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Liberty efsmith, June 30, 2002 at 2:33:00 AM BST
by Emmett Smith There's a lot of talk about liberty these days. The ACLU claim to be in favor of it. There's even a political party named the Libertarian Party. But what so often gets overlooked in all the fuss is that liberty cannot exist apart from responsibility. Oh sure, the illusion can exist - the evil one is a master illusionist. But the fact is we all have to serve somebody. As Bob Dylan sang back in the late seventies, "it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody". Paul told the Roman brethren that "...the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope," (Romans 8:20). We really have no choice. We're subject, whether we like it or not. The choice we do have is whom we'll be subject to. In the very next verse, Paul wrote "...the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God". So the choice we make may result in "glorious liberty"! Or not. Isaiah prophesied it first, and then Luke recorded Jesus' quotation in its fulfillment. The purpose of Christ's earthly mission included proclaiming "liberty to the captives" (Isaiah 61:1,2; Luke 4:18,19). Ironically, most of the captives never realize that they're in captivity. When Jesus told the Jews that the truth would make them free, they bridled. They proudly said they "were never in bondage to any man". But at the time they made that brag, they were subject to the Roman government. Today we live subject to literally thousands of local, state, and federal laws. Yet those laws don't cause us to behave as we should. Every day some 10-year-old smokes a cigarette. Every day some 15-year-old drinks a beer. Every day someone injects heroin, someone pays a prostitute for sex and someone smokes a joint. All of these things are illegal, but the law can't stop it. Of course these behaviors are not illegal everywhere. But hopefully you get the point - that the existence of law will not automatically result in a better world. Only our voluntary servitude to the King of Kings can do that. But let's get back to Jesus' conversation with the Jews in John chapter 8. After their indignant insistence that they were not in bondage, He said, "every one who commits sin is the slave of sin. Now a slave does not remain permanently in his master's house, but a son does. If then the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:34-36 WEY).
So the choice is ours if we can only see clearly enough to make it. We can choose to serve the Lord and be freed from sin's bondage, or we can choose to serve the devil. But we can't avoid the choice. "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice". Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:13 "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." |