PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND Leave a comment

Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;

because the Lord hath anointed me

to preach good tidings unto the meek;

he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to

proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison

to them that are bound;

~

Leviticus 25:10

… Proclaim liberty

throughout all the land

unto all the inhabitants thereof:…

~

Galatians 5:1

Stand fast therefore in the liberty

wherewith Christ hath made us free,

and be not entangled again

with the yoke of bondage.

~

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are

Life,

Liberty

and the

pursuit of Happiness.

~Declaration of Independence

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in His own image,

in the image of God created He him;

male and female created He them.

Genesis 2:8-10

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden;

and there He put the man whom He had formed.

And out of the ground made the Lord God

to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,

and good for food;

the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden,

and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden;

and from thence it was parted,

and became into four heads.

It was God’s will in the beginning

that His prize creation, man, should be taken care of.

He put him in a paradise

with every imaginable need and desire supplied.

God loved the first couple so much,

He not only provided for their physical needs,

but He gave them one of the greatest gifts

that could be given.

He gave them Free Will,

i.e, the right to choose for themselves.

No,

He didn’t put a computer chip into them

to make them love and serve Him.

How would you like to force your child

or your spouse to love you?

“You will love me.”

“You will hug me.”

“You will kiss me.”

It would not be a mutual love.

I John 4:19

We love him, because he first loved us.

He gave them a simple test.

They had everything they could possibly desire to eat;

except fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Genesis 2:17

But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,

thou shalt not eat of it:

for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Well, the rest is history.

They ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,

and brought sin into the human race,

and they became subject to death!

Could God have prevented their disobedience?

Not without taking Free Will

from His creation!

Our love to God is of our own Free Will.

We are not pre-programmed robots.

The Lord loved His creation so much,

He sent His Son to be the Savior of the world,

to reconcile them back to Himself.

This is why Jesus came to earth.

The Lord paid for our freedom with His very own blood.

Should we forfeit our liberty in Christ,

after such an extravagant price was paid?

What about the God-given right

of Free Will to every human being ever born?

~

Walt Disney made a movie in 1981 called

“Night Crossing,” based on a true story.

It starts with a documentary as startled German people

watched its people stream across from East Germany

to West Germany at the rate of 3,000 people a day.

The Eastern Regime countered the mass exodus

with an act that startled the world.

Military engineers erected an enormous barrier

rolling barbed wire around cement pillars,

isolating a nation of 17 million people,

making it a gigantic prison.

Designed not to keep enemies out,

but to keep its own people in.

It was a gripping sight as people lined up

on the Eastern side, young and old alike

to look at freedom through barbed wire.

Conrad Schumann jumping a barbed wire fence at the Berlin Wall.

~

A barrier of concrete cut through villages and farmlands,

completely encircling Eastern Germany.

The border fences were equipped with alarms

and automatically-firing machine guns.

Beyond them was a corridor 3 miles wide known

as the East/West border zone.

Movement was highly restricted.

It was heavily patrolled and seeded with land mines.

The entire area was designed to discourage escape to the West.

Only the very desperate would risk it.

East Germans continued to try.

Some would succeed,

no one knows how many failed.

An E. German soldier helps a young boy cross the barbed wire which was a marker for where the Berlin Wall would soon be built.

It’s a moving story about 2 families who would make the attempt.

After both men gathered supplies to make a hot air balloon,

one family backed out because the wife’s heart

was gripped with fear.

They had very young children.

What if they got caught,

what if they were killed,

what if…?

He said, his wife got a better position at her job,

and more money.

He thought things were looking better for them.

His friend told him,

“you owe it to your children to try.”

His appeal was not taken.

The other man and his family made the attempt.

It failed, as the ballon did not make it over the barrier.

Workers Building the Berlin Wall in 1961

~

However, he and his friend made another balloon,

as the East German military searched for

those who made the first balloon.

Circumstances had changed in his friends life,

as his wife’s mother was sick in West Germany

and she could get no further news about her health.

In her desperation to find out about her mother,

the young wife wanted to try to escape to West Germany.

It’s a moving story of people desperately craving freedom,

the freedom to choose for themselves;

to be free.

It’s an inate desire given by the Creator Himself…

Free Will.

Did they make it across the barrier.

Hallelujah!

They did!

The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect

its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent

the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany.

In practice, the Wall served to prevent

the massive emigration and defection

that marked East Germany

and the communist Eastern Bloc

during the post-World War II period.

~

Liberty,

when it begins to take root,

is a plant of rapid growth.

~George Washington

~

There is a spiritual prison as well.

We do well to avoid that at all cost,

just as in East Germany, and not

willingly succumb.

Charles R. Swindoll has written an excellent

book called:

“The Grace Awakening.”

It’s an outstanding book for every

Christian seeker of God’s truth.

I hope you check it out.

Here’s a brief quote from his introduction:

“THE HUMAN HEART CRIES OUT TO BE FREE.

Everything within us fights against

the bondage of tyranny and oppression.

Our souls were not made to live in cages of fear

that restrict us from the joys of liberty.”

A 17-year-old orphan successfully slips through the barbed wire over the Berlin wall as he was waved on by W. Berlin police in October of 1961. Life magazine, said he was too dazed to say anything but “Thanks, thanks,” as he shook the hands of those who helped him.