"Liberty"

[Romans]

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“Liberty” by Romans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUPZbNozGZc

Tonight, we are going to temporarily interrupt our “Beginnings and Endings” Series to recognize the Fourth of July with a Spiritual Discussion titled, “Liberty.” We have all heard of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA. As a kid in school, we went on a School Trip to see it, and I seem to recall also touching it! But it is called the Liberty Bell because the Bell was created to commemorate the golden anniversary of Penn's Charter, the quotation "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," from Leviticus 25:10, and is inscribed on the Bell. And that is our Theme, tonight: “Liberty.”

I give major credit for the Scripture citations to Nave's Topical Bible, but I fully plan to also add my own Scriptures and the usual commentaries to what is provided by Nave's. Before I begin, however, I would like you to consider the following.

When Jesus preached His first sermon in the Synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, He quoted a prophecy regarding the Messiah. Among the things the Messiah was prophesied to do, Jesus read from 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;” “Liberty to the captives... opening of the prison …” Yet, nowhere in the Gospels is Jesus ever shown to go to a prison or a place where slaves or other captives were being held, and preached to them, much less freed them, as one might expect.

That is because there are prisons that are not surrounded by stone walls, with cells that have no bars or doors. There is a captivity that is not limited to a geographic location. There is the captivity of sin. There is the captivity of unforgiveness. There is the captivity of racism, sexism, and ageism. There is the captivity of xenophobia, or, the fear {and related hatred} of “outsiders,” or, anyone that does not live like, look like, talk like, dress like, think like, or even worship exactly like, us. Xenophobia has been a major contributing factor to every conflict, whether it be in our neighborhoods, in schools, on the job, in our cities, in our individual countries, or between countries where it escalates into full scale armed conflict.

Of Jesus setting at liberty the captives, Matthew Henry writes, “He was to be a deliverer. He was sent as a prophet to preach, as a priest to heal, and as a king to issue out proclamations and those of two kinds: - (1.) Proclamations of peace to his friends: He shall proclaim liberty to the captives (as Cyrus did to the Jews in captivity) and the opening of the prison to those that were bound. Whereas, by the guilt of sin, we are bound over to the justice of God, are his lawful captives, sold for sin till payment be made of that great debt, Christ lets us know that he has made satisfaction to divine justice for that debt, that his satisfaction is accepted, and if we will plead that, and depend upon it, and make over ourselves and all we have to him, in a grateful sense of the kindness he has done us, we may by faith sue out our pardon and take the comfort of it; there is, and shall be, no condemnation to us.

And whereas, by the dominion of sin in us, we are bound under the power of Satan, sold under sin, Christ lets us know that he has conquered Satan, has destroyed him that had the power of death and his works, and provided for us grace sufficient to enable us to shake off the yoke of sin and to loose ourselves from those bands of our neck. The Son is ready by his Spirit to make us free; and then we shall be free indeed, not only discharged from the miseries of captivity, but advanced to all the immunities and dignities of citizens. This is the gospel proclamation, and it is like the blowing of the jubilee-trumpet, which proclaimed the great year of release (as it appears in Leviticus 25:9 and 40) an allusion to which it is here called the acceptable year of the Lord, the time of our acceptance with God, which is the origin of our liberties;

or. it is called the year of the Lord because it publishes his free grace, to his own glory, and an acceptable year because it brings glad tidings to us, and what cannot but be very acceptable to those who know the capacities and necessities of their own souls. Proclamations of war against his enemies. Christ proclaims the day of vengeance of our God, the vengeance he takes, [1.] On sin and Satan, death and hell, and all the powers of darkness, that were to be destroyed in order to our deliverances; these Christ triumphed over in his cross, having spoiled and weakened them, shamed them, and made a show of them openly, therein taking vengeance on them for all the injury they had done both to God and man."

Matthew Henry next points out that the Liberty we experience as Christians, is not only from the captivity to our failings and sins, but also from the penalty for those sins in that they were paid in full for us by Jesus Christ. A cross-reference is provided in Colossians 2:13-14: “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”

We also experience Liberty from the prevailing powers of darkness that are in the world, wreaking havoc across the face of the earth, and turning the lives of their innumerable victims into living hells. We read of having received this Liberty in Colossians 2:15: “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

Albert Barnes writes, “The word rendered handwriting means something written by the hand, a manuscript; and here, probably, the writings of the Mosaic law, or the law appointing many ordinances or observances in religion. The allusion is probably to a written contract, in which we bind ourselves to do any work, or to make a payment, and which remains in force against us until the bond is cancelled. That might be done, either by blotting out the names, or by drawing lines through it, or, as appears to have been practiced in the East, by driving a nail through it. The Jewish ceremonial law is here represented as such a contract, binding those under it to its observance, until it was nailed to the cross.

The meaning here is, that the burdensome requirements of the Mosaic law are abolished, and that its necessity is superseded by the death of Christ. His death had the same effect, in reference to those ordinances, as if they had been blotted from the statute-book. This it did by fulfilling them, by introducing a more perfect system, and by rendering their observance no longer necessary, since all that they were designed to typify had been now accomplished in a better way...”

The “principalities and powers” here referred to, are the formidable enemies that had held man in subjection, and prevented his serving God. There can be no doubt, I think, that the apostle refers to the ranks of fallen, evil spirits which had usurped a dominion over the world. The Saviour, by his death, wrested the dominion from them, and seized upon what they had captured as a conqueror seizes upon his prey. Satan and his legions had invaded the earth and drawn its inhabitants into captivity, and subjected them to their evil reign. Christ, by his death. subdues the invaders and recaptures those whom they had subdued.”

Let's move into the Theme Headings provided by Nave's Topical Bible, under the main topic, “Liberty.” As Christians, we experience Liberty as we are called:

“By Christ” as we read in Isaiah 55:5: “Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.”

Of this, Albert Barnes writes, “Behold, thou shalt call …" - This is evidently an address to the Messiah, and is a promise that the Gentiles should be called by him to the fellowship of the gospel.
That thou knowest not - The phrase ‘thou knowest not,’ means a nation that had not been regarded as his own people.

And nations that knew not thee - The pagan nations that were strangers to thee.

Shall run unto thee - Indicating the haste and anxiety which they would have to partake of the benefits of the true religion.

Because of the Lord thy God - From respect to the God who had appointed the Messiah, and who had organized the Church.”

This Prophecy of Gentiles … pagans... being called into the Family of God was 1.) written 700 years before the birth of Christ, and proved that 2.) Our call was not a Plan B. Because God knows the End from the Beginning, there is no such thing, for Him, as a Plan B. There is only a Divine Plan A. It has always been Plan A. Our names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the Foundation of the World (as we read in Revelation 13:8), before the creation of Adam, and before the first electron orbited the first atom. In light of that, the mere suggestion of a Plan B is utterly eliminated.

As Christians, we experience Liberty as we are called: By His works. Ironically, this is made manifest by the resistance of those who clearly see, yet deny God's Works all around them. We read in Romans 1:19-22: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

Adam Clarke writes, “The invisible things of him - His invisible perfections are manifested by his visible works, and may be apprehended by what he has made; their immensity showing his omnipotence, their vast variety and contrivance, his omniscience; and their adaptation to the most beneficent purposes, his infinite goodness and philanthropy.

His eternal power - That all-powerful energy that ever was, and ever will exist; so that, ever since there was a creation to be surveyed, there have been intelligent beings to make that survey.”

This next brief section was not originally in my Notes, but I included it in the Discussion ad lib, so I am adding it now.

In the above comments, the statement was made, “...ever since there was a creation to be surveyed, there have been intelligent beings to make that survey.” That calls to mind two things that are worthy of inclusion, here: First, in the Book of Job, when God gives Job the audience he demanded throughout most of the book, God asks him, in Job 38:4 and 7, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? … When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God {the angels} shouted for joy?” As the commentary correctly stated, “...ever since there was a creation to be surveyed, there have been intelligent beings to make that survey.”

The whole idea of intelligent beings being there to survey creation brings a second thing to mind. Dr. Stephen Hawking was commenting on the precision, fine-tuning of the Universe that scientists are discovering. The Scientific Community is now having to re-think Life, which they have always presented as being a “Time and Chance” result of accident and randomness. In stark contrast, they are discovering that dozens of natural forces (e.g. gravity, the expansion rate of the Big Bang, etc.) in the Universe are extremely fine-tuned for Life to exist. It so incredibly fine-tuned that Dr. Hawking wrote in his book, "A Brief History of Time," “Nevertheless, it seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.” In other words, if any other "numbers" in other universes were to be even infinitesimally adjusted from the settings we find in our Universe, Life would not be possible there. That, to me, adds profound significance to the comment: “...ever since there was a creation to be surveyed, there have been intelligent beings to make that survey.” That is true only because both the creation of the Universe, and of Life had a Creator Whose unfathomable brilliance is now coming to be, however grudgingly, recognized by the Scientific Community at long last.

Getting back to the original commentary:
“And Godhead ~ His acting as God in the government and support of the universe. His works prove his being; the government and support of these works prove it equally. Creation and providence form a twofold demonstration of God, 1st. in the perfections of his nature; and, 2ndly. in the exercise of those perfections.”

Because that when they knew God - When they thus acquired a general knowledge of the unity and perfections of the Divine nature, they glorified him not as God - they did not proclaim him to the people, but shut up his glory (as Bishop Warburton expresses it) in their mysteries, and gave the people, in exchange for an incorruptible God, an image made like to corruptible man.

Wherefore God, in punishment for their sins, thus turning his truth into a lie, suffered even their mysteries, which they had erected for a school of virtue, to degenerate into an odious sink of vice and immorality; giving them up unto all uncleanness and vile affections.”

They glorified him not - They did not give him that worship which his perfections required. Neither were

thankful - They manifested no gratitude for the blessings they received from his providence, but became vain in their imaginations, in their reasonings. This certainly refers to the foolish manner in which even the wisest of their philosophers discoursed about the Divine nature, not excepting Socrates, Plato, or Seneca. Who can read their works without being struck with the vanity of their reasonings, as well as with the stupidity of their nonsense, when speaking about God?
I might crowd my page with proofs of this; but it is not necessary to those who are acquainted with their writings, and to others it would not be useful. In short, their foolish, darkened minds sought God no where but in the place in which he is never to be found; viz. the vile, corrupted, and corrupting passions of their own hearts. As they did not discover him there, they scarcely sought him any where else.”

Professing themselves to be wise - This is most strikingly true of all the ancient philosophers, whether Greeks or Romans, as their works, which remain, sufficiently testify. The word φασκοντες signifies not merely the professing but the assumption of the philosophic character. In this sense the word φασκειν is used by the best Greek writers. See Kypke. A dispassionate examination of the doctrine and lives of the most famed philosophers of antiquity, of every nation, will show that they were darkened in their mind and irregular in their conduct. It was from the Christian religion alone that true philosophy and genuine philosophers sprang.”

The Sermon Bible continues regarding those who reject God becoming fools, “The Natural History of Paganism. I. St. Paul’s first proposition is, that from the first the heathen knew enough of God from His works to render them without excuse for not worshipping Him. II. Secondly, the Apostle declares that the heathen have culpably repressed and hindered from its just influence the truth which they did know respecting God. He traces polytheistic and idolatrous worship to its root. (1) Its first origin he finds in a refusal to walk honestly by such light as nature afforded. For this primary step in the very old and very fatal path of religious declension men could excuse themselves under no plea of ignorance. (2) The next step followed surely. That truth about God’s real nature and properties, which men would not strive fairly to express in their worship, became obscured. Vanity and errors entered into human reasonings on religion. "Men became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened." (3) The third step downward was practical folly in religion. Nature worship involved symbol worship. Symbol worship rapidly degenerated into sheer idol worship.

III. It is in this deplorable and criminal perversion of the truth, this religious apostasy, that Paul finds a key to the personal and social vices of heathendom. When the human heart shut out the self-manifestation of the true God, refused to know Him, and worshipped base creatures in His room, it cut itself off by its own act from the source of moral light and moral strength. A bad and false religion must breed a bad and false character. It ought never to be forgotten that heathenism is not simply a misfortune in the world for which the bulk of men are to be pitied but not blamed. It is a crime—a huge, next to world-wide, age-long crime, with its roots in a deep hatred of God, and bearing a prolific crop of utterly inexcusable and hideous vices...
J. Oswald Dykes, The Gospel according to St. Paul, p. 25.”

As Christians, we experience Liberty as we are called: By His ministers
Jesus prayed to His Father regarding those who would become His ministers in John 17:20 : “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;”

Of this, Albert Barnes writes, “Not for the apostles only, but for all who shall be converted under the preaching of the gospel. They will all need similar grace and be exposed to similar trials. It is a matter of unspeakable joy that each Christian, however humble or unknown to men however poor, unlearned, or despised, can reflect that he was remembered in prayer by “him whom God heareth always.” We value the prayers of pious friends.

How much more should we value this petition of the Son of God! To that single prayer we who are Christians owe infinitely more real benefits than the world can ever bestow; and in the midst of any trials we may remember that the Son of God prayed for us, and that the prayer was assuredly heard, and will be answered in reference to all who truly believe.”
We also read in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

Of this, the Sermon Bible says, “If any man should ask what is the chief work of the Christian ministry, here is the answer: God has sent us; we are ambassadors for Christ. God has given us our message, and that message is that He has reconciled the world unto Himself; and He sends us to pray and beseech every one in the world whom we can reach to be reconciled to Him.
I. We are ambassadors—men sent by a King. When an ambassador comes to our country, before he can be received as an ambassador he must show his credentials. St. Paul had proved to those to whom he wrote that he was sent by Christ. He went into the synagogue of the Jews first and testified that Jesus is the Christ. When the Jews refused to receive his message he went to the Gentiles, and many of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized.
No doubt he did miracles also, but they are not mentioned in the account of his embassy to the people of Corinth. The power that went with the message proved that the message was from God. The effects of his message on the minds of the Corinthians were his credentials, for they were the handwriting and the seal of God Himself. They were a new creation. Old things were passed away; all things were become new. They had been renewed in the spirit of their minds, and therefore their life was a new life, and every one might read it for himself.

II. The message is the gospel. God has reconciled us to Himself, and we must be reconciled to Him. He offers us a full, free, eternal pardon for all sins, for all our acts, words, thoughts, done, spoken, and conceived against Him and His law. You must accept that pardon. He assures you that He loves you, loves you with a deep, mysterious, inconceivable love. You must believe that. He tells you that the exceeding great love led Him to give His only-begotten Son to become man, that He might suffer in your place what you deserve to suffer. You will be reconciled to God because you believe that He has reconciled you to Himself.
W. W. Champneys, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 405.”

As Christians, we experience Liberty as we are called: By His gospel
We read in 2 Thessalonians 2:14: “Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Preacher's Homiletical tells us, “The divine will provides the means of salvation.—“Whereunto He called you by our gospel.” The gospel is God’s method of salvation, and it is through this gospel He “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (as we read in 1 Timothy 3:3). If the gospel were but a human expedient, it would fail; but, as it was originated and devised in the divine mind, so it is backed and made forceful by the operation of the divine will.”

The saved soul aspires after glory, but it is glory of the loftiest type. It is not the changeful glory of worldly magnificence. It is not the glory of Paul, or of the greatest human genius. It is “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When the soul catches a glimpse of the splendour of this divine blessedness, it can be satisfied with no lower aims. “Paint and canvas,” said Guthrie, “cannot give the hues of a rainbow or of the beams of the sun.No more can words describe the Saviour’s glory. Nay, what is the most glowing and ecstatic view that the highest faith of a soul, hovering on the borders of another world, ever obtained of Christ, compared with the reality? It is like the sun changed by a frosty fog-bank into a dull, red copper ball—shorn of the splendour that no mortal eyes can look upon.” As it is Christ’s glory that we seek, so it is Christ’s glory we shall share.”

The Liberty we, as Christians, experience: Is from darkness to light.
We read in 1 Peter 2:9: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:”

I will close with Alexander MacCLaren's comments on the above verse: “Here we get a wonderful glimpse into the heart of God. Note the preceding words, in which the writer describes all God’s mercies to His people, making them ‘a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation’; a people ‘His own possession.’ All that is done for one specific purpose—’that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness.’ That is to say, the very aim of all God’s gracious manifestations of Himself is that the men who apprehend them should go forth into the world and show Him for what He is.

Now that aim may be, and often has been, put so as to present an utterly hard and horrible notion. That God’s glory is His only motive may be so stated as to mean nearly an Almighty Selfishness, which is far liker the devil than God. People in old days did not always recognise the danger that lay in such a representation of what we call God’s motive for action. But if you think for a moment about this statement, all that appears hard and repellent drops clean away from it, and it turns out to be another way of saying, ‘God is Love.’ Because, what is there more characteristic of love than an earnest desire to communicate itself and to be manifested and beheld?

And what is it that God reveals to the world for His own glory but the loftiest and most wondrous compassion, that cannot be wearied out, that cannot be provoked, and the most forgiving Omnipotence, that, in answer to all men’s wanderings and rebellions, only seeks to draw them to itself? That is what God wants to be known for. Is that hard and repellent? Does that make Him a great tyrant, who only wants to be abjectly worshipped? No; it makes Him the very embodiment and perfection of the purest love. Why does He desire that He should be known? for any good that it does to Him? No; except the good that even His creatures can do to Him when they gladden His paternal heart by recognising Him for what He is, the Infinite Lover of all souls.
But the reason why He desires, most of all, that the light of His character may pour into every heart is because He would have every heart gladdened and blessed for ever by that received and believed light. So the hard saying that God’s own glory is His supreme end melts into ‘God is Love.’ The Infinite desires to communicate Himself, that by the communication men may be blessed.

II. There is another thing here, and that is, a wonderful glimpse of what Christian people are in the world for: ‘This people have I formed for Myself,’ says the fundamental passage in Isaiah already referred to, ‘they shall show forth My praise.’ It was not worth while forming them except for that. It was still less worth while redeeming them except for that.
But you may say, ‘I am saved in order that I may enjoy all the blessings of salvation, immunities from fear and punishment, and the like.’ Yes! Certainly! But is that all? Or is it the main thing? I think not. There is not a creature in God’s universe so tiny, even although you cannot see it with a microscope, but that it has a claim on Him that made it for its well-being. That is very certain. And so my salvation—with all the blessedness for me that lies wrapped up and hived in that great word—my salvation is an adequate end with God, in all His dealing, and especially in His sending of Jesus Christ. But there is not a creature in the whole universe, though he were mightier than the archangels that stand nearest God’s throne, who is so great and independent that his happiness and well-being is the sole aim of God’s gifts to him. For every one of us the Apostle means the word, ‘No man liveth to himself’—he could not if he were to try—’and no man dieth to himself.’ Every man that receives anything from God is thereby made a steward to impart it to others. So we may say—and I speak now to you who profess to be Christians—’you were not saved for your own sakes.’ One might almost say that that was a by-end. You were saved—shall I say?—for God’s sake; and you were saved for man’s sake?

Just as when you put a bit of leaven into a lump of dough, each grain of the lump, as it is leavened and transformed, becomes the medium for passing on the mysterious transforming influence to the particle beyond, so every one of us, if we have been brought out of darkness into marvellous light, have been so brought, not only that we may recreate and bathe our own eyes in the flooding sunshine, but that we may turn to our brothers and ask them to come too out of the doleful night into the cheerful, gladsome day.

Every man that Jesus Christ conquers on the field He sends behind Him, and says, ‘Take rank in My army. Be My soldier.’ Every yard of line in a new railway when laid down is used to carry materials to make the next yard; and so the terminus is reached. Even so, Christian people were formed for Christ that they might show forth His praise.

Look what a notion that gives us of the dignity of the Christian life, and of the special manifestation of God which is afforded to the world in it. You, if you love as you ought to do, are a witness of something far nobler in God than all the stars in the sky. You, if you set forth as becomes you His glorious character, have crowned the whole manifestation that He makes of Himself in Nature and in Providence. What people learn about God from a true Christian is a better revelation than has ever been made or can be made elsewhere.

So the Bible talks about principalities and powers in heavenly places who have had nobody knows how many millenniums of intercourse with God, nobody knows how deep and intimate, learning from Christian people the manifold wisdom which had folds and folds in it that they had never unfolded and never could have done. ‘Ye are My witnesses,’ saith the Lord. Sun and stars tell of power, wisdom, and a whole host of majestic attributes. We are witnesses that ‘He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.’ Who was it that said, “‘‘Twas great to speak a world from naught,‘Tis greater to redeem?’ ‘Ye are saved that ye may show forth the praise of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.’
III. Lastly, we have here a piece of stringent practical direction: All that I have been saying thus far refers to the way in which the very fact of a man’s being saved from his sin is a revelation of God’s mercy, love, and restoring power. But there are two sides to the thought of my text; and the one is that the very existence of Christian people in the world is a standing witness to the highest glory of God’s name; and the other is that there are characteristics which, as Christian men, we are bound to put forth, and which manifest in another fashion the excellencies of our redeeming God.

The world takes its notions of God, most of all, from the people who say that they belong to God’s family. They read us a great deal more than they read the Bible. They see us; they only hear about Jesus Christ. ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image’ nor any likeness of the Divine, but thou shalt make thyself an image of Him, that men looking at it may learn a little more of what He is. If we have any right to say that we are a royal priesthood, a chosen nation, God’s ‘possession,’ then there will be in us some likeness of Him to whom we belong stamped more or less perfectly upon our characters... The witness of the life which is Godlike is the duty of Christian men and women in the world, and it is mainly what we are here for.
Above all, let us remember that none of these works—either the involuntary and unconscious exhibition of light and beauty and excellencies caught from Him; or the voluntary and vocal proclamations of the name of Him from whom we have caught them—can be done to any good purpose if any taint of self mingles with it. ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may behold your good works and glorify’—whom? you?—’your Father which is in heaven.’”

Let us re-think the Liberty that has been made available to each of us. There is no greater release from captivity than our having been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of God. It makes us understand how Paul and Silas (in Acts 16:24-25), having been chained to a wall in the filthy, rat-infested inner dungeon of a Roman prison, and were still able to sing praises to God. Were they yet captives while they sang? They were, indeed! But they, captives thought they were, had also been set at liberty by Jesus Christ, and fully experienced that “peace that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Paul and Silas were able to look past the chains, past the walls, past the environs of that prison and their captivity, and rejoice in that the Son of God had already set them free. Whatever we are going through at this time, remember Paul's words in Romans 8:18, “that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Paul and Silas were, like each one of us are, free indeed.

This concludes this evening's special Fourth of July Discussion, “Liberty.”

This Discussion was originally presented “live” on July 4th, 2018.

[shadowlou]

amen