The fourth and fifth chapters of Galatians contain interesting revelation concerning both slavery and freedom. A slave is not required to make many decisions. A slave in an oppressed land does not have to decide what courses he will take in school; he does not have to decide what food he is going to eat or what he will do during the day. He does not even have to decide whether or not he will be beaten. A slave has to make very few decisions; they are all made for him. However, once he becomes free, then he must make many decisions.
Probably a great tragedy for the blacks in America was coming into freedom without being prepared for it. History shows that they were slaves on the Southern plantations (some families had been slaves for several generations) and then they were suddenly set free. Many of them chose to remain on the plantations and continue working. They would rather work there and have the security of food and a little hut to live in than to leave and cope with the prejudices and problems that they would face as a free people. In fact, some blacks are still facing that, even though it has been over 100 years since Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It has taken a long time for the whites to adjust to the blacks’ freedom, but it has taken even longer for the blacks to claim and to adjust to their own freedom.
The same thing happened when the children of Israel came out of Egypt. During the four hundred years when they were slaves in Egypt, they did not have to make many decisions. They had no choice as to what food they would eat; they were fed spiced, half-rotten meat which had been prepared in large urns. They did not have to decide what career they would pursue; instead they were told! They made bricks and built temples for the Pharaohs. They were slaves. The Lord kept telling them that they were going to be free, and when He finally delivered them at Passover, they became a free people.
Have you ever wondered why the Israelites complained so much, even after they received their freedom? The reason they murmured in the wilderness and even wanted to choose a captain and return to Egypt was due to the fact that they were not prepared to face the responsibilities of freedom. They cried out, “It would have been better for us if we had died in Egypt!” (Exodus 16:3.) Death as a slave would have been preferable to them than coping with the responsibilities of freedom and liberty.
It is evident from the Scriptures that man always wants to go back to bondage. Whenever God does something for him, he tries to make a chain out of it and call it religion. Think about that. God constantly moves upon us to bring us forth into a freedom, but we are conditioned in our flesh and spirit to be slaves. Liberty is a very difficult challenge.
Liberty has to be learned. Bondage has to be unlearned. Because bondage can be such a deep conditioning of our spirit, we often do not understand it. We do not know how to escape bondage. We tend to react automatically to the bondage to which we have become conditioned. From the time that we are children, and continuing throughout our lives, the restrictions of our civilization and our culture are imposed upon us.
The restrictions and the bondages of religion are always evident when people begin to move into a freedom in the Lord. Often people take exception to the liberty and become critical. Because we are incurably addicted to slavery, we must continually break out of any kind of expression in our worship when it becomes a form or a rut. We have developed a loose-leaf type of songbook because there is a deadly fear in our hearts that we could develop rituals or forms in our worship service. Although we would be blessed by the emotion and the excitement of certain types of worship, we might fail to break through to the presence of the Lord. We know that we have broken out of the ruts that we used to be in; but if we are not careful, we could make a ritual out of the very expression that helped to break us out of a previous rut!
Bondage brings a conditioning, and the responses of bondage are often deeply ingrained. Simply by changing the songs and the format of our worship service, we will not necessarily come into the liberty that God wants us to have. True liberty is a quality of spirit.
Israel once made a bold statement to Christ: “We have never been slaves to any man!” (John 8:33.) But they had! Evidently, they had “forgotten” their slavery to the Romans, the Greeks, the Medes and Persians, Babylon and every other nation that had made them slaves. Earlier, they had been enslaved by the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Hivites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. But they “forgot” all of that when they said, “We’ve never been slaves to any man!” Every time they got out of the will of the Lord, they became enslaved. We could say, “Thank God that dispensation is over!” But don’t be fooled—every time you get out of the will of God, some form of bondage takes hold of you, too. Never forget that.
When you are not seeking God with all your heart, to worship Him in spirit and in truth, the devil will see to it that something enslaves you—and God will allow him to do it! You may not be attacked by Canaanites, but God will allow something to enslave you when you are not seeking Him wholeheartedly. Liberty is not a privilege that is automatically retained. It is like clearing a jungle; if you neglect it for three months, it will become a jungle again. There is a price to be paid for liberty. There is a diligence required to maintain a true spirit of worship.
The passivity and deadness of Laodicea leads to a blindness and unawareness of your bondage. Like the Laodicean church, you could be going through the religious motions, saying, “I’m rich, increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” not realizing that you are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). Bondage often coexists with an unawareness of your situation. You may not realize what a slave you are.
God is trying to bring us into a liberty, a liberty that we will fight to maintain. In every generation, God’s people must break out of some form of bondage, and when they do their life becomes more complex in the maintaining of that liberty. We can see examples of this in the Scriptures.
In the Old Testament, the Law established a simple form of justice: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24). Anyone who accidentally put out a man’s eye would have his eye put out. (After a while, a person became very careful about where he poked his fingers!) If he killed somebody, he would be pursued by that man’s relatives who would seek to kill him. In the days of the partition of Canaan, the Lord appointed cities of refuge for those who had unintentionally killed someone. If a man was in danger of becoming the victim of vengeance, he could flee to the city of refuge and there be given a fair trial (Numbers 35:9–15).
The Law of Moses was marvelous in the way it established simple principles of justice and atonement for sin, so that people could begin to walk with God. However, by the New Testament times, the Pharisees had taken the directives of the Law and made a complex system of bondage of them also. The tendency to be a slave is difficult to overcome.
Paul tells us in Galatians 5:1: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. What had happened to the Galatians was very simple. They had never been under the Law of Moses. They had descended from a mixture of people who came down from the northern part of Europe. Many were tall and blonde, related to the Scandinavians; others were Gaulic in nature which would mean they were more like the French. The Galatians settled in the land which is now Turkey, and Paul traveled there to preach the Gospel to them. It was fantastic how they received it. They believed God for everything! Paul had some eye trouble at the time, and later he wrote to them, “You would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me if you could have” (Galatians 4:15).
How the Galatians loved Paul! But as soon as he left, a group of Christian Jews, or Judaizers, came and said to them, “Oh, you don’t keep the Sabbath? You don’t keep the new moons and the holidays and the feast days? You’re not circumcised? Don’t you know that you have to be circumcised? You have to do this, you have to do that!”
The Galatians were perplexed, “Oh, we do?”
“Oh yes, you can’t be good Christians unless you get back under the Law.” So the Galatians began to observe the Law. Paul wrote to them, “Where is the blessedness that you used to have? You used to be so joyful. Why have you allowed yourselves to come under bondage again?” (Galatians 4:15.)
In Galatians 4:6–8 Paul wrote: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. In other words, they worshiped trees and elemental spirits. The elementary spirits are referred to in Moffatt’s translation of the Bible (see Galatians 4:3, 9). Heathens have so many gods because they worship the spirits that control and influence their circumstances. However, the Scripture says that they are not gods. They are only spiritual influences that the heathen think must be appeased.
Paul continued: But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things (“elemental spirits”—Moffatt’s translation), to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. Galatians 4:9–11. The apostle Paul’s ministry to them was in vain if they were going to revert to slavery.
Do you wonder how the Galatians could take the liberty of Christ and turn it back into a slavery of religion? How could they do such a terrible thing? Why does the Christian world today do it also? Why do we find it so easy to fall into the same bondages of form and legalism, thinking that it will please God? You do not please God unless you touch Him. To please Him, you must believe Him, walk with Him, love Him, and worship Him in spirit and in truth.
One of the bondages is the slavery to read a certain number of chapters in the Bible every day in order to gain God’s approval. Does that sound like heresy? Are you fearful that you must read a designated number of chapters a day or you will backslide? Nonsense! Do you know what you ought to do? Read until the Word catches fire and you are standing in His presence. You can do that with a few verses or with a few chapters. If you have to read the whole Bible before you accomplish this, do it; but realize that the purpose is not to see how many chapters you can read. The purpose is to see His Word come alive and His presence fill your being. That is the answer! Reading a designated number of chapters can be a bondage. Read the Word until it lives! You may read only one verse, one chapter, or several books, but read until the Word kindles a fire in your spirit. Any other way of reading the Word can become a bondage and a ritual.
The same principle applies in a worship service. The worship leader may carefully plan his format, get everyone stirred in his emotions with three or four songs, and think that he has led a good service. However, a good format does not necessarily mean that you will reach God. You can have a fantastic format, with everyone playing and singing well, just the way you want it. When you finish and everyone sits down to listen to the Word, you might ask, “Did you meet God?”
“No, not yet.” So you sit and listen to the sermon until it is over, and ask again, “Did you meet God?”
“Not yet.”
You come to the service to meet the Lord! You are there to feel His presence break through to you! Do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. It is so easy to take something from God and make a kind of bondage of it, instead of making it a means by which we reach God every time, every day. His presence is to be alive to us.
I have always been diligent to keep you out of a religious form. I do not want you to become a denomination, closed in by four walls, and stereotyped in what you believe and do. God would not be in that, even though He was with you in your beginnings. We need something more than history to assure us that God is with us. We need a contemporary manifestation of His presence within us and all about us, directing us and leading us.
In Galatians 4:21–25, Paul continued: Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This contains an allegory: for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. (No wonder they threw rocks at Paul! What would they do with him in Jerusalem today?)
Paul was telling the Jews that they corresponded to Hagar’s children because they were in slavery. In this day people can say, “We are Christians. We serve the Lord,” while they may be walking backwards into another legalistic bondage by refusing to walk in the freedom and liberty of the Spirit, by failing to practice the presence of the Lord and know the reality of what God can be in their lives.
But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. For it is written, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; for more are the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband.” And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. Galatians 4:26–29.
The movements that persecute what God is presently bringing forth are usually the movements that God raised up more recently, perhaps just a generation before. This present walk in the Spirit is rarely persecuted by the denominations such as Methodists, Baptists, or Roman Catholics. The persecution has come from the Pentecostals and Charismatics, those whom God met a few years ago. They believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues; but they do not want to go on into divine order, the Lordship of Christ, or the Gospel of the Kingdom that God is bringing forth today. In their reverting, they are going into bondage.
The present doctrine of shepherding in the Charismatic movement is the great bondage that has been imposed upon the people. Under it, the people are placed under the authority of “shepherds” or “apostles and prophets” and required to obey, absolutely and implicitly, whatever they are told to do. The leaders quote the written Word and then issue their own directives as a word that is to be binding in its authority over a person’s life. They do not look for confirmation, or allow any of the freedom that we know in finding the will of the Lord. This is a form of bondage as deadly as the legalism of the Mosaic Law.
Are we trying to be critical of other movements? No, for we know that God has many people in them, but there is an important point to note. When a movement goes to the flesh, like Hagar and Ishmael, it will make fun of the little Isaac who is coming forth. And then God gives the word: … “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.” Galatians 4:30. Anything that is born of slavery should be cast out because it will not inherit with the son of promise. God sees to it that legalism never inherits anything. Paul concludes, So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. Galatians 4:31.
We must be vigilant with the freedom we do have. It is possible to slip right into the same rut. That is why the Living Word constantly comes to loose you, to liberate you from bondage. You can come under bondage to a prophet or a prophetess of God until you run to them, “Tell me what I’m to do.” Becoming overly dependent upon the ministries over you is another form of bondage.
The liberty of the sons of God is to teach us all to learn His voice and find His leading. When you face decisions, seek the Lord! Do not ask your spiritual authority to tell you what to do. Seek for a witness; then when you have an answer, come for confirmation. We ought to stop giving people the Word of the Lord, initially; instead, we should let them find it for themselves. And if they make a mistake, they can receive help and correction, for there will be many voices of confirmation or correction. Each person will have a confirmed word, but he will also have learned the voice of the Lord himself. Bondage is easy to acquire, but to be led by the Spirit of the Lord is a responsibility that requires eternal vigilance.
In the book of Romans, Paul asked concerning Abraham, “When did Abraham receive the promises, before he was circumcised or after?” (Romans 4:10–11.) Abraham received all of his promises before he was circumcised. Then circumcision came as a seal of his acceptance by God; but God had already met him by promise. Afterwards, people tried to use circumcision as a means whereby God would accept them; however, circumcision was meant to be the sign that God had already accepted a man. It was not to be a meritorious work to earn His favor! Paul pointed this out to the Galatians, saying in effect, “If you are circumcised for Christ it will profit you nothing, because you still think you will be accepted by what you do instead of by what Christ has done” (Galatians 5:2).
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. Galatians 5:6. How Paul nailed it down! About every six months we should review the book of Galatians, the Magna Charta of Christian liberty. We need to really understand it, lest in our habits, our devotional life, and our thinking we slip back into an easy rut of religious slavery and bondage where we are no longer free worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything that God brings forth today can become the bondage of tomorrow unless we have the diligence to walk in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:13: For you were called to freedom, brethren… Would you like to be free to worship God the way you want to? Would you like to stand and cry before the Lord? Perhaps you want to intercede, yet you cannot pray in the same manner that others do. You are not required to.
What would happen today if someone were to stand in an intercession meeting and not say a word, but only silently move his lips and cry? If there were not a true spirit of liberty, such a person might be rebuked and exhorted to become more intense. Yet Hannah, the mother of Samuel, went up to Shiloh and prayed that way, pouring out her heart to the Lord. Because Eli the priest did not have the perception to understand her brokenness, he rebuked her for being drunk, until she told him that she was crying to the Lord (I Samuel 1:9–16). Intercession is one of the greatest keys that has been given to men of faith who walk with God, but it could become a bondage overnight if we required everyone to conform to a certain style of prayer. Does this mean we should stop praying? No, but let us strive to maintain the liberty of the Spirit in all we do.
The use of tongues in the Pentecostal movement degenerated into a form. After a few years, they had developed the form of it, but the power seen in the second chapter of Acts was lacking. Why have the Pentecostal churches had more contention, more splits, and more problems than any other denomination? Because they have lost the real liberty of the Spirit. What they interpreted as liberty actually became a bondage. Of course, it is much easier to be in bondage than it is to walk in a freedom. You need not take much responsibility if you only intend to attend church and go through the same motions Sunday after Sunday, or Sabbath after Sabbath. Let us keep ourselves a free people in the Spirit.
Paul exhorted the Galatians: … only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Galatians 5:13. You were set free so that you can serve. You will either serve the Lord or serve the flesh, so you might as well choose your bondage now. The only people who maintain their freedom are the bondservants of Jesus Christ. They are the only ones who keep their liberty. What is the purpose of our liberty? We were set free so that we would no longer serve the flesh, but in the Spirit we could serve the Lord with all of our heart. That is the whole purpose of freedom. Usually people do not associate liberty or freedom with being a bondservant. A young person often says, “Boy, I’ll sure be glad when I’m free. Now I have to listen to my old man. I have to go to school and do chores and I don’t like it.”
“Do you want to be free?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to do when you are free?”
“Oh, I want to go out and get a job and get married. I want to have a family, buy a big house, buy a car. I want to be free.”
He doesn’t realize that he is running out of one bondage into another! It is as ironic as the Scripture in Amos where a man ran from a lion and then a bear met him. So he ran into the house, leaned against the wall, and a viper bit him (Amos 5:18–19).
Do you know what God wants you to do? He wants you to have a walk with Him and He does not want that to be made into a ritual of religion, no matter what movement you are a part of. He wants you to be able to serve Him with all of your heart. This is what we strive for—to walk in His holy presence.
Galatians 5:14–16, 18: For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
Freedom comes entirely in the realm of the Spirit. If you walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. People have a misconception about the grace of God. They say, “We’re not under Law; we’re under grace.” However, the book of Galatians emphasizes another aspect of our walk: For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. Galatians 5:17. You are under a bondage, you are restricted and restrained, as long as you follow the flesh, but if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19–21.
Do not boast, “Now, we have freedom and grace,” and still manifest the deeds of the flesh. If you practice those things, you are still under the flesh, in slavery and bondage. You must be free of that. The walk in the Spirit liberates you from the flesh. You will not inherit the Kingdom of God by walking in the deeds of the flesh.
It is inevitable that persecutions and slander come, but it is a sad testimony when the community can say, “I saw one from that church drunk. I saw their people out in the places of the world just like any other sinner. I hear that they have problems of impurity, sensuality and carousings.” Even if it is only a small minority, and even if many of those are lied about unfairly, we are walking in the flesh if there is any evidence at all that we have been guilty of those things. Let us leave the flesh.
Do not excuse yourself by saying, “I’m free from the old religion,” as long as you are walking in sin. You are only free when you have thrown it aside and you are walking in the Spirit. Keep that in your mind and heart. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:24–25.
For freedom Christ has set us free. By the blood of Jesus Christ we can be free. If the Son sets us free we are going to be free indeed. He that commits sin is the servant of sin, and the servant abides not in the house forever, but the son abides forever (John 8:34–36).
Do you want to be free of everything that holds you back from breaking through into the presence of the Lord? Do you want to change? Change by the definition of this message is not conformity to certain standards. Change means removing the impediments, the impasses, and the things of the flesh, so that we stand in the presence of the Lord and worship Him. That is the change we desire, and that leads us to repentance. Repent of the sins that you have allowed in your life, even though you still were going through certain observances that made you look acceptable. Seek God about being really free.