Liberty | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 10, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 28.

Liberty.

JESUS CHRIST came to give liberty—"to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." He is the only One who can make men truly free.

"Liberty," as men use it, is a relative term. It is generally used of freedom from outward restraint. Its highest type politically has been presented to the world in the United States of America.

But it is liberty only in part that any government can give. Civil governments may secure and preserve to their citizens equal rights, privileges, and immunities so far as the physical man is concerned. This is good; and blessed is the nation where these equal rights are conserved and man is protected in these rights. This is all that civil government can do. It may secure these human rights to its citizens, yet at the same time they may be slaves of the worst tyrant earth ever knew.

That tyrant is Satan. That slavery is the bondage of sin. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Rom. 6:16. This bondage includes the whole human race; for "whosoever committeth sin is the servant [slave] of sin," and "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." John 8:34; Rom. 3:23. And there is no difference save in degree. The form of service may vary, but the tyrant and the bondage are the same.

One of the worst things in the bondage of sin is that the slave can not free himself. He is "without strength;" "none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." Ps. 49:7. Listen to a free-born son of earth, yet in the bondage of sin: "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. . . . For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do." And further on he tells us that he is in "captivity to the law of sin which is in my members;" and he cries in his anguish: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:15-24. And this has been and is the experience of earth's countless millions.

Some one who reads these lines may say, "I do not know such slavery; I do not feel such bondage. I am in the world and happy." This may be transiently true. Some persons die from poison at ease and quiet. That which kills benumbs sensibility. Sin is a deadly poison. Men have lived in prison so long for crime that when released they have begged to be taken back. So long had they been in bondage they could not appreciate liberty. So long had they looked upon prison walls that they could not appreciate God's mountains and trees and streams and flowers and sunshine. So men who love sin are blinded by sin till its ugliness and evil seem beauty. This is the worst phase of sin's slavery—its deceitfulness. And all who know not Jesus Christ are in sin.

Deny it if we will, struggle against it as we may, we meet the end of sin's slavery in the silent tomb, with no power in mortal man to unlock its icy portals.

But there come times to every soul in sin's bondage when he longs for freedom, longs that the bonds of evil habits of thought and action shall be broken. He longs to be patient instead of impatient, to be kind instead of cross, to be reverent instead of profane, to be generous instead of covetous, to be sober instead of drunken, to be pure instead of corrupt, to make a happy home instead of a hell, to love instead of hate, to have peace and rest instead of strife and tossing to and fro. All the evil is the fruit of sin. All the heart longings for the better life are from God. It is God pleading with you for your soul. It is His wooing to win you from strife to rest, from sin to righteousness, from death to life.

Who can bestow all this? Who can meet the unutterable heart longings?—Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men, the mighty Redeemer and Friend of the sinner. Said he from whom we have before quoted as one in bondage, in answer to the heart-rending question, "Who shall deliver me?" "I thank God thru Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 7:25. Yes, Christ, the mighty Son of God, is the deliverer from sin and death. He saves "to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him." Heb. 7:25. That is His mission. He came to deliver, "to heal the broken-hearted," "to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

Jesus Christ says now if you desire to be saved. But He will not force your freedom. Without question the American government freed slaves who did not desire to be released, but our Deliverer sets free those who earnestly desire the freedom He offers, and who will seek it in simple faith. He has purchased the freedom of all, bought it with His life, and offers it with loving heart in nail-pierced hand to every soul, without money and without price on the sinner's part, with infinite price on His part. Will you accept it, sinner, or will you not accept the great, glad, boundless freedom of God in Christ Jesus? He will forgive you. "He delighteth in mercy." "He will subdue our iniquities." Let Him do all this for you.

Then, O the blessedness of the freedom! Whom the Son makes free "shall be free indeed." Men may defame you, revile you, arrest you, shut you up in prison, put you in stocks or chain-gang, behead you, or burn you at the stake; but they can not destroy your liberty in Christ. In the prison walls you have more liberty than your persecutors. They can suspend your physical liberty for a little while at the most; but Christ is Lord of life and Conqueror of death. The grave could not hold Him. It can not hold one soul upon whom is His righteousness when He calls; and He will call every soul who is His to a glorious immortality in an eternal land forevermore. "Brethren, ye are called unto liberty."