Freedom’s Price
By Pastor Jim May
Thank God for freedom; freedom to travel across the fruited plain; freedom to visit the purple mountain’s majesty; freedom to go from sea to shining sea without having to clear a thousand checkpoints; freedom to go to the voting booth where the destiny of our nation is chosen, one vote at a time; freedom to work a job that I had the chance to choose; freedom to have property, enjoy life and to build a life of my own choosing. We free today because someone paid the price and bought that right for me.
Lee Greenwood sings a song that goes like this:
And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there is no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.
Freedom and independence are costly. This country didn’t start out as a nation of free men, but as subjects bound under the tyranny of an unfair English King. Through a bitter struggle our forefathers broke those chains of bondage. My freedom was purchased in blood on the battlefields of Bunker Hill, Yorktown and in the numbing cold of Valley Forge.
Less than 30 years later, in the War of 1812, once again the British Crown attempted to place those chains of tyranny on us, only to be defeated. One famous battle of that war, the Battle of New Orleans, was fought only because the two sides didn’t know that a peace treaty had been signed. But the soldiers of Andrew Jackson and the pirates of Jean Lafitte stood side by side to stop a foreign power from making us slaves once again.
Another 30 years goes by and once again, in 1846, we find ourselves defending our right to be free when the Mexican Army attacked U. S. Troops along the Rio Grande in southwest Texas. The Battle of the Alamo had already given Texas its independence and the Mexicans didn’t like it. Gen. Winfield Scott led our troops into the capitol city of Mexico and ended the fighting, only after more than a thousand men had paid the price for freedom.
Less than 15 years later an even greater threat to freedom was thrust upon us, but this time we did it to ourselves. A great division caused our country to nearly destroy itself from within. We became a house divided. The Civil War erupted at Fort Sumter, SC and ended 5 years later at Appomattox Court House, VA only after freedom had exacted a toll of over 500,000 who shed their blood before we would be united once again.
30 years went by, and suddenly our freedom was questioned once again as the Spanish tried to take it away. But the price of freedom was paid for at San Juan Hill when Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders fought against the Spanish on the Island of Cuba after the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana
Less than 20 years later, around 1914, the next challenge came. Freedom’s price was challenged by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Once again the high price of freedom was guaranteed in the trenches of the Argonne Forest and the western front in Belgium of World War I.
24 years after the “War to End all Wars” was ended, another war began. On December 7, 1941, “A Day That Will Live In Infamy”, the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor took the lives of over 2000 of our soldiers and sailors plunging our nation once again into the cauldron of blood. Freedom’s price was heavy indeed as America’s fighting men died by the thousands on a little islands like Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, and on the beaches and hedgerow country of Normandy, France in World War II. Countless battles in fields and jungles all around the world are forever stained with the blood of those who paid their last full measure of devotion as the price of freedom.
I have here this morning a burned out wallet of a soldier, killed in the Battle of the Bulge, while he tried to fight back the power of Germany’s Third Reich, as a grim reminder that freedom is never free.
Less than 10 years later, in 1950, blood was being spilled again at the Frozen Chosen Reservoir, Inchon and Pusan when the communists of North Korea and China tried to destroy the freedom of mankind. Those battles were fought on foreign soil, but they kept our land free.
10 years later, in the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, at Khe Sahn, and in the Tet Offensive, and many more places, in a land called Vietnam that American would love to forget forever, men died, and blood was shed in the longest war in our country’s history. Though their sacrifice wasn’t appreciated or even recognized for many years, over 58,000 soldiers gave their lives for the freedom we all enjoy this morning.
15 years later, on the sand dunes of Kuwait, and 10 years later, on the streets of New York, the fields of Pennsylvania, the nation’s capitol and in the mountains of Afghanistan, the battle for freedom flared again and more men died for our freedom.
And right now, in the streets of Baghdad, and in a thousand places around the globe, men and women are still paying the price in blood for my freedom.
To all of those soldiers, past and present, and should the Lord tarry, to all those who will come in the future, whose blood will pay the price for the freedom of America, I say thank you. Today we honor you, and we thank God for the freedom that your sacrifice that has paid the price in full.
But there is a greater freedom that I give thanks for today. There was a price paid in blood one day, over 2000 years ago, by the most precious sacrifice that this world shall ever know. That was the day that my King, my Lord and my Savior, Jesus Christ died for me on Calvary’s tree.
Because Jesus paid the price in blood for me, I’m free to be His child. I’m free to serve Him. I’m free to praise Him. I’m free to love Him. I’m free to worship Him. I’m free to live with Him. I’m free to work for Him.
But that freedom is not free and neither was it cheap. My King paid a high price for my freedom. No man has ever experienced freedom without the shedding of blood to pay its price and that is especially true of my freedom in Christ.
There was an instance in the Bible where one man expressed the fact that his freedom was very costly. In the 22nd chapter of the Book of Acts we read where Paul is under arrest of the Roman guard and has requested to be taken to Rome to appear before Caesar. Look at what the chief captain and Paul had to say about their freedom.
Acts 22:28, "And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born."
That captain of the Roman Guard understood the price of freedom! He had no doubt paid a great amount of money, not counting his allegiance and loyalty to Caesar to buy his own freedom. From the sound of it he was either born into a family that was not free but as slaves in bondage to another man, or he was born in another nation besides Rome. Perhaps he was a Greek, or some other nationality. Whatever the reason, he had given a lot to pay for his freedom and what he got was the freedom to serve.
But Paul said something quite different. He said that he was “Born Free”! Being a citizen of Tarsus, Paul was born in a city that had been given its freedom and declared a Roman city by General Mark Antony long before Paul was born. Tarsus was a city that decided to show its loyalty to Julius Caesar and then to Augustus Caesar, thus gaining the favor of the Roman Emperors. Therefore, anyone who lived in Tarsus, or who was born there, were considered to be free Roman citizens and had all of the rights and privileges of citizenship bestowed upon them.
Paul didn’t pay the price of freedom, like the Roman captain, because those who had gone before him had paid that price for him. But Paul was going to have to pay a part of that price of freedom too.
One of our country’s forefathers, Thomas Paine, said this, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
D.H. Lawrence said, “Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Then their children, brought up in ease, let it slip away again like fools. And their grandchildren are slaves once more.”
What those words mean is that none of us should ever take freedom for granted. We should be constantly on guard for who can doubt that even right now, there are those who would steal your freedom? The price of freedom is constant vigilance against those who try to take it away! Today there are far too many people who are willing to surrender their freedom for the sake of security. We all want to be safe. We all want to feel secure, but at what price?
In 1759 Benjamin Franklin gave us a warning about this kind of thinking when he said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Paul was born free, in the city of Tarsus, but he was free in another way too. He had not only been born free as a citizen of Rome, but he was “Born Again” by the Spirit of God.
No greater freedom can be found than that freedom which is found in being Born Again into the family of God. There may be times when the freedom we enjoy in this world may be taken away. There are people in jails and prisons this morning who have lost their freedom. Ask them if freedom is not a valuable thing.
But the freedom we have in Christ can never be taken away because it is a freedom of the soul and spirit. While the body may be bound, the spirit can soar into the Heavenly places in God and still be free to worship and praise him.
A perfect example of the freedom we have in Christ can be found in Acts 16:23-26, "And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed."
Paul and Silas were bound in the flesh. Their hands and feet were in stocks and chains. They were behind strong iron bars and guards stood over them to keep them in bondage. But their spirits soared away as though those bonds didn’t exist. Their hearts were free to sing. Their souls were free to rise up and shout the victory. And their voices were free to give God praise even in the worst of situations.
Thank God for that kind of freedom! Do you have that freedom this morning? Are you able to sing praises in the darkest hours of your life? Are you able to let your heart rejoice and your spirit soar with God, even though your body of flesh is bound in sickness, pain and suffering? Only God can give you that kind of freedom – and it only comes through the price that was paid in blood by Jesus Christ upon the cross.
How can you have that kind of freedom today? First let me tell you that it isn’t cheap and easy. You will have to believe that Jesus can and will give you that freedom. Then you will have to confess that you don’t deserve that freedom. Then you will have to surrender your heart, your will and your life to Jesus Christ and ask him for that freedom.
That’s a high price isn’t it? It will cost you something. It will cost you that life of sin that is sending you to an eternal death. It will cost you the friendship of the world because you can’t be friends with the world and with Christ at the same time. It will cost you your life that must be given wholly in service to God. It will cost you all that you are right now. But just look at what you get in return. A freedom that can’t be taken away, and eternal life in a place that is more than you could ever hope for or imagine.
Your part of the price of freedom in Christ is that you must give yourself to Him and allow Him to live in you. His part of your price of freedom has been paid in blood just like freedom’s price is always paid.
My hope and prayer is that all of us will come to know the freedom that is in Christ. I hope that all of us are Born Again so that through that new birth, we can be like Paul, “BORN FREE”. Your freedom is a valuable thing. Don’t allow the devil to steal it from you and put you back into bondage to sin.
In Galatians 5:1 Paul said, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Too many Christians today are giving up their freedom and liberty in Christ for the sake of a little “security” in the things of the world. Just like America is slowly loosing the freedoms that men have died for, the Children of God are slowly being drawn back into the tyranny of Satan.
Another quote from Benjamin Franklin says that, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb who is contesting the vote!”
Right now there is a war going on. Yes there is a war in the nation between those forces who would steal our liberties, against enemies that are within our own borders and those that are from foreign shores. We must not lose that war or we will lose our freedoms forever. But there is a greater freedom at stake – the freedom of your soul. Satan and the world are like those two hungry wolves voting to have your soul for lunch. We must be on guard and arm ourselves with the Word of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and keep a watchful eye on over our souls.
Cherish your freedoms as a citizen of the United States of America. Cherish the liberty that has been paid for in blood. But cherish most of all the freedom that Jesus Christ has bought for you with His blood. Never allow that freedom to be taken away. Your eternal destiny hangs in the balance.
