21 MAY 2006: Freedom - The Threat & The Price!

TOPIC: Freedom; Bondage, Church health, Liberty, World

TEXT: John 8:36

"If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed."

FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: What do we do to be vigilant concerning our religious liberty?

[ASLEEP] When Rip Van Winkle awoke from his peculiar 20 year siesta, he immediately went back home. When he arrived he found it remarkably changed. New buildings had sprung up over night, and their style was different than anything he'd ever seen.

Many of the people he didn't know, many he did, and many didn't know him. Their clothing was odd and they spoke of things which were meaningless to him. He discovered himself out of touch and con-fronted by a foreign and hostile social order.

TRUTH CLAIM: Like Van Winkle, the church has been asleep; when it awakened recently, the world had become hostile; it found itself impotent as a representative of our Omnipotent God.

Friends, the church today is not free at all. What it considers freedom is actually a subtle form of psychological and spiritual bondage ... a dreamy apostasy.

There are two requirements for a truly free church:

1. Understanding and appropriation of our focal text and
2. A remnant of believers who are "unashamed of the Gospel of Christ"!

[JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN QUOTE] This great objective was succinctly expressed by John Philpot Curran, the great Irish patriot, in a political and secular realm, but its essence is purely biblical. In 1790 he said:

"The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."

Curran is reminds us we our children can expect to be slaves of others we we're not vigilant concerning our secular and spiritual liberty ... i.e., we took it for granted.

That unexplainable church snooze has allowed an enemy to steal the viability of the Church of God.

Like any military unit overpowered by an enemy has three tactical choices:

1. Surrender or capitulation
2. Retreat, with or without honor
3. Counterattack with all your strength, all your number, and all your courage without fear or regard for safety or cost!

My choice is counterattack; the best counterattack is executed immediately while the element of surprise is with you, but with courageous, fearless, and gifted leaders out front.

This enemy is known by secularism, pluralism, humanism, political correctness, diversity, inclusivism, and worldliness. The president of this evil philosophy is Satan, and his goal is to pass off a lie as truth!

That lie has as its stated objective the toleration of, even acceptance of, all worldviews under one organic umbrella (Globalism), overseen by the UN; all other worldviews are acceptable except the worldview espoused by the church.

Promotion of these "isms" inside the church is simply an effort to mask an ideology of moral relativism: feminism, gay rights, tolerance, political-correctness, liberalism, and anti-traditionalism are just a few of the more notorious.

They all reject any belief system or ideology which claims revealed truth or absolute truth, such as that of the orthodox or traditional Judeo-Christian worldview.

By making things sound reasonable and proper in the minds of ill informed believers, the devil surreptitiously undermines the foundations of our faith.

In general, religious freedom is the freedom to worship free of any and all unwanted external influence.

Pluralism and its several religious counterparts do not require force to steal this freedom to choose. Satan always relies on stealth to deceive.

Boundaries of faith, once taken for granted, are being regularly crossed by people with worldviews hostile to the Bride of Christ.

Twenty-five years ago, if you were asked, how soon would you have guessed the Episcopal Church USA would be on the cusp of a being booted from the world-wide Anglican Communion? If you would have guessed in the first decade of the 21st Century, would you have guessed it would have been over homosexuality?

Twenty-five years ago, if you were asked, how soon would you have guessed the Pacific Coast region of the American Baptist Church would have divorced itself from the parent organization? If you would have guessed in the first decade of the 21st Century, would you have guessed it would be over homosexuality? Maybe abortion but not homosexuality!

Capitulation and abdication have replaced the bold acts of faith previously seen among the faithful. "Peace at any cost!" is now the battle cry, when it should be "Repent and be saved!" Now church leaders are chastened for offending non-believers or people of other faiths.

Beloved there is only one faith, one church, one Lord and God, the Lord Jesus Christ!

There is One Truth, and that is the great "I am (is) truth," and He is very offensive for those who are seeking other ways to heaven, other ways to do church.

Jesus could have accommodated the woman at the well's counter-arguments but instead He confronted her sin. Jesus could have said "You are right!" to the legalistic accusers of the woman caught in sin but He attacked them from their own teachings.

What's up? Is Jesus bifurcated in His teaching? No! Never! He was confronting those who would twist the Royal Law into something it did not say and did not mean. In both cases the woman was a changed woman.

When their deception is confronted, the pluralist and relativist jeer, mock, and ridicule ... they smear good people with bigot, homophobe, racist, capitalist, etc.

FOUNDATIONAL INQUIRY: What can we do to be vigilant concerning our religious liberty?

I. WE MUST REMEMBER NOT TO FORGET!

How can we do this? By keeping alive the doctrines of the faith, the essentials of traditional and orthodox Christianity. By keeping alive and real the testimony of the saints who've gone before us!

DON'T FEAR ... INTIMIDATION, AND DON'T BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, being always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks ...

1 Peter 3:15

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15

II. WE MUST BECOME MORE DOGMATIC!

The secular world has inundated the church with an emphasis on "feel-goodism" and pop-psychology (psychobabble), while downplaying any dogmatic instruction.

Learning about man rather than the Risen Lamb of God seems to be primary.

What is the meaning of this? And How may I apply it to my life? These are the questions of the students of the truth of God!

We must become as bold and as committed as those who proclaim false gospels; yet we must ...

... keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

1 Peter 3:16

III. WE MUST ENGAGE OTHERS!

To heed the commandments of Christ is the first order of action for the truly born again. To fail His commandment to evangelize the lost is the same as not loving one another, let alone our enemies!

[FREEDOM IS SHARED] Centuries ago, in the slave mines of South America, when a man found a stone of a certain size he was given his freedom. No man, having once gained his freedom, ever returned to the mines to help his fellow-slaves find theirs.

Likewise, today, it is hard to find many believers who've gained true, authentic freedom who've return to the mines to help others gain theirs.

APPLICATION/CHALLENGE: We, as church people, are imitating secular society at an alarming rate. Increasingly, we adopt from other worldviews what seems good or feels good; gleaning, as it were, here and there, as the human spirit and human wisdom moves them, ignoring the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth and the wisdom which comes down from above.

The spirit of this world is earthly, natural, and demonic [James 3:13-18] ... it teaches us to be inclusive, while the Bible teaches us to be exclusive; it teaches us to be accepting, while the Bible teaches us to be discerning; it teaches us all things are relative, while the Bible teaches us their are absolute truths; it teaches us to accommodate diversity, while the Bible teaches the straight path and the narrow gate; it teaches us to tolerate and accommodate, while the Bible teaches us to separate.

[GENERATION GAP] As one Texas Pastor wrote: "As a result, questions are [now] being raised that previous generations never felt the urgency to discuss. We will no longer [spend our] time disputing ... polity or procedures. People will not struggle with 'Can we drink?' 'Can we dance?' or 'Can we listen to that type of music?'

"Instead the queries ... [now] center around the exclusivity of Jesus ... as the [only] way of salvation, the nature of man, the doctrine of sin, and other central teachings of the faith."

What he fears is that the faithful are more concerned with the curtains and the wallpaper than the foundation of the Temple God is building.

The liberal media, the liberal educational community, the liberal judiciary, and the liberal religious community lay down a pluralistic barrage of acceptance and accommodation ... the only voice which is unacceptable and lacks accommodation is the conservative voice, especially the conservative Christian voice.

God has too many children that are like thermometers; what He needs are thermostat kids. A thermometer reflects the temperature of the room; a thermostat sets the temperature of they want the room to be.

Whatever you chose to do, do it with all your heart and soul! Put your whole self into it! But please, oh please, don't be lukewarm.

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TAGS: Homoletics, Freedom,
Liberty, Preaching, Sermons