a little bit behind because of
the weather. And I called the church to make
sure no one would be upset about me being a little bit late. And
when I called, lo and behold, Don answered. So I told on myself
and I thought, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. But I wasn't late.
I wasn't late. I mean, I was. But you know how
that goes. I love Don. I've been late before
and he's got mad at me before. Would you turn with me to Second
Corinthians, Chapter three? No excuse to ever be late. Second Corinthians chapter three. Look in verse six. God, who also hath made us able
ministers of the New Testament. Not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. Look in verse 17. Now the Lord
is that spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. I want to speak tonight on the
subject Christian liberty. A lot of folks when they think
of Christian liberty what they think of is the stuff that we
can do without it being a sin. That has little or nothing to
do with what Christian liberty actually is. The Lord is that
spirit He is the spirit who gives life. You see, the gospel is
a person and where he is, there is liberty. There is freedom. Always. Where liberty is not,
he is not there. Where the spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. I want you to think of the preciousness
of liberty. You know, when people come into
this country, they see the statue of what? Liberty. The liberty to worship right
now. What a blessed privilege. There are many that do not have
that privilege. The liberty to follow your dreams. And what do I mean by that? You
know, there are people who are born in this country who were born
in very difficult situations, which would be very difficult
for them to get out of. I mean, maybe born on welfare
and never able to get out of that trap or born in certain
situations where it's just difficult for them to get out because of
their upbringing. But that doesn't mean they can't. We're living in a country where
everyone has the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. This is not a caste system. You
can pursue what you want. And I thank God we live in a
country that stands for our unalienable right for life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Now, our country has its problems
because we're in it. But it's still a great place
to be, isn't it? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And I'm
thankful for the liberties we enjoy in this country. Now, what is liberty? The dictionary
gives this meaning unrestrained. To go at one's pleasure. Freedom
to go wherever one likes. Freedom to do what you want to
do. and go where you want to go.
Exempt from obligation or liability. What that means is being debt-free. Debt-free. Not owing anything. Not a slave. Now this concept
of liberty cannot really be understood or appreciated unless the opposite
is understood. Bondage. Just like you can't
really understand grace without some understanding of sin. Only
when I have some understanding of what sin really is, am I going
to have some understanding of grace. When you're captive in a jail
and the door's locked and you have no ability to get out, if
you could get out, you wouldn't be captive, would you? The door's
locked, you can't get out. Now, if somebody set you free,
you'd understand something about liberty. You didn't have the
ability to liberate yourself, but someone opened the door for
you. When you're in debt and you cannot
pay, I mean, you cannot pay that debt and somebody pays it for
you, You understand something about being debt free. When you
have restraints placed upon you. I know someone right now who
has one of those global positioning devices on them so they can't
leave their house. If they leave their house, they're
caught. They have restraints put upon them. They're on house
arrest. Can you imagine how difficult
that would be? You can't get out. Can you imagine
how liberating it would be when that global positioning device
is taken away and you're set free to go where you want to
go? I think of a marriage. Think of a marriage where two
people are together who want to be together, who love one
another and enjoy one another. And this is why they're happy
being together. Would that marriage be better
than one where two people who were forced to be together who
despised each other? I mean, that would be miserable,
wouldn't it? Freedom. Liberty. Freedom of access as
opposed to no trespassing. And to understand what the Bible
means by liberty, I have to have some understanding of the bondage
of sin. The bondage. of sin. Now, what do I mean by the bondage
of sin? Well, if you're in bondage to sin, that means you are enslaved
to sin. That means that you cannot not
sin. That means that you do not have
the liberty to not sin. You're not free to not sin. You're
captive to sin and you cannot escape. You are in bondage. You can't get free. John puts it this way in verse
John chapter one, verse eight. If we say we have no sin and
there, the word sin is a noun. He's talking about a sinful nature. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. We've
lost all credibility. The man that makes that claim,
the woman who makes that claim is a liar. And then in verse
10, he says, if we say we've not sinned, and that's a verb
there, that's talking about our actions, what we do regarding
anything I do while I'm preaching to you right now. I mean, I hate
saying this, but it's so, while I'm preaching to you right now,
I'm sinning because I'm doing it. That's the problem. If I
do it, sin is in it. If we say we've not sinned, if
I said, well, I didn't sin right there, we're a liar and we make
God a liar, the scripture says. Bondage to sin means you are
enslaved to sin and you cannot get out. If you could stop sinning,
it would not be bondage. Now, if you know anything about
the nature of sin, you know the notion of free will is a lie. and nothing more. Now, what do I mean by free will? Now, we do what we want to do,
don't we? We do what we want to do. And
we do what we want to do freely. If somebody says, is that what
free will is? No, it's not. But it's still true that we do
what we want to do. We all have a will. But to speak
of a free will, means that the will is not controlled by the
nature, and we have a sinful, evil nature that controls our
will. Now, a tiger, if he wanted to,
he could eat grass. You gonna stop him? But he won't,
because it's against his nature. A cow, could he carry it? You
gonna stop him? But he won't, because it's against
his Nature, our will is in bondage to an evil nature. Turn to Jeremiah
chapter 13 for just a moment. Jeremiah 13. Verse 23. Can. That means, does he have the ability?
Does the Ethiopian have the ability to change his skin? The answer
is no. Can the leopard change his spots? Can he just of his own free will
decide I'm going to no longer be spotted? No. That's ludicrous, isn't it? Then
may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil. The answer
is no. Look in Jeremiah 17, while you're
in Jeremiah. Verse 9, Now the heart is the whole man.
The heart is the understanding. The heart is the affections.
The heart is the will. That's what the Bible refers
to when it refers to the heart. That's the whole man, the understanding,
the affections, the will. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Now can this heart decide to
be good? decide to be free from sin? The
answer is no. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The will is enslaved to a sinful
nature and that's why we are so evil. This is not an excuse.
This is an aggravation of our guilt. The Lord said, you will
not come to me. that you might have life. That's
our crime. You will not come to me that
you might have life. In Ephesians chapter two, verses
eight and nine, we read for by grace you save through faith
and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. That faith. It's not activated by your will.
It's the gift of God, not of works. Lest any man should boast. You know, faith is not a choice. You don't choose to believe.
You only believe when you have no other choice. That's when
you believe. As long as you have a choice, it ain't faith. You
believe when you have no other choice. Now you believe when
it's your nature to believe, when God gives you a new heart
and liberates you from sin. I'm a slave. I'm in bondage. Paul spake in Romans 821 of the
bondage of corruption. But when God liberates me from
sin, I'm set free. Turn to John chapter 8. John chapter 8. Now, let me repeat
this. For us to have some understanding
of what liberty actually means, and Christian liberty, I'm going
to have to have some understanding of what the bondage of sin means. And I'm going to see how free
will is just a complete lie. There's no truth to it, because
by nature I'm in bondage to sin. Now look here in John chapter
8, beginning in verse 31. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are
you my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth. You'll know the truth concerning
who God is. You'll know his true character,
his holiness, his sovereignty, his justice, his power. You'll
know the truth concerning him. You'll know the truth concerning
yourself. That in and of yourself you're nothing but vanity. That
you cannot save yourself. That you're in bondage to sin.
And you must be set free or you'll remain in bondage. You'll understand
that. And you'll understand that Christ
himself is salvation. You'll know the truth. And the
truth will make you free. And understand this. That doesn't
mean your knowledge of the truth will make you free. The truth
is a person. He's the one who makes you free.
Your knowledge of the truth doesn't make you free because you and
I don't know the truth that well anyway. You know, there's all the stuff
we know we don't know that well. It's not our knowledge of the
truth that sets us free. It's the truth himself who sets
us free. Now let's go on reading. Then
answered. They answered him. We be Abraham's
seed. And we're never in bondage to
any man. That's a big lie. They were in
bondage to the Roman government when they said that. I mean,
they were under the thumb of the Roman government. They were
in complete bondage. And they were completely deceived
when they made a statement like that. We were never in bondage
to any man. How sayest thou you shall be
made free? Jesus answered them. Verse 34. Verily I say unto you,
Whosoever committed sin is the slave of sin. If you commit sin, you are sin's
slave and you can't get out. You can't get yourself out from
under that bondage. Once again, I'm not excusing
this. I'm not saying, well, you know, Nothing we can do about
it. There isn't anything we can do about it, but that doesn't
relieve our guilt. He that commits sin is the slave
of sin. Verse 35, and the slave abideth
not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever. If the son therefore shall make
you free, that's liberty. If the son shall make You free. Now this is his work. The only
way you and I'll ever be free is if he makes us free. Free from what? Free from sin. Free from sin. Free from the
condemnation of sin. To where there's nothing to condemn
me for. I stand before God's holy law
without guilt. It's what the Bible calls justification. Free from the power of sin. What do you mean by that? There was a time and I can remember
it when I could not believe. Didn't even know what it meant.
I'd hear the preacher say, believe, and I'd think, what's that mean?
There was a time when I'd hear the preacher say, repent! And
I'd think, how? What is all this stuff? I don't
understand. And then one time, I found myself
believing the gospel. I was set free from the dominion
of sin. There was a time when I couldn't
believe. There was a time when I couldn't repent. There was
a time when I couldn't love, it wasn't in me. I do now because I've been set
free from the dominion of sin. Well, sin sure seems real powerful
to me. Sure it does. When it didn't
seem powerful, that's when you were blinded by it. When you
didn't understand you were under its dominion, that's when you
were under its complete dominion. And bless God, he's going to
set me free and actually already has set me free from the very
presence of sin, because as Christ is in the presence of the Father,
I'm there with him. He's freed from sin. I am too,
because as he is utterly freed from sin, so are we in this world. Now, if the Son shall make you
free, what? You're free indeed. It's real
freedom. It's not exemption. It's not
diplomatic immunity. It means I stand before God without
guilt, without sin, perfect in Christ Jesus, as holy as God's
dear Son, because I'm in God's dear Son. Now that's the kind
of freedom I'm talking about. If the Son shall make you free,
you are free indeed. Paul said, stand fast in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Don't you love
that language? Christ hath made us free. Be not entangled again
in the yoke of bondage. All my debt is paid in full.
I'm justified before God, no sin, free from the law. You know
what? I never try to keep the law.
You know why? I've kept it. That's why I don't
try to keep it. I've kept it. In Christ Jesus
the Lord, I'm no lawbreaker. I stand perfect before God. There's nothing I can do to make
myself more safe. Colossians 2.10 says in him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead in a body and you are, what's
the next word? Complete. Complete. Lacking nothing. In him. Now the Bible gives us
a beautiful illustration of what liberty is. Would you turn with
me to Leviticus chapter 25. You've all heard of the year
of Jubilee, Leviticus chapter 25. Let's begin reading in verse
eight. And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths
of years, seven, seven year periods unto thee, seven times, seven
years, 49 years. And the space of the seven Sabbaths
of years shall be unto you 40 and nine years Then shalt thou
cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of
the seventh month in the day of the atonement. Shall you make
the trumpet sound throughout all your land, and you shall
hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all
the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee
unto you, and you shall return every man into his possession,
and you shall return every man unto his family. And you can
go on reading in this 25th chapter of Leviticus all the laws concerning
the year of Jubilee. But in the year of Jubilee, four
things took place. First, whatever you lost was
restored. Can you imagine if your home
had foreclosed and you'd lost everything? And all of a sudden,
when that silver trumpet sounded, it was all returned to you. Can
you imagine how you would have felt when you heard the sound
of that trumpet? Here's the second thing that
took place. When that silver trumpet sounded,
all your debts were canceled. Now, can you imagine that? You're
in debt. You owe money. You can't pay
it. And on that 50th year, when the
silver trumpet is blown, all of a sudden you're debt free. And here's the third thing that
took place in the year of Jubilee. If you were a slave. When that silver trumpet sounded,
it was the Emancipation Proclamation. You were set free. You were no
longer a slave. Now, can you imagine how people
felt when that silver trumpet sounded? And here's the fourth
thing that took place. The land was given a year's rest. All you needed was provided. You had everything. Now, you
can just imagine how someone felt when they were a slave,
in debt, had lost everything. And we're working so hard for
nothing. And that silver trumpet sounds
liberty. Freedom. How precious was the sound of
that trumpet and how precious is the preaching of the gospel,
the announcement that what I lost. Which is everything is restored
to me. My sins. are paid for. I'm debt free. I'm set free from
sin. I'm set free from the law and
I'm given rest. Now that's the preaching of the
gospel. That's what you hear. And I've
heard that silver trumpet of Jubilee, the proclamation of
liberty in the preaching of the gospel that to some, it was good
news. But let's put your shoe on the
other foot. What about somebody owes money to you? Would it be good news to hear
that? The money you had coming, you don't have anymore. What if you bought a house and
you were living in it? And when that trumpet sounded,
it had to be returned. What if you had slaves working
for you who owed you, and that's why they were slaves, and all
of a sudden they were set free? How would that sound sound to
you. Wouldn't sound good, would it?
I mean, be real. If somebody owed you money and
all of a sudden that was canceled, you wouldn't like that sound.
You see, everybody who felt something was owed to them did not like
that sound. Everybody who hears the gospel
and they think Something is owed to them because of what they've
done. They do not like that sound. They feel like they're the losers
by it. They're hoping in their works and you're taking that
hope away. And they feel like they're losers. I'm owed something
and I'm not getting it. Who loved this sound? Somebody who was a slave. Somebody
who was in debt. Someone who'd lost everything. To them, it came as good news. Now here's a very interesting
fact. There is not one instance in
the scripture where the year of Jubilee was ever kept. Not one. In Jeremiah 34, God
condemns them for not keeping it. But I can imagine that the
powers that be would do everything they could to keep the year of
jubilee from happening. I understand, I mean that could
mess up the economy. I can see where that could cause all kinds
of problems. So we don't have one example of the year of jubilee
ever being kept. Now would you turn with me to
Luke chapter four. Verse 14, Luke chapter 4, verse 14, And Jesus
returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. And there went out a fame of
Him throughout all the region round about, and He taught in
their synagogues, being glorified of all. And He came to Nazareth
where He had been brought up. There was a buzz about this,
you can bet it. This is a small town boy coming home, made it
big. That's all they saw. Be kind of like, you know, somebody
leaving Danville and becoming a great professional athlete
and coming back and everybody's excited about him coming back.
He's come back to his hometown. And he came to Nazareth where
he had been brought up and as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read
and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was
written, Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because
he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted
To preach, to proclaim deliverance to the captives. And recovering of sight to the
blind. To set at liberty them that are
bruised. Verse 19, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. You know what that is? That's
the year of Jubilee. He came to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave
it again to the minister and sat down. And you could have heard a pin
drop at this time. And the eyes of all of them that were in the
synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,
this day, if this scripture fulfilled in your ears I am the day of
jubilee this is when jubilee is being celebrated right now
this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears and he closed the
book and gave it again to the minister, and sat down, and the
eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on
him. And he began to say unto them, this day is the scripture
fulfilled in your ears, this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And all bear him witness. And wondered at the gracious
words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, isn't
this Joseph's son? Who's he? We know him, we know
his mom and dad. And he saith unto them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we've heard done in Capernaum, do also hear in this country.
And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in
his own country. But I tell you the truth. Many
widows were in Israel, Hebrew widows in the days of
Elijah. when the heaven was shut up three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land. But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta,
the city of Sidon, a Gentile. Unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel
in the land of Elisha, the time of Elisha, the prophet. And God
passed by every one of them, didn't heal one of them, none
of them were cleansed, save Naaman the Syrian. Now our Lord in no
uncertain terms declares the absolute sovereignty of God in
salvation. You fellas don't believe this?
There's a reason. Verse 20, and all they in the
synagogue when they'd heard these things were filled with wrath. And they rose up and thrust him
out of the city and led him under the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
But he passing through the midst of them went his way and came
down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee and taught them on the
Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his
doctrine for his word was with power. Now these folks didn't
like Jubilee. They didn't like it. You see,
their hope had something to do with them being Jews. And when God passed them all
by and saved a Gentile, that took away their hope. And when God passed all those
Jewish lepers by and saved a Gentile leper, these fellows were mad. They were going to kill him over
this. Of course, they couldn't because
he's the son of God. He was in control. But they didn't like
the year of jubilee, but I do. I surely do. Thank God that this
scripture has been fulfilled in our ears. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we come into your presence in Christ's name. And Lord, we're
so grateful for the year of Jubilee that's fulfilled in thy son,
that our debts are paid, that what we lost is restored. Lord, that we're given rest in
thy son and that we're set free. Lord, thank you for the gospel,
the year of Jubilee. Thank you for that you're the,
the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there's
liberty. Oh Lord, enable us to enter in to this liberty. In
Christ's name we pray. Amen.