TRUE/TRUTH FREEDOM


Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31-32)

Many rightly decry and bemoan the ongoing assaults on freedom throughout society and the world. But the two-fold root cause of these assaults is overwhelmingly dismissed, so the situation simply grows worse. The fundamental attack on freedom is the renunciation of the Truth of the Gospel, the ongoing cultural (and spiritual) war against God and His Word. From there, freedom has been redefined as the entitlement to live according to conscience without directive from the Bible. This can be seen, for example, in the way "Freedom of Religion" has morphed into "Freedom from Religion" today. People crave freedom from God in all aspects of life, but they don't realize (and don't care) that this type of freedom leads to fierce bondage in the end. And this is evident in all aspects of contemporary life.

True freedom, according to the Bible, is to joyfully serve God in Truth from the heart according to His Word. It is summed up in the Bible to love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and might, and to love your neighbor as yourself. It is the bedrock, or structure (the only true way), that a society can coexist peacefully as God designed, regardless of politics or whatever economic system is in place. In the measure that God's Word is disregarded in the life (and lives) of the community, society reflects commensurate decomposition.

Christ's true people possess biblical freedom to a high degree, even in this life. Not only have their sins been covered by Christ, they have been given a regenerate heart to serve God in newness of life according to His Word -- along with the desire for the good and salvation of others in the process. While this is seen very imperfectly in this world, especially today as the church has dissolved into such apostasy, this is nevertheless the distinction between peace with God that drives a peaceable (and eternal) life.

Without Christ, people and society take on an ever-increasing selfishness and worldly vanity that leads to anarchy and lawlessness, emptiness, fear, delusion and hopeless futility at the last. There is no more guidance for Good to flourish in the heart. This situation leaves a vacuum for totalitarianism or a dictatorship, with human life devalued to the basest level of existence, an eternal void absent God. This is not freedom. To depart from Christ, to reject Christ, is to deny true freedom that leads to a peaceable and happy life in harmony with others. Christ frees us from the bondage of the darkness of our selfish hearts and actions that ultimately leads to ruin and death for all.

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)

Forasmuch then as the children [the elect] are partakers of flesh and blood, he [Christ] also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

God speaks of salvation for His people as a deliverance. It is deliverance from spiritual captivity for those who were in bondage to sin and death, in bondage to the phony happiness and blinding corruption of the world that cannot satisfy the depths of the soul. It is the very definition of liberty, and it does not include the idea that we live however we please without restraint, free from accountability to and responsibility toward both God and our fellow human beings. This kind of freedom puts us on a life-track to serve Christ and one another eternally, long after this sin-cursed earth has passed away and is recreated anew.

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)

Conversely, God gives up the reprobate, those who insistently refuse Christ, to the imprisonment of the self-seeking liberty they demand:

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:24-32)

This brand of liberty is an addiction to which one becomes enslaved, where there is no way out of the spiral of death without God's intervention. And God gives them over to it so there's no escape. He gives them exactly what they want in their so-called freedom of expression -- to do as they please, to live however they want -- but unto their greater woe. This makes them happy for the present, but it leads to ruination as they completely stop their ears to God, oblivious to where the path of their choosing leads them until it's too late to extricate themselves and they can't find peace. Yet even then, they still refuse God to the detriment of their own well-being.

Keep in mind, Romans 1 precisely describes the situation of a society or nation, or the world at large, when it has been given up by God, then simply look around you. Yet, they will say, "Oh, no, no, no. God isn't real. Sky-Daddy is a myth. We'll live how we want, thank you," while wondering why things continue to degenerate so badly. God has given them up, blinded them to perpetual darkness so there is no way out, there is no recovery.

To be sure, those given to their self-directed ways seek to avoid the negative consequences of them, but they do so through their own means -- again, in all the wrong places, apart from God. But since God is God, since He is the Creator, the Essence of eternal Life, the Source of goodness, happiness, joy and life itself -- they cannot ultimately succeed without Him and without heeding His righteous ways in Christ. He designed life and creation to rejoice in His Word and in His Being, so outside of that context there is no lasting peace, no lasting balm for the soul. He is the only Solution for what ails them in every respect, yet they've determined to suppress His wisdom for their pleasure.

It is a Catch-22 without direct intervention by God in His mercy to spare them, the very mercy they spurn as they banish His Word from their lives, unmindful of any repercussions to themselves and to their neighbors.

Humankind has fatally erred in replacing God with humanity as the source of wisdom and authority and as the voice of freedom. They are on their own with regard to their self-made efforts. By nature they've invited calamity as they militate against God's created order and expressed Will. It is spiritually fruitless and cannot be ameliorated through intelligent policies, advanced technologies and smart politics apart from Him. It is a viscious downward spiral from which humankind can never escape on their own, like the darkness of a black hole from which even light cannot escape.

Being left to your own dictates, as you wish, is a curse of spiritual bondage leading to darkness, disappointment, abandonment and isolation from God Himself without end. It might seem momentarily beneficial to enjoy your own pleasure, but ultimately it's very short-lived. Regardless, humankind is hell-bent on the bondage of godless freedom so they can live in unrestrained independence from Him and in indulgence unanswerable to Him. Eventually, this "freedom," like a harmful addiction, becomes destructive as it degenerates into all manner of unwholesome and evil activity detrimental to self and others, and this is seen daily as the world descends into lawlessness and delusion.

God holds us accountable for our actions, so we cannot continue in sin indefinitely without answering to God. When people deny God and tread their own paths, either as an individual, as a society or the world at large, it leaves a spiritual vacuum quickly filled by oppression and decay. Politics cannot save because they, too, become deceitful apart from God. They will reap what they've sown by rejecting and denying Christ through their godless pursuits of immitation freedom and humanistic morality. God finally lets them have what they want, leaving them to their natural outcomes. And if history has taught us anything of value, it's that people do not learn from history:

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:3-7)

Once God has given people over, warnings of judgment or destruction bear no meaning to them, they are as mythical fairy tales. There is no longer any fear of God and no moral sobriety left when there is no restraint, there is no apparent threat of danger to freely living it up. "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die, and that's it. Life is short." Impatient gratification becomes the norm with no accountability.

But eventually desolation will follow -- as society and the world capitulates, or through self-inflicted waste, or as God wraps up this creation like a scroll and casts it into the lake of fire as He has declared He will do. Yet, since the warnings of God's judgments have sounded for so long without fulfillment, few bother to take note any longer:

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. (Ecclesiastes 8:11)

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:6-9)


6.15.2022