look to him to just wash in quotes.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you need to just wash today?