This edition of Locusts and Honey is the second part of “Freedom” and deals with my thoughts about the freedom which we have received from Christ and the freedom which we as the church should be extending to others.
The Mission of Christ
Nowhere is the mission of Christ better stated than in Luke 4:18-19. Jesus was in his hometown of Nazareth on the Sabbath Day and was attending his synagogue. The Scroll of Isaiah is handed to him and Jesus scrolled down to Isaiah 61 and began to read:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
to proclaim the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of the sight for the blind
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Isaiah prophesied about the work of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus did all of the things promised by Isaiah 61. Part of that ministry involved proclaiming the good news to the poor and healing the sick.
A primary focus of the ministry of Jesus is setting the captives free. As people we are kept captive by numerous things. We are held captive by our poverty, by diseases, by fears and phobias, by our fear of death, by our ignorance, by poverty and by so much more. Part of the ministry of Jesus was to proclaim the Year of the Lord’s favor.
Every 50 years there was supposed to be a Year of Jubilee.
“You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.” —Leviticus 25:11-12.
It was a holiday year. Slaves were free. Debts were forgiven and people got their ancestral lands back. In a sense, it was heaven on earth. Part of the mission of Jesus, and our mission as well, is to proclaim the Year of Jubilee, a time of freedom and refreshing to those who will follow God.
God’s will is that we be set free. The ministry of Christ is to set the captives free. God wants you to be free. He does not want you to be bound in the chains of religious legalism.
Jesus illustrated his ministry by setting people free from disease and even death. One of the more interesting examples is where Jesus healed on the Sabbath the woman who had bent many over many years. When the person running the synagogue objected to the healing on the Sabbath because it was “work,” Jesus was indignant and said at Luke 13:14-15:
14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
As Jesus does, so the Church is supposed to do. Jesus’ ministry set people free from disease, poverty, legalism and from the demonic. One of the key characteristics of Satan is that he enslaves. Satan uses a variety of methods to do this. One of the greatest weapons of Satan is the whip of fear , especially the fear of death. When Christ was resurrected, the sting of this whip and its ability of Satan to dominate was broken.
Today Satan uses things like drugs, and bondages of flesh to keep people enslaved and in line. One of the horrible things about drugs is that it removes the freedom of people to choose. Ancient slaves still had a free will. Today’s slaves find that drugs eat away at their will to choose. This is true slavery.
As the church, we do what Christ did. We proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor. We proclaim freedom. We pray for the sick and anoint the sick with oil. We rebuke the demonic in the name of Jesus. Many people think that slavery is a thing of the past or that it is what happened back in the 17-19 Century. I tell you that slavery is also prevalent today and probably has affected one or more of the people of your family. If we cannot stop gambling, looking at pornography or stealing or lying, we are still held in bondage. As the church, we proclaim that Jesus came to set us free. We proclaim freedom, we speak freedom and we pray for freedom for ourselves and for others.
Little Foxes and Cute Raccoons
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards, the vineyards that are in bloom.—Song of Solomon 2:15
Many of our sins are like the little foxes of the Song of Solomon. Individually, they seem innocent enough or perhaps even cute. What is a little gossip, a tiny lie or a stolen pencil. They are small. However an army of foxes invading the crop can be a disaster. One time Samson tied the tails of foxes together and added a burning torch and ruined the crops of the Philistines. The little foxes ruin the crop of holiness and wreck our witness to the world. These little vices don’t look dangerous and slip through the fences of our lives ruining what a larger predator could not do.
I often think of the little foxes to be like the raccoons which we had in Missouri. Yes, they looked so cute but they were demonic. We lived in an area where there were numerous raccoons. Raccoons would look for any small opening to get into your house, garage and attic. We made the mistake of leaving a bag of dog food out on our back porch. A bunch of raccoons stole the food and scared the dogs away. Raccoons are fierce fighters and are very territorial. Later they climbed onto our roof and found a small opening and a couple of them moved into our attic. Like teenagers, they slept during the day and partied all night long. They invited their friends over and set up nests upstairs. They ate the electrical wires and pooped all over the attic. They would party all night and have a great time!
Finally we had to use professionals to catch them and take them on a long trip to somewhere else. The raccoons did not leave willingly or gladly. Some were enticed into cages with raccoon delights. Others had to be literally extracted from the attic kicking and snarling all the way. They were not cute. They were unhealthy, disruptive, harmful and dangerous. They were territorial. Once they got into the attic it was their territory and they did as they pleased.
The demonic is like a nest of raccoons. Once they get in, they treat the territory as their own and don’t leave without protest.
Jesus never asked the demonic to leave –instead he commanded them to leave and used the power of God to kick them out.
Sin Requires drastic action
One of the problems of the modern church is that we are quick to compromise with sin rather than dealing with it in a drastic and definitive manner. Today, the modern church is so immersed in a “accept anything and anybody” culture that we no longer recognize sin as sin. Instead of dealing with sin, we accept it, we redefine it and we recognize it and even honor it. One of the few values of age is that one can actually remember how things used to be. I can assure you that when I went to grade school after World War II if there had been Drag Queens doing story time in our schools, School Boards and Leaders would have been replaced and voted out. Politicians who supported them would have been immediately voted out of office. Parents would not have put up with it!
Jesus told us this at Matthew 8:18-19:
If your hand or foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled
than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.
And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes
and be thrown into the fires of hell.
Now honestly, I do not think that there were a bunch of disciples and followers of Jesus walking around with only one eye or one hand because of their sins. Instead, they got what Jesus was saying. We must deal with our sins drastically. Moreover, it is easier to deal with your sin than to gouge your eye out. We need to be intentional about dealing with our sins and take drastic actions if we cannot. Some people dealing with pornography may need to cast their one-eyed computer out or give up television or take any other action that they need to take to deal with whatever area that is causing them to sin.
Hebrews 12:4 reminds us that “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your own blood.” We must sometimes take desperate measures to deal with long entrenched sin. Like the little raccoons they must be forcibly extracted.
Everyone who proclaims freedom is not necessarily free themselves.
On occasion I have taken “freedom” courses put on by churches. Most of the time they promise big changes in your life and sometimes they deliver-but not always. Satan is clever and he is not above proclaiming “freedom” over you while leading you into bondage. The Bible acknowledges this possibility at 2 Peter 2:19 which says, “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved.” I had a boss at work who said to me: “Don’t make your decisions based upon what a person says, but instead, look at what they do.” That was a wise saying. The proclamation of “freedom” does not necessarily mean that all is right in Zion.
Paul was quick to warn his congregation of false teachers whose object was to rob people of their freedom and bring them back again into legalistic bondage. These “angels of light” are generally religious and desire to impose things relating to the law to make you holy instead of depending upon the grace of God.
God brought to my mind that even the Gadarene demoniac was wearing “broken chains.” He had freedom to do what he wanted, go where he wanted and even whether to wear clothes or not. However since a host of demons were in him, he was not free. We need to be free indeed!
A Few Scriptures
In conclusion, I am leaving you with a few Scriptures for your meditation:
1 Peter 2:16—Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil, live as God’s slaves.
Romans 6:32—But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Galatians 5:1—It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:13—You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
John 8:36—So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.