You may be in slavery and not realize it. Whatever occupies your time, your thoughts, your energy is holding you as a slave. What can you do about it? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah shares five principles from Scripture.
to help you transform from a servant of sin into a servant of God. What are you a slave to? With his important message, finding freedom through slavery, here's David. You know, when you read the Bible, sometimes things sort of jump out at you and you wonder, what does that mean? It seems so strong.
The Bible says that before we become Christians, before we come to Christ for forgiveness, we are slaves. to sin. We are bound to sin. We want to be helped. We can't help ourselves.
Some of you know what addiction is about. The Bible tells us that before we come to Christ, we're addicted. To sin. We can't help ourselves.
We want freedom, but we don't know how to get it. and then enter Jesus Christ and the freedom of the cross. That's what we're going to talk about today. I hope you'll be with us. Our passage of Scripture is Romans chapter 6.
We are finishing up the month of July, and I've had such a wonderful time telling you about my friend Rob Morgan and the book that he wrote to help us appreciate our 250th anniversary. I think he wrote it before that, but it's just a wonderful treasure because it reminds us that this nation is a nation that is built on the principles of the Bible. This nation is... going in the wrong direction in my estimation at the present time because it's going away from those biblical principles. We can get back to the Bible, get back to those principles, we'll get back to the joy of what it means to be a Christian and yes, what it means to be an American.
This book, A Hundred Bible Verses That Made America, is our resource for the month of July. If you'll send a gift of any size to help us during this month, we'll send this 350-page hardback book to you. When you send your gift, ask for this book and it will be on its way.
Now let's get started with part one of finding victory and freedom through slavery. Open your Bibles to the sixth chapter of the book of Romans, Romans chapter six. Uh I kept running into these statements in the New Testament, especially that Seem like a disconnect. Statements that On the surface.
Sounded like they were contradictory. I later discovered as I studied more and more that these paradoxes of the New Testament were special tools that God chose. to help us get a hold of Dynamic truth about the Christian life. The paradox is Are many. If you're a Christian, the way up is the way down.
That exaltation comes through humiliation. Just as the Lord Jesus came from heaven down here to be one of us and then was exalted to the right hand of the Father, the Bible tells us that God resists the proud, but He lifts up the humble. The way to strength for a Christian is through weakness, the realization that you don't have what you need, and but the Lord God has everything you need. We can learn how to live by learning how to die. Today I want to talk with you about freedom.
through slavery. Years ago, Bob Dylan wrote a song that you may remember. The lyrics of it go something like this: You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble, you may like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world.
you might be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you're going to have to serve.
Somebody. You may be a construction worker working on a home. You may be living in a mansion. You might even live in a dome. You may own guns and you may even own tanks.
You might be somebody's landlord. You may even own banks. But you're going to have to serve.
Somebody. Everybody's got to serve.
Somebody. And so, the question I want to pose to you today is: whose slave are you?
Okay. Everybody is a slave. in the sense that this passage is meant. That means we serve something. We serve someone.
And we're going to learn about that today. And I want to ask you to stay focused and follow the train of thought that Paul leaves for us here in the sixth chapter. For he's going to take The institution of slavery as he knew it then. He's not endorsing it, and he never does because it was an evil institution. But it was what was there, and so he used something that was there to teach us an important lesson.
We begin in the 16th verse of the sixth chapter of Romans with what we might call the characteristics of slavery. And Romans 6:16 says, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one's slaves whom you obey. whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness.
Now, it's been estimated that when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans. There were well over 600,000 slaves in Rome. It was Not possible for you to have lived in Rome and not understood slavery because it was everywhere present. The Old Testament law taught That when a person had been a slave for seven years, The Old Testament law required that the master of that slave At the end of the seven years, offer him his freedom.
So that he can either become a free man or choose to serve under the mastership of another.
Now, when a man decides that he is no longer Wanting to stay under the same master at that seven-year period of time, he can leave. But many of the slaves of that day realized that they had it really good under their masters because their masters treated them very well. And that they were living better as a slave than many people they knew who were out of slavery, and that the future for them would be much better if they just stayed in the situation they were in.
So, if that were to happen, they would go to their master and say, I don't want to be set free. I want to continue to be your slave. And if that were happening, The master, according to the Old Testament, would take the slave and they would bore a hole in his ear with an awl. And that hole would be a simple signature Of the master, and it would say, This particular person has presented himself to his master. to become his slave for the rest of his life.
That is the metaphor Paul is using here. Once again, he's not endorsing slavery. Slavery was an ugly thing, but it was there. And he just used something that was there. And the Old Testament regulated how this was to happen.
Now Whenever a person offered himself as a slave in this manner, he gave up his freedom. and he became totally subservient to his new master. The logic of what Paul is saying in these verses is captured in five principles, five concepts, and I'm going to give them to you quickly. Even though you may not understand how they fit into all of this, if you hold them, you will see in a short moment how this works. First of all, principle number one, concept number one, slavery is about obedience.
If you look into the 16th verse of this chapter, you'll know that the word obey is in there twice. And when I yield myself over to another person or to a totalitarian power, I am no longer a free man. Isn't that true? When you give the authority of your life to someone else, you no longer are free. From the moment of my new surrender, my master decides what I do and what I am.
Once I make my choice, The result is no longer up to me. I submit myself to the influence, and the influence takes over, and I become obedient to that person or to that influence. Slavery is about obedience. Once again, To whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey. Slavery is about obedience.
Secondly, slavery is about opposites. Paul sets the table here for this passage in a very strange way. Basically what he says is there's only two kinds of slavery. In the metaphor that he's using in verse 16, he gives it to us this way: whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. In essence, there are only two directions in which slavery can go in the spiritual sense.
Everyone is a slave either to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness and life.
Now let's face it. We're a slave either to sin or we're a slave to righteousness. And Jesus made it very clear. That this is true. In John 8:34, Jesus said, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
But the Bible also teaches us that there comes a time in our life, and we'll see this in a moment, when we turn our back on our slavery to sin and we become slaves to Christ.
So here are two completely different lives, lives totally opposed to one another, the life of the old self and the life of the new. They are what Jesus termed the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to life. Paul calls these two things two slaveries. By birth, we are slaves of sin. In sin, our mothers conceive us, the Bible tells us.
We're born into the slavery of sin. By grace and faith, we become slaves of Christ. Slavery is about obedience. Whatever we obey, whom we obey, that's who we're a slave to. Slavery is about opposites.
There's only two slaveries, to sin and to righteousness. And then, thirdly, slavery is about opposition. How many of you know that the old you doesn't like the new you? Did you know that? When you became a Christian, And Almighty God began to work on you from the inside out.
It wasn't just a walk in the park, was it? There's been this tension, this struggle. Paul writing to the Galatians in chapter 5 and verse 17 put it this way: for the flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another.
So that you do not do the things that you wish. Can I get a witness? Isn't that our experience? You don't just become a Christian, and from then on you make all the right choices. There's no tension, it's just a walk in the park, you just go on to heaven floating on a cloud.
No, no, you become a Christian, a war starts within you. Listen to me. The old slavery doesn't like the new slavery. Satan doesn't like when things are taken away from him. And so when you become a Christian, that which you once were and that which you have become are in opposition to one another.
Slavery is about obedience and opposites and opposition. And then slavery is about options. You can't be the slave of two things at the same time. You have to make a decision. Jesus put it this way: no one can serve two masters.
For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You can't serve God and man. In other words, If you're a slave to sin, you can't be a slave to Christ. And if you're a slave to Christ, you can't be a slave to sin. And then the fifth principle is: slavery is not only about obedience and opposites and opposition and options, but slavery is about outcomes.
How do you know whose slave somebody is? Not by what they say. We proclaim who our Master is by what we do. Romans 6:16 says, sin leading the death or obedience leading to righteousness. In the book of Matthew, the Lord Jesus says, Therefore, by their fruit you will know them.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, said the Lord. But he who does the will of my Father in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who. Practice Lawlessness. The Bible says that if you hang out with somebody long enough, you'll know whose slave they are.
Give me a week to walk with you, and I can tell you whether you're a slave of Christ or a slave of sin. It's not absolute, as you know. But you can tell. Who we are, how we live is the Proclamation of our commitment. That's true.
Now, what Paul's going to do next is help us understand. By kind of reviewing the condition of the Romans and taking us through a little story about them, how this slavery thing works as it's applied to the Christian life. He's going to take us through a cycle, and we'll go through this quickly because it's important to see it quickly so you get the picture. First of all, he's talking to the Romans, and he says to them that they were enslaved. Notice verse 17: He said, But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin.
In other words, he is saying as he talks to the Romans, you were once slaves of sin. Not now, but once you were slaves of sin. And then something happened. They were enslaved, but they became enlightened. Notice verse 17 again.
But you obeyed from the heart. That form of doctrine to which you were delivered. Let me tell you how special this little paragraph is. Paul is talking to the Romans and he's saying to them, There was a time when you were slaves to sin. You didn't know Christ.
You didn't know what it meant to know God. You were enslaved in your own sinful behavior. But you were enlightened. And he uses a phrase here that is so amazing to me. He says, You became obedient.
to a form of doctrine. And that form of doctrine enlightened you.
Now, the word form that is here in the text. is a word which means a frame or Here's the best illustration I can tell you. I remember growing up, my mother used to make jello, and she used to put it in a jello mold. She'd pour the jello into this mold, and it had all kinds of beautiful little things. The jello would be in the mold, and they'd put it in the refrigerator.
And then, when the jello got cold, you bring it out. I can still see her turning it over and kind of gently shaking it. And you pull the mold off, and what does the jello look like? It looks exactly like the mold.
Now, watch. Paul said to the Romans, You were enslaved to sin, but then you were enlightened by the mold of doctrine into which you were poured. This is so important in the day in which we live, ladies and gentlemen, because doctrine is no longer a term found in most churches. In most churches, it's church light. In most churches, don't give me doctrine.
That doesn't do anything for me. Tell me stories. Let me leave here with the warm fuzzies. Let me come to church and get pumped up. but don't give me doctrine.
I want to tell you something, without doctrine, it's very difficult for people to be enlightened. People need the truth. First of all, The truth is poured into the doctrine, and then the doctrine is poured into the people. And Paul's concept here is incredible to me. He said, You were slaves to sin.
What is the power that will take you out of that slavery, being enlightened by a form of doctrine? Doctrine, which changes your life. What is doctrine? It's the systematic teaching of the Word of God. It's not church light.
I came across these sarcastic words by Wilbur Reese, see if they don't resonate with something you know. He wrote, I would like to buy three dollars worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep. But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I'd like to buy just $3 worth of God, please. Did you know that's where a lot of folks are today? Don't give us doctrine.
Give us something that makes us feel good, but feel good doesn't change lives. And what Paul is doing while he writes to the Romans is giving us some great truth here. He's saying, You were enslaved to sin, but you were changed by the form of doctrine to which you were exposed. And then, through this enlightenment, you were emancipated, you were set free. And then it starts all over again.
Having been enslaved and enlightened and emancipated, now they're enslaved again. Notice verse 18: and you became slaves of righteousness. Once again, you can't be slaves to two masters. These Romans, as Paul writes to them, had been enslaved to sin, and then they heard the gospel and the mold or the truth that was poured into them, and they were enlightened, and they became Christians and they were emancipated. And now the Bible says, And now, having been set free from the old slavery, you become slaves to Christ.
Wow.
Now How are these things alike? From the characteristics of slavery to the cycle of slavery, we now see the comparisons of it. And I want you to notice two phrases in verse 19 that put this together for us grammatically. He says, Just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness to holiness.
Now, here's Paul's teaching: He's saying, There was a time when you presented your members, which is your faculties, your mind, your heart, your soul, your body. Your members, he said, you presented your members to slavery, to sin. Just as you did it then, so now do that same thing to your new master. to Christ. Paul says that our response to grace is to be as absolute as our response was to sin.
The Apostle uses this parallel language to make this point. First of all, giving us the illustration of the old slavery. He says, Just as you once presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, Isn't that what we did when we were not Christians? Before coming to Christ, we gave ourselves to sin. We didn't even think it was a bad thing.
It was just what everybody did. What did you do when you didn't know Christ? You did what you wanted to do. What was best for you? What made you happy?
What gave you pleasure? What turned you on? That's where the world is today. We made our bodies available to Satan to use for whatever purposes. And when Paul uses the word uncleanness, he's talking about our outward life.
And when he uses the word lawlessness, he's talking about our inward life. And when he describes it as leading to more lawlessness, what he's telling us is that sin is not static, it's dynamic. That there isn't anything such as just being In a holding pattern in your sin. Here's the way it looks, folks: you're either getting better or you're getting worse, but you're not standing still. Aristotle years before Paul.
Gave us this insight in a little paragraph I found. He said, Each action which we do in life is voluntary. But with each voluntary action, our disposition becomes increasingly involuntary. Over a period of time, we continue to make choices, but the choices are influenced by our former choices until a predisposition toward right or wrong choices develops within us. Isn't that true?
Let me give you the modern paradigm of that that you've probably heard before. It goes like this: sow and act. Reap a habit.
So a habit Reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a life. There is no such thing, young people, as a unimportant choice. Every choice we make prepares us to make the next choice and influences the next choice that we make, which influences the next choice, so that if you sow an act, It will become a habit. And if you sow a habit, it will become your character. and if you sow a character, it will become your life.
Paul talks about the old slavery, but now he wants us to understand how that applies to who we are in Christ. Notice verse 19.
So now. Present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. We are to take ourselves, and just as we allowed Sin and pleasure and Satan and all of that just to have us. We're to come now to Christ, and in the same way, we're to say to Him, Lord God, I am your slave. Take me, use me for your purposes.
Whatever you want, that's what I want. Tell me what to do, Lord. I'm ready to do it. Where are we going today, Lord? I'm your slave.
I want to be your servant. And as we follow this pattern in Christ, we will discover. That yielding ourselves to righteousness will have the same exponential effect on us as unrighteousness had before. If we go on living this righteous life and practicing it with all of our might and energy and all of our time, here's what we will find. We will find that the process that went on before, in which we went from bad to worse and became Violer and violer is upside down and reversed.
You become cleaner and cleaner and purer and purer and holier and holier and more and more conformed into the image of the Son of God. That's how it works. You make a choice for God, and it makes the next choice for God easier to make. And little by little, you sow these choices of righteousness, and these choices become habits, and these habits become your character, and then your character becomes your life. One of the things this proves, if it doesn't prove anything else, men and women, is this: there's no such thing.
as staying the same as you are. You're either getting more and more holy or getting more and more sinful. Oh no, you say, Pastor, I'm in the holding pattern. No, you're not. You may think you are, but you're not.
You're even going toward Christ. or you're moving away from you.
So once again, I want to ask you: whose slave are you? Yeah. Paul um considered himself bound to Christ in the kind of slavery that was voluntary but so overwhelmingly productive for Paul. He only did those things which he knew Christ wanted him to do. and he followed Christ as a slave would follow his master.
That's the way to find victory. You might think, oh, that's not what I want to do. I want more freedom to have fun and do my thing.
Well, is it making you happy? Is it giving you joy? Has it caused you to have satisfaction in your life? Are you looking back and saying, Boy, I'm sure glad I lived my life that way? The Bible teaches you a new way, and that's what we're talking about during these.
days in the month of July we're talking about. making sense of it all. Seeing the world with a biblical perspective. And we'll continue that tomorrow, right here on this good station. For more information on today's special message from Dr.
Jeremiah, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of Robert J. Morgan's inspiring book, 100 Bible Verses That Made America.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Version, available in your choice of handsome and durable cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow for more of our special message from Dr.
David Jeremiah here on Turning Point.
