Freedom
Matthew 18:15 – 20
July 3 2011
Tomorrow, July 4, 2011, the United States of America will turn 235 years old. As far as some countries and nations go it is a very short period of time, but in some ways it stands out amongst many of them. What makes America different from so many other countries, its form of Government?
America foundation goes back to before the first settlers stepped off the Mayflower in 1620. In order to find the beginnings of the America in which we live today, you have to go all the way back to the turn of the 17th century to a little village called Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, England. This small group consisted of mainly farmers and artisans, men with little importance or education except for a man by the name of William Brewster, one of the leaders who was man of some importance in the town who had spent some time at the University of Cambridge.
As a group they had become upset with the episcopal jurisdiction and the rites and discipline of the Church of England. They felt that the Church of England despite its break from the Catholic Church was still too closely tied to it. In addition, the life style of the individual was too closely connected to worldly living.
The “Puritans”, not directly associated with any denominational sect, encouraged direct personal religious experience, sincere moral conduct, and simple worship services. Worship was the area in which Puritans tried to change things most; their efforts in that direction were sustained by intense theological convictions and definite expectations about how seriously Christianity should be taken as the focus of human existence.
Puritan sermons were the life blood of this style. At their heart, Puritan sermons were passionate appeals for conversion. They stressed a process of self-examination by which the inner corruption of the soul could be exposed and for which God, at his own pleasure, might forgive the penitent sinner.
These sermons were described as being delivered so that "meanest understanding" could grasp them, referring to people with an attitude on the wild side, bar brawlers and hoodlums. These sermons were increasingly delivered in a "plain style"; they were long, frequent, and likely to stray from traditional biblical subjects and raise such questions as the mutual obligations of debtors and creditors.
The great paradox for Puritan believers--which was raised to even higher pitch in New England--was their simultaneous striving for self-knowledge and acknowledgment of the infinity of their ignorance. A Puritan might hear, hundreds of sermons proclaiming God's inscrutability and the futility of human effort to do anything to affect God's will. Yet virtually the only hope for salvation was to submit to this hearing of the saving word and to pray that the Holy Spirit would enter the soul through the imprecatory voice of the minister.
The Puritan lifestyle was not about enhancing the physical lifestyle of the people but protecting the Spiritual life that lived within he physical and because of this seclusive lifestyle they in essence became an outcast of a people.
Because of this lifestyle, it became harder to live in England under the guidelines for the Church of England, for example; under the 1559 Act of Uniformity, it was illegal not to attend official Church of England services, with a fine of 12d (Pence about a 12 cents)(£0.05; 2005 equivalent: about £5($8.00 US))[3] for each missed Sunday and holy day. The penalties for conducting unofficial services included imprisonment and larger fines. Under the policy of this time, Barrowe and Greenwood were executed for sedition in 1593.
These kinds of repressions lead to a small clan of Puritans starting to leave England in 1607 and moving to Leiden, Amsterdam. Their overall lifestyle was not much better there and eventually leads to what we now call the pilgrims moving to and settling in in the North Eastern part of America in what we call the New England States.
America was founded with an emphasis to live a life that was free to worship the God of the Bible.
The nation of Israel as we know it today also had a very humble and rough beginning. The nation as a whole started out as a people that lived under oppression for nearly 400 years. Somewhere around the years 1250 – 1200 B.C. this people left the nation of Egypt to a better land.
Like America, the beginning for the nation of Israel did not really start upon its entrance into the Promised Land nor its exodus from Egypt, nor when Abram was called out of the land of Ur, the land of the Chaldeans by God. In reality you can trace it back even farther to a man’s field surrounded by a whole lot of trees and a time when the land had not experienced rain, yes the time of Noah.
Genesis 6:5-7
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Since the fall from grace / favor with Adam back in the garden, the attitude of mankind went downhill, and as tradition has it literally.
In the literary book, The Forgotten Books of Eden, published in England in 1882, in the Section entitled Adam and Eve you get a picture of early life on earth. It opens with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden but are quickly on the outside looking back. God provides them a place to live on a lower level of this mountain than were the Garden is placed. From this vantage point you read of the growth of Adams physical family and ultimately its further degeneration which results in moving off the mountain.
Chapter 20 of the book opens with these words, “Ravishing music; strong drink loosed among the sons of Cain. They don colorful clothing. The children of Seth look on with longing eyes. They revolt from wise council; they descend the mountain into the valley of iniquity. They cannot ascend the mountain again”
Somewhere in amongst all of these people end up living a man by the name of Noah who in Genesis 6:8 is described as
8 But Noah found favor / grace in the eyes of the Lord.
What set Noah apart from all the rest?
Freedom!
Some people may be thinking that the children of Cain were the ones that had real freedom. Listen to what you want when you want, Drink what you want when you want, basically do what you want when you want to do it with whoever you want to do it. That’s freedom. That’s living life to the fullest. You know something, that is exactly what Satan wants you to think, but in reality it is the biggest lie that can be told a person.
Some may be asking, well isn’t that what the Puritans were striving for when they broke off from the Church of England? The answer is no.
They Puritans in many ways were trying to maintain a relationship with God, despite their acknowledged sinful nature. Much like what you can read of what Adam and Eve tried to do once their sin had them removed from The Garden that fateful day.
Two Types of Freedom
Matthew 18:18 – 19
18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
Earthly Freedom
Proverbs 14:12 or Proverbs 16:25
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.
This thought process takes us back to the people that lived off the mountain of God with the children of Cain, a do whatever you want for it is your life so live it as you want.
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
This so called Freedom that is being poured out today is not really freedom in the literal sense. It is a deceptive lie against true freedom.
Heavenly Freedom
As strange as this may sound, true freedom can only come from obedience, but not just any obedience, it must be obedience to God the creator.
Today people around the world have heard the Ten Commandments of the Bible and many view them as restrictors or limiters to ones enjoyment of life, but in reality these ten points are not limiters to your freedom but limiters to what can harm you.
How many of you have ever stopped to look at the Ten Commandments as restrictors placed on Satan. God has laid out just how far Satan can come to you and if you do not cross over that line, there is nothing that Satan can do to you, but if you cross over that line you put yourself in a very dangerous place.
Purpose of freedom
1 John 3:7-9
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
In these final verses of this chapter Jesus is showing us how to deal with those that have succumbed to the ideals of the earthly freedom called sin. Sin may seem pleasant on the surface, but in reality it is a destroyer.
Galatians 5:13 - 14
13 My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love. 14 The whole law is made complete in this one command: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
From our perspective today, the Puritans of the 1500 & 1600’s may seem a little strict and snobbish, but I have to ask this question; Who has truly experienced more true freedom, them or you when it comes to your relationship to your creator?
Today, as we celebrate the birthday of this country of ours let us not forget why we have this country in the first place, but to celebrate and honor our Creator and King. It is only when we come to realize that despite all the freedom this world promises, the only true freedom that you will ever find is when you are free from the bondage of sin and that release can only be found in and through Jesus Christ.
Come to know the truth and let the truth set you free.