The
duty to liberty also is a marvelous mission. It’s accomplished in
accordance to the Son of Yahweh’s program and the ordinances of His
kingdom, which is firmly founded upon the terrain of truth high upon the
Mount of Moriah. Being free means achieving the hard-won fruits of
liberty by acting in the truth that we’ve learned in the course of our
quest for ultimate salvation.
This message is dedicated to
Sister Dorothy Stang (1930 – 2005) OBM, of Dayton, OH, reformer and
martyr in the Amazon Jungle, February 13, 2005.
John 8:31.
To the Jews who believed in him Yahshua said:
If you make my word your home you will
indeed be my disciples; 32. you will
come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
33. They
answered, "We are descended from Abraham and
we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean, `You will be
set free?'"
34. Yahshua
replied: In all truth I tell you, everyone
who commits sin is a slave. 35. Now
a slave has no permanent standing in the household, but a son belongs to
it forever. 36. So if the Son sets
you free, you will indeed be free. 37.
I know that you are descended from Abraham;
but you want to kill me because my word finds no place in you.
38. What I speak of is what I have seen at
my Father's side, and you too put into action the lessons you have learnt
from your father.
39. They
repeated, "Our father is Abraham."
Yahshua said to
them: If you are Abraham's children, do as
Abraham did. 40. As it is, you want
to kill me, a man who has told you the truth as I have learnt it from
Yahweh; that is not what Abraham did. 41.
You are doing your father's work.
They replied, "We
were not born illegitimate, the only father we have is Yahweh."
42. Yahshua
answered: If Yahweh were your father, you
would love me, since I have my origin in Yahweh and have come from him; I
did not come of my own accord, but he sent me. 43.
Why do you not understand what I say? Because
you cannot bear to listen to my words. 44.
You are from your father, the devil, and you
prefer to do what your father wants. He was a murderer from the start; he
was never grounded in the truth; there is no truth in him at all. When
he lies he is speaking true to his nature, because he is a liar, and the
father of lies. 45. But it is because
I speak the truth that you do not believe me. 46.
Can any of you convict me of sin? If I speak
the truth, why do you not believe me? (NJB)
Psalms 91:1.
You who live in the secret place of Elyon, spend your nights in the
shelter of Shaddai, 2. saying to Yahweh, "My refuge, my fortress, my
Elohim in whom I trust!" 3. He liberates (liberabit,
Vulgate) you from the snare of the fowler set on destruction; 4. he
covers you with his pinions, you find shelter under his wings. His
constancy is shield and protection. 5. You need not fear the terrors of
night, the arrow that flies in the daytime, 6. the plague that stalks in
the darkness, the scourge that wreaks havoc at high noon. 7. Though a
thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, you yourself
will remain unscathed. 8. You have only to keep your eyes open to see
how the wicked are repaid, 9. you who say, "Yahweh my refuge!" and make
Elyon your fortress. 10. No disaster can overtake you, no plague come
near your tent; 11. he has given his angels orders about you to guard you
wherever you go. 12. They will carry you in their arms in case you trip
over a stone. 13. You will walk upon wild beast and adder, you will
trample young lions and snakes. (NJB)
Ephesians 1:1.
Paul, by the will of Yahweh an apostle of Messiah Yahshua, to Yahweh's
holy people, faithful in Messiah Yahshua. 2. Grace and peace to you from
Yahweh our Father and from the Sovereign Yahshua Messiah.
3. Blessed be
Yahweh the Father of our Sovereign Yahshua Messiah, who has blessed us
with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Messiah. 4. Thus he chose
us in Messiah before the world was made to be holy and faultless before
him in love, 5. marking us out for himself beforehand, to be adopted
sons, through Yahshua Messiah. Such was his purpose and good pleasure,
6. to the praise of the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the
Beloved, 7. in whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the
forgiveness of our sins. Such is the richness of the grace 8. which he
has showered on us in all wisdom and insight.
9. He has let us
know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he
determined beforehand in Messiah, 10. for him to act upon when the times
had run their course: that he would [gather]
everything together under Messiah, as head, everything in the
heavens and everything on earth. 11. And it is in him that we have
received our heritage, marked out beforehand as we were, under the plan
of the One who guides all things as he decides by his own will, 12.
chosen to be, for the praise of his glory, the people who would put their
hopes in Messiah before he came.
13. Now you too,
in him, have heard the message of the truth and the gospel of your
salvation, and having put your trust in it you have been stamped with the
seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise, 14. who is the pledge of our
inheritance, for the freedom of the people whom Yahweh has taken for his
own, for the praise of his glory. (NJB)
Liberation Theology
Maybe you’ve
heard the term “Liberation
Theology.” It’s still a fairly new movement of the last thirty
years, and it’s mostly applied to the struggle to unify the desperate
people of Latin America so they might gain liberty by throwing off the
chains of colonialism, tyranny and poverty by any means available.
Liberation Theology replaces the revelation of G-d in the Bible with
notions of G-d perceived in the interactions between people and their
circumstances. Liberation Theology seeks to unify the masses under G-d
for the purpose of changing adverse circumstances. Liberation may then
be achieved by confronting the political and economic structures that
stifle society, overpowering them by whatever means is thought
necessary. In most cases, the means is violence followed by Communism.
In the 70s and
80s, the newspapers were teeming with stories of violent acts done in the
name of G-d in countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala and Colombia. There
was controversy in our denomination because some of our agencies saw
violence as a valid expression of G-d’s struggle to free, and some church
money (in those days) went to leftist insurgents.
Today we see
an Islamic variety of Liberation Theology at work in Israel, as the
Intifada[1]
continues, and terrorist acts against the Israeli people are committed
with the blessings of Allah. Our hope is that the good news of peace
from Israel in recent days isn’t short-lived; we pray for the peace of
Jerusalem continually.
From the sound
of it, Liberation Theology ought to lead to unity, peace, freedom,
liberty and spiritual conversion. But from what we’ve seen, what’s
called “Liberation” is a smoke screen. It might better be termed
Destruction Theology, Struggle Theology or Bondage Theology. As today’s
the first Sunday of Lent, the season we struggle to come to terms with
our own bondage and achieve liberty through introspection and good works,
let’s leave behind the false front of “liberation” and consider
instead the kind that brings lasting unity, freedom and liberty to
Yahweh’s people, no matter where they live, no matter what their
circumstances, no matter who they are.
Unity, Liberty and their Mere
Appearances
First,
creating the unity that ought to exist in us
and among us means gathering and accumulating in the
very same space that our Savior inhabits. “Unity in Yahshua” is the
basic program of Yahweh's kingdom for us who seek liberty. In
Messiah’s words today, words that he spoke to those who supposedly
believed him, he creates for us a united front in opposition to
the evil spirit's activity in, among and around us; for the devil stakes
his entire strategic plan on the appearance of unbounded liberty.
The devil tempts us with the kind of freedom that can’t be ours. The
devil sweet-talks entire social groups, societies and generations; he
claims, “You’re free to be, do and say anything that YOU want, because G-d’s
grace covers a multitude of sins.”
However,
mature thinkers know that, in the end, unbounded liberty is nothing more
than our adaptation to boundaries: we’re limited in senses and
instincts, fenced in by the natural circumstances of any particular
situation, boundaried by a fragmentary fraction of information, contained
in our capacity to communicate, stifled by our stinkin’ thinkin’ and
habitual ways of evaluating and behaving; afraid to ask ourselves the
most important and fundamental question — ¿is such and such a
way of sensing, communicating, thinking, behaving good or bad,
worthy or unworthy of the cut of a person who finds her freedom in
the Son of Man? Dare she be truthful to herself and recognize that,
in the end, her perceived unlimited liberty is in fact
imprisonment and slavery?
Half the
battle for liberation is in recognizing that the natural man is hardly
free to do anything; all is appearances and blurry perception.
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The Truth is Freedom
Have you ever
noticed that Yahshua never flatters? He doesn’t butter up potential
disciples with the notion that “The Way” is a way of
unrestricted liberty. He says instead, "Know the truth, and the
truth will set you free"
(John 8:32).
In this way, He shows that freedom in unity with Him hasn’t been
appointed to humankind as license to do as one pleases, but rather as a
duty to fulfill His commandments. True freedom entails the
responsibility to complete one’s heavenly assignment and life-sized
commission – firstly, as a bondservant. In fact, the fulfillment of
one’s heavenly duty is the greatest measure of one’s life in the end, for
one’s privilege to life isn’t one’s own property. If you want to be
free, you can’t own yourself. If you want to be free, you can’t make use
of yourself any way you want nor squander yourself away. If you want to
be free, you must be a slave and love your slavery as much as your
master.
But –
your duty to your Master also entails a marvelous mission,
accomplished in accordance to the Son’s program and the ordinances of His
kingdom, firmly founded upon the terrain of truth high atop the Mount of
Moriah. Becoming free means achieving hard-won fruits of liberty
by considering then acting on the truth that we’re learning in the
course of our quest for ultimate salvation. That’s why the right church
is important – we all need to learn truth, and truth is pretty rare these
days.
Being free
also means knowing when and how to yield, how to submit to the truth, and
how not to consider one's own fancies, notions, culture or will,
or one's special interests, as truths. Being free,
according to Messiah's program and Kingdom, doesn’t mean passive
enjoyment or inactive entertainments, but effort: liberty is labor;
freedom requires travail. At the price of such exertion, one doesn’t
waste one’s time or spend one’s life, but, together with
Yahshua, "gathers" and "accumulates," adds, not subtracts.
The Unity
of Personhood a Benefit
For the price,
a person may also receive something of incredible value – unity of
personhood – a benefit of the Kingdom of Yahweh then, but of
great use here and now. The resulting pleasure of unity of
personhood is the feeling of satisfaction with life, wholeness
in life and fearlessness of life in the future. For the
price, marriages, families, social groups, societies, churches, may
achieve similar unity: the unity of truth with liberty and the
unity of liberty with truth.
Friends!
Achieving this kind of unity and liberty is part of your mission, or else
Providence wouldn’t have plucked you up and plopped you here to be
instructed time after time. Too many’ve started down the narrow path,
only to give in, to surrender to that other program that’s so
successful in perpetuating itself like a virus in the organism of our
generation: I’m talking about the program of the person whom the Son of
Man calls "the father of lies" (John 8:44). His program seems so real;
yet billions have learned of his seductive unreality at the point of
death; too late, it seems.
The Right to Conversion
Look, Messiah didn’t stake his
Kingdom's program on appearances. He builds it upon the rock of truth.
Our movement through the Scripture during the Lenten season reminds us of
the toxicity of sin and the antidote of conversion; the
Scriptures remind us day after day, week by week, as we follow Yahshua
south from Galilee to Jerusalem, to the triumphal entry, to the last
supper, to the torture stake, to the cave, then unto the perfect
conversion. This Passion isn’t just a sad, violent story shaped
for the silver screen; it’s his true story – and it’s our story –
and his journey is ours, everyday. That’s the reality – you’re going to
die, and maybe horribly – unless you choose to peer behind the appearance
and look Yahweh’s truth in the face, receive it and be converted. It’s
your right to die – and it’s your right to never die. Take your choice.
The right
to conversion coincides to the truth about a person’s external life
and passage. The right to conversion also coincides to a person’s
inner truth, as well. What your Savior ardently implores of you during
the Lenten season is that you shall not let His truth in you be
stifled nor shall you deprive yourself of it. Your
Savior demands that you shall not allow this truth to be snatched
away by the illusionary demon called "unlimited liberty."
That you shall not cease to hear the cry of conscience
within yourself as the cry of Truth, the Truth
that surpasses you, the Truth that also decides about you
and judges you.
The Savior
prays that each man and woman — the young, especially – may not
take the veneer of liberty and the facade of liberation for
the kind of liberty and liberation built upon the rock of truth in
Yahshua Messiah. Your Savior prays about this every single day as he
makes intercession for you.
"Oh,
that today you would hear His voice: Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works"
(Psalms 95:8-9).
Yes! May you,
lady, witness of creation – and you, sir —witness of the Cross: keep your
hearts open and your consciences clear. May you have in you that
liberty for which your Savior has saved you. Amen.
A Liberator Needed
Next: The
spirit and practice of penitence, that is, “remorse for past
conduct,” stimulates us to sincerely detach ourselves from everything we
have that’s unessential, sometimes even things we consider
necessary, but hinder us from being truly what our Father wishes of us;
for "Where your treasure is, there your
heart is also"
(Matthew 6:21).
¿Are our
hearts holding fast to material resources? To power over others? To
egoistically and subtle ways of domineering? To destroying the system?
To violence and depravity? If so, we need Yahshua the Liberator.
Only if we cooperate fully may He loose us from sinful stumbling
stones that’re constantly tripping us up and casting us off the narrow
pathway that leads to life, truth and liberty. Let’s be ready to allow
ourselves the luxury of the Resurrection by freeing ourselves from every
false treasure, with His divine help. The goods to which we cling, those
things that’re unnecessary and unhelpful to us, may constitute the
essential elements of survival for millions of human beings
world-wide: people who possess the very same hopes and aspirations as
you, but don’t possess the worldly and unnecessary attachments that sap
your spirituality.
But
hundreds of millions, deprived of everything, even
their dignity as men and women, boys or girls, who need the barest
minimum for survival – they look usward to find their
subsistence – as well as that which might insure their countries’
economic and cultural development. If we’d only cast off more and be
free. Many today disdain the fact that we do so much to bring relief to
the afflictions of the world. To be selfishly against sharing one’s loot
with the less fortunate is a sad, unchristian and xenophobic attitude.
However, even
if we have good intentions toward the needs of others, or even if we make
that donation, or offer that gift, the act is simply not enough.
Only through the supernatural transformation of flesh to spirit
can our offering matter in a heavenly sense; only through our
conversion may a meeting of hearts or a sharing of lives or gifts be
considered overt acts of a Christian convert. For to do
Kingdom-style acts or share Kingdom-style attitudes, one must
first be in the Unseen Kingdom, and that means one must be
converted.
1 Corinthians
15:50. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of G-d; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption. 51. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed….
Only if we’re
in the Kingdom – only if we’ve put on incorruption – only if we’ve been
converted, may we care for the Master by caring for others, intimately
living within ourselves the mystery of the suffering and redemptive death
of the King of Glory.
Liberation Theology
You might
recall that, when the devil had made Yahshua prisoner on the highest
pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem, he spoke the words of the prophetic
Psalm 91 – about the providence of Yahweh for those who are converted:
“If thou be the Son
of Elohim, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels
charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” As we recall, Yahshua
rebuked the devil, saying, "You shall not
put Yahweh your Elohim to the test" (Matthew 4:6,7).
The Son
rebuked Satan for misusing the divine words, interpreting them
perversely and falsifying the truth contained in them. You
see, Yahshua knew the entire Psalm – we do not. For earlier on in it,
Yahweh says,
“You
will not fear the terror in the night, you will not fear the arrow in the
day, a thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right
hand, but the terror won’t come nigh unto you. For YAHWEH SHALL LIBERATE
YOU (Psalm 91:3 – ipse liberabit te).
How shall he
liberate? What is Yahweh’s theology of liberation? Here it is – you and
he together shall trample and crush both lion and adder. ¿By quoting
these liberating words, has the devil no fear that the Almighty
will do the same to him? Indeed, for the converted, the serpent has
been trampled to dust already.
The Voice of
Messiah reminds us every day during Lent of the proper meaning of the
liberation of humankind, that which Yahweh accomplished once and goes
on accomplishing in his Son: liberation from sin, liberation from the
desires of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, the pride of life (1
John 2:16), liberation from what coerces people the most – that is, the
illusion of reality, the allure of fantasy – Yahweh will trample them
down and destroy that which desecrates his converted loved one. The true
liberation of man, that which is brought to him by Messiah, is the
liberation from the hallucination of liberation, from the
appearance of liberty that isn’t true freedom. AND, as Psalm 91:3
has promised, “HE WILL LIBERATE YOU!” You
will come to know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
During the
season of Lent, the Assembly of the Faithful in all quarters calls upon
us to bow our heads to Yahweh and ask him to change our hearts – to take
away every false appearance and wrong idea, and CONVERT US. Then, when
we lift up our eyes to the hills from whence cometh our help, we shall
see Messiah, the buyer-back of all Humanity sold under sin. He shows
us, by means of His journey to Jerusalem, then definitively through His
suffering and death, further through his startling return to life, what
"being free," is really all about.
[1]
A “shaking off” - an
uprising by Palestinian Arabs (in both the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank) against Israel in the late 1980s and again in 2000; "the first
intifada ended when Israel granted limited autonomy to the Palestine
National Authority in 1993."
Excellent
Believers' Historic DVDs Gifts Sets
Word Studies in the
Greek New Testament
New Jerusalem Messianic Resources
