Articles
Who is Worthy to be Free?
I’m currently reading David McCullough’s biography on President John Adams. President Adams was from the State of Massachusetts and was the second president of our na-tion. He was also one of the key indi-viduals in the American Revolution. His wife was Abagail Adams. Leading up to summer of 1776 and the debate going on about declaring freedom from Great Britain, she questioned the sin-cerity of some of those men who were declaring that all men were born free and should be free and yet they owned slaves. She said, “I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been ac-customed to deprive their fellow crea-ture of theirs. I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always seemed a most iniquitous scheme to me – [to] ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.” What a bold and courageous woman! She implored her husband, who also refused to own slaves, to implore others to include the elimination of slavery in the Declara-tion of Independence. Unfortunately, it was not added and 86 years later our nation was torn apart and fell into a civil war over this issue.
As Christians, we are bewildered over how someone could think that a fellow human being was less worthy of being free because of the color of his skin. However, if we are not careful, we can be guilty of having a similar arrogant heart by believing that we are worthy of spiritual freedom and an eternity in heaven, but other souls are not.
If I asked a group of Bible students to write down, with the ex-ception of Jesus, 10 people in the Bible who were great faithful servants of God I wouldn’t be surprised if Moses, David, and Paul made everyone’s list. What is one of the things that these three men had in common? They were all murderers. While God does not rank sins, man does and in doing so often ranks murder at the top of the list. The key is that they were all re-pentant murderers and God forgave them. Do we have that kind of heart if repentance is shown? Or do we believe that a mur-derer is forever unworthy to be spiritually free? Do we take pleasure in seeing those who are in prison for murder and other awful deeds and even hope that one day “they will get theirs” eternally? I hope not.
I suspect that theft ranks pretty high up on our list of sins. We work hard, and through the gracious hand of God, are able to buy things we need and things for the enjoyment of our our-selves and our loved ones. And when someone comes along and steals from us, we are justifiably angry. Judas stole from the treasury of the Lord and His apostles. Did the Lord wish that Judas “would get his”? Of course not. Jesus would have forgiv-en Judas if he had repented. A few hours after Judas’ betrayal the Lord was hanging in misery next to a repentant thief and He forgave him. Do we have the heart of our Lord towards thieves if repentance is shown? Or do we think and hope they should never be spiritually free and just “rot in Hell”?
Jesus said that when we did all that we were commanded to do we should still consider ourselves as “unworthy servants” (Luke 17:7). Jesus was not implying that we are worthless. If He viewed us as worthless, He would not have died for us to free us from our sins. He is teaching us a lesson on humility and having a greater reliance on him. A deeply humble heart is essential to not thinking of ourselves so highly and looking down on others in their sins. Moses is described in Numbers 12:3 as being the meekest person on the earth. If the Holy Spirit were still writing God’s word today, would He say that about you or me? We should strive for that. But not to be in competition with one an-other or to have our name written in God’s word, but to be more like the lowly humble Jesus. Those with unworthy humble hearts desire that all gain freedom from their sins.
We must be patient with all those who are separated from God and are not free from their sins. We should never gossip about or slander souls that are in these situations. That includes those who we consider to be the vilest of sinners and especially those who are our fellow Christians. Hasn’t God been longsuffering to us? It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is clearly “yes” to say the least. He could have struck down each one of us at some point in our lives, even as Christians, and would have been com-pletely justified in doing so. But thankfully, He didn’t. During those sinful days, He showed His enduring patience and love to-ward each of us. May we do the same to others. Peter said that the Lord is “longsuffering toward us, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).
Why would we ever consider ourselves worthy and someone else unworthy of spiritual freedom and eternal salvation? We are all sinners. We are all equally guilty of the blood of Jesus Christ and therefore we are equally worthy of an eternal Hell fire! But, through the blood of Christ and the mercy of our Father, we can be saved if we are obedient and repentant. The “freedom that we have in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 2:4) is available equally to eve-ryone, even sinners like you and me. Praise God!
