The Oberlin Evangelist

August 16, 1843.

HOLINESS OF CHRISTIANS IN THE PRESENT LIFE:--No. 13.

GOSPEL LIBERTY.

By The Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

Modernized by Cliff Collins

 

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”  (Galatians 5:1)

 

In this lecture I will show,

I. What does the yoke of bondage mean?

II. What does it mean to be entangled with a yoke of bondage?

III. What is the liberty that this passage mentions?

IV. How does Christ make us free?

V. What is the danger of becoming entangled again?

VI. When are Christians in bondage?

VII. What is their remedy?

 

I. What does the yoke of bondage mean?

When the Apostle Paul wrote this passage, He was thinking about the ceremonial laws of the Jews.  We can easily see that this is true from the context of this passage.  Jewish teachers had come into the Church, and were trying to graft the cumbersome observances of the Old Testament Jewish rituals into the gospel.  Paul was so grieved because this was happening, and he felt that it was such a departure from loving and following Christ, that he declared that those who followed their instructions had fallen from grace.  Paul did not resist observing ceremonial laws simply because he rejected the ceremonial laws, and regarded it as useless, but because he had his eye on a principle that has lasting importance for the Church.  Why is the ceremonial law a yoke of bondage?  Because the ceremonial law has no tendency to reform the heart, and so, when you try to make true Christians observe the ceremonial law, it goes against the state of mind that Christians already have.  Any precept or obligation that someone places on us, that is contrary to the state of mind we are in, is a yoke of bondage.  And this is true, whether it is a precept of the Old or the New Testament.  This principle is universal.  You can see this principle demonstrated in the conduct of children.  Simply require them to do something that is contrary to the condition their hearts are in and you will see that their obedience is not cheerful, but constrained.  Their obedience is nothing more than serving, but their hearts are not in it.  They have no heart felt desire to obey.  Therefore, every requirement, that is contrary to the spirit that we are in, is a yoke of bondage to us.

 

What does it mean to be entangled with a yoke of bondage?

1. When you see what you are required to do, and you feel that you must do it, and yet you have no heart to enter into the spirit of it, you are certainly entangled with a yoke of bondage.  Your obligation presses you on one hand, but your heart refuses to do it on the other, and your condition is one of restless distraction.  This is the reason why the law that was given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai was a galling yoke for them.  In Galatians 4:24, the Apostle says that the covenant given on Mount Sinai gives birth to bondage.   Before people get clear idea of what the law claims, they may not be aware of its influence.  Paul says, “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died”.  (Rom 7:9)  When Paul saw that, what the law required was his duty, and yet he had no heart to perform it, the law became a yoke of bondage to him.  You can easily see how this can happen.  Let anybody practice a harmful indulgence ignorantly and there is no sin in it; but now, let God throw some light into his mind on that subject, and the true nature of his indulgence is revealed to him.  At that moment, his struggle begins.  Before, he could indulge in his habit without feeling any sense of guilt at all, but now his conscience wakes up.  Yet his appetite still demands it; and the more clearly he sees the law, the more he becomes entangled, until his heart finally decides to fully comply with the requirement to abandon his harmful habit.

2. If you seriously try to conform to the letter of a law, while your spirit is destitute, you are entangled with a yoke of bondage.  A great many people determine to meticulously keep every point of the law, and yet, after they try with all their might, they never feel that they are any better off.  Why does this happen?  It is because they are merely serving the letter of the law.  They have no heart in it; and the more they try to render such heartless service, the stronger their conscience becomes, and the less peace they enjoy.

3. To do everything they can possibly do to satisfy the demands either of the law, the gospel, or the conscience, without faith and without love, is to be entangled with a yoke of bondage.  The situation that the seventh chapter of Romans represents, deals with an individual who is determined to obey the moral law without its spirit, and the result is a perfect failure.  Listen.  “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.  For what I am doing, I do not understand.  For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.  If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.  But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.  For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.  Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  (Romans 7:14-24)  The same is true of people who determine to obey the gospel without possessing the spirit of the gospel.  They are like people trapped in a horrible pit of quicksand.  Every effort to obey only seems to make them want to obey even less, and creates an even stronger deep-seated hatred to their service.  The same is true of every attempt to satisfy the demands of their conscience, as long as their heart finds their service offensive or repulsive.

4. To take on and assume responsibilities that we are not really willing to do in our heart, or, in other words, to undertake to do anything in our own strength, is to be entangled with a yoke of bondage.  Let an individual try to do any duty, or assume any responsibility without his spirit being involved in it.  Let him try to do that duty in his own strength, that is, simply by the force of his own resolutions, without faith, and the farther he goes, the more he will find himself entangled, as long his condition remains the same.

5. Any covenants, vows, or promises that you make without consulting and depending on Christ only serve to entangle your soul.  Sometimes, people write down the most solemn and binding covenants.  They will use these covenants to hedge themselves in, so that they will not dare to sin.  But do you know what?  It doesn’t do any good, and only brings their soul under even worse condemnation.

6. Attempting to do or to be anyone or anything that the spirit of Christ does not lead you to do or be places you under a yoke of bondage.  It doesn’t matter whether you are required to do this or not, if you try to do it without love, it will only become a snare for you.  Thus, the law becomes a yoke of bondage to you.

 

III. What is the liberty that today’s passage mentions?

1. We use the word liberty two different ways.

(1.) We use the word liberty as something that is free rather than something that is necessary or obligatory.  In this sense, liberty consists in the power to freely choose or refuse any object that we have decide on.

(2.) We use the word liberty as opposed to slavery.  Slavery is not, as many believe, a state of involuntary servitude, for strictly speaking, there is no such thing as involuntary servitude.  Every act that the slave performs is really as voluntary and as willful as the act of any other man.  His muscles would not move without exercising his will.  However, slavery is a state in which a man feels constrained to choose between what he regards as two evils.  He chooses between two alternatives, both of which he hates.  He knows he either must work or be whipped, and so he prefers hard labor to suffering as the lesser of two evils.  Slavery then, happens when a person feels that he is forced to make a decision.  He hates to make that choice, but he chooses it rather than to suffer something worse.  For example, a person, who is caught in a loveless marriage, may perform the outward duties of that relationship during his or her lifetime, rather than to separate and sustain all the evils that accompany such a decision.

In the same way, a person may live under a government that he hates, and yet, rather than subject himself to the frown of his government, he may obey all its laws.  This is acting on the principle of slavery.  A person might be compelled to act on the principle of slavery right here in New York City, just as much as a slave in the South acts on the principle of slavery, and he may hate his service just as much as the slave hates his service.  However, the difference between the person there and the person here, is, that the person there fears the lash or some other physical punishment, while here, he fears some other evil, which is equally efficient, as he views it, to drive him to do things that he really hates to do.  Legal professing Christians are slaves in this sense.  Their religious duties are not something that they love to do, but they are duties that they must attend to, or they may have to endure a greater evil.  They do not perform their service because they have willfully chosen to love God with all their hearts, but they perform their service as the only way to escape the rebukes of their consciences, or the wrath of God.

2. The liberty our passage mentions today is the liberty of faith and love.  When people choose to love, then they automatically delight in acts of love.  They are so free that, in obeying God, they do only what they prefer to do, and what they would do whether there was any command or not, as long as they can see its relationship to the good of the universe.

3. In short, this liberty is unselfish love or true love.  This love consists, not in annihilating our obligation to obey God, but in possessing the Spirit of the requirement.  Please turn to the 13th chapter of the first Corinthians, and let’s look at the characteristics of love that Paul presents, beginning in verse four.  “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  This description of charity, or unselfish love, shows that the one who is free naturally acts according to the requirement of the law.  It is spontaneous with him.  He acts from a principle within himself rather than from a law without.  He does not act from restraint, but obedience is spontaneous with him, as it was with Christ.  Christ did not need the sanctions of the law to encourage Him to obey, but what the law required was just what He loved to do more than anything else.  The same thing is true with those who walk in this liberty.  They do not obey under the rod of the law.

4. Authority does not govern those who have this liberty.  Instead, they act spontaneously.  They choose to act spontaneously.  All they need to know is what will please God, and they do it willingly and eagerly.  They do not neglect to do what is required of them, but they do it from a love that burns in their hearts, and that is the perfection of liberty.  When a man is able to choose in any direction in all circumstances, and does just what he wants to do, that is the highest liberty in the universe.  That is freedom in its highest sense.

 

IV. How does Christ make us free?

1. Christ does not make us free by abolishing the moral law.

2. Christ does not make us free by discharging us from any obligation to fulfill any or every duty.

3. Christ does not make us free by relaxing the claims of any moral precept, in either the Old or New Testament.

4. However, Christ did fulfill and abolish the ceremonial law, so that we are no longer under any obligation to obey the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament.

5. Concerning the moral law, Christ makes us free by writing its principle, and all its spirit in our hearts.  Oh, how sweet this is!  Suppose we could govern our children by engraving our requirements in their hearts.  What delightful families we would have!  Can you imagine what it would be like if all our commands are the very things they choose, so that, for us to express our will, would be to see it sweetly and joyfully done.  When Christ produces the spirit of the law in us, and then shows us the outward command of the law, the command is exactly what we want to do in our hearts, and because of this we are willing do God’s will cheerfully.

6. The first step that Christ took in making us free was by willfully and joyfully loving His Father with all His heart and loving us as Himself.  His whole life was a life of unselfish love for others.  Today, He sits at the right hand of God, still loving us with all His heart.  This course of conduct is natural and spontaneous for Christ; and do you know what?  We are free in the same sense that He is free, and everybody in heaven is free in the same way.  God feels required to love unselfishly.  He knows in His reason that He should love unselfishly, and because His will is just what His infinite reason requires, He is, therefore, infinitely free, and so is the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the freedom that He seeks to bestow on us.

7. He can bestow this freedom on us by His indwelling Spirit.  The Holy Spirit comes to reside in us, that He may produce in us the same state of mind that is in Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit’s job to reveal to us the mind of Christ.

8. The Holy Spirit does this by so revealing Christ to us, that it gains the complete confidence and the total affection of our soul.  No physical force can accomplish this.  If we want to gain someone’s confidence, how do we demonstrate our character to them that it wins their confidence and love?  Christ, by revealing Himself in those traits of His character, which He knows are adapted to win our confidence, brings us into the same state of mind with Himself.  He shows us that He is love.  He knows all too well that this is the quickest way to make us love Him.  There is no other way to make men loving and unselfish.  As they say, “Weep if you want others to weep.  Rejoice if you want others to rejoice” 

Suppose a father is a very loving father, and he wants to make his children loving children as well.  How can he do it?  Could he make his children loving using the rod or by drilling them with Sunday school lessons?  No.  The best way to make his children loving is by demonstrating true love before their eyes.  One important reason why the children, of supposedly religious parents, are so seldom converted is because their parents strictly command them to be religious, but they don’t demonstrate any true Christian love themselves.  Their parents command them to read the Bible and to go to Sunday school.  But these parents do their duties in such a way, that their activities annoy and upset their children, instead of attracting them and drawing their interest.  Let parents simply temper all their commands with plenty of unselfish love, and this would not be true.  It is with true unselfish love that Christ wins the hearts of sinners, and makes them free.  When Jesus came to earth, the idea of true religion almost didn’t exist in the world, but He demonstrated it in His daily life.  His disciples looked on and they wondered, until they finally caught the flame.  And what happened then?  Why, they shook the world with their unselfish love.  And it is only the demonstration of this loving spirit that can consummate the victory, and set our race free.  Do you want to know how Christ sets us free from the yoke of bondage?  First, He sets us free from our obligation to keep the ceremonial law.  Then, He sets us free from the penalty of the moral law.  He sets us free from the spirit of bondage, by writing His law in our hearts; and He sets us free from the dominion of sin and from the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  This is the glorious liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free.

 

V. What is the danger of becoming entangled again?

1. The least unbelief brings bondage.  Let a wife lose confidence in her husband in any respect, and in that respect, her obedience will be constrained and stiff.  The same is true in religion.  If there is any lack of confidence, instead of your service being free and outpouring, your service will be forced and heartless.

2. Grieving the Holy Spirit will produce bondage.  Whenever The Holy Spirit withdraws His presence from us, we will quickly fall right back into bondage.

3. Allowing the least amount of selfishness into our lives, naturally leads us back into bondage.  Remember, religion is unselfish love in action.  The least selfishness, then, is bondage.

4. Anytime our mind is drawn away from Christ, we will be drawn into bondage of course.  In fact, no person lives a spiritual life without Christ.  We must feed on Him.  We need Him as much as we need our natural food.  We maintain our liberty only by thinking about Him, and communing with Him continuously.

5. Any attempts to coerce our mind by making oaths, vows, covenants, and resolutions, will produce bondage.  Anyone who has the Spirit of Christ does not need these things, and if he does not have the Spirit of Christ, he can never get the Spirit of Christ through such things as oaths, vows, covenants, and resolutions.  I have known people to pray all night, and bind themselves with the most solemn vows and covenants that they can make, and yet it produces nothing.  There was no religion in it; not one atom’s worth.  And when people try to coerce themselves in this way, they universally fail to succeed.

6. Taking any obligation upon your conscience, to conform to any particular forms and ceremonies not prescribed by Christ will entangle you in the yoke of bondage.  It is truly astonishing to see the extent that the Jews burdened themselves down, by adhering to what they believed were the requirements of the ceremonial law.  They added feast days, multiplied traditions, increased tithes, and made purifications almost without end.  The same has been true with the Church of Rome.  She multiplies her vows, and adds pilgrimages, and observes fasts to such an extent that it can only result in nothing more than a mere outside show of religion, and it leads to the destruction of countless souls.  Simply trying to conform to all those laws they require you to observe, in your own strength, is enough to bring any soul into terrible bondage.

7. However, the adding of holy days, and the multiplying of religious observances and ceremonies, cannot result in anything else but bondage.  Even among Protestants, how many consider it a duty to observe Christmas.  I have been afraid our Methodist brethren are becoming entangled.  They seem to feel that they must watch out the old year, and bring in the new, and no matter whether they are sleepy or not, they must be there to satisfy both custom and conscience.  Even monthly concerts* have become a burden to many.  The truth is, we are required to resist such things, whenever we begin to regard these things as binding on our conscience.  The holy days in the Roman Church became so numerous that they took up a great deal of time, and now, in many Catholic countries, if you hire a man to work, you get very little out of him.  (* Note: Until the late 17th century, musical performances took place in churches, in the homes of the nobility and wealthy merchants, or in private literary and musical organizations. Concerts in the modern sense, which the general public may attend usually on payment of an entrance fee, were begun in London in 1672 by the English violinist and composer John Banister. Concerts became a dominant element in musical life only in the 19th century.^[1] )

8. Binding yourselves by church covenants, especially if there is anything in them contrary to the law of reason and of love, will entangle you in the yoke of bondage.  None of these things took place in the days of the apostles.  The truth is, I am jealous of the early apostles.  Today, you embrace one thing, and then another, and then another; and the before you realize it, you are in bondage.  “Why you are a violator of your covenant?”  “Am I”?  “Yes”.  I have known several situations just like this.  Let no one be bound but by the law of love, which is the perfect law of liberty.

 

VI. When are Christians in bondage?

1. When the duties of religion become a burden; that Christian is in bondage.  While we are in liberty, the duties of religion are no burden.  As an old writer said,  “I sought throughout all, to find something like the burden of Christ, and could find nothing until I came to the pinions of the dove, which instead of weighing me down, bore my soul up on high”.

2. When people observe the form of religion without the spirit and power of godliness, bondage is everywhere.  Many today still keep the form of religion very conscientiously even after the life and spirit has departed from them.  Their piety is like a mere lifeless corpse, or a hollow shell.  Jesus said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  (Matthew 23:27-28)

3. When their conscience drives them, instead of love drawing them, Christians are in bondage.  Oh, how many are attempting to live by mere resolutions that their consciences forces up, yet they do not have one particle of true love for Christ!

4. When professing Christians don’t find their heart spontaneously doing what is required, they are in bondage.  When the waters of life do not flow spontaneously out from them, when it is not nature’s promptings to pray, to give to the poor, or perform any other duty, they are entangled with a yoke of bondage.  When people have the spirit of true religion, instead of needing a command to move forward, they feel an inward moving of their soul in the right direction, and performing their duty gives them sweet enjoyment.

5. Any soul that has no peace and no enjoyment in religion is under the yoke of bondage.  True liberty is essential for true peace and blessedness.

 

VII. What is the remedy for anyone in bondage?

1. People will never set themselves free by any legal, heartless efforts.  Anyone who tries this is beginning at exactly the wrong end.  People, who try to set themselves free by legal, heartless efforts, are beginning on the outside and trying to work inward, instead of beginning on the inside and working outward.  People often become greatly excited, and they go about doing, doing, doing, under the pressure of obligation, but where is their relief?  This is especially true in many evangelistic meetings and special efforts; but when the meetings stop, where is their religion, in most cases?  I am not saying anything against such meetings, but against the way in which the truth is so often preached today, and how meetings today are too often conducted.  Too many meetings today are designed to set everyone’s emotions on fire with powerful excitement, and those meetings leave the heart unsubdued to love.  This is all wrong.  This will only encourage those who attend to foster a mere heartless legal religion.

2. However, if you are in bondage, the only remedy is faith in Christ, and applying His blood.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”  (John 6:29)  Cast your whole soul upon Him, to receive the spirit of obedience.  I have often seen people striving and pushing for months, but it never did any good.  They were not one bit better.  It was not until they saw that it would not make them one bit better even if they should continue striving a thousand years, and it wasn’t until they cast themselves completely on Christ, to receive the spirit of obedience from Him, that they entered into the freedom of the gospel.  “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  (Matt 11:28-30)

 

REMARKS.

1. I believe you can see the difference between a legal and a gospel religion from what I have said today.  A legal religion is works without love, a gospel religion works by love.  A brother said the other day that he did not understand the difference between a legal and a gospel religion.  Why, it is as obvious as the difference between day and night.  Both the legalist and the true Christian works, but one works with love, while the other works without love.  They both do the same things outwardly, but the one is free and the other a slave in what he is doing.

2. Do you see why the moral law is called the perfect law of liberty?  God ordained moral law to produce life, and when we obey His law in its spirit, it gives life.  But why do people find moral law to be a law that leads to death?  Because when the spirit is lost, the letter kills.  It is when we legally obey; that is, it is when we heartlessly obey the law that the law works to overthrow us instead of delivering us.

3. Do you see what Paul meant by such passages as Galatians 5:18, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”; and Romans 6:14, “for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace”.  Paul did not intend to say that God has abolished the law in their situation, but that the spirit of the law has become their law.  They are not under the law in such a sense that they no longer need its sanctions to force them to do their duty.

4. Many people today feel that their religion is mere slavery.  Many feel that religion is a hard, up-hill battle.  The language of their heart is, “it is hard to obey, and still harder to love”.  However, they are ignorant of the true nature of religion.  True religion is the easiest thing in the world to the person who has it.  Legalists complain about this world, and that this world is such an evil world.  They complain that it is so hard to live in this world and be good.  However, it is not as hard a world to live in as they think.  True religion certainly does not make it any harder to live; it really makes it a lot easier.  The problem with those who find this world such a hard world to live in is that their hearts are bad; and if they find it a severe task to obey God, it is because they don’t have the spirit of obedience.  If they have any religion at all, it is the wrong kind of religion, and they are completely deceived if they think everyone else has the same kind of religion that they have. 

Some people, when they see others, who are joyful, say that those people are deceived.  They don’t feel joyful, and they wonder how anybody else can possibly be joyful.  And then they point to the seventh chapter of Romans, or to David Brainerd, who, although he was a good man, was such a hypochondriac that his experience would be gloomy no matter what situation he was in.  Such people are always suspicious whenever they see any of the spirit of liberty manifested, and I am not surprised, for everyone is naturally suspicious of other people who experience things that they have never experienced.  How strange it must appear to them, and how it must cause them to stumble when they see people almost dance for joy when Jesus Christ sets them free from bondage.  Yet, isn’t this wonderful when it happens?  Why, look at that slave, with his back all blistered in the sun from toiling day after day in the hot fields.  Suddenly, his master sets him free!  As soon as he is told he leaps and jumps around, full of joy.  Is that strange?  Do you feel like there is something wrong with him because he rejoices over the fact that he, who has been a slave all his life, has been set free?  This is how the true Christian feels.  The Bible commands him to rejoice, which is so easy and natural for him to do.  It’s like telling that newly freed slave, “Go ahead, and rejoice.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  You’ve been set free!”  But legalists don't understand it, and think they are possessed by the devil.  Why, I have sometimes heard people say, “That’s not solemn!  That’s fanaticism!  That’s emotionalism!”  And then, they point toward some gloomy slave trudging along with a dead body strapped on his back, and groaning under his heavy religious burden, and say, “Now look at that person.  He’s gloomy.  He’s miserable.  That’s how a Christian should act.  He is the humble one.  He is nothing like you radicals!”

5. Multitudes have no true idea of gospel liberty.  They don’t have a clue.  They have made a believable profession of religion, and are toiling out its duties.  However, they don’t have a clue about the meaning of true liberty.  Perhaps they are even ministers of the gospel!  Of course, such people don’t expect liberty.  I recently heard about a revival, in which the minister said to those who were asking about salvation, “don't expect to be happy in this world; I never was, nor do I expect to be until I get to heaven.  I don’t know what it means to enjoy religion.”  Now there is a fundamental error in his instructions.  Not happy?  If I had been there when he gave such instructions, I would have told that minister that, if that was his experience, he was not a converted man.  That is nothing more than a legal religion that is force-fed to converts, by legal ministers and legal professing Christians.  But how many people are there here today who are afraid to find any other way than the way they have been taught, because they fear it will lead to delusion!  Oh, that all of you here today could see that a religion that does not produce present peace and blessedness, is not, a religion of love, and is therefore false.

6. Any course of instruction that pressures you to do your duty without holding up Christ for all to see, is like requiring labor without food and it brings people into bondage.  It is like requiring the Israelites to make bricks without straw, and those who give such instructions are forced to whip, scourge, and abuse the dear Church of God to get what little service they do out of them.  Hold up duty without Christ and legalism is inevitable.  The people starve for lack of Christ.  But, let them see Christ and they will naturally and joyfully work, because their duty is appropriately enforced.

7. Some ministers go to the other extreme.  They hold up Christ without calling listeners to do their duty.  This produces a belief that we are no longer obligated to obey the moral law because faith alone is necessary for salvation.  To feed the Church with Christ and then leave them inactive, is the best way to produce religious indigestion.  However, give us the right food and give us the right amount of work to do, and then we will thrive.  Just let us have the bread that comes down from heaven, and we will have spiritual health, and even better physical health, if we only have the right amount of work to keep us profitably busy.

8. If we believe the confessions of most of today’s professing Christians, they must be in bondage.  This fact has weighed on my mind for a long time.  I have worked hard to convert sinners for many years, but I have seen them fall into bondage under the legal instruction of ministers.  I worked and prayed for them day and night, and I still do, and yet they seem to know little of true Christian freedom.  They often, by their looks, seem to ask, “Is this Christianity”?  “Is this the boasted religion of Christ?  How does it differ from the Jewish religion?”  A man once said to me with great honesty, although he did use vulgar language, “The gospel is not what it is cracked up to be”.  His idea was that the gospel promised liberty, but did not produce it.  Now, how many of you here today would say exactly the same thing, if you felt comfortable enough to open up your hearts.  You would say, “The gospel is not what the Apostle Paul said it would be”.  Yes, poor soul, it’s not what Paul said it would be.  But what you have is not the true gospel.  Come!  Taste and see!  Come to the gospel feast!  You have walked around that mountain long enough.  Don’t expect Christ to make you free while you turn your back on Him.

9. When the power of religion fades away and disappears, the form of religion only hardens the heart, and makes men more pharisaical and hypocritical every day.  “What”, perhaps you say, “Would you have someone do?  Abandon his profession of faith, stop praying, and go back into the world?”  No!  Simply love and serve in the spirit.  But if you will not do this, then give up your profession of faith.  That is my advice.  Do you doubt whether God would rather have you give up your profession of faith, than live in observing the mere form of religion, and rendering some kind of heartless obedience to God?  “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I could wish you were cold or hot.  So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth.”  (Rev 3:15-16)  How loathsome to Him are such mockeries, and the slavish obedience to His holy will!  This passage from Revelations represents Christ as actually vomiting them up.  Now I would not recommend apostasy, but I will condemn hypocrisy and I will bring you to Christ.

10. The only people who really understand this liberty are those who have experienced it, and those who have experienced it can’t find words to express it.

11. Many who are mere legalists cry out against those who believe that they no longer have to obey the law, while both legalists and those who no longer obey the moral law are an abomination to God.

12. When the shepherds attempt to drive the flock instead of leading the flock, they place a trap in front of them.  We cannot make people love by whipping, scolding, and driving them.  God has given His law with its sanctions, but He opens His blessed heart to produce love.  Dearly beloved, are any of you in bondage today?  Have you left your first love?  Did somebody tell you that you must go down into the valley of humiliation, and did you go?  Alas!  What a mistake!  Instead, you should have gone up to the mountain by faith.  What is true humility?  Will you return to your first love?  Will you return to your first love right now?  And, will you commit your hearts and lives to Him?  Will you commit your souls to your faithful Creator by doing good?  Let us all come to Christ right now, to receive our liberty.