A Freedom That Lasts
Preached - Friday, June 20, 2003 - June Teen Tent Revival
Camden Alabama
Scripture: "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
John 8:36
Introduction
This evening, I want to talk about "A Freedom That Lasts." The New International Version says "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." "A Freedom That Lasts."
My brothers and sisters, saints and sinners, bond and free children of the Most High God, all of you that love the Lord, and to all of you in your respectable places. We do greet you in the name of the unparalleled, incomparable, and matchless name of Jesus, and do share with you his word of inspiration, wisdom, and hope. For his word is rich and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that we might be equipped for every good work.
A Freedom That Lasts
When will we really be free? Oppressed people throughout the ages have asked this question. African Americans have also been asking the same question of our creator, "Lord, when will we be free?" Our heroes and champions have kept us looking to the day when we will be able to stand universally declare that we are truly liberated with a lasting freedom.
The African-American experience is uniquely similar to that of the Old Testament Jews. Our struggle for freedom and independence, as well as our subsequent meandering has closely paralleled to that of the ancient Hebrews. What Biblical history has revealed is that the Jews thought they would be free if they could escape the chains and shackles of slavery in Egypt. Real freedom for them meant to leave Egypt and enter a new era where they would have an opportunity to enjoy the good life. Externally the oppressor was Egypt, which they saw as the source and cause for their bondage. In the wilderness, they saw as the source and cause for their bondage. In the wilderness, Moses came down from mount Sinai with Ten Commandments that would set the tone of their morality, which would help them fight an even more forceful oppressor, the internal forces of with the potential to destroy them with moral decadence. To a large extent, the Jews embraced the call to fight oppression externally, but often failed to acknowledge the need to defeat the enemy within. Once, in the Promised Land, they soon found themselves enslaved again, not by one oppressor but by a series of oppressors that dominated them. In Canaan they found freedom but it was not a freedom that lasted very long.
African Americans have a similar story. For generations our main quest was to free ourselves from external slavery. Our leaders, including Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and other fought against a system that legalized slavery. To many of us freedom meant the ability to walk out of Egypt. Like the Jews however, we soon found that though the chains were gone, still we were constantly facing the risk of re-enslavement. On one hand our enemies were seeking to re-enslave us by political disenfranchisement, social segregation and economic deprivation. On the other hand we, like the Jews, strayed away from the God that delivered us, and began to deteriorate internationally, thus re-enslaving ourselves. On January 1, 1863 we were freed from slavery. However, the years since have proven that it has not been a freedom that was lasting.
As people of African American descent, we have come to learn that we will never truly be free until both the external and internal vestiges of slavery are abolished. To this end, we look to Jesus, the source of our faith and hope. As more people turn to Jesus the propensity for slavery is diminished and the day is quickened when all humanity will be able to sing with new meaning "Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God almighty, I’m Free At Last."
Exposition
As the Holy Ghost shines on this text, we see Jesus as he explains to the Jews the nature of real freedom. He explained to them that this ministry on earth sought to show them how to free themselves from their servitude to the law and its ritual. In verse 32 he noted that those who believe the truths he taught would be truly free of the influences of sin and spiritual death.
The Jews hearing Christ speak about being truly free told him that they were descendants of Abraham and "were never in bondage to any man, how say thou, Ye shall be made free?" The fact that the Jews considered themselves free was a part of their problem. Even at the moment they spoke they were a conquered people, living under Roman authority. In their history they had been people taken into bondage and slavery by the Egyptians, Philistines, Midianites, Ammonites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and the Greek. Nationally they had along history of periods of slavery and short periods of freedom and subsequent returns to bondage. After leaving Egypt and making a covenant with God in the wilderness, all of the times that they were re-enslaved were directly related to their return to sinful lifestyles.
In the book of Judges alone the Jews were enslaved seven different times, enjoying moments of freed and then periods of slavery that last eight years and 40 years each. Sprinkled throughout the Book of Judges is the cause of their repeated bondage: "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord…" They were free and then re-enslaved in an endless cycle that began in Egypt and continued to the moment they spoke to Christ. Yet, standing face to face with the master they lied about their present and past condition saying, "we have never been in bondage to any man?"
Even though the statement they made was far from the truth, Christ ignored it and gave the definition of spiritual servitude: "Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin." The cause of the repeated troubles of the Jews was their tendency to do "evil in the sight of the Lord." The enslavement to sin kept them in bondage. Jesus noted that those that believe on him would be set free from sin and would be truly free.
If the experience of the Jews of the Jews of the Old Testament were types of the African-American experience, then their attitudes about freedom in the New Testament must also be typical.
We have had a history of recurring enslavement. Once freed from slavery in America, we found that we were free, but yet we were still enslaved. We were re-enslaved by ignorance. Unable to read and write, without cultural graces, and vocational training, with few exceptions, we were re-enslaved. Sharecroppers worked for years only to find that at the end of every year, they still owed their souls to the general store. There rose from among our ranks one Booker T. Washington who challenged us to train our hands, work hard, and be honest and formed a school at Tuskeegee that the African American ex-slave might rise from his own dust and become a truly free man.
As we found ourselves rising from cotton fields and enjoying new freedoms the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson in New Orleans would make new laws in America that legalized segregation when the Supreme Court in 1896 agreed that "Separate but equal" facilities was the law of the land. We were re-enslaved to a second class status that meant colored schools, colored waiting rooms, and colored facilities. Some among us like Marcus Garvey, said, "let’s leave America" and go back to Africa to be free. Others like Daddy Grace and Father Divine and Elijah Muhammad turned to religious cults as a response. But from among the ranks of disillusion came men of the Calibre of Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall who challenged the law in 1954 and broke the legal hold of segregation on America. Once again we thought we were free at last.
Young Martin Luther King joined coalitions of African American leaders such as A. Phillip Randolph and others to push for passage of civil rights law and a voting rights act that would give us freedom in the eyes of the law. King pushed with crusade tenacity pointing to the day when we would be free at last. In 1964-1965 the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed respectively. Yet we still were not free.
We registered to vote in large numbers and elected African Americans to public office as mayors of big cities, judges, and thousands of local officials in our struggle to get free. We even made serious bids for the presidency, broke through barriers in corporate America, integrated formally all-white neighborhoods, corner shops and space ships/
Today like the Jews, there is a generation that believes the struggle has ended and we are truly free. However, the truth is that we have been exposed to moments of freedom, but our history has proven that none of our experiences have given us a freedom that lasts.
Our quest is to be free at last, but first we must secure a freedom that lasts!
Conclusion
Today there is only one hope for a freedom that is truly free! That hope is in Jesus.
True freedom comes when all of mankind accepts the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
True freedom can come only when the world turns to Jesus.
When Jesus reigns as the supreme Lord, freedom bells will ring for "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess." He will bring a freedom that lasts!
I heard Jesus declare the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath 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…" Jesus came to bring us a freedom that lasts!
The sting of slavery may linger for a while, but the freedom found in the love of God will continue forever, because it’s a freedom that lasts!
The nauseating stench of racial prejudice may pollute our times, but the sweet smell of a God who is no respecter of persons will free us forever, because it’s freedom that lasts!
To secure our freedom many have given of themselves, but to secure the freedom that lasts Jesus laid down his life and picked it up again.
He died out on Calvary and rose triumphant with freedom in his hands!
Those who want to sing "Free at Last" with a new meaning should get to know and get a freedom that lasts!
