April 5, 2000

Reading: Psalm 119: 41-48

 

“I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts” (45)

 

Freedom is a very precious commodity. Wars have been fought to gain it, people risk their lives to procure it, fortunes have been spent to buy it and we will do everything possible to keep it. We all remember, before the Berlin Wall was destroyed, seeing people trying to escape the clutches of communism. Many lost their lives in the attempt. Some jumped out of windows many stories high and others were shot in the back. They would swim freezing waters and risk being carried to their death by the swift undercurrents. Freedom was worth the risk. People would get freedom one way or the other. Even the freedom of death was worth the risk.

The one freedom many people do not seek is the freedom from sin. Sin is so subtle that unless enlightened by the Holy Spirit we do not realize we are bound by its chains. We are fooled into believing we have freedom when in reality we have never experienced it.

The city of Nineveh is a picture of the condition of the sinner, “Yet she was taken captive and went into exile, and all her great men were put into chains,” Nahum 3:10. The subtlety of the devil is that he has people chained without them knowing it! People know nothing about their enslavement to Satan, and they consider their condition as freedom. They have never known anything else. How can you appreciate true freedom if you have never experienced it or even heard about it?

An experiment was once held when a large net was placed across the mouth of an inlet, trapping the fish and restricting their swimming to a small area. The net was left in place for several years and then removed. Although they were now free, the trapped fish never swam beyond where the net had been placed. Just like those fish, we get used to our swimming area and consider it freedom.

The Pharisees were of this frame of mind. Jesus told them “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32), but they answered him, “We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone” (33). (They had obviously forgotten about the captivity of Israel to Assyria and Babylon!). “Jesus answered them. ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin’” (35). The message of the gospel is that Jesus has procured freedom from sin. He died on the cross to purchase our redemption. The price has been paid. He offers us true freedom as a gift! Freedom from the guilt of sin and its inevitable consequence that is eternity in hell.

When we receive the free gift of God that is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to Him. But we are still slaves, you cry. Are yes, but this enslavement is a wonderful experience. “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rom: 6:17,18). We now serve a different Master, one who loves us and gives us an inheritance in His kingdom. “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom: 6:22,23).

Enjoy the freedom you have in Christ, but always be on the look out, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Gal: 5:1).