Mr. Matt Fenchel
Sermon Transcript
April 1, 2001
Moving From Slavery to Freedom
In
I Corinthians 10 and 11, part of those chapters discuss the Days of Unleavened
Bread, the Passover, our spiritual preparation and some thoughts to be given
about this time. In the middle of those chapters, we find a frank and honest
warning to Christians about examining our spiritual condition. It is in I Corinthians
10:12, you don't have to turn there, but it says…
I Cor. 10:12. "Therefore let him who thinks
he stands take heed lest he fall."
Again, a just a very frank and honest warning again in a book that was written
to the Church.
I Cor. 10:12. "Therefore let him who thinks
he stands take heed lest he fall."
And, of course, the thrust, the meaning of this verse is echoed many times in
various ways throughout the New Testament. With this in mind, I'd like to read
you a story. It happened, actually, more than twenty years ago, actually almost
thirty years ago.
On Thursday, August 23, 1973, the Swedish Credit Bank of Stockholm, Sweden,
was rocked by some machine gun fire. The party has just begun, announced a thirty-two
year old prison escapee named Jan-Erik Olsson. The party indeed continued for
five and a half days as Olsson held four of the bank's employees hostage in
an eleven by forty-seven foot vault until late in the evening of August 28.
Later interviews with the four hostages yielded surprising results. Results
that had been confirmed in numerous other "hostage situations" in
the years that followed. The hostages displayed, or the former hostages, displayed,
a strange association with their captors, identifying with them, while fearing
those who sought to end their captivity.
The hostages even came to see their
captors as protecting them from the police. Following the release of the hostages
one of the women became engaged to one of the captors. Another of the hostages
started a legal defense fund. All this was done in the face of the fact that
the hostages were bound with dynamite, had guns fired at them, had nooses placed
around their neck, and general mistreatment in general. Such bonding to one's
captor and abuser is no longer considered unusual by professionals who negotiate
with hostage takers. Studies of other hostage-like groups seem to bear this
out.
These groups are hostages for one, cult members, people coming out of cults,
civilians in prison, physically or emotionally abused children, concentration
camp prisoners, prisoners of war, incest victims, and battered women.
Also historically we see this, among human beings, this proclivity that once
we found our freedom to turn around and head back to slavery. In the Russian
Revolution, they traded the Czar, one dictator for a communist dictator. The
French Revolution saw them swapping Louis XVI as one dictator for another dictator
by the name of Napoleon. The United States, which is built on economic freedom
and prosperity has seen ourselves during the last few decades go from the biggest
nation, as far as giving aid, to the biggest debtor nation both as a whole and
individually. We have also seen this in Eastern Europe, that people coming out
of the communist system after they have a taste of what capitalism is and they
actually want to go back to being communist. They want to go back to the communist
system.
My question for us today brethren is spiritually speaking, could this happen
to us? Could this happen to us? Does it happen to us? Has it happened to Christians
over time? over the centuries? over the decades? Whatever you may want to put
it. The Bible says it is possible. It is possible that once freed that we could
take a look back at slavery and head back to slavery, maybe unconsciously, maybe
consciously, but it is possible.
Take a look at the example of Israel in Egypt. Despite the fact of years of
cruelty, beatings, death, brutal labor, hardly any food, and despite the miracles
that God performed to free them the promise of liberty of a better land, of
the promised land, Israel actually asked to go back. They went back all right,
but they actually asked to go back. They asked, they said, let us make ourselves
a captain, they wanted to return to slavery. Personally, I find that shocking
and unbelievable. Yet at the same time, we are human beings just like Israel
was and it's a warning to us and I Corinthians 10 discusses that.
Turn with me if you would to Luke 21. I realize that these examples might sound
extreme to us. We don't necessarily have a gun being pointed at our head. We
are not in that dire situation directly, but in some ways our situation is much
worse. Our captor, the one who would like to take us hostage is not trying to
use a gun with us, he's not trying to use a dynamite, he's trying to use something
much more subtle, he's trying to use pleasure, he's trying to use the good life
to re-capture us. Luke 21. Christ gives this as a warning for the end times.
Luke 21:34-36. "But take heed to yourselves…"
he's talking to his disciples now "…take heed to yourselves, lest
your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life,
and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those
who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that
you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass,
and to stand before the Son of Man."
Christ said be on guard, be careful, watch that this society, this materialistic
society, this very wealthy society in this case, and this is just one danger
we have, of course, many others, but he said, in this case, be careful. Laodecia
is warned, and they are accused by God of having a mentality that is blind,
that is naked, that is totally or almost totally without spiritual righteousness,
and they are told to repent.
We find the example in II Timothy about Demas. You may just note that down,
but Paul says Demas left me, forsook me because of the pleasures of this world.
He forsook me because of love of the world. II Peter 2, if you would turn over
there with me as well. Unfortunately, if we take a look throughout history,
either as individuals or as societies, the history of human beings has been
a longing for freedom, a real longing for true freedom, yet at the same time,
more often than not, a round trip ticket back to slavery, back to bondage. II
Peter 2. This is talking about a very specific example, but I think the overall
principle is applicable for us.
II Peter 2:19. "While they promise them
liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome,
by him also he is brought into bondage."
Again, that can happen in various means.
Verse 20. "For if, after they have escaped
the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse
for them than the beginning."
So these are not talking about people
who have never had contact with God, he's talking about people who at one time
were free and became entangled again in the cares of this life, in bondage,
or in a particular false doctrine as the context of this chapter happens to
be discussing.
Verse 21-22. "For it would have been better
for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to
turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them
according to the true proverb: A dog returns to his own vomit, and, a sow, having
washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
It's a case, again, of where they have realized freedom, they have had freedom
through Jesus Christ, and yet now they have returned. Again, these sound like
pretty, let's say, dramatic scenarios, but they are in The Bible for our warning,
and God gives us that warning back in I Corinthians 10, that we need to be careful
of our spiritual condition and re-examine it, and especially during this time
in the year to take heed lest we fall.
Turn with me, if you would to Luke
14 and maybe we can be asking ourselves just a few questions. By the way, the
book of Luke is rather interesting in this regard, there are various parables
and examples that are given here in the book of Luke about taking warning, about
being careful, about being on guard. When we even ask ourselves the question,
why is it we as humans have this proclivity? Why do we want to go back even
as bad as slavery was or in this case in Stockholm, as bad as their captivity,
somehow they identified with that. How did they get mixed up? What can we do
to prevent that return to slavery?
Luke 14 gives us let's say the overall
answer, the overall approach, Luke 14:33. And again, I want us to be thinking
about that we shouldn't think that it can't happen to us. Think about just for
a moment, and I realize there are various reasons why this happened, but think
about for a moment how many people had been in the Church of God in the past
and have left. Now again, I realize there are various reasons for that. You
can't just say it's one reason or the other, but let's just give that some general
thought to make sure that we are being careful as far as our spiritual lives
go.
Luke 14:33.
"So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot
be My disciple."
Must be willing to forsake. And then
in verse 31 and 32.
Verse 31-32.
"Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit
down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who
comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a
great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace."
This is basically an enlarged, overall
approach, what happened in Stockholm in this situation. Rather than take on
the enemy, they said, let's have peace, let's have peace. They had to do it
in their minds, they had to do it with their decisions, they had to do it with
their perspective of life, they didn't want to take on the enemy, they did not
want to engage the enemy. They said with the enemy let us have peace, and that's
what they ended up happening, and they ended up staying captives. We must be
able to in our spiritual lives trust the freedoms that we have been given. God
has given us various freedoms in order to move away from slavery to eternal
freedom as sons of God.
I cannot over-emphasize enough, we
are going to discuss three of these today. There are more. You are getting the
Reader's Digest condensed version of it. There are more that we can discuss
as certainly defined in The Bible, but I cannot over-emphasize enough that no
one can take these freedoms away from us. The only thing that can be done is
that we give them up. We can give them up, and we saw, like I said in this scenario
here, where certain freedoms were given up. We can give these up, but nobody
can take them away from us, yet if use them, if we use them correctly, if we
use them with God's help, these freedoms can ensure that we do not return to
slavery, that we are not tempted to return to slavery consciously or unconsciously.
So again, I want to discuss today three freedoms that we can use, and I'd like
to have us think about during the next couple weeks as we are examining our
spiritual condition and preparing ourselves for the Passover. Turn with me if
you would to Galatians 4. God wants us to have a freedom mentality. God wants
us to be free. There is no question about that. He discusses that Jesus Christ
came so that we could be free, and we'll discuss some of that more as we go
along, but he wants us to have a freedom mentality, he wants us to think as
sons of God not as slaves of sin. That's how he wants us to think. God wants
us to be free in every way and to take on the responsibility that freedom brings,
obviously, not to use our freedom as license to sin, but to use that responsibility,
take on that responsibility.
Galatians 4:3-7. "Even so we, when we
were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the
fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive
the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore
you are no longer a slave…"
This is what God wants us to have in our minds. We are no longer slaves. We
no longer have to say, we are helpless, that we have to give in in some form
or fashion.
Verse 7. He says, "…you are no longer
a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."
Let's go on. Again, there seem to
be a proclivity here, even in the Church of God here in Galatia to return.
Verse 8-9.
"But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which
by nature are not gods. But now after you have known God, or rather are known
by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to
which you desire again to be in bondage?"
So Paul was saying, you know, you've been freed from slavery, you have been
made a son of mine or son of God, God's inspiration to Paul, not a son of Paul,
okay? Son of God in this case. Okay, you've been made a son of God, why do you
want to return? Why do you want to go back? So it's something that Paul even
had to fight against in the church at that time.
I would like to read you just a little bit more about this, actually this Stockholm
syndrome, it's called the Stockholm syndrome today in psychology based on this
event back then in 1973 about people identifying with their captors or their
abusers and again it can go into a wide range of scenarios, but I'd like you
just to hear a few of the characteristics of this and relate it back to our
spiritual fight that we have.
One of the characteristics of the Stockholm syndrome or the symptoms of it is,
one of them is, of course, the captives began to identify with their captors.
The captive seeks to win the favor of the captor in an almost childlike way.
Now think back to the scripture we just read in Luke where the king with ten
thousand wanted to make peace and not fight, he wanted to make peace. A second
characteristic is the captive often realizes that the action take by his would
be rescuers is very likely to hurt him instead of obtaining his release. So
he actually begins to fear more in a wrong way those who are trying to help
him, than he fears the captors. And again think back to that what Satan would
like us to think about God, a God of wrath, a God who is not going to have any
mercy towards us, that's what Satan would like to think, in order to identify
with him more than with God. Another characteristic. He may come to believe
that the captors position is just. Well, the world is not so bad. It's not so
bad out there. People aren't so bad. Satan's way. There's some good in the tree
of knowledge of good and evil. There's some good out there. Well, that's what
Satan would like us to think.
In the recovery process, one of the points made about the recovery process,
is that the person, the person who was held hostage or the person being abused,
the recovery process should always be done away from the presence of the former
abuser or captor. How many times in the New Testament do we find flee? Flee
idolatry. Flee fornication. Flee youthful lusts. Flee. Get away. Do not love,
John talks about, do not love this world. How many times does God talk to us
about doing those things.
Let's go to the first freedom then. Again, we are just going to discuss
three of these freedoms today, but again, if we use them, and actually, in situations
where these have been used outside of church settings, our spiritual fight,
they have proven to be extremely, well, they have proven to be life saving,
and they can certainly be life saving to us in our spiritual battle. These are
tools that cannot be taken away from us.
The first freedom that we have
been given is the freedom of vision, is the freedom of vision. The first
step in trying to maintain sanity, whether it's in stories coming out of concentration
camps or hostage situations or personally abusive situations, was that the person
was able to keep their mind focused on something that is going to be better
tomorrow. There is hope for tomorrow, and these people were able to do that.
Those who were able to take that were able to do it even if they didn't know
for sure, but they had a strong vision that something was going to be better
tomorrow, even if they didn't know for sure. They kept that in their mind because
that was the only way of survival.
We have been given a vision that
is sure. We know it's going to take place. We don't have to be captured with
the immediate problem so-to-speak. Turn with me, if you would, to Hebrews 11.
But the bondage "mentality" is on the here and now, focused on the
immediate, what needs to be done now, the current problems, getting lost in
our problems, not that we shouldn't address them, we need to address them, but
at the same time, key number one is keeping that vision of what's ahead of us.
We know the scripture in Proverbs that talks about that without revelatory vision,
in other words, without revelation, without vision, without a picture of something
in the future that is grand, something that's going to be a whole lot better
than what we are going through, people don't know what to do. It says they turn
to lawlessness. They become undisciplined. It doesn't work. They perish. And
that's what happens in severe situations like that, and of course, in our fight
as well, if we lose that vision of the kingdom of God of God having prepared
something better for us. Let's take a look at Hebrews 11. There's a number of
examples in here that people of God who have kept their vision, even in the
most dire circumstances, no matter what their problems were, they kept their
vision, and it obviously, they were rewarded for it.
Hebrews 11:7.
"By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved
with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he
condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according
to faith."
So Noah, a hundred and twenty years, he knew the world was literally coming
to an end, but he also knew and had in front of him the vision God had given
him to keep going. A hundred and twenty years of hard work.
Verse 8-10. "By faith Abraham obeyed when
he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance.
And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land
of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob,
the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has
foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
That's what Abraham kept his focus on, even though he didn't know where he was
going, he didn't know what was ahead of him, but he knew it was something better.
Verse 13-15. "These all died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured
of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.
And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out,
they would have had opportunity to return."
Same lesson applies to us spiritually if we are looking back, if we are looking
at the world, if we are returning, we have an opportunity to return, too. God's
not going to hold us back if we make the decision to return. They had that same
opportunity to return, but they didn't do it. They kept their mind on what was
in front.
Verse 16. "But now they desire a better,
that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their
God, for He has prepared a city for them."
Verse 35. "Women received their dead raised
to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance…"
They did not make peace with the enemy.
Verse 35-38. "…that they might obtain
a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes,
and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were
tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- of whom the world was not worthy. They
wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth."
Boy, we sure have it a whole lot better, something we can be grateful for.
Verse 39-40.
"And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did
not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they
should not be made perfect apart from us."
So despite the hostage situations that these people were in, they kept their
mind on God's promises, and they were able to survive or in some cases, they
didn't survive, yet they never gave in. They never gave into their captors.
They could have made peace. They didn't. Turn with me if you would to Luke 9.
It's exactly what Israel did. Israel kept looking back from the Red Sea onward
they kept looking back. Satan would like us to be so caught up in what we have
to do everyday, and a lot of those things we have to are very good. We'd like
our minds to be so focused on the immediate, so focused on the present, that
we don't focus on the bigger picture of why we're even here. Luke 9 discusses
people who either lost the vision or never had the vision, and again, the book
of Luke discusses this scenario in a number of cases throughout the book.
Luke 9:57-60. "Now it happened as they
journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You
wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds
of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let
me first go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead
bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."
Their minds were not on the vision.
Verse 61-62. "And another also said, "Lord,
I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house."
But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
Again, it was a case of looking back. A case of wanting to return or maybe never
wanting to leave, and again, we are admonished throughout the book of Luke in
various places about that. Turn with me if you would to Philippians 3. Brethren,
no one can take away the vision that God has given us of the kingdom of God,
I don't care what situation that we are in. No one can take away our vision
of eternal life, of eternal peace, of eternal happiness, but we can allow that
vision to become dark, to become a bit blurry, perhaps that we don't always
see it or don't always focus on it. Maybe not even on a daily basis, and we
have to be careful of that. We have to be careful. In Philippians 3, Paul gives
a very encouraging and motivating, I guess that would be a better word, passage
here in Philippians 3…
Phil. 3:12-13. "Not that I have already
attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that
for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself
to have apprehended…"
So Paul says, you know, I don't consider it, you know, a slam dunk, home run,
that I'm already in the kingdom type of thing. He said, no, I know there is
a battle out there. He says, I know I've got to fight. He says, I know there's
things I have to do…
Verse 13-14. "…but one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things
which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of
God in Christ Jesus."
And we know Paul had various trials, many more than probably most of us will
ever go through, yet he said, you know, I don't count myself to have guaranteed,
but he said, I keep my vision, I keep my focus on what's ahead. I don't get
lost in the problems that I am personally going through. I keep my eyes on what
God has called me to do. It's the freedom of vision, brethren, in terms of our
spiritual battle is a critical one, that we are focused up ahead.
Second vision or second freedom
I'd like to discuss and we certainly find in God's word, is the freedom of truth.
Freedom of truth. One of the main weapons that Satan or anybody else taking
hostages tries to use to convert someone is to convince them of a lie. And you
look down, even at some of the civilizations that have risen to power in a wrong
way in our society, of course, Nazi Germany, perhaps the first one to come to
mind, but it was a case where propaganda was done very, very well. The communication
of a lie, what they wanted, the captor, what the captor wanted the hostages
to believe. Certainly happened in the situation in Stockholm. They were able
to convince the hostages of the rightness of their cause even though that they
were wrong.
Satan was able to enslave Adam and Eve by convincing them that tree of knowledge
of good and evil was just as good at least, if not better, than the tree of
life. And mankind has bought into that ever since, and we have been captive
to that lie. We have been captive to a materialistic type of thinking, rather
than a spiritual type of thinking. Turn with me if you would to John 8.
John 8:31-32. "Then Jesus said to those
Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
What truth? God's truth. God's truth about how to live our lives, about how
to relate to God, about how to relate to others, about the true nature of our
society. The truth about how to solve problems. The truth about who we are.
The truth about our calling. And the list could go on and on and on. But again,
the question for us to ask is: How much are we taking advantage of truth? How
much are we using God's truth that he has given us? To make sure that we are
not slowly, but surely deceived. Because Satan is very subtle, very subtle,
and we have to make sure that we are constantly on our guard to make sure that
we know, and we are dealing in the truth and not slowly but surely get cooked
with the lies that Satan is constantly throwing at us. Turn with me if you would
to I Samuel 8. This is an example of where Israel, again, they didn't want to
hear the truth. God says, if we know the truth, if we use the truth, his truth,
it will make us free. It will help us to overcome. Help us to get away and make
sure that we are not re-enslaved.
I Samuel 8:4-7. "Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and
came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, "Look, you are old, and your
sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations."
But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge
us." So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Heed
the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected
you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."
And later on in the chapter, God says, but Samuel make sure you warn them, tell
them the truth about what this king is going to do to you, and Samuel did, and
did the people listen? No. And, yes, it did get them in trouble. They rejected
God, and they wanted, in this case, a king, it turned out to be an unrighteous
king. Later on they had a combination of good kings and unrighteous kings, but
in reality, they had rejected God and put something in God's place, and they,
and God said, well, I'm going to warn you, but the choice is still yours, and
he did warn them, and Israel did not listen to that truth, and they became re-enslaved,
became re-enslaved.
I'd like to read to you something I found in my research. There's an article
written. The gentleman's name is Dave Wilkinson. I hope I pronounced that correctly.
He's talking about a similar subject of what we're discussing today. He said,
I recently read a book on modern media written by Neil Postman. His book Amusing
Ourselves to Death was first published in 1985 one year after 1984, the
year popularized as the title of George Orwell's futuristic novel with it's
dark vision of society controlled by fear. In Orwell's novel, big brother rules
everything with a ruthless iron fist, but Postman reminds us that there is yet
another novel written slightly earlier with an equally chilling, but quite a
different vision of the future.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In Huxley's novel, there was no need
for big brother because people have come to love the technologies that strip
away their capacities to think. Postman writes what Orwell feared that there
would be those who banned books. What Huxley feared was that there would be
no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Nobody
who wanted to see the truth. Orwell feared there would be those who would deprive
us of information. Huxley feared they would give us so much that we would be
reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed
from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell
feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we'd become a trivial
culture.
Beware of the modern media's ability to create passivity. This passivity comes
because we are constantly being presented with information that seems to demand
a response. We get instantaneous news about the atrocities in Bosnia or civil
war in the Congo or financial meltdown in Brazil or Indonesia, so there is nothing
for us to do about what we know. The whole world is brought by the media into
our living rooms in living color. Because of the mass media, we know a little
about a lot of stuff. One Sunday edition of the L.A. Times contains more information,
more raw data about our world, than George Washington received in his entire
lifetime, but there's a difference. Washington expected to act on what he knew.
We expect not to act. We have become perpetual spectators. The shear volume
of information received numbs us, and that's where we have to dig for the truth
and make sure we don't lose the truth. We can become passive even if we are
faced with situations where we cannot make a difference.
Everyday you and your children are
being told that if you use the right deodorant, the right shampoo, wear the
right jeans, drink the right beer, if you do all those things, life is glorious.
You are being brainwashed that happiness, joy, and fulfillment are going to
come with what you have on your face and in our stomach. Now that's a lie if
there ever was one. Some of the most miserable people in the world and some
of the most prominent suicides are people who had it all. They wore the right
jeans, the right deodorant, right perfume, shampoo, yet their lives were a tragedy.
They were captured by all that. They were captured by the lies.
We have the freedom of truth that nobody can take away from us, but again, if
we don't use it, we'll lose it. The last freedom I'd like to discuss today
with you is something we have been given, actually from almost birth on, and
that is the freedom of choice. Some of the various articles I read about
the Stockholm syndrome mentioned that one trait among those who started to identify
with their captors is that they feel they have no choice. They feel they have
to do this in order to survive. They have to change their mentality in order
to survive. In order not to go crazy, they must stop thinking of the demands
of their captors as unreasonable and begin to identify with them. Isn't that
what Satan would like us to think? That we have no choice. That we can't overcome.
That we must give into temptation. We can't control our thoughts. We have to
give into our emotions, they're there, we simply have to give into them. Habits
are stronger than we are. Our background is so strong, how we were raised as
a kid, how we were raised as a teenager, effects our lives so much today we
can't do anything about it. Isn't that what Satan would like us to think, we
have no choice about that.
God has given every human being the power of choice. Nobody can take that away
from us. Not even God. God says, here's the right way, but then he says, choose.
You have to choose. Moses said to Israel, you have to choose. Joshua said to
Israel, you have to choose. Elijah said to Israel, you have to choose. They
had that, we have that power of choice. Turn with me if you would to Colossians
3. This is not a case of pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. I don't
mean that at all. I certainly do not want to give that impression. We have to
have God's help, and we have been given that help in various ways, in various
means, but at the same time, God says, you must choose. You have that freedom
to choose, and you must do the choosing, and so we do have that freedom, brethren,
and we need to use it. We need to use that freedom to choose. We can choose
to repent. We can choose to be forgiven. We can choose to ask God for his help.
Let's turn to Colossians 3. This gives us a little, the flavor of these verses,
talks about this.
Colossians 3:8-9. "But now you yourselves
are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out
of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man
with his deeds…"
What does putting off mean? It means you've made a choice. It means we've made
a choice. Paul is saying here, we can make a choice to put all these things
aside, to take it off as ugly clothes. And God uses clothes actually throughout
the scriptures as either righteousness or unrighteousness. He says, you can
choose to take those off with God's help, but we have to make that choice. We
have to use that freedom and that power of choice, brethren. And again, our
world wants to lead us to passivity to doing nothing and to think that we can't
do anything. Then the positive back in Colossians 3:12…
Verse 12-13. "Therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness,
longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone
has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must
do."
So again, we have to choose, but we can choose to put on all of these things,
and even more what The Bible talks about. And isn't that what the Days of Unleavened
Bread are all about? About taking off, putting out the old leaven and becoming
renewed as The Bible talks about II Corinthians 4, I'll just give that to you
as a reference. II Corinthians 4:16-18, about choosing to be renewed on a daily
basis. We have that choice. We can choose to focus on the kingdom of God and
not on this present world. We can choose to deal in truth and not lies. We can
choose to repent, to be forgiven, to put off the old man and to put on the new
man.
Conclusion, please turn with me to I Corinthians 10. We have referred to it
throughout the message, but I would like to read a couple verses here.
I Corinthians 10:1-4. "Moreover, brethren,
I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all
passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the
sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.
For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was
Christ."
They had the same opportunities. They had the same knowledge, the same instruction,
the same spiritual food, the same spiritual drink.
Verse 5. "But with most of them God was
not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness."
And it goes on to list the examples. Verse 12 is what we have been quoting…
Verse 12. "Therefore let him who thinks
he stands…"
Or actually, verse 11 I want to read first.
Verse 11. "Now all these things happened
to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the
ends of the ages have come."
So he's saying here, take heed to what happened to Israel. They had the same
opportunities, but most of them, there were some problems. God said this is
warning to us in the end time that we take heed of these things.
Verse 12. "Therefore let him who thinks
he stands take heed lest he fall."
But then verse 13 is the encouragement. No temptation, no problem, no trial,
no difficulty…
Verse 13. "…has overtaken you except
such as is common to man…" nothing new under the sun, he says,
"…but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond
what you are able…"
So we have to be cautious, we have to be on guard, yet it should be from a positive,
moving forward standpoint that we can take the spiritual battle on because God
is there to help us.
Verse 13. "…tempted beyond what you
are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you
may be able to bear it."
We don't have to look back. We don't
have to think that we have to stay in that captivity or be re-captured. With
God's help, we can make and have that way of escape.
Israel fell victim and wanted to return to Egypt, and eventually, they did.
Eventually, they returned to that captivity; however, not everyone who has been
a slave or held hostage has fallen victim to the Stockholm syndrome. There are
many examples of those who have kept their hope of freedom, who did not succumb
to propaganda, who chose to do everything necessary to survive, sought whatever
help they could, and did not get burdened by those experiences for the rest
of their lives. They used these same freedoms that we have talked about today.
If they were able to do it without, in most cases, the spiritual assets that
we have been given, how much more should we be able to with God's help, with
the clear vision, the clear truth, the clear help that he has given us, stay
completely free of bondage if we choose to do so. God through Jesus Christ has
indeed freed us. Let us make sure we stay free of sin and using the freedoms
that he has given us.