GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #474
“The Glorious Liberty Of The Children Of
God” Romans 8:21
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
Romans
8:21 speaks of both bondage and liberty, “the
bondage of corruption and the glorious liberty of the children of God”.
“The bondage of corruption” is that bondage into which
sin has brought us. It is the bondage of nature, the bondage which makes us all
miserable slaves and prisoners. This bondage of corruption is the forerunner of
the everlasting torments of hell’s bondage. Unless God intervenes, it will
bring us and our children into eternal misery at last. All who live in the
dungeon of sensuality and corruption, as the willing bond slaves of sin,
dragged from place to place by the chains of envy, malice, anger, and wrath
shall spend eternity in the darkness and corruption of hell under the wrath of
God, unless the Son of God makes them free.
“The bondage of corruption” holds multitudes in abject
servitude to fashion, style, and social approval. It makes us all, by nature,
slaves to our own corrupt passions; and that man who is a slave to his own
passions is a slave to the worst possible despot. Physical slavery is the most
immoral, debasing abuse of humanity imaginable. However, this “bondage
of corruption” is indescribably worse. This is the bondage not of our
bodies, but of our hearts, our minds, our souls! This satanic “bondage
of corruption” manifest itself in many ways. We see it in the bondage
of men to sin, to a craving for acceptance with and the approval of others, to
the law of God, and to the traditions and customs of human religion.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God came
into this world to deliver God’s elect from “the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”.
He came to set the captive free, to open the doors of the prison which held his
people in captivity, to break the oppressive chains and shackles which held us
captives to sin and Satan. Christ is the great liberator of men’s souls. He
came to set his people free.
Salvation is the deliverance of chosen,
redeemed sinners by the grace and power of God
“into the glorious liberty of the children of God”. I want you who
believe to know and enjoy “the glorious liberty of the children of
God”. I realize that this is a very controversial subject. But it is
controversial only because of the prevailing errors of ascetic, legal religion
which have become so universally accepted that all men call liberty
licentiousness and bondage godliness.
All human religion is
bondage, operates upon principles of bondage, and seeks to keep people in
bondage. I want every child of God to know that since Christ has made us free,
it is our privilege and responsibility both to stand fast in the liberty of his
grace, refusing to be brought again under the yoke of legal bondage, and to use
the liberty he has given us for the glory of his name and the good of his
people. "Stand fast therefore in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage." We must not allow those who constantly spy out our
liberty in Christ to bring us into bondage. Those pretentiously righteous men,
those promoters of religious bondage, are really promoters of corruption. “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not
under the law.” In Christ all who believe are free from the law. Let no man, therefore, put you under the
law.
“Free from the law,
O happy condition!
Jesus has bled and there is
remission.
Cursed by the law and
bruised by the fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once
for all.
Once for all, O sinner
receive it!
Once for all, O brother,
believe it!
Cling to the cross, thy
burden will fall.
Christ hath redeemed us once
for all!”
AMEN.