FREEDOM,
ROAD TO

SOME people live their lives like hamsters. A hamster looks outside the glass of his cage and sees freedom. He decides to run for it. He gets on the wheel. He runs on the wheel, trying to get to his freedom. He soon realizes that he’s not getting anywhere. So, he runs faster. An hour later, he’s still in the same spot.

Many of us have been trying to break a habit for years, and ten years later we are still in the same spot. We’ve made New Year’s resolutions to quit bad habits or to have better marriages or to work on bettering our finances. A year later, we are in the same position.

Why does this happen? We are using the wrong method. When we are trapped, we cannot change things ourselves. The only way for a hamster to find freedom is for the owner of the hamster to reach inside the cage and lift it out of there. Somebody bigger than the hamster has to take over.

Trying to get out of a caged situation using only our own human effort is not good enough. 335

[Salvation, Need for; Self-Sufficiency, Danger of; Stronghold]

John 14:6; Rom. 3:23; Eph. 2:8–9

A MAN who lived in a foreign country became a citizen of the United States of America. In the country where he was raised and grew up, there was a curfew overseen by the military. Beyond a certain time, the streets had to be cleared and everyone had to be in their homes. When he immigrated to the United States, he began immediately sightseeing to see part of the country that he was now becoming a part of. However, when he saw darkness set in and looked at his watch, he saw that he was about to pass his curfew time.

Seeing a man getting in his car, he said, “Sir, would you please rush me to my hotel so that I won’t overstay my curfew and get in trouble?”

The gentleman in the car couldn’t figure out what in the world the man was talking about until it dawned on him that he was a foreigner and that he was a little mixed up about his new life in America. He explained to and assured the man that in the U.S. the law that he had been used to no longer applied. He explained that he was no longer under the jurisdiction of the country he came from. He was in a new country now and that meant he was free to stay up and stay out. The restrictions of the old homeland no longer applied. This man was in the United States. but had not yet learned to cast off the bondage of the old country.

A lot of us are in Christ, but we’ve not yet learned how to cast off the old bondage of being in Adam. So we sing about freedom, talk about freedom, and yet we feel the pressure of the curfew and the bondage and oppression of the old law system under which we operated. Far too many Christians today are in chains because they’ve just spent so much time in the old country. In getting used to this thing about being free in Christ, they have not adapted yet.336

[Forgiveness; Law of Sin and Death; Sin Nature, Residue of]

Rom. 8:1–17; 2 Cor. 5:17