Godly Freedom

You know, most of Earth's population does not live in the United States, does not live like you and I do, does not even believe or think like you and I think. We take what we have for granted as descendants of the sons of Israel. We tend to think as a unique part of the world does, one that has personal freedoms, one that has amazing personal freedoms that we take for granted and defend at every opportunity. We just think being able to choose what you think and what you do and where you live and what you believe and all these things are, you just take these for granted. I was a little offended back in 1974 when my wife and I were sent up to Canada to work and I've been a hunter, a teenager, and of course I took my pistol along and at the border they said, you know, you can't have a pistol in Canada. So what? You have all of this country that goes, you know, way up in the far north where nobody even lives with bears and everything and you can't own a pistol? No. Well, okay, you can own a pistol but you can't use it. You can own a pistol if you jump through the following hoops, which I did. You can own a pistol if you register the pistol with your local police department and you take that pistol and keep it in your house locked away and the only use, the only use you can have in Canada for a pistol is to go to a local shooting range for pistols where you are a member. Now, if you ever caught more than one block off of the most direct route to that pistol range, you will be arrested and maybe imprisoned. That is what you can do with your pistol. Well, I thought long and hard about that and I think I tried it for a little while and I didn't want to join anybody or anything and it was ridiculous. I got rid of the pistol. That's just a very, very small difference from what you and I enjoy in this country. When you go to other parts of the world, people don't even sometimes get to choose who they marry. At a very young age, if you're 11 years old and a girl, you may be assigned to an older man by your family, sold out by your father for some cows or some money. That's very, very common. In fact, that's probably more common than somebody falling in love by people anywhere on this planet than what you and I are used to. Many times on this planet, you cannot say what's on your mind. It is forbidden for you to speak about what's on your mind. There will be people sniffing around to hear what you might have to say. There are places on this planet where you cannot even believe in the religious or theological views that you may wish to hold. You can be arrested and imprisoned from that, certainly not to hold any kind of a service. If you leave one major religion on this planet, it's a death sentence to you because you cannot leave that religion. If you ever did and come to believe what you and I do, you would be sentenced to death, and anybody of that religion can kill you.

Again, the mentality that you and I have is not one that is prevalent on this earth or really ever has been back through time. One of the things that we experience during the spring season in the Church of God are some biblical themes. Themes that include slavery, where people cannot do or think or be or act how they want to be, a release or freedom from slavery, rebellion, and submission. All of these things tend to fly in the face of what you and I, as a culture, tend to hold dear to us. And yet these are the themes that you and I have been involved in and still are involved in within the Church between now and the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of the First Fruits, the First Fruits Harvest.

It's people who were slaves, who were freed, who rebel, and who submit and go through various aspects of those things in their lifetime. So here we find ourselves today looking at the challenges that befall us as people who, in a society, are used to doing whatever we want. And yet, having been slaves, released from slavery, and are now asked to submit but sometimes rebel, that's a lot going around in the heads of Christians, isn't it? It really is. And I think we need to come to terms. We really need to come to terms with our Americanisms and our cultural roots and put that into the right context within what God expects of us and what those who inherit the Kingdom of God will be involved in. If we go back to Revelation 13 and verse 7, we see what will happen that has been common down through time.

If you go back to the Kingdom of Israel in ancient times, you had King Jeroboam after the split. When Solomon died, you had Reoboam and Jeroboam. You had Jezebel. If you were a righteous priest, a person like Elijah, you were slaughtered. You were killed for what you believed in God's nation, in the Promised Land. You would be rooted out and killed for believing the truth. Once Judah was taken into captivity, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were lined up and thrown into a fiery furnace for what they believed.

They could not do what they wanted. They could not think what they wanted without suffering a certain fate. The same with Daniel. If you come down to the time of Jesus Christ and the disciples, the Jews themselves, God's last remnant of people, were hostile and also would help put to death those who believed something different. Those who believed the truth. Those who believed what Jesus taught. Remember it was Jesus Christ who was the first one, well actually not the first one, but the second one of those to die, John the Baptist being the first, followed by 11 other apostles.

The Roman Empire that existed for a few hundred years in its infancy and then with successive revivals has forced and caused people to think, do act as it wanted, not as they wanted. Taking over whole regions and whole nations and forcing them into slavery as slaves of the Romans to do their bidding and then forcing them to worship their gods. There was no room for anybody to believe in the return of a king who would threaten a Caesar and that would be again punishable by death and many, many died because of that.

Here we see in Revelation chapter 13 and verse 7 the final revival of that system that is coming in the future and it was granted for this beast, this power of both government and religion to make war with the saints and to overcome them. Here once again, people like you and me, it may be you and me, I don't know, but people who were not for some reason taken to a place of safety are put up into a situation where they also cannot believe as they will and speak as they will and they were given or will be overcome.

It says authority was given to him over every tribe and tongue and nation dropping down to verse 15 says, and he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

So these great days of freedom and democracy and the spread of democracy are coming to a roaring conclusion and something very ominous is going to impact all humans, including the saints. And you can read down in verse 16 that he causes all, both small and great and rich and poor and free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads and that no one can even buy or sell unless you have that mark.

It's been a nice time to be alive. I have known ever since I was a kid in the sixties and sort of came... I was born in 51, but in the 1960s, you really begin to come aware of certain things. You know, the 62 events down in Cuba and the missile crisis in 63 when John F.

Kennedy was shot and then you had Martin Luther King was assassinated and then a person who was in the town where I lived assassinated Bobby Kennedy. A lot of this stuff was rolling around. You had the long hot summer of 1965 with the riots and the burnings that lasted on through the sixties. And yet, during all of that time with the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs and things looming and mounting, life has been good in these United States.

You know, and the push for anti-establishmentarianism gave people more freedom, as it were. Less controls. Socialism came in in 1962, you know, when actually not a little bit after that, it was probably about 1964-65 when President Lyndon and Johnston, you know, chicken in every pot, you know, and in comes the social upgrade to what was done back in the 1930s. And so, you know, it's been good. It's been a rush. We've had cheap gas. We've had lots of opportunities. Americans have gotten to travel. We've done so many, many things.

It's been a good time of being able to preach the gospel in many different ways. But this is not reality. This is not reality. This has been a little blurb. It's been a great time to be alive. It's been a good time for what we call freedom. But Jesus Christ said, the truth shall set you free, not society, not some world concept mentality, political machination. No, the truth shall set you free. And He calls us free men. What is freedom? Do you have freedom? Do you want freedom? Do you want to maintain your freedom?

Today I want to talk about how we can achieve real freedom and remain free all the way until the return of Jesus Christ, until we are part of the first fruits in God's kingdom. If we just absorb the mentality that we have here as Americans or Westerners, that's not going to get us into the kingdom of God. And demanding and holding on to what we hold as dear is some ability to decide for ourselves. If that is all that we are trying to do, and this religion is kind of a nice thing to do along the way, then we won't make it.

We won't be there. What is this freedom? How can we achieve and keep it? You and I have been freed. Passover celebrated our freedom. It was something that was done a little uniquely, wasn't it? It wasn't something that we all raised up for or against and went to battle for. It was done for us. In fact, it was done really without our knowledge. And then we were informed of it later. You're free. You're free to go.

It's a wonderful thing that the blood of Jesus Christ, who himself was not free in the sense to do as he wished, he wanted to do something else. But the Father said, no, you're going to die. You're going to shed your blood. No? He submitted. He was submissive. And by that submission you and I were freed. Freed from a slavery to sin. Feast of Unleavened Bread talked about us becoming free from the world, from society, to come out of this system, to think differently, to put the leaven of insincerity away, the leaven of society, the leaven of human carnal nature, to get that out and to be separate and holy, something that is unique, something that is unleavened and spiritual and thinks differently. That is what we are to be. We are to be freed from the world, freed from the penalties of sin, freed from our selfish human nature and the captor that would enslave us. The Church brings us God's Holy Spirit and through a continual repentance we are also freed from eternal death. We don't have to die eternally. Revelation chapter 21 and about verse 3 or 4, actually 4, says that we'll be freed from pain and suffering and sorrow and death eternally.

These are some of the things that we are on track for. Once the Feast of Pentecost comes, which by the way, the harvest of the firstfruits also encompasses your and my resurrection at the return of Jesus Christ. It's the harvest of the firstfruits. It's a wonderful time that gives us freedom from pain, death, sorrow, eternally. Yet we come back to our world and we think, how do we reconcile all of this? We think we have a grip on it and yet you and I are subject to something called perspectivism. You and I not only are subject to it, but we're involved in it. I know from myself, being a child of the 50s and then the 60s and the 70s and the 80s, that the culture shifts and the mind shifts over time. You know what? The Church and my mind, we shift right along with it. There are certain things that we didn't feel in the 1950s that we do feel in 2007. Different. Totally different shifts because society has shifted in little bitty ways, little bitty amounts along the way. Perspectivism is basically that humans need to decide right and wrong as events and circumstances change. It's like this. I heard a Catholic priest this week and he was explaining after the show showed the horrors of the Inquisition. First the Spanish Inquisition, then the Italian Inquisition, where the religious people came in with swords and slaughtered and butchered and put people up and burned them alive at the stake with a nice audience to watch all the sheer terror and put people in pots and boiled them alive. One guy was noticed. He went out with valor. He survived 15 minutes in the boiling pot. He was stoic to the end. That was very good. Stuff like that. How barbaric it was. Yet this priest says, now, it can't be too hard on those events back at that time in the church. It certainly wouldn't fit today. It wouldn't fit today. But you have to remember that back then people were used to violence and people were used to getting stuck and burned. So in its context, in its context, it's understandable what happened. I would say that is moral relativism. That is perspectivism. It's from the perspective or from the relevancy of the times you feel you are in. So today, we are kind to animals and we are very touchy-feely and therefore everything in politics and with the earth and the green, this is what we do today and this is how we feel today. Many people in the church, for instance, wouldn't ever think about shooting an animal or killing an animal. That would just be awful. We wouldn't want to do that. At the same time, they would eat a hamburger and let somebody else do it.

But you know, you go back to the 1950s or whatever, everybody who was a man had a gun and they went out and shot things and brought them home and you know wore the fur and I don't know what you did. So there has been this transition, you see. Well, so it is.

If we look at the laws of God the way the world does, if you go back to a certain period of time in the past, you'll find that people pretty much obey the Ten Commandments, at least on the surface, at least as far as you can feel. But you skip forward through the 60s, 70s and 80s and now people don't even try. Somewhere along the way, in this more knowledgeable understanding civilization, you don't really have to get married anymore and it's just fine if little kids in junior high, you know, do things that married people should do. You see, it's in the church, it's okay if your pastor is gay and female. It's just the way it is now, you see. It's kind of a perspective relative situation. Well, you and I are subject to these things as well because we are part of society around us.

And yet what has been the result of moral relativism? What has been the result of perspectivism?

If we just look and take a frank look at our society today, these models of freedom, that everybody is free, have put us into a moral decay, a moral bankruptcy, the debasing of human conduct in every level, in every area. Look at the royals who used to be those that were really looked up to. And what is the conduct of the royals? It's embarrassing.

You know, it's sad. What about the presidents? What about people who are running for election?

What about governors? What about local leaders? What about entertainment? You know, this is just a society whose freedoms that have been acquired and are now demanded in federal courts have taken people to a debasement of human conduct that is very, very sad. Look at the lives of movie stars. Look at the lives of sports stars. Look at the things that they do, commonly do. Look at universities and what goes on there and what is taught there and how people are even acquired, as it were, the top students and some of the illegal things that go on that are winked at. Look at companies. What company do you know of that really has integrity? And what are companies really about today? Are they about manufacturing products and being true to their employees? Are they about giving profits to shareholders at any cost, including selling out secrets that would hurt their own country and selling out divisions to other countries that actually are enemies, just for the sake of making a profit and ripping apart companies to exploit the money and to take the money that is really the savings and the retirement of people who have given their lives for that company. Look at employees themselves. This is a city recently and there were very few employees in the town.

Why? Well, nobody in the town, I think 85 percent, cannot pass the drug test to get employed.

And store after store, including Walmart, they can't staff enough people to even run the store properly because they can't pass the drug tests. It's a very large town, by the way.

Now, what's happening? What's happening with employees that walk off with the company at the end of the day, take part of it home with them?

You know, it's just unbelievable what's going on. Students, students from young students to, you know, high school students to college students.

The universities, the students, I mean, what's the big draw to a university?

You know, is it a party campus? Is it a binge-dink drinking campus? Is there a lot of, you know, stuff going on that'll just make, you know, kind of a blown-out life interesting?

What about the conduct of our youth today? Is it not actually going very rapidly towards what was prophesied in Timothy that at the end times that people would be lovers of them own selves and children would be just arrogant and insolent? We saw a situation, I mean, it's a very regular situation in our very nice little neighborhood, where the young and restless teenagers go into the park and they constantly tear up everything they can in the park and write graffiti on it. They open up all the little covers that have the watering system, drip system, and they take the big boulders that were put in the park and they take them and smash the drip systems to where all of them don't work and some come on and stay on, and then they go take their bicycles and they skid across the the the the the rainbird heads and knock them off. They go to the trees and they rip the new trees that have been planted in the park that replaced the trees that they ripped up before and they smash and they tear them up in broad daylight. And the person out cleaning the graffiti off told my wife the other day, I see stuff that you wouldn't want to see, let alone your kids, and this is regular.

And this is a fairly decent area. A woman came, we were watching these kids tear up the park, and a woman came out there and told me, you kids, you need to quit this. These are 10, 11, 12, 13-year-olds. You need to quit tearing these things up. This is costing us a lot of money to replace this. Kids all looked at her and when she finished, then they started in on her.

And they ripped her up one side and down the other. They called her every name in the book, and as she walked away, they jeered at her and laughed at her. And I haven't seen that lady back since. She's just, you know, little kids, insolent. But what are you going to tell a child?

This they are free, you see, they are free. Freedoms have been given, because in the education world, they and parents have been taught that you have no business telling any human being what to do, whether it's your child or anybody else. Morally and ethically adrift is our society.

We have today a deep eroding of faith. We're considered a religious country still, but there's a deep eroding of faith, partly because of what is taught to all people, essentially, and that is evolution. Evolution is the basis for science, evolution is the basis for sociology, evolution is basically the basis for everything, and consequently, even the religious people grew up believing in evolution and then tried to balance it all out. You know, you're an evolutionary scientist by day, but on the weekend you're supposedly a Christian, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And so you kind of believe in God, and you hope to go to heaven, because everybody'd like to go to heaven when they die, but in the meantime, hardly anybody's going to church. Europe's churches are basically empty, Britain's churches are empty, there's many more Muslims going to church in Britain, and there are Anglicans or white people going to church.

And so a lack of faith and trust in what it's all about is part of the society today, and yet there's freedom for personal depravity, for ungodly behavior that is to the extreme, and it's everywhere. It is everywhere. It's not just anymore, well, over here, over there, they found it here. No, it is everywhere. In 2 Peter 2 and verse 18, you and I need to realize that these things that sound logical, and sometimes even our members will buy into them. Like you don't have the right to correct your child, you don't have the right to spank your child, you don't have the right to teach truth. You've got to keep things objective. You can't really stand for this or stand for that. You have to be relative. You have to be loose and somewhat flexible in this world. And then it carries over to us. Somebody comes up, well, you've got to work an hour over on the Sabbath, otherwise you're fired. Well, just an hour over. That's not bad.

Well, if I'm going to be fired, you say, well, okay, just one hour. And so all these things, well, movies rated R, and it's got a whole bunch of violence and profanity and everything, but it's based on a true story. That's kind of good, right? It's kind of based on a true story.

So I guess that's a good movie. These things become challenges to you and me because as society floats along, we are told not to float along with it. When they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh through lewdness. After a while, you can begin to get the idea that, yeah, you know, this is kind of normal, and I'm a Christian in a normal society. And while they promise them liberty, I don't have to really be shackled down too tight.

I mean, after all, God must be touchy-feely, too. He must be an environmentalist in a green.

He must love animals like I do. And He wouldn't want anybody to suffer. He wouldn't want me to lose my job over hours' work on the Sabbath. You know? They promise them liberty. They themselves are slaves of corruption. Slaves. So there's not freedom there. It's a false freedom.

For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

And that works two ways, as we'll see in a little bit.

You know, our citizens in this country affect us, and they are pushing for more and more and more freedoms. It was, I believe, last year that a law was passed that made child pornography legal.

In this country. Exploitation of little children. Child pornography. Because it was fought so hard that it's an item of free speech, you see? And people really shouldn't be limited. It's an item of freedom. And so you have all of these freedoms that come around.

Nations around us are viewing us in disgust. America is hated for many, many, many reasons.

But part of it is simply because we are sinking into selfish and social depravity. We have become so selfish. Don't ever get in the idea that, why don't those countries like us? We do so much for the rest of the world. Get that out of your head. That may have been the case at one time. But Americans don't do so much for the world. Americans exploit for social reasons, or I'm sorry, for selfish reasons. Most everybody on this planet. And many people are in actual slavery and bondage to supply Americans with the goods and services that we like to buy so cheaply. But we don't want to know about that. Our troops are viewed as unethical, which many times they are. Not all of them, but some of them are. Some of them are rapists. Some of them are murderers. And you see those plastered all over the news and exploited. So there is that perception that goes around the world. Our products are seen as greed-driven. Not helpful. Oh no, another McDonald's is set up.

You know, thousands around the world. Greed-driven. You know, subjecting people to bad food does bad things for them. But you know, you can make a lot of money with some of the products that we sell.

We sell things that are manufactured not very well. Case in point. Come over to Africa sometime.

Used to be a haven for Chevy and Ford trucks. Well, those were the cars and trucks of Africa. Today, I dare you to find one. I don't recall ever seeing one. And I ask the question, why? Answer, they're not made well. Not made well. A bunch of junk. There's always shipping over here, and they weren't made well. But the Europeans make things very well. And the Japanese make things very well. So you don't see American cars or vehicles anymore. You see things that work.

Well, there's so many things that, you know, inflame people. The cause for their economics to be impacted because it's all about the U.S. stock market. It's all about the U.S. economy. And every other economy in the world rises and falls along with ours. And people resent that. We also are seen as being the purveyors of smut. And we really are. If you can go to almost any country and watch some of the things on TV, one thing that really grabs people is music videos. And the bump and grind sexuality of women that are almost naked on TV, going through the motions that, you know, we won't even describe. And it's, it's, there it is. And that one ends and the next one begins. And it just pumps into cultures who have their own music, who have their own culture. And yet this muck culture gets passed around the world of a bunch of people who shoot and blow up. People are afraid, by the way, of America. They, you know, you go to Africa, you think, you think it's bad over there. Well, they wouldn't dream of coming here. Some people, they say, wow, aren't you afraid to go home with all the violence over there? Everybody's being blown up and shot up all the time?

That's what we give off over there. You know, other countries where a woman must wear sleeves this long. A woman must, you know, have a covering over her head. A woman must not show her ankles, you know, and what's on television. They watch. I'm serious. And all this other stuff that comes flying around on TV and they just play the movies. And it's offensive. It is just religiously and culturally offensive. We are the culprit of environmental degradation. We put more carbon into the air than anybody else on the planet that you know about, because it's always on the news, you know. We're the ones that burn more gasoline and, you know, do this and rip up the environment.

And people blame us as Americans for doing that. You talk about the purveyors of smut.

My wife and I were recently watching Dubai TV from the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia.

Dubai television. The Arab culture is a wonderful place. And next, coming up next on Dubai TV, the Jerry Springer Show. Can you imagine, every day at four, the Jerry Springer Show, with all the idiots and, you know, everything that goes on, this is what goes around the world.

That is, you know, one big reason, if you go back and look at some of the events that have precipitated terrorism, it's not often stated in the news, but it's often written by the people who are the terrorists themselves, that one thing that they really, really are against is the degradation, the moral degradation and spiritual degradation of this country.

Where is this nation's freedom ultimately taking its population? And do we want to go there?

Ezekiel 21 and verse 12.

Ezekiel 21 and verse 12 is a prophecy that will take place to the descendants of the nations of Israel. Ezekiel 21 and 12.

Cry aloud and wail, O son of man, for it will be brought against my people, against all the princes of Israel. Terrors, including the sword, will be against my people.

Therefore, verse 24, thus says the Lord God, because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, and that your transgressions are uncovered. Nobody's trying to even cover them up anymore.

So that in all your doings, your sins appear, because you have come to remembrance, you shall be taken in hand. Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose iniquity shall end, thus says the Lord God, remove the turban, take off the crown. Nothing shall remain the same. Things are going to change. Nothing's going to remain the same. This system, this society, this so-called freedom that you and I are used to, is not going to be here. Things are going to change. Exalt the humble, humbly exalted. Overthrown, overthrown. I will make it overthrown.

It shall be no longer until He comes, whose right it is, and I will give it to Him, referring to Jesus Christ. You know that there is a destination for the remnant of Israel that will be taken to a place in a land where they don't understand the language. They'll do things that they don't want to do. And yet, some will refuse to go that way, and some will stand up and say, you know what, I'm not part of that. I'm not part of that kind of freedom. I'm not part of that culture. I'm not part of that debasement of moral and ethical character. I actually am with a different country.

I'm not an American. I am actually a child of the kingdom of God, instead of the kingdom of the United States. I know I'm happy I live here. I'm glad I was born here, but this country doesn't represent me. These aren't my values. These aren't my traditions. These are not my feelings.

There is a new system that is brewing today. It's going to be forced on humanity.

Self-determination is going to be replaced with enforced conformity, and slavery will take place with the remnant that remains. And yet, those who do refuse, the Bible says they will sacrifice their human freedom to retain their spiritual freedom. And that's kind of the extreme end.

It's not like today where things are nice and you and I can be tested and we have these internal struggles going on. It goes back to the system that a lot of this world has been exposed to down through time. Revelation 13 and verse 5. We see this beast again. Revelation 13 and verse 5.

And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for three and a half years. Notice what he does in verse 6. He opened his mouth and blasphemed against God. Would you be part of that system? Well, of course not. Unless somehow, you know, we really had the heart of this world and wanted to somehow retain what freedom we could, and you kind of bought into it to protect yourself, but that's not what God's people does.

Blasphemy against God. To blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, which is the church. His tabernacle is where God dwells, is in the saints and those who dwell in heaven.

It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.

In verse 9, it says, if anyone has an ear, let him hear.

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. There's a mentality there.

He who leads into captivity will go into captivity. If you're part of that mentality, there's a captivity for those versus a place of safety for those who were tested in advance.

For those who go on going on, it says, he who kills with a sword must be killed with the sword.

Again, it's a mentality. I know there are some in the church that say, well, I'm not going to do that in my country. I'll get a gun. I'll get him.

Well, what's with that? Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

If it were, would my sermons fight? Who are we with here? What kind of freedom are we supporting?

Freedom of godliness, opposed to slavery to sin, or the freedom for my selfish right to choose and decide and not have anybody on earth tell me what to do?

Kind of smacks in the face of Romans, the 13th chapter, where we're told to submit to everyone and every government. But this is a prophecy, and it's a prophecy to us. And as we look at this journey that we're making in the world, but not of the world, as we come out of our Egypt, as we have been released from it, we must not be one of those who want to return to it.

We want to go back into it, return to the wallow and the vomit, return to Egypt.

In Daniel 12, verse 10, there's a prophecy written, and wise people mentioned, are you wise? Am I wise? It says, many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly. The wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand.

But the wise shall understand. Do we understand, or do we tend to float along with society and pick up the understanding of this world? Do we have the wisdom of, well, I've been an American, I've lived here, and here's how things ought to be, and here's what's right, and here's what's fair, and I'd like to get in and vote, and I'd like to bump a few people around, and protect and...

No, the wicked are doing wickedly, brethren, at every level, everywhere in the world.

And the wise will understand that, but the wicked will not.

Which freedom do we want? We're told to come out of this world. Come out and be separate, to be holy, a special people, a people of God. And that's what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is about. Coming out and being different than leaven. Something totally different, something that's genuine and solid, something that's enduring. It's a funny thing, unleavened bread doesn't tend to go off. Unleavened bread will mold within a week. It's just...

It's different. We are to be different. Galatians 4, 23 talks about the Jerusalem from above is free. If you want freedom, it comes from God. The Jerusalem from above. The country that you and I seek. They declared plainly that they seek another country, another city, new Jerusalem. And that Jerusalem, it says, is free and is the mother of us all. It's the one that nurtures us. It's the one that births us. It's the one that guides us and brings us into that family. That's where freedom is. But true freedom has a price. Any time you look back at a people who became free, it always came at a price, didn't it? It always came at a price. Freedom fighters take their freedom with a struggle. We have a struggle, and we are fighting for freedom.

Our elements of warfare are not physical. Ephesians 6 talks about taking on the whole armor of God and fighting against our human nature and the wiles of the devil and the spiritual forces. We have to struggle, and that freedom does have a price. Do you want to pay the price for true freedom? That's a good question. That price is defined for us in the sixth chapter of Romans. I always like the sixth chapter of Romans. It's not my favorite chapter because it's not touchy-feely. But it gets right down to the brass tacks of freedom. If you want to be free, here's the sacrifice. And the whole chapter is great, but I'll just read a few verses starting in verse 6. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. Ouch! Our old man!

That's you and me. That's the person that we worked so hard to be as children and teenagers.

And the one that was ready to be presented to the world. The time we got to be young adults. The one that was trying to be all that it can be and shine. That got crucified at about age 20, 22, 23, 25, if you were called at that time. And you began to say, you know, there's nothing good in me. It's just vile. It's all self-centered. It's a bunch of junk. I need to die. And so that is part of the price. Our old man got crucified and it was painful. Not just was painful, the ongoing crucifixion is still there and it is painful. That the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. That is freedom when we're not slaves anymore. But that freedom comes at a price. Are we really willing to pay that price? Or do we dig up that old man, old woman, and say, you know, I kind of liked you and I dust you off and clean you up here. Go back to serving you, making you first. For he who has died to his own self has been freed from sin.

The ultimate price of freedom is the death of me. The death of me. And my old me, he's got more than nine lives. You can kill him off, he pops back up again. I forget what that movie was, but you had Mr. Somebody, Mr. Smith or whoever it was, kept popping up and popping up and they'd kill him, he'd pop up, then he came back, 20 of them, and I don't know. It's kind of like that.

Paul says, you know, that which I want to do, I don't do, and thought I got rid of that guy.

Well, that is the ultimate challenge. In verse 20, for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. That's when we feel free. I have my freedom. You can't tell me what to think, you can't tell me what to do. I don't have to listen to you. I'm free. And what are you? I'm sinning my heart out. I'm insolent. I'm not loving. I'm not concerned about others. I'm not putting others before myself. I'm not putting God and love and compassion and mercy and tenderness. I'm not a servant or a slave to anybody else serving their needs.

No, that's the opposite of freedom.

What fruit did you have in these things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, uh oh, I thought we were going to be free. No, you're always a slave. You're always a slave.

Remember, we read at the very beginning of the sermon, to whom a person is obligated to, he is that person's slave, either of Satan and your human nature, or of God and Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God and their holy righteous nature.

But if you're a slave of God, a servant of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end is everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Notice the word Lord. Freedom in God and free by this word means you will have a master and a Lord. A Lord and master. Is that what we want? Somebody telling you what to do. Somebody telling you how you'll do it. And it'll be something you don't want to do, like loving your wife, serving other people when you want to do something yourself, holding your tongue, being long-suffering. See? Is that the freedom that you and I want? There is a reward coming to God's people that are free. It's in Revelation chapter 19. It's a very interesting reward.

Revelation verse 19. We have in this country a concept of vacation, and one of our friends always says, I'm on vacation. There are no rules. I'm on vacation. There are no... Vacation is a time where you don't have to do anything. Nothing the boss says. You're on vacation. That's what a vacation is all about. And yet, that's a very self-indulgent concept, isn't it? It's a time where I'm going to check out, and I'm not going to be of use to anybody. I'm not going to love anybody. I'm not going to serve anybody. I'm going on vacation. I'm going to go party. I'm going to be obnoxious for seven days. And that's often what Americans do all around the world. They go on vacation, and the most obnoxious representation of this country has always been by our tourists, which have come to be loathed on all continents because they're on vacation.

Well, anyway, here we see, here in Revelation, this reward. And what is the reward? A voice from heaven from the throne of God says, praise our God, all you his servants, servants, and those who fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. He's in charge. What's people's concept of heaven?

There's a great movie that came out probably about 10 years ago, great in the sense that it represented heaven and going to heaven. And somehow it was all about when you got to heaven.

And what was it? It was a vacation. It was an internal vacation from any responsibility, from any pain, from anything. It's just doing nothing and hanging out. And that's what heaven is. I don't have to do any. Heaven will be great because I don't have to do anything.

Let's just be in heaven, floating around, doing nothing. Well, is that what the kingdom of God is about? Is that what the reward of the saints is for the people who God has made free? Verse seven, let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. Oh, she's going to be submissive to her husband, to her Lord and Master. She's going to be in a family relationship. And to her it was granted to be ready and fine linen, clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. She's going to be doing something, righteous acts of love. Jesus Christ and the bride are going to then rule and reign and cultivate a godly society, serving. Jesus said, whoever wants to be great among you, let him be a servant. Whoever is greatest among you, let him be your slave. The whole concept is the reward is you get to serve and help and be submissive and work and do great things for other people forever. That's a wonderful thing. And then ultimately those people you see are free.

You get to free people. Free people from what they are killing themselves for literally and dying for today. You get to free them from their freedoms, which are actually their slavery. Let's look at this in Isaiah chapter 61 as we wrap this up. Isaiah 61 in verse 1. What is the bride and the groom, the lamb? What are they going to do? What are they going to do to people who have freed them up so completely that they've all killed themselves off almost to the last man except Jesus Christ intervened at the very last second before they all killed themselves. They were all so free to do anything they wanted that they basically obliterated themselves.

So Jesus Christ and the bride come back to save people from their freedom.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. That's the gospel. Good news to the poor. What are poor people? Poor people poor people are individuals who have a certain amount of slavery or lack of freedom to want, to need. They're going to free them up from want. He sent me to heal the broken-hearted.

People who are broken-hearted are slaves to mental anguish, and they can't get out of that.

To proclaim liberty to the captives, people who cannot do what they want in all types of captivity, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, bound by man-made laws and politics and religions. This is the work of Jesus Christ. This is the work of the church. It is a work of freedom of freeing up a free society. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord in the day of the vengeance of our God. To comfort all who mourn. Those who mourn are shackled by grief. To console those who mourn in Zion. To give them beauty for ashes. Beauty instead of illness, which they are stuck in. Healing. The oil of joy for mourning. People who are stuck in sorrow and manic depression from all that has gone on up to that point. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

Unhappiness. Misery. That they may be called trees of righteousness. And what is righteousness?

It is freedom from sin. These people will all be liberated from all of those conditions and many more. That the planning of the Lord, that He may be glorified. God will be glorified and ultimately all humans will be liberated from their captor, Satan the devil. A false father with false promises and a false religion. This is a wonderful thing that you and I have been called to participate in to know what true freedom is and to embrace that freedom with everything we have to get our mind out of the society's mentalities and concepts and to pursue godliness and develop fruit for the kingdom which will be harvested and what the feast of Pentecost represents. In John chapter 8 verses 31 through 32, closing I want to read two short scriptures. The first is John 8 beginning in verse 31. Here Jesus says, to those Jews who believed in Him or 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.

There is a truth that you and I have been given and it is giving us freedom. It is giving us freedom because freedom is a process. And secondarily, Galatians chapter 5 in verse 1.

Galatians 5, the whole book of Galatians is an involved and challenging discussion with the brethren at Galatia. And you come through the fourth chapter and it talks about the enslavement and the burdens. And we now come to chapter 5 and he says, Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. This freedom that has been given to us we have to hang on to. We have to stand fast in it to be unmovable in it because we can be moved out of it and we can go back into a slavery. A slavery that we came out of that we were liberated from which the Passover reminded us that we've worked to come out of which the seven days of unleavened bread have reminded us that we seek to have eternally which the harvest of the first fruits will bring to those who are successful in it. Brethren, this freedom that you and I have been given, shown, is precious. It's worth dying for in a daily sense. It's worth crucifying and sacrificing our old selfish nature and any other thing that comes along. I'll be talking to you about another aspect of this subject, God willing, on the Feast of Pentecost. But in the meantime, let's contemplate freedom. If you love freedom, if you really love true freedom, repent of sin. Keep repenting of sin. Do the will of God, loving God with all your heart, soul, and might. Your neighbor is yourself serving other people.

Treasure that freedom. Fight for that kind of freedom. And if you do, you'll be like the Apostle Paul who said, I fought the good fight of faith. And there's a crown laid up for me and everyone who follows God and believes in this way.