Category: Liberty

Let the oppressed go free

“Is this not the fast I have chosen: to open bands of wickedness, to undo thongs of the yoke, and to send out the oppressed ones free; even that you pull off every yoke?”
–Isaiah 58:6, LITV

“Let the oppressed go free – How can any nation pretend to fast or worship God at all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O ye most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, while ye continue in this traffic!”
— Adam Clarke on Isaiah 58.6 (Adam Clarke died in 1832)

How thankful we can be that our country from its earliest days fought to stamp out systemic slavery and oppression in response to God’s love and commands. Was slavery here? Did it need to be stamped out? Yes. Was it erased from our constitution and laws and prohibited? Yes, now and forever. Thank God! God will not stand for hate and oppression anywhere, any time. God is Love. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty.

Whatever you desire

“Therefore whatever you desire
for men to do to you,
you shall also do to them;
for this is the law and the prophets.
Enter in by the narrow gate;
for wide is the gate and broad is the way
that leads to destruction,
and many are those who enter in by it.
How narrow is the gate,
and restricted is the way
that leads to life!
Few are those who find it.”
— Jesus, Matthew 7:12-14, WEB

O may we endeavor, by God’s grace, to walk away from the path of destruction, and walk in the way of divine life and love and peace! Loving others as if they are God Himself!

Then is Athanasius against the whole world!

From the book “God’s Pursiut of Man” by A. W. Tozer:

“The way it [the reversal of our nature] works in experience is something like this:  The believing man is overwhelmed suddenly by a powerful feeling that only God matters; soon this works itself out into his mental life and conditions all his judgements and all his values.  Now he finds himself free from slavery to man’s opinions.  Soon he learns to love above all else the assurance that he is well pleasing to the Father in heaven.

It is this complete switch in their pleasure source that has made believing men invincible.  So could saints and martyrs stand alone, deserted by every earthly friend, and die for Christ under the universal displeasure of mankind.  When, to intimidate him, Athanasius’ judges warned him that the whole world was against him, he dared to reply, ‘Then is Athanasius against the whole world!’  That cry has come down the years and today may remind us that the gospel has power to deliver men from the tyranny of social approval and make them free to do the will of God.”

—

“At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom; to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
— 2 Timothy 4:16-18

“Therefore, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.”
–Ephesians 6:13

“let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, ‘That you might be justified in your words, And might prevail when you come into judgment.'”
–Romans 3:4

“Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.  But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.  From infancy, you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Every writing inspired by God{literally, God-breathed} is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction which is in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
— 2 Timothy 3:12-17

“But know this, that in the last days, grievous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof. Turn away from these, also.”
–2 Timothy 3:1, 2-5

Freedom in Jesus

Matthew Henry on Colossians Chapter 2…

“He takes occasion hence to warn them again: “Wherefore, if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances? Colossians 2:20. If as Christians you are dead to the observances of the ceremonial law, why are you subject to them? Such observances as, Touch not, taste not, handle not,” Colossians 2:21,22. Under the law there was a ceremonial pollution contracted by touching a dead body, or any thing offered to an idol or by tasting any forbidden meats, &c., which all are to perish with the using, having no intrinsic worth in themselves to support them, and those who used them saw them perishing and passing away or, which tend to corrupt the Christian faith, having no other authority than the traditions and injunctions of men.–Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility. They thought themselves wiser than their neighbours, in observing the law of Moses together with the gospel of Christ, that they might be sure in the one, at least, to be in the right but, alas! it was but a show of wisdom, a mere invention and pretence. So they seem to neglect the body, by abstaining from such and such meats, and mortifying their bodily pleasures and appetites but there is nothing of true devotion in these things, for the gospel teaches us to worship God in spirit and truth and not by ritual observances, and through the mediation of Christ alone and not of any angels. Observe,

1. Christians are freed by Christ from the ritual observances of Moses’s law, and delivered from that yoke of bondage which God himself had laid upon them.

2. Subjection to ordinances, or human appointments in the worship of God, is highly blamable, and contrary to the freedom and liberty of the gospel. The apostle requires Christians to stand fast in the liberty with which Christ hath made them free, and not to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, Galatians 5:1. And the imposition of them is invading the authority of Christ, the head of the church, and introducing another law of commandments contained in ordinances, when Christ has abolished the old one, Ephesians 2:15.

3. Such things have only a show of wisdom, but are really folly. It is true wisdom to keep close to the appointments of the gospel, and an entire subjection to Christ, the only head of the church.”