We speak about bondage and how we will have a freedom in the Lord, but usually we do not understand all the ramifications of freedom until we enter into it. We are coming into a day of liberty. We are experiencing the freedom of the year of Jubilee, when the captives go free. According to the Scriptures, all debts were canceled in the year of Jubilee. In the year of Jubilee, the prison doors were opened, and all prisoners were allowed to leave (Leviticus 25).
Jesus spoke of the year of Jubilee when He quoted out of Isaiah 61 in His first message to the synagogue at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18–19. The liberty we are entering is difficult to understand, but the more quickly we comprehend it, the better it will be for us.
In the early Church, there came a time when the Christians were set free from the old Law and proclaimed to be under grace. However, they did not automatically adjust to their freedom; instead, they had to unlearn a great deal of bondage. In the period of time covered from Acts 1 to Acts 15, many of the believers did not know whether they were essentially Jews or Christians. It took a long time for them to appreciate their freedom because of the Judaizers (Jewish Christians) who were traveling to the churches preaching, “You must be circumcised” (Acts 15:1). Circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of covenant, but afterwards it became a ritual by which the Jews attempted to merit God’s favor, and it came to represent a sign of bondage. The pride of the Jews of Israel, which they felt as the chosen people, turned into their bondage. In the Council at Jerusalem, the apostles and elders decided that circumcision and the various rituals of the Mosaic Law should not be imposed upon the Gentile disciples.
Like those Jewish Christians, we too are conditioned by many things of bondage that we must unlearn. Liberty has to be learned, and bondage has to be unlearned. It takes a long time. We rebel against our bondage, we kick against it, we want to get rid of it, but still it remains. It must be unlearned. Bondage leaves within us deep conditionings and responses from which we must be absolutely delivered by the power of God.
If you were raised in lawlessness, you must be delivered from it. If you were raised under legalism, you must be delivered from its conditioning. Liberty must be learned. We ought to cry, “Lord, teach us to be free! Teach us how to be free!” In Galatians 4:30 Paul said, “Cast out the child of the bondwoman, because he cannot coexist with the child of the free.” Ishmael had to be cast out because God did not want him to be around while Isaac was growing into his liberty, his heritage, and the promises that God had made over him. Abraham was a faithful man, yet he still sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. Abraham gave them food and water, and God preserved them (Genesis 21:14–19).
Ishmael was not allowed to coexist with the true child of promise. Similarly, the religious Ishmael today shall not exist with the child of the free woman. Everything that is legalistic about the old religious order has to go because God has brought us into a spiritual liberty. The sons of God will not coexist with the spawn of religion. There is no detente between bondage and freedom. There is no way that the religious world will come into true sonship. The manifestation of the sons of God will not be a development or a promotion of the religious world. There must be something better than that for us! The true sons lift their hands upward in freedom; they do not extend them outward for another to put chains on them. This is a Kingdom truism!
Freedom is a state of mind, of heart, of soul, and of spirit before it has any meaning as a physical state. We must know that we are free. We must realize that we are free. It must be a reality to our spirits. We must possess it as a mental reality before it will reach down into the physical level. The physical circumstances, the natural affairs of everyday life, will not respond to a miracle from God until that miracle is real within us. The miracle must start within us. We must first be liberated in our hearts.
The day that we are free in our spirits, in our minds, in our hearts, and in our souls will be the day that God starts working the freedom outside of us. Many times there are adversities that assault you in your physical body, or in your circumstances, or in your finances. Those circumstances may continue to harass and imprison you until the day that you become free in your spirit. When you are free in your spirit, that freedom will reach into the other realms and you will indeed become free. He whom the Son sets free shall be free indeed (John 8:36).
Liberty is as real and as extensive as your realization of it. If you do not realize that you are free, then you will not be free. Your freedom will only be real when you claim it. Many words of liberation have been spoken. Does it shock you to realize that there is a great difference between what God has declared and what has become real to you? His Word will never be real to you until you believe it. When you are aware of this, then you will walk away from many of your limitations that seem to have you cornered and intimidated. They are only paper dragons, but they will continue to appear real until you recognize that the Lord has spoken a Word of liberty over your life.
Where does all of this teaching come from? From the Lord’s dealings with me, because I am in the midst of a struggle to accept this freedom. People have been praying, “Lord, set Your servant free. Set him free.” Yet I have stayed awake at night worrying about my liberty. This emancipation brought me to a place where I felt I was in worse condition than ever. When God starts setting people free, they have problems with it.
Most of your big battles begin when you are free. At one time the children of Israel were willing to give up all their freedom so that they could return to Egypt and serve Pharaoh. Why would they want to do that? Because they did not have any battle when they were slaves, for they did not have to make any choices. They did not have to plan meals, for they were served from the fleshpots of Egypt. They did not have to choose whether they would live or die. They did not have to decide what time they would get up in the morning. If you are a slave, you have no choices to make; you simply do what you are told to do.
When you are free, you must make choices and take responsibility for your decisions. As many as are led by the Spirit of the Lord, they are the sons of God (Romans 8:14). The Spirit of Christ has set us free from the spirit of death (Romans 8:2). Then comes the great problem: Once we are free from the spirit of slavery, then we must go to work. Then we have a responsibility to find the leading of the Lord, to tune in to God. We must have an awareness of our liberty, an awareness of who we are, an awareness of where we are going and what we will do next.
Liberty is as real and as extensive as your awareness of it. The Lord can set you free, but then what will you do with your liberty? The emancipation of the blacks in the United States often had disastrous consequences. Some of the slaves did not even leave the plantations because they preferred to eat the food that was set before them, and to get by the best way they could. They preferred to remain in a slave status because they could not cope with the emancipation that was theirs. That same thing is happening to us.
You must face the fact that you are to blame for not moving into more of God. You are to blame. You may look around and say, “Why doesn’t something happen?” Because you are sitting in a cell with the door open! You are like a prisoner, staying in the prison yard, making little rocks out of big boulders, when you have already received a pardon. Let’s be free!
The emancipation of the blacks led to some disastrous situations. They could not cope with the extent of their freedom and the responsibility of it. In the same way, we have had a problem comprehending our freedom. Some believers in Christ still do not realize that they are free. Others do not comprehend the full extent and potential of their liberty.
Do you know what we ought to do? We ought to lead the people, step by step, until they begin to explore the potential of what God has really done for them. The Word has come to liberate the people and set them free, but they do not realize it. Traditions and religious systems have usually become confining, but our secret has been that we do not have any legalistic traditions. We do things with a liberty that is sometimes difficult to understand.
Perhaps you are determined to throw off all restraints; but remember—freedom is not lawlessness. Freedom is not lawlessness, but neither is freedom a matter of being under the Law. What is freedom? It is difficult to define, isn’t it? We can become progressively liberated, moving from one level of freedom to another, until finally we arrive at the absolute state of freedom which is to become a total bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does that sound like a paradox? The ultimate freedom is to become an absolute, total bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. For freedom did Christ set us free, only we are not to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1). We have been set free so that we may become servants of one another.
“Some prisoners continually go back to jail, because they are ‘institutionalized.’ They willfully go out, commit a crime, and get caught so they can go back into bondage. They do not want to have the responsibility of freedom. There is a responsibility in being free, being liberated, and being a son of God. It is much easier to be in bondage. It is easier to die for Christ than to live for Him and serve Him. It is easier to be religious than to be spiritual.”
We have a tendency to become slaves. It is easy to accept bondage because bondage does not require revelation or perception. This is a day of liberation. We must strive to be free. We have a tendency to become slaves because it is easy; there is no real challenge to being a slave. The only performance that is required of a slave is to do as he is told. Then there is an element of security for him. He does not have to decide whether he will be beaten or not—that is not his decision to make. He has no say about whether he will be starved or fed, whether he will live or die.
A free son has to choose all of these things. He knows that he must appropriate the blessings and the promises of God, or else they will remain as a dormant potential. A slave allows things to happen to him, but a free man makes things happen. He strives for his liberty, his life, his sustenance, his freedom from oppression, and his victory. All issues are resolved in freedom. No issues are resolved in bondage; but everything is determined in our awareness of freedom.
In our churches we must be careful that we do not perpetuate a bondage in the name of divine order. Everything possible must be done to move the people into a place where the real issues are resolved in liberty and freedom. There should be no suppression or bondage in the name of preserving divine order in the local church. There must be freedom. Christ must set us free from the law of sin and death. He must set us free from the Law of Moses, and from the religious traditions that would lock us in. He must loose us so that we can walk in the Spirit, seek after righteousness, and break through to God.
When we become aware of the freedom that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will find our liberty, our life, our sustenance, and our deliverance from every form of oppression. What will you do with this freedom? You may wake up in the middle of the night and worry about it, for the torments of the newly free are often greater than the cries of the oppressed.
“God is refusing to allow us to promote slavery in the name of divine order. We refuse to lock people into a place where they do not have the Holy Spirit’s revelation. The key is in this revelation. Revelation sets you free from slavery. People love denominations because they do not require you to have an ounce of revelation. To walk in revelation requires a determination on your own part to seek God and have Him speak to you. We must walk with God. The Lord will refuse to allow divine order to be something that shelters the people from walking with God; instead, it will thrust them into a place where they must walk with God.”
The Lord is setting you free, and you must have an awareness of your freedom. However, your freedom must not be evaluated by the appearance of your circumstances. The circumstances which result from your freedom are often more difficult than those from which you are being freed. There was no jeopardy for the Israelite slaves who made bricks in Egypt. Every once in a while there might be a lash across their back because they were not moving fast enough or turning out enough bricks, but otherwise no initiative was required in being a slave. But there was a problem when those slaves were liberated and they stood completely hemmed in between Migdol and the sea. They were facing the Red Sea, the mountains were to their right and to their left, and behind them were Pharoah’s troops pursuing. When they saw the Egyptians coming, it seemed to them that the day of utter disaster had come.
In many present circumstances we also seem to be facing this time element of utter destruction and disaster, and there is no place to go—there is no alternative. Fine! That is the climate for a miracle. The climate for the greater works and miracles is the absolute necessity for them. Miracles are never the hocus-pocus of someone who is trying to make a name for himself or pursuing publicity. A miracle always takes place because it is a necessity. When the hungry lions refused to eat, it was because it was necessary for them not to eat—at least for Daniel’s sake! This is where we too are living. We are determined to move into the greater works, because the Living Word leads to living works.
The greater works will come because they are a necessity. They will always become necessary when we move out on the Word God gives us. If the Israelites had not moved on His Word, they would have remained in Egypt, under no jeopardy, facing no problems. They would not have been positioned in a place where they required a miracle. There are no miracles when you do not accept God’s deliverance. However, from the moment that you accept freedom and the deliverance of the Lord, you will be put in constant jeopardy, day by day, hour by hour.
Sometimes the torment of liberty is greater than your oppression. No wonder the Israelites said, “Let’s go back to Egypt. Let’s choose a captain and get rid of Moses. Let’s march back the other way. It was a lot easier for us in Egypt” (Numbers 14:4). That was true, but why expect good things to be easy?!
America is losing much of its liberty because it does not have the courage to walk in the difficult place of being free. People would rather be secure and have fleshpots from the federal government than take the responsibility to be free. You can point to all of our federal systems and say, “This is a great step forward,” but for everything you have gained from government security, you have lost part of your liberty as an individual. Today the regulatory bureaus in America are almost unbelievable. In every election the American vote is the majority crying for a leader to provide more federal and state welfare fleshpots with more bureaucratic bondage and restriction. There are many who do not want this trend in America.
We want to be free. Spiritually we can reach into our freedom now. As far as the government is concerned, we must simply bind it over to God’s hand. However, as far as your own heart is concerned, you can say, “I choose to be free. I would rather be free and face battle, struggle, and demonic assault than to be under the bondage of oppression.” For freedom has Christ set us free! Be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1). We claim that freedom. We will be a free people under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.