I invite your attention back
to Deuteronomy, the 23rd chapter. Verse 15 says, Thou shalt not
deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master
unto thee. He shall dwell with thee even
among you in that place which he shall choose in one of thy
gates where it liketh him best. Thou shalt not oppress him. This passage of scripture is
about freedom from slavery. The blood-brought sinner is described
in the word of God as a free man, the Lord's free man. The
Lord said, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free, and if the Son shall set you free, ye shall be free
indeed. Now these words spoken to law-keeping
religious folks in John chapter eight, who believed themselves
to be free, These words presuppose a state of bondage, and it was
proven in the context by the fact that those who heard him
were angered by his words and replied, we be Abraham's seed. We were never in bondage to any
man. How sayest thou, ye shall be
made free? Now, our Lord said to those believers
in Galatia, stand fast. Therefore, in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage, a man or a woman may be free politically, nationally,
and yet be in utter bondage and be a slave indeed. These people
who thought they were free in the Lord's day were actually
in bondage to sin and into the law. For if you're in bondage
to the law, you're in bondage to sin. For the strength of sin
is the law, saith the scripture. Now this passage of scripture
presents a problem for many commentators. You see, slavery was practiced
by most societies in the East and in many places it is still
practiced today. Though Moses' law prohibited
the maltreatment of slaves, what is said here seems to defy Jewish
law by asserting that a slave could escape his master and find
safe haven and protection among God's people. That's what it
says. There's no doubt about it. That's the clear declaration
of this passage. And most commentators tried to explain what this passage
did not mean. They spent a whole lot of time,
whether you read Gill or James Foster Brown or Matthew Henry
or Matthew Poole or any of them, whoever you want to read, you'll
find them spending most of their texts explaining what this doesn't
mean. What this doesn't mean. They,
with one voice, it seems, asserted that this was not about just
any escaped slave, but rather the slave who had ran away from
an evil, tyrannical, cruel master. And they implied that the slave
who had run away from that kind of master did not have religious
freedom, or did not have freedom, but would be returned to his
master. I'm not sure that's in the context,
but probably commentators, their view was probably a political
view. Because when you read Gill, you read a long time when people
were looking for freedom of religion, freedom of religion. And so they
used that in their context in which it was written. They further
stated that this did not speak of a criminal slave who stole
from his master or the lazy slave who just decided to make a break
for it. And I think what they say, for
the most part, is a moot point. Nothing in scripture intimates
the hiding of a felon You won't find that anywhere. Or the recovery
of one who has unlawfully left his master. If slavery is the
issue of the day, the slave must be returned back to his master
if he's a felon or he's left unjustly. I think they were honestly
endeavoring, these commentators, to protect the principle of lawfulness,
that people ought to be law-abiding citizens. And it's lawful for
a slave to stick with his master. It's just not supposed to be
any other way. I think they were trying to do
right by God and were guarding against, charging God with saying
something wrong, but these are God's words. And He didn't say
them wrong, He said them just right. Remember when this was
written. Thirty days prior to the children
of God going into the promised land, Moses wrote this book. In those, that one month period,
he wrote the book of Deuteronomy. And it was there to teach them
the rules and regulations and behavior that was to be set forth
when they lived in the promised land. They're not in the wilderness
anymore. Now they're in the promised land. As with all scripture in
the Old Testament, they were types and shadows, and they're
revealed in the New Testament, and they speak of spiritual things,
spiritual things. The promised land pictures Emmanuel's
land, where we live. and abide. It pictures the church
of the living God, the true haven of the escaped slave, and that's
what this is about. Robert Hawker said, and is this
not spiritual? Is this not spiritual? If you
and I have taken shelter from the service of the hard masters
we once served, sin and Satan and the law, and have come to
Jesus Christ and the promised land, we must not be given up
to a former captivity. If the Son of God has made us
free, we shall be free indeed. This passage is about freedom. It's about freedom. Now we live
in a land that purports to have freedoms. Our Constitution in
the United States is a Constitution about freedom from government
control. That's what it's about. It's
not about freedom from anything else. If you have a copy of it,
you ought to read it and find out how government is restricted
by the Constitution. It's about your rights for freedom,
life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and so forth. Right to free speech,
right to religious practice, whatever it is, these things
are set as freedoms which the government, according to the
Constitution, cannot infringe upon. So we understand some concept
of freedom. But spiritually, none of us are
born free. None of us are born free. This
is about one who has escaped the bondage of a cruel taskmaster
under which the slave found no hope of life or peace. It's about
escaping the masters of sin and self and Satan and the law. And
it is a profound heavenly edict from God himself that addresses
bringing any believer back under bondage. of the law for righteousness,
justification, or rule of life. Most people in religion feel
like they must incorporate some of the old covenant into the
new and make people live under Moses' law. Most of religion
thinks that. If you don't believe it, just
listen to what they say. Listen to what they say. But
this is about escaping bondage. This is about escaping the bondage
of the law. It's about you and me who have
fled to the Lord Jesus Christ from the wrath to come. This
is the passage about the church and how she is to receive the
one who has escaped his former master. It's also about the escapee,
how he is to be treated and the restrictions that are placed
on the church and the pastor about the treatment of the escapee.
It is in fact the story of every believer and every sinner who's
been freed by Christ from his former master. David said it
this way in Psalm 124 and verse seven, our soul is escaped. Our soul is escaped as a bird
out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we are
escaped and we are escaped. The believer, we know, as he
is born into this world, is born a slave. He's born a slave. He is in bondage from his birth
to the law, to sin, to Satan himself. He is born under the
law. He is guilty before God. He's
in bondage and under the law as a schoolmaster until Christ
comes. Until Christ comes. Our Lord
said, whosoever is under the law, is guilty before the law. Guilty before the law. So the
person who is born into this world is born in slavery. He's born into a world where
Satan by divine appointment is the prince of the power of the
air. And according to the word of God, he's under that sovereignty
of Satan. Satan has a derived sovereignty,
but he's your boss until God delivers you. He's your sovereign. Our Lord said, the way devils
are cast out is I have to go into Satan's house and bind that
strong man and deliver you from his grasp. So if you're bound,
you can't get loose. Now a lot of preachers think
they can run Satan out of town with revival meetings and stuff
like that. They ain't never met Satan. You
and I haven't either. What I read about him, I don't
want to meet him. And to be honest with you, I don't have anything
to do with him at all. Because he's more powerful than I am.
He takes people captive with his own will. According to Scripture. Men and women in this world are
born spiritually dead. Born spiritually dead. Entombed
in darkness. As a sinner, he is a servant
of sin. That's what the Lord said. You who commit sin are
servants of sin. You say, well I commit sin. Yeah,
but it's not recorded if you're a child of God. It's already
been taken care of by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, or
you're still in trouble. We all know we're sinners, but
God does not remember our sins because of the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But he who commits sin is a servant
of sin. That's how if you know the truth,
the truth will set you free. And if the sun shall set you
free, you shall be free indeed. Man is born in this world a slave,
a bound captive, owned and operated by his intractable master. He
is not free. He cannot change his estate by
thought or deed or merit, and most certainly not by decision.
That's the stupidest notion in the world. This whole idea of
the hour of decision is just utterly stupid. I don't care
if the monarch of Montreux came up with it. It's a stupid idea.
A slave cannot just say, I'm not going to be a slave no more.
I'm going home. It doesn't happen. Not by decision. Here is where
religion woefully misses the mark. Religion holds that man
is free. That he has a free will. and
that he, by decision, can undo his shackled estate. The Bible,
however, and also any modicum of spiritual understanding, convince
men otherwise. Men are bound on every side by
masters who rule. Sin and death also are our sovereigns. By one man sinning in the world,
and death by sin, so death has reigned over all men, in whom all sin. Apart from divine deliverance,
freedom is only a pipe dream of fallen humanity. Born shackled
and fettered, the human being is doomed to stay in his place
until a miracle of grace breaks his chains and sets him at liberty.
This is not about reformation. This is about regeneration. This
is about emancipation. Emancipation. But here it is said, the slave
escapes his master. Isn't that what it felt like
when you were let, redeemed from the curse of the law, to be emancipated? The old songwriter wrote this,
long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's
night. Thine eye diffused a quickening
ray. I woke, my dungeon filled with
light. My chains fell off. My heart
was free. I rose, went forth, and followed
Thee. I love that old song. In our
text, the slave has been given by gracious province a way of
escape. He made it out. And by the same
promise, he's found himself in the refuge of God's people, in
the refuge of the church. This is a sweet and true description
of the church, because that's what the church is supposed to
be. It's not an organization. It's not a political power. The
church is an organism, and the church is a hospital for sinners.
The church is a hospital for the sin-sick, a shining light
in a dark and hopeless world. That's what the church is. That's
what we're to be. Any place a sinner ought to feel
welcome in this world, it'd be in a church. And if he's in the
true church, he'll feel welcome. He'll not be run off. Even if
he deserves to be run off, he won't be run off. The first command of the Lord
to the church is essential for the well-being of the escapee.
The Lord says this, thou shall not deliver him up to his master. I wish a lot of people who say
they preach the gospel to get a hold of this truth. Do not deliver him back to his
former master. I believe because of the weight
of the teaching of the New Testament, this most surely applies to bringing
a believer back under the law. By setting him rules and regulations
to follow and telling him to keep the Ten Commandments. To bring him back into the Old
Testament and the Old Covenant whereby his blessings and his
happiest state is based wholly upon whether or not he obeys
God. None of us obeyed God, but our Savior did. And for this
we are very thankful. No one would want to return the
escapee to his former life of sin, would they? Or release him
on his own recognizance? Or return him to the cruel tyranny
of Satan? Or to Seth? For some idiotic
reason, however, religion doesn't seem to mind returning the escapee
to the former rule of the law. And it is an idiot, idiotic thing.
They think it's necessary to do so if they, because they don't
want to fully return the escapee to the law. They yet deem it
necessary to apply to a former master for advice in regulating
escapees. Remember what the Lord said through
Paul in Romans chapter 7. We were married to the law. It
was our former husband. From birth we were married to
the law. But the law has died. And we
have died in Jesus Christ. And now we're married to another.
The law is buried. I get, you know, I get posts
from men who, okay, now I rarely ever put anything, I don't ever
put an article on Facebook. But I know it's just gonna raise
all kinds of hackles, make people mad, and I don't feel like fooling
with, trying to answer all the complaints I get. A fella asked
me recently, right out on his back porch, how come you don't
publish your articles? I said, because I'm tired of hearing
people fuss. I'm tired of hearing people gripe about this and gripe
about that. The believer is not to be put
under the law to any degree. I love the law. And so does every
believer. With his mind he serves the law
of God. Every believer. With his flesh he serves the
law of sin and death according to what Paul said. And this is
the believer's life. And he calls it The wretched
body, the body of this death, that's the believer's life. I
love the law. A fellow wrote me one time about
it and said he believed the believer's under the law and I told him
I love the law. I go to the graveyard and put flowers on his grave
every Sunday when I stand in this pulpit because he's dead. I'm no longer married to that
husband. It wasn't that he was a bad husband, I was a bad wife.
I was a bad wife. He was good and holy and just,
but I was unclean and undone. He couldn't do anything for me
except condemn me for what I did. Didn't keep the house right,
didn't dress right, didn't look right, didn't act right, didn't
talk right, didn't think right, and just kept telling me that
over and over all over again. How'd you like to be married
to somebody like that? How would that be for you, Whitney,
if Dustin, every time you'd come home and say, I need a little
work on this house here. We need to cook that meal a little
better. You know, I'd appreciate if you'd
dress a little different. I wish you wouldn't last long. You'd crowd him with a frying
pan or something. Couldn't stand that kind of life. We're not
married to that person. We're not married to the one
who totally condemns us. We're married to the one who totally
accepts us. Who accepts us totally for what
we are. For what we are in Him. And we fail, He loves us. When
we blaspheme, He loves us. When we miss the mark, He loves
us. He does everything for us. He's left nothing for us to do.
He just made His wife to lay down and rest and put on her
a beautiful dress and said, rest honey, I'll take care of all
of it. And He has. He has. What a glorious thing
it is. What a foolish notion and how
cruel is it. Once we've escaped from our master,
our old hard master, there's some preacher to stand up and
say we got to go back to him for advice or for help or to
live under his rule. No thank you. That's the worst
kind of necrophilia you can imagine and I ain't about to do it. I
don't go to the graveyard and talk to people who are dead.
I don't do it. I know a lot of people do. Some
people go and talk to gravestones and act like they're talking
to people. That's fine if you don't do that. I ain't fuss with
that. I ain't going to do it. Because they can't hear me. And they
can't answer me. Because they're dead. The law
is dead to the believer and the believer is dead to the law. The former master only wishes
to exact punishment upon the escapee. That is due him. You see, the letter killeth,
the spirit maketh the lie. The letter always kills, it ever
kills, and it's never interested in life. The letter has nothing
to do with life, not spiritual life. To return the escapee to
his former master is to, in fact, return him to the rule of sin.
The rule of sin. Paul said it that way in Romans
chapter 6, verse 14. We're not, we don't sin because
we're not under the law, we're under grace. What? Does the law
keep you from sinning? No, the law will cause you to
sin. All you got to do is think back when your puberty first
cut in and your parents started telling you what you couldn't
do. What did you do? You did what you couldn't do.
What the parents said you couldn't do. You rebelled against it because
it was a legal aspect of it. If you don't do this, you're
going to be punished. I couldn't stop myself. Paul said, I have
not known the law except for sin. The law entices men to sin. Why? Because it restricts men
who believe they're free. And they will not be restricted
by it. To return to escaping is to return them to sin. This
is the commandment of the church. And this is always the case.
If one escapes, one escapes from his former master under no circumstances
in no situation is this to ever be mitigated the church is never
to return the escapee to his former master under no circumstance
it is the edict given to the church and no believer is to
be returned to the law no believer is to return to the law for the
church this is freedom's final fiat No escapee who has escaped
and flown to the Lord Jesus Christ is ever to come under the dominion
of his former malicious master. No escapee. Say, well, if we're
acting up, we got to give them a law. You don't give them a
law, you give them the gospel. Finding one place in scripture
where Paul or Peter or John or any of them put men back under
the law. They don't do it. Paul told Titus, these things
are settled with sound doctrine. That's how these things are helped.
That's how these things are settled in no other way. And only sound
doctrine is that the law is dead to me and I'm dead to the law
and alive in Jesus Christ. The second thing committed by
the Lord is that the escapee is to be welcomed into the body.
He said, he shall dwell with thee even among you. He shall
live there. Live there in the church with
his people. He is to dwell, that means be caused to sit and abide
and remain with thee. He is even to dwell as an inward
part and an integral asset, as entrails or a part of the body
among you. The church and the escapee are
to become one. Listen to the language of scripture
when it describes the church. Describes it as a mystical body
with eyes and ears and a tongue and feet and hand and internal
organs that keep it alive. That's the way the church describes
his body. Notice that there's no other
thing is said but that he is to dwell with you and among you.
Nothing else is added to this. The person has escaped the grasp
of the law, and the grasp of sin, and the grasp of Satan,
and by God's grace has been brought to the knowledge of Jesus Christ,
and found himself in a body of believers. That body is to let
him dwell among them. And it doesn't add anything else.
It doesn't add anything else. There is no probationary period
added here. let him dwell among you, but
for six weeks watch him and see if he's really a Christian."
Did it say that? Did it say that? There's not
to be any counsel to inquire of the escapee's fitness or to
adjudicate concerning the manner in which he's escaped. Well,
you know, this is how a person's saved. How were you saved? If
you don't match up with me, you're in trouble. God saves his people personally
and singularly. You don't have mass things going
on. You don't find that in scripture,
do you? You find a whole lot of people
showing up, and you find one person being dealt with. There
were multitudes that sat around Christ as he taught in Matthew,
chapters 6 and 7. But it's just one of them he
dealt with. A man that wasn't even in the crowd, wasn't even
welcome in the crowd, couldn't be allowed in the crowd, a beggar
down at the bottom of the hill who snuck in and called for help. A leper. That's who he dealt
with. People around him all the time,
people would follow him in throngs, they were oppressed by the throngs
and somebody touched the hem of his garment. One person touched
the hem of his garment and virtue flowed out of him and he healed
the woman with the flow of blood. Multitudes were following him
and hollering and hooping and so happy he was around. And one
man on the side of the road, an old blind man named Bartholomew,
cried out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me! And
people actually told him to shut up. The disciples said, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me! And he hollered and he
hollered and he hollered and Christ dealt with one person.
He hid himself because the Pharisees were giving him so much trouble.
He hid himself from them in Matthew chapter 15. But he could not
be hid from one woman, a Syro-Phoenician woman whose daughter was sick
and she needed help. She found him. He dealt with one woman. The disciples, they didn't want
her around. She wasn't a Jew. She was a half-breed. Wasn't
nothing to her. Get rid of her. And they were
so glad when he said, I'm not sent but to the household of
Israel. They were just tickled a bit. Get rid of this thing. And then
when she begged for it, she says, it's not fit for me to give bread
to the dogs, the children's bread to the dogs. And all the disciples,
I expect they were hooting and hollering about this. Ain't nothing
going to happen for her. And he ended up showing that
that woman was indeed of the house of true Israel. And the
disciples learned a lesson that day. And these faithful men that
followed Christ, they looked at this Syro-Phoenician woman
and said, Lord, help me. She worshipped him saying, Lord,
help me. He said, oh, great is thy faith. I've never seen anything
like it in all of Israel. Standing around were 12 guys
from Israel. He said, I've not seen faith
like yours. One person. The Lord deals with one person,
not in mass crowns. People aren't going to tell you,
or the church is not going to allow anyone to tell them who
is worthy to be in the church. The Lord don't allow it. Ain't
none of us worthy. Folks say, well, there's all
a bunch of hypocrites down there. Well, don't, you know, come on
down and join in. You want to? You want to? If a person has been freed, believes
the gospel, and shows up. The Lord said, he's escaped his
master. Don't turn him back to his master.
Let him dwell among you. What a thing. What a thing. Many years ago,
I guess they still do this, we've only had one business meeting,
maybe one or two, when I first got here. We haven't had one
since. I don't know, we might get around to it again. I don't
know, it's been 38 years, probably not. But they had these business
meetings of one Wednesday night a month, and they'd get up and
they'd rail and rail. And I remember I used to be a
really good hard-headed, big-mouthed Baptist buddy. I had my say-so
on Wednesday night. Get up and show my rear ends
what I did, and it was just embarrassing. But they liked to throw people
out of the church on them Wednesday night meetings. Well, we're going
to church this fellow. Get rid of him because he's got bad behavior,
bad behavior. I think it was old Norman West
said to someone one time, go up there to Sequoia, Tim James,
take anybody. He will. We'll take anybody. If you profess to know Jesus
Christ. Lord, if he's a drunk and a sinner like me, drunk on
my own unrighteousness, on my own self-righteousness most of
my life, still struggle with it to this very day. Come on in. Sit down. Hear the
gospel. hear the gospel. If he is free from his former
master, then he is to be received, period. We can say that about ourselves. I marvel and appreciate, and
most people when I tell them about this small group of believers
here and how we love each other and get along, how we're welcoming,
They don't believe me. They don't believe me. But it's
that way. That don't mean we won't have
our problems, we won't get on each other's nerves every once
in a while, because we're human beings. Like old Jack Shanks said, this
pastor wouldn't be any problem at all if it wasn't for these
people. Scott Rivers said, more people,
more problems. And that's true. We're real. We're people. But
we received each other. We dwell among each other. And
I'll guarantee you this, we're not going to send you back to
your former master. And also, you're going to be
welcome whenever you show up. Finally, our Lord said he's to
be allowed the freedom to find his own niche. What'd he say? He should dwell with thee, even
among thee, at the place which he shall choose in one of thy
gates. where it liketh him best, which ever one he likes best.
Thou shalt not oppress him, I keep him from that. I remember one
time, I must have been 16 after I'd made, I guess maybe, probably
the fourth or fifth rededication. Didn't know beans about nothing.
Didn't know the Bible. Had tried to read it through,
and made it through like Genesis 1, 4, and fell asleep, and I
never did read that much afterwards. I went down the aisle down at
Annie Outback Baptist Church and next thing I knew I was a
Sunday school teacher. I didn't want to be a Sunday school teacher,
but they made me one and gave me a book and I had to teach
that book and I didn't even know what I was talking about. And I feel sorry for them
poor folks who had to listen to me. What's wonderful about being
free is you can find your own place and do your own thing. You can. As long as it's in the realm
of the gospel, as long as you're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ,
I don't know whether you are or not. You do. And I'm not going
to try to find out. But you'll have your place. There
is no unemployment in God's church. There's no employment in God's
universe. Unemployment in God's universe. Everybody has a job.
Everybody's going to do it. What does that mean? Leave him
alone and let him find what he likes. Ah, we got to train him up. Leave
him alone. He will in time assume the function
for which he was placed in the church, for it's the Lord who
makes men function in the church. In this case, he has not entered
into another form of slavery by joining the church. That's
not what's happening. And yet, most of religion takes
a man out of what it says it takes him out of bondage and
puts him into another kind of bondage. You are the Lord's free man.
I'm thankful that you show up on Sunday and Wednesdays. I appreciate
that. I know you've been listening
to me for 38 years and I wonder every second, why in the world
they keep coming back? I really do, I'm not kidding. I think,
this is crazy. I go over there and say these
things, say the same thing over and again, they keep coming back.
Maybe they're crazy, I don't know. But I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you coming. You
have a place here. You're free. You're free. What is your function in the
church? Religion likes to talk in a language like that. Well,
you need to find out your talent and your gift. Why? So I can give you a job doing
that talent and that gift. I don't want to know what your
gift is, and I really can't. You might be able to play guitar,
that might be your gift. You might be able to lead music,
that might be your gift. But it may not. It may be just one
of the functions you do. The uncomely parts, the parts
that aren't seen, God says the ones that have got most glory.
He's talking about in a human body, the internal organs are
what keeps the thing going. There ain't an internal organ
anywhere in the body that's pretty. It ain't one you'd want to take
to the movies. But they're the ones that make
it work. And the Lord will decide the function for what he is.
Why? He's the Lord's free man. It has to be according to the
privileges that this blessed station has been given him by
the Lord. And he's to feel free in church,
only constrained by his love for Christ and the brethren.
I rejoice in the freedom we have here, the freedom to laugh, the
freedom to cry, to have joy and have peace and share each other's
sorrows together. I rejoice in that. I've been
to many churches where I walked in the door and there wasn't
any noise. People say, well, you ought to
be quiet. Well, you'll be quiet when I'm preaching. I know that.
You'll be quiet when the service starts. But beforehand, it's,
hey, how you been? What's going on? Had some folks
been to Niagara Falls. I had to talk to them about being
in Niagara Falls. Had folks been playing sports up yonder, too.
I had to talk to them about playing sports. But I went to a church
one time, and it's no kidding. I walked in the back, saw the
pastor. I've known the pastor for a lot
of years. He got real legal on me. So we didn't stay friends
that much longer. But I walked in, I shook his
hand, said, how you doing? Fine. I looked around, and everybody
was sitting in their pew without moving, with the Bible open looking
down like this. I said, oh, Lord, I don't belong
in this place. I did preach there, but only once. I was never invited
back. He's free, this escapee. He's free in the church, only
constrained by Christ. Even if it may seem to be less
honorable, or less noteworthy, or less comely than others, he
is regarded with greater honor and considered as more comely
according to the Word of God. Lead him to choose his place
that most pleases him. Encourage him to do so. to seek his happy place. Do not
oppress him as did his former tyrant. He's escaped. He's a free man. He's a free
man. Sometimes we all get a little
legal about things. I remember any man telling a
story about being in Chiapas, Mexico, and Milton Howard just
preached like 16 times in six days. I mean, she was preaching
all over the mountain to the Mayan Indians in Mexico. War
out. Monday through Saturday. Milton
said, let's go out to the lake and do some fishing tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow was Sunday. Henry said, okay. He said, but
I was out there on that lake catching that rod and I was feeling
really guilty because I wasn't in church all of a sudden. People get the idea, you know,
preacher, I got to be there. If you want to be here, come.
By all means, come. Be free. You're free. If you
want to come, come. But if you want to go fishing,
I'm not going to be mad at you. If you want to go camping, I ain't
going to be mad at you. I'm not going to be mad at you. I don't
believe a whole lot of what Augustine of Hippo said, but I do kind
of agree with him on this. Love Jesus Christ and do as you
please. Say, oh, that'll turn people
loose. I want to. I want to break the shackles,
break the bondage, and let them freely come if they want to and
see and hear the gospel and worship God freely. Because that's what
they want to do. Not because they're afraid if
they don't, God's going to snap them on the neck or something.
Because they want to. You escaped from your former
master. Are you healed? Rest assured,
you dwell among us. We're not going to return to
your former master. And you're free to find however
you function in this body. That's what it is to be bought
by the blood of Christ. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.