Though this is something that the world is always seeking after, people want liberty—freedom politically, socially, economically, and so forth. They think that if they get that liberty, then they are free indeed.
But I believe, by the grace of God, we know better. We know that unless we are spiritually free, no matter what freedom we may obtain in this world, it is superficial. It is false. It is deceiving. Liberty is found only in God; it is found only in Christ.
You remember the story in John 8. After our Lord Jesus gave liberty to that woman who was in sin, the Lord said:
I am the light of the world:
he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness,
but shall have the light of life.
The Lord revealed to the people that He came from the Father, from above, and that He was returning to the Father. Throughout His life, He pleased His Father, and His Father was always with Him.
After the Lord had spoken these words, many believed on Him. Then the Lord turned to those who seemingly believed on Him and said:
If ye abide in My word, then are ye truly My disciples;
and ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.
They said, “We are children of Abraham. We have never been under anybody; we have never been under bondage.”
The Lord said, “If you yield to sin, you are the bondman of sin.”
These people were so blinded. Of course, our Lord was talking about spiritual liberty, and that is true liberty. But they thought they were politically free, that they had never been under anybody. How blind they were! Even while they were saying this, they were under Roman rule. They were not free even politically, and yet they were so blind.
So the Lord said, “Only the Son can set you free.” Brothers and sisters, we need to realize that true liberty, true freedom, can be found only in Christ. If He, the Son, shall set us free, then we are free indeed.
Now the question is: Has He set us free?
In Galatians 5:1, we are told:
For freedom did Christ set us free:
stand fast therefore,
and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.
This is a fact. This is something accomplished by our Lord Jesus while on earth. This is the very reason why He came into this world. He came to set the captives free, to open the eyes of the blind, to release those under bondage and crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. The Lord said, “This is fulfilled today in your midst.”
So, dear brothers and sisters, at the very outset, we need to recognize this fact. Forget your own experience for the time being. Whether you feel bound or whether you feel free, just forget yourself for a time and focus your attention upon one accomplished fact.
It is not something done by you; it is something our Lord Jesus has done. He has set you free. He has done it.
If you are a child of God, then you should be able to enjoy that glorious liberty He has given to you. It is not merely something in the future. Now, it is true that in the future there will be the full glory, when the sons of God are manifested. But even now, even today, we should live in the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Yesterday we mentioned how our Lord Jesus has set us free. What is true liberty? True liberty is not freedom without control. That is our natural human idea: if there is nobody controlling you and you can do anything you want, then you are free.
But true liberty is not without control, nor is it under self-control. True liberty is under divine control—having the Spirit of life within you as the law of your life.
The Bible says:
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
The Spirit of the Lord is in you and in me. Therefore, if we walk according to the Spirit, we are in true liberty.
We mentioned how our Lord Jesus, through His blood shed on the cross, has freed us from God’s judgment—the judgment of eternal death. We who have believed in Him have passed out of death into life.
Furthermore, the blood of the Lord Jesus has been sprinkled upon our hearts and cleansed our hearts from an evil conscience. Therefore, there is peace in our hearts. The blood of our Lord Jesus has also stopped the accusation of the adversary, the enemy. He is always trying to accuse us before God and before our conscience. But thank God, the blood of the Lord Jesus is enough forever.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we who are the children of God are free from the condemnation of sins. Our sins are forgiven. We are free, and that is true freedom. I believe we have all experienced that, and we are continuing to experience it.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There is no need for any child of God to be under condemnation, to have a guilty conscience, or to listen to the enemy’s accusation. There is no need for that. The blood of the Lord Jesus is always there. Its efficacy is eternal. Thank God, we are free from the penalties of sin.
We mentioned yesterday also that Christ has freed us not only from the consequences of sinning, but even from the power of sin.
There is a difference between sins in the plural and sin in the singular. Sins in the plural refer to the many acts of sin that we have committed in our lives. We lie. We do wrong things. We transgress against the law of God. All these acts of sin we have committed throughout our lives.
As a matter of fact, our sins are numberless, beyond what we can number or count. You cannot even recall how many things you have committed. I remember the day when the Lord saved me. My prayer was, “Lord, I will try to confess everything that I can remember,” and I tried to. But after I had done it, I said, “Lord, there are many sins I committed that I have forgotten. But You know.”
Thank God, the blood of the Lord Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
That is sins in the plural number. But, brothers and sisters, our God is holy; He is righteous. After He has saved us, of course, as children of God, we should be holy and righteous. We have the desire to be righteous and holy. In other words, we do not want to sin anymore. We are not like what we were in the past. We loved to sin, but now we hate sin.
And yet we discover that there is sin in the singular number. Sin in the singular number is a nature.
When Adam sinned, sin entered into the world and entered into the very life of Adam. In this Adamic life, there is sin dwelling in that life. There is sin as master, ruling over that life. It is powerful.
You find that what you will—that is, your will to do the will of God—you cannot do. You are bound by the law of death. You do not want to practice sin, and yet you practice it because you are bound by the law of sin.
We find that we are bound by the law of sin and of death. We cannot do what we want to do—that is death. We do what we do not want to do—that is sin. Sin is a law ruling over us.
No wonder the apostle Paul cried out:
O wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
There is a background to Paul’s cry. In the early days of the Roman Empire, one of the cruelest punishments for a person who had committed murder or heinous sins was to bind the corpse of the person he had murdered to the murderer—eye to eye, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, hand to hand, feet to feet—and bind them together. When the corpse began to corrupt, the poison entered into the murderer, and eventually he too died.
That is the picture here: “Who can deliver me? O wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this body of death?”
Actually, this body of death is none other than yourself. You are bound to yourself, and you find that the poison, the corruption, is gradually eating you up. You cry out, “Who can deliver me from this sin that is a master ruling over me?”
Then Paul says, “Thank God, through Jesus Christ.”
When our Lord Jesus was crucified, He took the old man with Him. On the cross, the old man was finished; he was done with. Because of this, sin is isolated.
Sin is still there. As long as we live in this body, sin is still there. But the deliverance is that God has isolated it. Sin is in us, but the old man is dead. Therefore, sin cannot command the old man, the dead man, to commit sin anymore. We are free from sin.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know that our old man was crucified with Christ. We need to reckon by faith that this is true: we are dead to sin and alive to God. Then we yield the members of our body to our new Master, our Lord, to serve Him as His willing slaves. Now we are delivered from the power of sin.
Brothers and sisters, we need daily, by faith, to stand in Christ, because this is true only in Christ. If you do not stand in Christ, you find that it is not true. But if you stand in Christ, then you find that your old man was crucified and you are free from the power of sin.
Yesterday we also mentioned how the Lord has freed us from the world. We do not know how much we are bound by the world. The world is a system organized by the enemy to bind everyone who is in the world. We cannot help it; we are driven by the world.
But thank God, our Lord Jesus, on the cross, has cast out the prince of this world. He has delivered us out of this world system. God has called us out of this world. Therefore, we are not of the world, even as our Lord Jesus is not of the world.
We are in the world, but we are not of the world. Our Lord Jesus came into this world, but the world had nothing in Him. He was not of the world; He was of heaven. Yet He came into this world to redeem those who were under bondage.
That is our relationship with the world:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
Seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Thank God, the world is behind us and heaven is before us. That is where we are travelling.
We are delivered not only from the world as it is, but also from the religious world. The bondage of the religious world is very, very strong. Christianity—even Christianity—is a part of the world.
In the beginning, it was a living faith. It was a revelation: the revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. He who receives that revelation is completely transformed. It is revelation; it is living faith.
But, brothers and sisters, gradually you find that people have reduced and organized this living faith into a Christianity—an “ism,” a system, a form. And we are bound by that.
In Christianity today, you find many things being kept that you cannot find in the Word of God, and many things in the Word of God that you do not find practiced in Christianity. Christianity is literally like Judaism. There is truth there, but it is overwhelmed and covered by the traditions of men.
People do not have a living touch with God through Christ Jesus. They only touch a system called Christianity. People know a building, a special kind of building, that is called the church; but they do not know what the church of the living God really is.
People go to church to worship, but they worship from afar. There is not that nearness, that communion, that living communion with God. People keep rules and regulations in Christianity and are called good Christians, but they do not know the leading of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
We can be bound by the religious world, and what bondage it is. Thank God, He has set us free.
In Hebrews 13, we are told that we need to go outside the camp to Christ, to bear His reproach. Christianity is like a camp, and Christ is being cast out of that camp. If you want to know Christ, you have to go outside the camp and share in the reproach of Christ. Are you willing to do that?
We mentioned yesterday afternoon that Christ has also set us free from the law. The law is given for the knowledge of sin. If there is no law, we do not know what sin is. Sin is lawlessness. The law gives us the knowledge of sin.
To put it another way, the law is given not to be kept, but to be broken—so far as our experience is concerned. Of course, when God gave the law, He gave the law for people to keep. But because we are weak in the flesh, when the law is given, we die. Before the commandment, we are alive; but when the law comes, then we die.
The law gives us the knowledge of sin, but thank God, the law serves another purpose. In Galatians 3, we are told that the law is like a tutor. It leads us to Christ.
The law shuts us all up in sin in order that we may be driven to Christ, to our Savior. Without the law, we may think that we are moral, that we are good, and that we do not need Christ. We are our own savior. But with the law, we realize that we break the law all the time, and we are condemned. We are under bondage. Who can set us free?
You flee to the city of refuge. You flee to Christ. In Christ, you are free from the law by His body. He died on the cross to pay the penalty of sin—the righteous requirement of the law.
There are two ways to keep the law. One is that you really keep it. For instance, if you are driving and the limit is fifty-five miles an hour, you can keep the law by driving fifty-five miles an hour.
But suppose you drive seventy miles an hour and are caught. How do you keep the law? You pay the money. When you pay the penalty, you also keep the law.
We have all broken the law. Christ is the only One who has kept the law. He was sinless, the only Person who knew no sin; yet He was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, we broke the law, and He paid for us. After it is paid, the law has been kept.
Therefore, you are not under the law. You are now under grace, under the One who has faith. He lives within you; He is your very life. His life is holy and righteous. His life is pleasing to God.
If we learn to live by Him, then we find that we are under grace. When we are under grace, we are not lawless. We are above what the law requires; we do better. But we are not under bondage. We are free. That is freedom from the law.
This afternoon, we would like to continue. Christ has not only set us free from sin and from law; He has also freed us from our flesh.
Brothers and sisters, law, sin, and flesh form a triangle. They are closely related to one another. The law makes demands upon the flesh; when the law demands, the sin in the flesh is stirred. The result is that the works of the flesh are sin. These three things go together.
In Romans 6, we are told how to be delivered from sin, from the power of sin. Romans 6:18 and Romans 6:22 speak of freedom from sin. In Romans 7:1-4, we are told that we are free from the law.
The law is like a husband. Our former husband never died, but thank God, we died to that husband. Therefore, we are able to be married to another husband, our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we can serve God in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.
From Romans 7:5 onward, you find that we are free from the flesh.
There is a difference between the old man and the flesh. You may say, “Have we not said that we have already died? When Christ died, we died in Him.” Yes, the old man was crucified with Christ. All of us here, and many more, were included in Christ. When Christ died, the Adamic race came to an end. That is true.
But what is the difference in the Bible between the old man and the flesh?
The old man is a collective term. It is always singular. You do not have two old men. Before God, there is only one old man, and who is that old man? Adam, and all that is of Adam.
The old man is a collective term, singular in number. It is objective truth. By objective truth, we simply mean that it is something done in Christ, not in you. It was done in Christ two thousand years ago.
When Christ was crucified as the last Adam, the old man died—terminated, ended—two thousand years ago. This is what Christ has done for us on Calvary’s cross. It is objective truth. It is eternal. It never changes.
However you may feel, whether you feel very alive or really dead, it does not matter. It does not change that objective truth: the old man was dead. You may think your old man is very alive, stirring in the grave and stirring within you, but it does not change the fact. Your old man was crucified.
The flesh is personal, not collective. You have your flesh, and I have my flesh. Even though he that is born of the flesh is flesh, and we are all born of the flesh, your flesh is a little different from my flesh. Though it all bears the same resemblance to Adam, the combinations may be different.
The flesh refers to each individual, and it is subjective experience. By subjective, it means that it is your personal experience.
So far as objective truth is concerned—so far as what God has done in Christ is concerned—you are done with; you are already dead. In Christ, you are already dead. There is no doubt about it.
But so far as you yourself are concerned, you find that your flesh is very alive. Paul said:
In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.
I am carnal, sold under sin.
That is our individual experience. You find that your flesh is sold under sin. In you—that is, in your flesh—there is no good.
Do you come to that knowledge immediately? No. You come to that knowledge after you have failed a number of times. Some people are still trying yet.
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you have a new life and a new mind. You know what is the will of God, and you want to do the will of God. You do not want to commit sin, and you try not to. You try to serve God. But the more you try, the more you find yourself helpless and hopeless.
You make up your mind and make up your will: “Next time I will not do it.” The next minute, you do it again. Then you ask for forgiveness. In other words, it is confession, forgiveness, committing again; confession again, forgiveness again, and committing again. It is a vicious cycle going on through your life.
But you are still trying; you have not given up yet. Why? Because you feel there is some good in your flesh.
Formerly, you used your flesh to commit sin. Now you think you can use your flesh to please God. But the Bible tells us:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
Whether you are saved or not saved, flesh is flesh. The same flesh is flesh; unsaved flesh is flesh. It is still flesh. The best flesh is flesh. The good flesh is flesh.
We do not want the bad flesh: envy, pride, murder, greed. All these things are found in Galatians 5, where the works of the flesh are manifest.
But in Romans 7, you find that man—and that man is none other than you and me. That man feels, “I do not want the bad flesh. But can I say there is nothing good in me? No, I am better than that. There is some good in me. I would like to develop the good flesh.”
The result is that the more you try, the more you discover that even the good flesh is not good enough. On the contrary, when you try to cultivate the good flesh, the bad flesh comes out. After many failures, you come to a point where you say, “In me, that is, in my flesh, there is no good.”
Brothers and sisters, have you come to that point yet? If you have not come to that point yet, deliverance is still ahead of you. But when you come to that point, seeing that in the flesh there is no good, then you begin to accept the judgment of God.
God says the flesh must go. The old man was crucified, and that is all-inclusive. Your flesh, my flesh, all our flesh, are included in that old man. God says it is no good. You cannot improve it, reform it, or develop it. The only way is crucifixion.
God did it, but you do not agree. That is the problem. You say, “God is too drastic. There is still some good in me. In my natural life, I am naturally very gentle, very kind, very generous. Do You mean to say that I need to let that die?”
Surely you do, because your gentleness creates more problems than your hardness.
One day you will realize that in you, that is, in your flesh, there is no good. You will be disappointed with your flesh and willing to let it be delivered to the cross.
There you find Galatians 5:24. Romans 6:6 is objective truth; Galatians 5:24 is subjective experience:
And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
with the passions and the lusts thereof.
In other words, now you agree that what God has done is the right thing. When you agree to that, you find that your flesh has been crucified with the passions and lusts.
In Romans 8, we are told—and I think this is important:
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;
but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
For the mind of the flesh is death;
but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace:
because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God;
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be:
and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But read on, Romans 8:9:
But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.
But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ,
he is none of His.
Once you begin to realize what Christ has done for you, then you realize that you are not in the flesh. You are no debtor to the flesh; you are in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Then, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body. Romans 8:13 says:
For if ye live after the flesh, ye must die;
but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body,
ye shall live.
Now let me use an illustration.
Suppose you have an apple tree, but that apple tree produces only sour, small, hard apples. What are you going to do with that apple tree?
You may try to improve the quality of the tree. Near the root, in the trunk of the tree, you cut the whole tree off. Then you make a vertical cut, like a cross, and take a twig from a good apple tree that produces delicious apples. You graft it into that tree.
When the tree begins to grow again, you find that all the branches that come out and begin to bear fruit bear good, delicious apples, because they have taken the nature of the twig. That is a drastic way to improve the quality of the apple.
But do you know that under the cut, branches will still come out? When branches come out from under the cut and you do not cut them off, they bear the same old sour, hard fruit.
What does the gardener do? He is always watching. When he finds that any branch comes out under the cut, he cuts it off.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that there is a grafting in your life? You are being cut off, and Christ is grafted into your life. The Spirit of God is in you. Therefore, what comes out of that grafting is all the virtues of our Lord—the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
But if you are not careful, under the cut your flesh will try to come out again. Thank God, the Holy Spirit is the Gardener. Whenever your flesh begins to move, the Holy Spirit immediately reminds you.
If you live very far from God, you will not hear Him. But if you are in daily fellowship with God, immediately you sense the Holy Spirit saying, “Cut it off.” By the power of the Holy Spirit, you put the deeds of the body to death. Then you find no bad fruit coming out. You are free from the flesh.
So, brothers and sisters, to be free from the flesh, you need continually to walk according to the Spirit. The Spirit of God is in you. Therefore, you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit. You should walk according to the Spirit.
If you walk according to the Spirit, then you will not do what the flesh wants to do. Read Galatians 5. I love Galatians; I have been reading it again and again these days. I hope you will read it, and you will find that we are free from the flesh.
What a release it is to be freed from your flesh! Are you tired of your flesh? Who can deliver me? Thank God, through Jesus Christ.
But Christ has not only set us free from our flesh; He has also set us free from self—S-E-L-F. Turn it around, take off the “h,” and it is self.
What is the relationship between self and flesh? Flesh is the working out of self. Self is the root, the life, of flesh. The Lord not only deals with flesh, the works of the flesh; He also deals with the source.
The Bible tells us that He deals not only with the flesh, the manifestations of self. Your flesh manifests yourself; you are natural. The Lord not only deals with your manifestations; the Lord deals with you—self, the “I.”
How does He deal with that?
How did our Lord Jesus come into this world? In Philippians 2, we are told that He, being in the form of God and equal with God, emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a bondservant. Being found in fashion as a man, He further humbled Himself to be obedient to God, even unto death, the death of the cross.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth throughout His whole life, His self was holy—not like you and me. Our self is selfish and sinful.
The self, the soul-life, of our Lord Jesus was holy. He took upon Himself a human life, and that soul-life of our Lord Jesus was holy. He is the Holy One. His self was holy, without sin. Whatever He thought was holy. Whatever He did was just. No matter what He did, said, or thought, it was holy.
Yet, even with that holy self, throughout His earthly life, He never did anything on His own. He denied Himself throughout His whole life.
He said, “I can do nothing of Myself.” If anyone could, certainly He could much more. But He said no—not because He could not, but because He would not. “I can do nothing of Myself. I cannot even say anything of Myself.”
Why? He denied Himself. He denied His holy self until it was crucified on the cross. Thus, He set the way for us.
How are we going to be delivered from ourselves, from “I,” from our soul-life?
He said:
If any man would come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross,
and follow Me.
If any man would come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross daily,
and follow Me.
How can we be free from this self-life? The Lord has set a way for us: it is through the cross. He denied Himself, took up His cross, until He was crucified. It is the same way for us.
What is denying yourself? To put it in a very crude way, Peter denied the Lord three times. That little lady said, “You must be with Jesus.” “Oh no, I do not know that Man.”
Peter denied the wrong Person. He should have denied himself, but he denied the Lord. Brothers and sisters, that is what we have all been doing all the time.
Do you know that you are always denying the wrong person? You do not deny yourself; you deny Christ. It is you, but you want to have your way. You do not want yourself to suffer. You do not take up the cross; you bypass it.
Because of this, brothers and sisters, you do not grow as you should. The character of the Lord Jesus is not formed in you. It is yourself; it is not Christ.
Today, self dwells in your soul. It is the life of your soul. Every expression of your soul expresses yourself: your emotion, your intellect, your volition, your will. It all expresses yourself; that is what you want. It is not expressing Christ, because you do not deny yourself.
You do not let Christ sit on the throne of your soul and express Himself through your soul. To do that, you need to deny yourself.
For instance, in Matthew 10, the Lord Jesus said:
He that loveth father or mother more than Me
is not worthy of Me.
He that loveth son or daughter more than Me
is not worthy of Me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it;
and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.
Should we love our father and mother? Of course. This is the fourth commandment: honor your parents. God promises that you will live a long life.
But the Lord said, “If you love your father or mother more than Me, you cannot be My disciple.” In Luke 14, He uses even stronger words: if you do not hate your father, mother, children, wife, and even your own self, you cannot be His disciple.
What does it mean? It means that He wants to deliver us from self. Even self-love and self-hate are self. They are not pure; they stand in the way of God. Therefore, we need to deny that. Even our affection needs to go through the cross.
Denying self is a matter of will. Taking up the cross is the means to put that into action. This is the way we are delivered from self.
Then Christ will come in and fill our soul. Your affection will release the life of Christ instead of your own selfish love or hate.
Not only our emotions, but also our intellect. In Matthew 16, our Lord Jesus began to reveal to the disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, be rejected, be killed, and on the third day rise from the dead.
Peter, out of his good heart, took hold of Christ and said, “No. Do not do that. Be good to Yourself. You do not need to go to the cross. You can be the King.”
Christ turned and said:
Get thee behind Me, Satan:
thou art a stumbling-block unto Me:
for thou mindest not the things of God,
but the things of men.
Even our mind, we need to deny, so that the mind of Christ may be in us.
Not only our mind, but our volition, our will. In John 12, the Lord said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die,
it abideth by itself alone;
but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
The Lord said that he who follows Him must go the same way, and then His Father will honor him. Even our will: we need to will the will of God—not my will, but Thy will be done.
Self, brothers and sisters, is not an easy thing. Martin Luther said, “I am not afraid of the pope in the Vatican. I am afraid of that pope that is in me.”
Melanchthon, the theologian of the Reformation, said, “This old Adam is too strong for young Melanchthon.” They all discovered how tyrannical self is.
If we are delivered from self, brothers and sisters, then we are really free. What binds you most is yourself. Do not blame others; it is you yourself. Deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow the Lord.
Christ has not only freed us from self, the tyranny of self; He has also set us free from fear—from the fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14-15 says:
Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood,
He also Himself in like manner partook of the same;
that through death He might bring to nought him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
and might deliver all them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Today the devil uses fear to put people in bondage. Of course, the greatest fear is death. Because you are afraid to die, you are afraid; therefore, you are under his bondage.
Some people have counted—though I have never done that; I just believe it—and said there are three hundred and sixty-five “fear nots” in the Bible: one for each day.
Fear not; I am with thee.
How many of God’s children are under the bondage of fear?
In 2 Timothy 1:7, we are told:
For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness;
but of power and love and discipline.
The spirit of fear comes from the devil. He uses fear to threaten us and keep us under bondage. But God does not give us the spirit of fear. He gives us the spirit of courage, of love, and of a sound mind.
Christ entered into death, robbed death of its power, and came out in resurrection. Brothers and sisters, he who believes in Him shall never die.
Yes, if the Lord should delay, physically we may go through death. But death is swallowed up in victory, because the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. He has delivered us from sin and from the law.
When a child of God dies, he goes to sleep. It is not death. Are you afraid to go to sleep? You welcome it, because the next day, when you wake up, you are refreshed.
When we wake up, we shall see Him, and we shall be like Him. Christ has delivered us from the fear of death.
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,
and because of the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their life even unto death.
This is victory: no fear.
Fear not, for He is with you. He has delivered us from the one who holds the power of death—the devil. On the cross, He despoiled the principalities and powers and made a show of them openly. Colossians 2:15.
On the cross, Christ crushed the head of the serpent. He has overcome. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are more than conquerors. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
Hallelujah!
Christ has set us free in freedom. Brothers and sisters, let us believe it. Let us enjoy it. This is our portion.
What we have been talking about is all negative. There is also the positive side of liberty. We are free to come to the throne of God, the throne of grace. We are free to enter into the holiest of all. We are free to dwell in the very presence of God.
We are accepted in the Beloved. We can commune with God. We can live in His presence. We are His children, and He is our heavenly Father. Brothers and sisters, this is freedom.
In John 8, the Lord Jesus said that a servant does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides in the house forever. Thank God, we are sons; we are daughters; we are God’s children. God’s house is our house.
We have the privilege and freedom to live in our Father’s house because it is our house. We have the privilege to see our Father’s face every day. We have the right to call Him, “Our Father.” That is freedom.
Many of God’s people, in their relationship with God, are still living as slaves. But the Lord says, “You are children.” You are loved; do not fear. Our relationship with God is love, not fear.
Perfect love casts out fear. We know He loves us. We know we are accepted in the Beloved. We know there is ready access to His throne of grace. Let us approach with boldness.
Brothers and sisters, remember: you are a child of God. There is a freedom that you have with God, with the heavenly family, in the family of God. Enjoy it.
We are free now to walk according to the Spirit. Formerly, we could not because we were bound. But the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:2.
We were down before; we could not help it because the law of gravitation is firm. But thank God, today there is a higher law working in us. It lifts us into heaven.
It is just like getting on an airplane. You find that there is a force stronger than the law of gravitation, and it lifts you off. The law of the Spirit of life—that is true freedom. True freedom is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus working in you.
You are free to do God’s will. You are free to please the heavenly Father, not because of what you are, but because you are in Christ and the law of the Spirit of life is working in your life.
You are free to worship. The Samaritan woman in John 4 asked, “Where should we worship? We Samaritans worship in this mountain, and you Jews worship in Jerusalem. Which is right?”
The Lord said, “Woman, the hour is coming, and now is, when the Father is seeking true worshipers—those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is not in this mountain nor in Jerusalem; it is in spirit and in truth.”
Brothers and sisters, is that not a privilege? We can worship God as true worshipers, and we are free to worship.
Not only are we free to worship; we are free to serve Him. To serve God is a high privilege. If you are able to serve the president, you think it is a great honor. Some people are willing to serve the president for one dollar a year as a token, because it is not money; it is the honor.
Brothers and sisters, He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Who are we? We are free to serve Him, to serve Him according to His will.
God’s word to Pharaoh was:
Let My people go, that they may serve Me.
You cannot serve God if you are in bondage. You can serve Him only after you are freed. Thank God, we can freely serve Him.
Finally, two thoughts. One is Galatians 5:1:
For freedom did Christ set us free:
stand fast therefore,
and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.
Brothers and sisters, Christ has set us free in freedom. It is continuous. It is real. It is your daily portion. Stand fast. Stand in the freedom Christ has given to you, and do not be held again in a yoke of bondage.
Do not go back into bondage. There is always the danger. The Galatian believers began in the Spirit, but they tried to be perfected in the flesh. They entered into the bondage of the law: “Touch not, taste not, drink not. Keep this, keep that.” Paul said, “You are fallen from grace.”
Do not fall back into the yoke of bondage. Christ has set you free. Be free.
Then, in the same chapter, Galatians 5:13:
For ye, brethren, were called for freedom;
only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh,
but through love be servants one to another.
There is another danger: you may abuse the liberty Christ has given to you and turn it into an opportunity for the flesh.
You think you are free, so you are not under any control. You are out of divine control, and you think that is freedom. You give opportunity to the flesh.
But you must live under the royal law of love. If you live under the royal law of love, you are under the law of liberty. Love one another, and you will fulfill all the requirements of the law.
So, dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord really help us. These are not merely teachings. May these truths become real in each of our lives.
Make me a captive, Lord,
and then I shall be free.
This was spoken out of experience. George Matheson spoke out of his own experience. That is true liberty. So may we sing that hymn as a close.