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Pioneers Memorial

W.D. Frazee

Nature of Liberty

As you know, this is Religious Liberty Saturday.

And around the world, our people this morning are thinking of the responsibility that is ours.

We have been told that to us has been committed the banner of religious liberty that reformers like Luther carried generations ago.

It is well for us to understand, of course, what liberty is.

Thought we might meditate a bit this morning on liberty, the nature of liberty.

As Psalmist says, I will walk at liberty for I seek thy precepts.

This is echoed in the New Testament in the text that I would like to have you turn to, James the second chapter and the twelfth verse.

There are those that have the idea that the Old Testament is the testament of law, and the New Testament is the testament of freedom from law.

But James, in 1 verse, unites for us the concepts of liberty and law.

So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Liberty then is not freedom without responsibility.

1 of our missionaries was telling us that Some of the natives over there in Africa they heard about freedom coming their idea of freedom was this that As soon as they got independence got freedom then they could travel on any side of the road they wanted to Some of them had still shall I say worse ideas.

Some of those natives, they actually walked along and they picked out what house they were going to have, some white man's house that they were going to have as soon as they got freedom, and whose wife they were going to take as soon as they got freedom.

Of course, we don't have any ideas like that, do we?

I wonder if we have become fully emancipated from primitive or childish ideas of liberty.

We are to be judged by the law of liberty.

The stars of heaven are free because in amplitude of liberty their joy is to obey the law.

All through God's vast creation we see the beautiful result of following the law of liberty.

Only in this planet is that idea mixed up, confused.

Eventually, all that confusion will be gone, and once again, 1 pulse of harmony and gladness will be throughout the vast creation.

So as we think about liberty this morning, let us remember that there is a law of liberty, and liberty is not freedom without responsibility.

And that brings me to the next point I'd like to study with you, Fred, and that is that nobody can take that away from you.

Nobody can take away from you that liberty.

Now we've just given an offering this morning for religious liberty.

Is that to keep people from taking away our liberty?

Nobody, I repeat, can take away your liberty.

Ah, but somebody says they might put us in jail.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

They banished John over to the Isle of Patmos, but they didn't keep the angels out.

They didn't keep John from receiving the greatest revelations of his life.

We shall need to remember all this as we go into the repetition of the persecutions of the Dark Ages.

When we are bound in chains, confined in dungeons, we shall need to realize that we are still free.

It's because of this that he goes forth with great fury.

It is not enough to suit his satanic majesty that those who oppose him are bound or confined in prison.

He wants the soul to be bound, but God has made the soul free.

They may burn Hus at the stake, but he dies free.

They may crucify Peter with his head downward, but he dies free.

They may confine 1 of God's children in prison for days, for months, for years.

You remember 1 of those Huguenots in southern France during the Dark Ages confined in a fortress for years.

But on the wall of that old room had been written in French, Resist!

And let me tell you, dear friends, backed by the Spirit of God, inspired by God.

The will of man is omnipotent, and there are not men enough in this world, nor devils in hell, to take away that freedom.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.

Paul says in Galatians the fifth chapter and the first verse.

Oh friends, isn't it wonderful to be free?

Wonderful to be free and wonderful to know that no man, no set of men, can interfere with God's purpose for your life.

That's echoed in other words in Romans 8 28.

So all things are working together for our good.

Thank the Lord this morning, friends, for the great fact of liberty.

Nothing can take it from you except yourself.

This report on tobacco, that's quite a topic of conversation this week, points up to the fact that millions of men are slaves by their own choice.

And they freely admit that they'd like to get loose and can.

But we don't have to sell ourselves into slavery.

He invites, he pleads, he urges, he knocks at the door.

Some of you remember that painting of Jesus knocking at the door.

It's been painted by various artists at different times.

But we are told that 1 of those paintings, painted many years ago, was viewed on its completion by the friends of the artist.

And as they stood there looking at it, 1 of them said haven't you forgotten something he said why why they said there's no latch on the door oh he said that's on the inside.

And remember, no man can force that door.

Inside, you stand, and if that door is opened, you open it.

That's why John the Baptist could stand erect in the presence of earthly monarch.

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Nature of Liberty

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