Bondage To Freedom - Part 3

Contents 


 

Part 3: Deliverance

 

Quite a deal of space has been devoted thus far to the study of the problem. From this study it must be clear that we do what we do, not because of the weakness or strength of the will, but because of what we are. While we have within us the law of sin and death, we have an evil force within which will take control of the human flesh and blood instrument and use it according to the will of the sin master, without respect to the knowledge, the desires or the conscience of the mind.

 

Therefore, in order to be delivered from this power, the individual must have it taken right out of, and away from, him, and a new life put into its place. There is no other way of entry into the new birth experience. There is no other way of passing from the bondage of Romans seven into the freedom of Romans eight.

 

While this realization of the problem and the need is very vital to gaining deliverance, the question has yet to be answered as to how one is to pass from bondage to deliverance.

 

I well remember giving this study for the first time to a family. Very carefully I explained the problem just as we have done so far in this publication. This phase of the study complete, we paused for a rest.

 

The wife said, "You know, we heard a sermon just like this a few weeks back."

 

"So we did," said the husband. "The preacher laid out the problem much as you have done here. All the way through I listened, for I wanted to understand the problem and its solution. I knew I was in Romans seven and I wanted deliverance from it. But when he had finished setting out the problem, he sat down. In my anxiety to know the answers he had not yet given, I stood and said, 'Pastor, you have given us the problem. Now please tell us the solution. Tell us how to be delivered from this power.'

 

"At this the pastor arose again and very sadly said, 'I am sorry. I cannot tell you, for I have not yet found the answer myself.' I was so disappointed that I could say no more and resumed my unhappy seat."

 

For a moment the man sat thinking back over the experience.

 

Then he turned to me and said, "Are you, too, going to bring us the problem and leave us without the solution to it?"

 

I was so happy to be able to tell him that we had but paused for a moment and that the solution was to follow in very clear terms indeed. So it is that, right here in this publication, we will not leave you here with the problem only. We will spell out the solution in clear and working terms.

 

The gospel is the solution. It is the power of God to save from sin.

 

You may well ask, then, as to why you have not been saved from sin if the gospel is the very power of God given to effect this deliverance. The answer is that the gospel is not the power of God unto salvation to everyone.

 

Read Romans 1:16 carefully to see this. There it is to be seen that Paul did not say: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one." While Paul used these words in this exact order just as they are written here, he did not say what these words say if we stop at this point. What he said was that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone "that believeth". This makes all the difference in the world. The gospel is just so many nice words to the unbeliever, but, to the believer, it is the power of God unto salvation from sin.

 

The apostle John echoed the same truth in the words, "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." 1 John 5:4.

 

Should one put the question to the average professed child of God today, "Do you have faith?" one would receive very prompt answers for the most part to the effect that the person felt assured that he did have faith. In a sense, the answer is correct, for the person does have faith in the Bible as the Word of God. He has faith in God that He is the Supreme Being. He has faith to believe that sin will meet its punishment and that in Jesus alone can salvation be found.

 

But, one can have faith in all of these things and yet not have the faith to have the gospel as the living power of the living God to save him from sin. It is safe to say that anyone who is yet in the Romans seven experience does not have the faith which is the victory that overcometh the world. Faith does not merely bring the victory. It is the victory. Therefore, if you have the faith of which Paul in Romans and John in his epistle speak, then it is certain that you will not be in the experience of Romans seven, but in the deliverance of Romans eight.

 

It is of this faith that Jesus spoke when He said, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"

 

Luke 18:8. The faith of this kind which brings deliverance from the bondage of sin is not the most commonly possessed faith in this world today. Jesus knew that it would be so, and it is for this reason that He asked the question which signified that He did not expect to find too much of that faith when He does come.

 

Yet without this faith, victory is impossible. Therefore, how to exercise this faith must be made very plain. Let us turn to the story of the nobleman who came to Jesus from Capernaum to ask Him to heal his son.

 

"So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto Him, and besought Him that He would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee." John 4:46-54.

 

That which this man sought was physical healing for his son who was so sick that it was not expected that he could live many more hours. Obviously the earthly physicians had given him up to die, having done all that they could to save him.

 

While this is a story concerning the exercise of faith in respect to a physical healing, it has lessons of direct value to us in respect to healing from spiritual sickness. In fact, the deeper purpose in the work of Christ in the healing of physical maladies was to teach both of His power and the way to receive deliverance from spiritual maladies. If we see only Christ as one who had power to heal of leprosy and palsy and such like, then we have failed to read the real message of His ministry of healing. In the Word of God, sickness is a symbol of sin. See Isaiah 1:4-6. Moreover, it is a very apt and adequate symbol of sin, too.

 

Compare what we have studied already about the sin problem, with the problem of disease. 

 

The sick man has a mind and he has a body instrument. In that mind he desires to do

certain things, but the sickness is a power which resides in his flesh and takes command of it so that he cannot do the things he would. Not until the disease has been destroyed out of him can he hope to do again the things which he desires to do. What more perfect picture could you get to illustrate the three-fold nature of the sin problem than this problem of disease? There could hardly be any.

 

So, then, as the nobleman journeyed from Capernaum to Cana to seek the help of Christ, he went seeking a solution to a problem which is identical to the sin problem. He needed the removal of the disease master from within the very body of the boy just as we need the removal of the sin master from our very bodies.

 

Without question he went to the only Person Who could help him, and that was Jesus. He came asking for that which the Lord desired him to have. Therefore, he came asking the right Person for the right thing. But Jesus refused to honour his request. This refusal was not because Christ chose to do it that way or because the man was not in the favour of God. Christ did not, because the nobleman's way of approach to Christ made it impossible for Christ to heal his son.

 

How many times we have knelt in prayer to ask forgiveness for a sin and pled with the Lord to give us the victory over that thing and yet found that the sin was there as if we had never prayed at all. We have gone our way puzzled and perplexed by this and unable to understand why the Lord has not answered our prayer. So this man would likewise have gone his way to find a dead child at home had he not come to see the error in the way in which he had approached Christ and revised that way to the true science of prayer. It was when he came believing, that his prayer was heard and answered.

 

Jesus did not leave this man in ignorance as to his lack of faith. He said to him sadly, "Except you see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." John 4:48. To say to this man, "Ye will not believe", is to say in the plainest of possible language, you do not believe as yet; you are still an unbeliever.

 

But do not overlook the fact that this man knew that he had a great need. You know this, too. He knew that no earthly power could heal his son. Likewise you know that no power on earth can save you from sin. This man came to Christ with his request. So, too, you have come to Christ with your plea to be saved from your sins. This man prayed to Christ, for the placing of a request before Christ is prayer. So you, too, have prayed to Christ many times.

Yet Christ told him quite plainly that, in spite of all that, he was an unbeliever. Christ could do nothing for him.

 

This is to say, that, after having done all that you have done to acquire victory over your sins, you still find yourself in Romans seven, then you are an unbeliever, too. If you are an unbeliever, then you need to understand the way of faith, the faith which works by love and purifies the soul.

 

Just how did this man come to Jesus? The words of Christ to him reveal that to us. "Except you see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." In other words, the man came to Jesus with his request. He placed that request before Jesus. Then he waited to see if Christ could fulfil that request. If He could and did, then the man felt that he would in turn believe in Jesus Christ for himself.

 

This is not the way of saving faith, and never can be the way of saving faith. Yet, if each of us, with the greatest of candour, were to re-examine the way in which we have come to God in prayer we would find that we have come just as that nobleman did. We have come to the Lord and we have asked Him to bless us. Then we have gone away, waiting to see the blessing poured out before we are prepared to believe that we have the gift which has been promised. In fact, it would be safe to say that if the Lord did give us the blessing for which we have asked, we would be rather startled to see it come.

 

The great moment of truth had arrived for the nobleman as it must also arrive for us if we are to experience saving faith. When the Saviour speaks to us words of reproof, then the Spirit of God as the One Who convicts of sin, takes those words deep into the conscience to reveal to us the defects in the character. So it was that the words of Christ were sufficient under the Spirit's ministry to reveal to that man the kind of unbelief which plagued his heart. As he saw what the Saviour had to show him, he must have accepted the reproof. He must have grasped the power which he saw revealed in the life of Christ, his faith must have laid hold upon that power for the Saviour's response to the next prayer he prayed was so different from the first response.

 

The man now besought Jesus with these words, "Sir, come down ere my child die."

There is a difference in this prayer. It may not be possible to discern the difference in the wording of the prayer itself, but we know from the divine response to it that there is a difference. The first brought only a sad rebuke, the second brings deliverance. What is the difference? The difference is that the man now is a believer. We know this because the Scriptures say so. "And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way." Verse 50.

 

 

Cana was not a great distance from Capernaum. It would be no more than tvventy-five kilometres. Christ spoke the words to the father at the seventh hour, which is about one hour after midday, so that the father could easily have walked home that very afternoon. He did not do this. But he would have done so if he had needed to see with his own eyes that the boy was indeed healed.

 

He knew the boy was well. When he arrived home the next day, the servants told him only that which faith had told him the day before. No doubt they were surprised at the absence of any surprise in his response to their announcement.

 

Compare now the changed approach of the man to Christ. It is the comparison of the believer with the unbeliever. In the second instance, he catches a glimpse of the power which is resident in Jesus as the Son of God. His faith lays hold upon that power seeing in it the complete answer to his need. Then he asks for the gift, grasps it by faith, knows it is already his, and then goes his way knowing that blessing, which he already possesses, will be realized when he needs it most.

 

In this is revealed for us the formula for the successful way of faith.

 

Firstly, we must have an accurate knowledge of the problem which we face. How often in the past have you come to God pleading forgiveness for what you have done, without acknowledging the real problem and asking for the removal of that law of sin from within your members? There has been a serious deficiency in the understanding of what we are really dealing with in the sin problem, a deficiency which must be made up before we can pray intelligently and successfully.

 

Secondly, we must know the promises of God until they are not just mere words in the Bible, but are the very power of God to us. To do this they must be read and studied until they are absorbed into our very thinking to the point where they become a part of us.

 

Yet how often have I stood before a group of professed Christians and asked them to repeat for me the great Bible promises of personal victory over sin, to find that the folk were unable to do so. For those who wish to have and to maintain a personal victory over the sin problem, these promises must be a living part of the individual himself. They must be right there, ready to spring from the lips in response to any attack by the enemy or any suggestion to doubt the power of God to save from sin.

 

We would not attempt to give anything like a comprehensive list of all the great promises in the Bible because they are as numerous as they are powerfully effective to save from the law of sin and death. Each person should search them out for himself. Here are a few samples for those who wish to make a start in collecting these capsules of power.

 

"Sin shall not have dominion over you." Romans 6:14. Read these words until you realize that they are the personal promise of God to you that sin shall not have dominion or mastery over you.

 

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1 Corinthians 10:13. As a parent will never permit his child to face dangers too great for its tender years, so the Lord will never permit a temptation to come to you which is too strong for you to bear. For every temptation which does come to you, He has provided the way of deliverance so that there is no excuse of any kind for sin. We "can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth" us. Philippians 4:13.

 

So we might go on and on, but it is better that each person search out the promises for himself. Here are the references for a few more. Matthew 1:21; John 8:36; 1 Corinthians 15:34, 57; 2 Corinthians 2:14; Galatians 3:14-21; Philippians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 5:23, 24; 1 Peter 1:5; 2 Peter 1:4; and Jude 24. In the Old Testament, Psalms 23 and 46 are particularly good promises of power for deliverance. Absorb also the might in Ezekiel 11:19, 20; 36:26.

 

The great objective in the knowing of the promises is to build faith which will work to the purifying of the soul. The more that they are read and studied and made your very own, the more they will build up faith in the experience until there comes a point of outreach whereby you will find yourself laying hold upon the power and experiencing the deliverance which that power alone can bring. Faith is not something which we have naturally. It is not something which we can generate in ourselves. This is impossible. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17.

 

When the point of time is reached that living faith really lays hold on and believes the promises of God, then it is time to take the third step. This is to come to Christ and ask for the blessing. Do not pray the old prayer which has failed to bring success for so long. In the past the pattern of prayer has been, "Lord, I have sinned. Please forgive me for that sin and help me not to ever do it again."

 

This approach has not brought you victory in the past and it will not in the future, either. There has to be a change just as the nobleman had to change his approach to Christ. Instead, you must now pray after these lines. "Lord, I have come to the place where I see that the real problem is to be found in this evil nature which is in me. It is the "power of sin", the "law of sin and death'.', the "body of death", the "carnal mind" and the "stony heart". While that is there, I am an evil tree and can only bear evil fruit for my body is under the control of that power. Lord, you have promised to take away the stony heart and give me a new heart altogether. I absolutely believe that you will do this, and accordingly I give you this old heart. Take it from me. I do not want it. Then into its place put a new heart altogether. Make me to be a partaker of your own divine nature. By faith and, therefore, in fact, I receive this blessedness and I thank you for it. In Jesus' saving name, Amen."

 

If living faith has become your possession, then you will not at this time wait to see the blessing before you know that you have it. You will know right there and then that you have been delivered, that sin has no more dominion over you and that you have become a true child of God at last. Resist at all costs the tendency of the human nature to want to wait to see the results before you believe. Do not wait to feel that you have been transformed. Believe it because the Word of God says so and you will find very soon that it is so.

 

The nobleman did not wait to see his son alive and well before he believed that he was completely healed. He did not need to see it for he had the Word of God through Christ that it was so and that was enough. Faith rests on the Word of God not upon sight and feeling, which can change so easily from day to day. Therefore, to understand where you stand in the relation to God, look to the Word of God and let it and not feeling be your answer.

 

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