I've been thinking about it for
about three weeks now. Truth shall make you free. The sun shall make you free. One of the most overwhelming
subjects I've ever dealt with. The truth shall make you free.
Christ shall make you free. Will you be free indeed? Now,
look at it, verse 32. Verse 32, you shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. And then verse 36,
if the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Oh, how man fancies that he is
free, thinks that he is a free person, free will, free thinker,
independent, no one to control him, no one to influence him,
independent. That's what it means to be free,
to be able to have the ability Think, to do, to go, where are
you pleased? Because you think. Nothing could
be further from the truth. The truth. This is how you learn,
isn't it? One of the old writers said,
the first step in being made free is to realize you're in
bondage. That's the first step when the
Lord is going to has begun to set someone free. They realize
they're in bondage. Man's will is bound by his evil
nature. The natural man's will is bound
by his evil nature. Martin Luther wrote a whole book
on the bondage of the will. Still a classic. Our Lord said
this very plainly. He said, Can the Ethiopian change
its skin? Can the leopard change its spots? No, it can't. That's its nature. He said, neither can you do good
who are accustomed to doing evil. Free will would be this, don't
sin. Go ahead. Just will it. I will not sin again. I will
not have an evil thought. I will not. I will do this. I will do that. That's free will.
Man's judgment, our judgment, our natural judgment, is bound
by our prejudices, bound by our ignorance. Our hearts, our desires,
our choices are bound by our nature. We're bound by flesh,
we're bound by what we see and what we hear. Our Lord has been
dealing with this. He said, you judge after this
sight. He said, I don't judge like that.
He alone can look on the heart. So our judgment is 99.9% of the
time wrong. That's why he said, judge a righteous
judgment. Judgment according to the truth.
Only Christ, only the truth, only Christ. And you can't separate
Christ and the truth. The truth of His Word, who He
is, Christ. Only if the truth makes us free,
and notice he doesn't say sets you free. The Lord doesn't set us free
to do as we will. In fact, Brother Barnard used
to say the only free man is the Lord's servant. He leads captivity. What? Captive. You don't want
to be completely, totally set free. You want to be under His
rule and His dominion. That's freedom. And we're going
to look at it in a minute. Man is blind. He thinks he sees.
Man is deaf. He thinks he hears. Man is ignorant.
He thinks he knows. Man is in bondage. He thinks
he's free. Our Lord began this. See, man
is in darkness. The darkness of ignorance, the
darkness of superstition, tradition, and all of this. Verse 12, the
Lord began this whole discourse and conversation with these Pharisees
by saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but have the light of light. I am the light.
He said, if you follow me, you'll not walk in darkness. You look
to me, you'll see clearly. David wrote this, in thy light
we see light. If not, we're in darkness. Christ
said, you follow me, you won't fall in the pit. You don't know
where you're going. I do. And you follow me, you
won't follow. But you listen to me, Christ
says, you won't fall for anything and everything you see and hear.
And only if He makes us free from
that darkness, that ignorance, brings us out of darkness into
His marvelous light. And He does this through His
Word, through His truth, makes you free. And we are in bondage. We are in bondage by nature.
Why is it that we should follow him? Why? Verse 24, because he
said, verse 23, he said, I am from
above. He said, you're from beneath.
I'm from above. You're of this world. I'm not
of this world. What he's saying is, I'm God.
If you believe not that I am, you'll die in your sin. And if
you don't follow me, you'll follow anything and everyone, and you'll
fall. You'll fall in the ditch. And
you'll never get out. Never get out. You know, the
Lord calls man a worm, and rightfully so. And the word worm actually
means, and I wouldn't offend... Yeah, I would. I will offend
your taste. It means maggot. Seriously, that's
the worm he's talking about, the maggot. Why is that? Because
maggots feed on dead flesh, dead things. Scripture says everything
in this world is dead flesh. Religion's even called dead worms. That's what worms feed on. Worms
are in darkness. I know something about worms.
I have a whole colony of them. I observe them quite a bit, and
I see mankind every time I look at them. Worms are in darkness. They love darkness. They don't
like light. As soon as I open their lid and the light comes
on, they all head back into the earth. They don't want to come
to the light. Remember what the Lord said?
He that doeth truth cometh to the light. He that has life comes
to the light. Not worms, not natural man. He's
corrupt. As of the earth, neither of the
earth are earthy. They love the earth. Mankind
loves things that they don't. God's not in his thoughts. Not
once have I, one of those worms, looked up at me and thanked me
for feeding them. Not one. Not one of them has
called on me. Not one of them. And that's exactly
what the Lord says. He looked down to see if there
were any that didn't understand. No, they're in darkness. We're
not in darkness even as others are we? Why? If the Son, the
Truth, makes you free, opens your blind eyes, you'll look
up. Opens your deaf ears, you'll
hear His voice, I am that I am. Imagine a worm boasting of anything. It's laughable, isn't it? Here's
a worm. He calls out there and he's just,
look at me. Aren't I something? Aren't I
something? Look what I can do. I'm worth
something. You're a worm. You're dirt. You're made of dirt. You're going
back to dirt. That's what worms are made of. Oh, Lord. Imagine that. I thought
about worms. Man thinks he's free. God manipulates
everybody. A worm goes this way. He goes
this way. He goes this way. He's free. Pick him up and put him over
here in a situation. You know exactly what he's going
to do. He's not free. He's going to do what his nature
does. Here's a bunch of worms over here feeding on dead flesh,
and here's a worm by itself. What is he going to do? Hey!
Is he going to join with the rest of them? What are you going
to have to do? You're going to have to change his nature. That's what God said. That's
the reason our Lord said, you must be born again. Nicodemus
came to the Lord by night, in the darkness. He feared man more
than God. He liked the praise of men more
than God. And he was just, you know, wanted
to argue a little bit. He came in the dark, but boy,
after the cross, in light of Christ and Him crucified, I think
that's when Nicodemus saw. Then he came in broad daylight
to confess to the Lord Jesus Christ. Verses 30 and 31, the Lord, He
spake these words and many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to those
Jews which believed on Him, If, our Lord said, used this little
word many, many, many times, If ye continue in My Word, then
are ye My disciples indeed. And, that being so, you will
know the truth. And the truth will make you free.
If you continue in my Word, they said they believe in you. Our
Lord said, now, if you continue in my Word, if you do really
believe on me, if you do, you will feed on me. You will hang
on me. You will desire me. You will
long for me. You will love me in my Word.
You will listen intently and you will follow implicitly. That's
what you say. If you really do, this is what
you will do. You will continue. You will feed
on, no longer a worm feeding on a dead thing, but feeding
on life. Religion won't get it. The law
won't get it. You must have Christ in your
life. You must have the truth. You
don't want to hear lies anymore. You want to hear the truth, even
if it hurts. You must have it. Our Lord said
this so many times, there's too many to name, but let me just
read to you a few things. If a man loved me, he said, he
will keep my words. He'll hang on to them. And my
Father will love him, and we'll come unto him and make our abode
with him. He said this. He said in John
15 verse 7, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you
will ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. What
will you? The Lord changes the will of
His people. He makes them willing in the
day of His power. What? To do what? To do His will. To love His will. To follow His
will. Not my will. This is a changed
person. He said this, ìIf you keep my
commandments, youíll abide in my love, even as Iíve kept my
Fatherís commandment.î And he went on to say, ìThis is my commandment
that you love one another as Iíve loved you.î Bear with me
quickly to II Corinthians 10. Hereís freedom. 2 Corinthians 10. The world, as
I said, fancies themselves to be free, have free will, be free
thinkers. Now, being a free thinker may
be good in business or good in whatever, but not concerning
the truth, not concerning spiritual things, not concerning true wisdom.
2 Corinthians chapter 10. Verse 5, he says this, casting
down imaginations, reasonings. See, there is a way that seems
right in the man. This is the way I think it is.
You're wrong. Casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge
of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. Let this mind be in you. Here's freedom from falling for
error. Here's freedom from falling for lies. Here's freedom from
falling for false prophets and false deliverers. Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ. If our thoughts and opinions
are not from God's Word, they're foolishness. And that's concerning everything.
If our principles do not come from divine principles, from
God's Word, from the truth, we're wrong. We're dead wrong. If the
wisdom that we have is not from above, it's worldly wisdom, and
the Lord says it's foolishness. It's foolishness. We need wisdom
from above. We need to think like Christ.
We need to act like Christ. We need to treat people like
Christ. Or else we're in bondage. Our Lord said, You'll know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. As I said, not set
you free, but make you free. Our Lord was as free as free
could be. But He came down here to do God's
will. He put Himself under this absolute
servitude to His Father. And he was so happy, he was so
content, so free from worry, so free from fear, so free from
doubt, so free from everything. Make you free. You can't separate
Christ and the truth, the truth from Christ. You notice how he
says first, if the truth, if the truth, you'll know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. And then he goes on to
say, the Son shall make you free, free indeed. He magnifies His
Word over His name. Talking about, what is he talking
about? He's talking about this right here. This is His Word. This is His mind. This is His
will. This is His revelation. This
is the mind, the will, the Word of God. This is His truth, His
truth. If anyone argues against any
of it, if anyone doesn't believe any of it, you don't know God.
You can't. You can't know God. That doesn't
mean you fully understand everything, but you believe it implicitly.
Why? Because it's God's Word. You
don't just look at this as a book of doctrines and take this and
take that. No, it's all the counsel, the
will, the mind, the Word of God. And I believe it. I bow to it.
I love it. You can't separate the truth.
He magnifies His word above His name. Thus saith the Lord. The word of truth it's called,
the truth of the gospel. And men have, you know, brought
it down into an easy to understand system, which is true. The whole
system of truth is known by, you know, usually the acrostic
tulip. And the whole system of truth is that man's dead. You
don't know God unless you know He raised you from the dead.
You were dead in sin. You don't know God. You don't
know the truth. You're blind. If a man thinks that he has a
free will and by his choice, you don't know God. Every one of God's people know
who chose them. That's a few points, really.
I was talking to a man who wrote me, asking about free will, and
I said, you know, it's really pointless to argue with blind
people about color. It's really pointless to argue
with deaf people about certain sounds and music and all that.
I said, people will quit arguing about the new birth when they're
born again. They'll quit arguing about the truth when God gives
them a new heart, a new life, a new mind. They'll quit arguing.
They'll quit arguing about who chose who when they find out,
I was dead and now I'm alive. He had to choose me. They'll
quit arguing. Our next message is about to
the praise of the glory. Who gets the glory? The glory
of His grace. You can't know the true God and
not know the truth. You can't know the truth and
not know the true God. The one and the same is synonymous.
You know some true doctrines and not know Christ, but you
can't know Christ and not know the truth of that Christ. You
can't know Christ and not know the truth of that Christ. You can't believe Christ is the
only Savior and believe he laid down his life for everybody.
You can't believe Christ's righteousness imputed to us as our entrance
into heaven and believe he did that for everybody. That means there's nothing to
it. That means it's not his righteousness, it's not his blood. It's something
man does. You can't believe that and believe
God. The truth will set you free from
error, set you free from lies, set you free from darkness. Verse 33, the Jews
said to him, here's what they said. Now remember who he's talking
to, the Jews. The Jews, religious. They were
born that way. Their heritage, Their families
were just devout Jews. Well, we'd be Abraham's seed.
Verse 30, we're Abraham's seed. We're never in bondage to any
man. How do you say then you shall be made free? The rest
of this chapter, the Lord's going to talk about if you're Abraham's
seed. He's going to talk about that. They deal with it Wednesday
night. If you were Abraham's seed. You
see, because they're over here and live in Israel, that means
they're Abraham's seed. Romans 9 clearly tells us that. No, no, no. The Son is a promise.
I'm not talking about Abraham's seed. I'm talking about Christ. Romans 2 says, Oh, it's not a
Jew, it's one outwardly, but inwardly. Oh, we be Abraham's
seed. We're the sons of God. Who are
you? And they said, we've never been
in bondage. They said, we've never been in
bondage. Do you understand? They were saying that while they
were under Roman rule at that very moment, scared to death
of Caesar. They said, we have no king but
Caesar. You're talking about bondage. America, land of the
free. Home of the brave. Yeah, right. Everybody's doing exactly what
the media controls us to do. Pray. Let the Son make you pray. Let the truth make you pray. We've been never in bondage.
Verse 34, he said, Verily I say unto you, whosoever
committeth sin is a servant of sin. See there? That's what he's
talking about. Read on. Whoever committeth sin
is a servant of sin. Read on. He said, The servant
abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth forever. Whoever is under the law, is
not free. They don't know Christ. They
don't know the truth. We were on the way here this morning.
We passed by a house, a German Baptist family. We know them.
I talked to them. And they're getting ready to
go where they go. And I said to them, don't you
feel sorry? We both said that. Don't you
feel sorry for those people? Can you imagine what they're
going to sit and listen to this morning? Law. And they think the rest of the
world is, they call us Gentiles. You know that? They call us Gentile.
They call us Gentile. English, the English, they call
us that. They think they're of German
heritage. They think they're free. Oh,
there's nobody more under bondage than the law. Only those in Christ are made
free from the law. Verse 36, our Lord said, If the
Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Now let me talk about what it
means to be free. A man doesn't know it, but he's
under the rule and dominion of God. He doesn't know it. God is in whose hands his breath
is and all his ways. He doesn't know anything. You
see, knowing that will make you fear, fear God, set you free
from the fear of man, fear God. Man's under the bondage to God's
law. God says the soul that sinneth
must surely die, this do and live. Not doing it. People under
the law don't hear the law. Those people that think they
keep the law don't have a clue. And they're going to be held
accountable for that. Man's under the dominion of Satan,
the God of this world. That's what Scripture says. Under
the bondage of the God of this world. Walk according to the
prince of the power of the air, the children of disobedience.
That's what Scripture said. Under his dominion. Man's in
bondage to his flesh, to his sin. He can't get out. He can't get himself out. He
must be made free. Made free from the law. free
from the law. He said, if the Son shall make
you free, you'll be free indeed. How's that? How does Christ make
us free from the law? Because He kept it for us. He
paid the penalty of it. He paid the price of it. The
soul that sinneth must surely die. You will die, our Lord said,
unless you have a substitute. Christ came to be made a curse
for it. The law is a curse. Anyone under
the law doesn't hear it, doesn't realize it's a curse. God's people,
when the truth opens their eyes, they see what a curse it is.
They see how we've broken every point. They see that the law
is spiritual, not outward. It's spiritual. It demands perfection
in motive, in deed, in thought, in word, in every point. To offend
in one point is to be guilty of it all. The truth opens your
eyes. What does it do? What does the law do? It makes
you run to Christ. And Christ said, you pray. He said, when I be lifted up,
you'll know. Didn't he? Right before he went out. When
the Son of Man is lifted up, you'll know God's people, the
truth, the preaching of the gospel, the word of truth. They see their
eyes have been opened. There's my curse. There's my
law keeper. There's my substitute. There's
my salvation. There is all my salvation right
there hanging on that tree. But no, hold on. Buried? Yeah,
I know why he was buried. I know why he came now. I know
why he died now. I know why he lived now. I know
why he was buried now. That's me. I know I had to die. God killed
him in my stead, but he had to rise again. And I know where
he is now. He's seated at the right hand.
I know where he went. He went into the Holy of Holies
with the precious blood and poured it out on the mercy. I see, I
see, I see. And Christ said, believe me,
trust me, look to me, free from the law. Oh, happy condition.
The Lord Jesus hath died and there is remission. Cursed by
the law, bruised by the fall, but Christ hath redeemed us once. Oh, I'm not under the law, are
you? I love His law. I thank God I'm not under it. It's impossible to keep. Free
from the law, free from Satan. Hold on now. You think, you say,
Preacher, what about Romans 7? Well, there's Romans 6 and there's
Romans 8. In Romans 7, Paul is talking
about how in the flesh dwelleth no good thing. In our flesh. This flesh is always going to
be with us. We're not free from the presence of sin right now.
We're not free from the temptations of sin. We're not free from the
troubles and trials and so forth. in this world. We're not free
from the allurements of this world. We're not totally free.
We're in this world. But Christ, blessed be His name,
had come and He said, Sin shall not have dominion over you. A
stronger than Satan, who we followed willingly. The world whom we
followed willingly. Christ came and opened our blind
eyes, our deaf ears, we see His beauty, we see His glory, we
see His righteousness, we begin to follow Him, love Him, want
Him, desire Him, want to be like Him, and we're changed into His
image as we follow Him. See, we're being made, this subject
is too big for me, but we have been made free. Though we still think, oh, I'm
still in bondage. No, Christ is free from the law.
He's free from Satan. Believe me. Christ said, believe
me. If I let you go for a minute, you'll remember. Some of you
remember. Romans 6 talks about you had
your pleasure in unrighteousness. Just the bit of your will and
the direction you took. You lived for unrighteousness.
But now you say, I have no pleasure in that. It's a battle. It's
a struggle. Why is that? It's a new man. You've got a
new owner who allows just so much to keep you humble. Who
allows you to do just so much to keep you broken, to keep you
looking to Him, to keep you humble. But He will not. He will let
you go so far Why? Because you're not your own.
You've been bought with a price. You belong to Him. He sets you free from Satan's
absolute control. His lies, his deceit, the world
follows his lies, follows his deceit. Every temptation he throws
at him is not a temptation, it's just a delight. Moses, like Moses,
when he's come to years, It says he considered the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. What happened?
A new man, a new owner, free from the world, free from sin
and self. Let me go on and say this. This needs to be said. We need
to be free. We have been freed by Christ.
We're being freed. And we will someday be free completely
from the presence of sin. From the power of sin, as one
old writer said, we'll be out of gunshots. Out of reach of
gunshots. Satan, his fiery darts of the
wicked fire. Some of them hit you, don't they? Don't they? They're not going
to kill you. They're not going to kill you. They're not going
to hurt you. We need to be free from anger,
wrath, malice, envy, jealousy, bitterness, self-doubt. How? Through, as it is in Jesus Christ. Alright, here's angry. The scripture
said, be ye angry, sin not. He said to Jonah one time, do
you do well to be angry, Jonah? Jonah, what are you angry at? Who are you angry at, Jonah?
Here's the truth. God is angry with the wicked
every day. Do you feel any wickedness about yourself? Do you? Then why isn't He angry with
you? Christ. He took out his anger on his
own son. Now how could we be angry with
anybody or anything? If we're going to be angry, be
angry at yourself. The truth will make you free
from that anger. I tell you people, if God leaves
us alone, we'll be in a deep pit of anger, envy, jealousy,
wrath, bitterness, despair. Why? We're not realizing the
truth. We're not realizing what Christ,
who He is and why He came, what He did. We're not considering
Him. We're thinking about ourselves. And this is a deep, dark, filthy,
vile person that we're defending. We're mad. Who are we mad at?
You know, God is sovereign over everything. Christ came down here to be made
sin. Everybody hated Him. Everybody
did Him wrong. Everybody! His friends! Who are we mad at? How could
we stay mad at anybody? He's hanging on the cross. This
will set you free from bitterness and anger and wrath and all that.
He's hanging on the cross. People spit in His place. People
are mocking His pain. And He says, Father, forgive them. Who are we going to stay mad
at? I'm mad at myself right now. I get
full of anger and wrath and bitterness about what people do to me. And the only thing that's going
to free me from that is to think the truth of the matter is I
deserve hell. That's the truth of the matter.
But here's the truth. Christ went through hell for
me. My soul, I haven't done. What
have I done to God since we've been here this morning? Prejudice. Our judgment is ruled
by our prejudice of our blood, our flesh, us, me, everybody
that ain't like me. God came to this earth. God. Scripture says, what is
man? That's your mindful worm. And
even think on it, but God became a man. He left his father. He left his altogether lovely
father and the angels that adore him to come to this place, to
a place full of people that hate his guts. And he became us. He said, these are my people.
Prejudiced. These are my people. I'm becoming
one with them. I'm going to marry this vile
harlot. I'm going to marry this vile
preacher. I'm going to marry him. It's
the only thing that will make us free. Only the truth as it
is in him. We look to him. We look at him.
Oh, we'll forgive. We'll forgive. Not until then. And we'll stay in a deep, dark
hole. Oh, to be made free. Only one thing will make us free.
Truth. The realization of the truth.
The truth of the matter. The truth about God. The truth
about us. The truth about us will set us
free from us. You know that? The truth about
us will set us free from us. The truth about myself will set
me free from defending myself. The truth about Christ will make
us free. from this sin that just grips
us, grips us. Only if the Son makes you pray. And if you call upon Him, He'll
release you. Lord, You know me. I thought I knew me. But I guess
I didn't. Forgive me. Forgive me. Again. OK.