Freedom

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! -- Patrick Henry

     The war has begun, it is true. In fact, it has waged for years. I read the above quote to my children today as a part of our history lesson and have been reflecting on it since. For one matter, it is no small thing that such fiery men as this were willing to take up arms to defend a liberty that they hungered after in their very bones. Starting early on in our days as a group of 13 British colonies, there was a desperation in the hearts of the people on this land for freedom. The earliest ones were willing to give up the luxury of routine and normalcy to explore; to endure hunger, cold, and want; and yes, sadly, to eventually conquer and supplant the native peoples of this land. Men laid down their lives and others suffered scorn, hardship, and loss in order to find the freedom to worship God without interference from an often corrupt, political and power-mad church dictating the terms. Many of our forefathers, in fact, the very ones we call "Pilgrims" were here simply because what they saw meted out in the state-run religion had nothing to do with what they read in the Scriptures. They came so that they could find peace from persecution. Others fought and died that we might have a government based on a more even distribution of power than the kingdom they fled from represented.  That is one matter.

     The other is that we also have this same cry of, "Peace, peace," in a spiritual sense but here, too, we find no peace. We are at war in a plane of existence only marginally and incidentally tied to the political climate we now live within. We are at war against powers that we often cannot understand and frequently categorically dismiss as superstitious nonsense. And how much more easily are we ambushed when we walk through this spiritual battleground blithely as if peace were the theme of the day! I must state to you now that, if you are not a believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of the Bible, I am afraid some of this will have no meaning for you. Do not, however, make the mistake that your disbelief in any way negates the reality of the spiritual battlefield. I fear that you are perhaps more easily ambushed and may in fact be doing the work of your own soul's enemy without even realizing it. This land is still at war, though many of the ardent voices of the past have grown faint in the growing cacophony of combat.

     However, we must not lose hope, fellow Christian, not on the political front nor in the realm where spiritual hostilities rage. We are told only to stand after we have done everything, to simply stand firm on the truth. We can also be encouraged that our Commander in Chief--the King of kings Himself--has already overcome the world. There is nothing that can happen out of the reach of His arm, and we have no need to fear those who can merely enslave or injure our bodies. We are free; the truth has set us free, and we are now free indeed. We not free to do as we please, but free from worry that what we do will bring the divine plan to a grinding halt. Free from fear that our government or any other authority can cause more than momentary despair in the light of Eternity. Free to realize that even the heaviest demand or the most grueling labor asked of us is truly just "light and momentary affliction... preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison," (2 Corinthians 4:17).

     In each and every trial we face, we are learning more and more to deny ourselves and take up our cross. In day-to-day irritations or dealings with irksome people, we are being taught to lay down our lives and treat others with more honor than ourselves. In all of this, we die daily to ourselves and are crucified with Christ until it is no longer us who live, but He who lives within us. And so I agree with Mr. Henry in some ways. I would rather throw away my life than willingly take up chains of slavery, both in a physical and a spiritual sense.

     Physically, I do believe that our country has become complacent, believing that the freedom they enjoy is a right, forgetting that it is a privilege that has been dearly bought. Spiritually, I believe that many of us also take for granted our freedom that Christ paid so exorbitantly for, abusing it or using it lightly as a social outlet or as a thing done only on Sundays for the sake of appearance. In both realms, we are standing aside, mildly watching while the shackles are clamped in place. In one stead, I would echo the final words of Patrick Henry and would rather die than see my freedom violated.

     However, in the other, more imperishable and thus more vibrantly urgent sense, I would willingly lay down the whole of my life for the One Who gave His blood as a ransom for me. I would be free, not physically or politically free, nor free to choose my own way but instead free from choosing the wrong way of sin. I would be free from my peevish, spiteful, and prideful self; free from enslavement to sin and shame altogether and taking up a new cry; "Give me liberty through my death!"

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. -- Galatians 5:1

  Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.