Out of the Slave Market, and Set Free

Colossians 1:4-9

COL-104

Hebrews 4:12: "For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

Romans 15:4: "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope."

2 Peter 3:18: "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."

Please open your Bibles once more to the book of Colossians 1:9-14. Our subject is "Prayer for the Colossians," segment number 38.

Every person on planet earth, at this moment, is an active slave of Satan or of God. There are no exceptions, and no possibilities of an exception. Everyone is, in fact, born a slave of Satan, and controlled by him through that person's old sin nature inherited from Adam. We call it the old sin nature because it comes all the way from the Garden of Eden – the sin there from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Everyone who is born-again spiritually, on the other hand, is not a slave of Satan, but is a slave of God, and controlled by Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit who applies doctrinal principles, which we have learned, to our life situations.

Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit, which means that they are spiritual Christians, which means that they are in temporal fellowship with God the Father, which means that there is no fracture of that fellowship through grieving the Spirit; quenching the Spirit; or, not walking by means of the guidance of the Spirit of God as expressed through the Word of God. Spiritual Christians are in fellowship. They enjoy great personal freedom from sin in their lives. This is what is the strange transformation – that somebody who loved to do something that was sinful, suddenly finds that they don't like it anymore. The yearning; the desire; and, the satisfaction is suddenly gone. What has happened? Their tastes have been changed by the Spirit of God. And that is the normal experience of those who are believers. When you are not a believer, you may have good intentions, and you may have a lot of self-will, good morality, but it goes up and down. You are not able to do one good thing before God. You have no freedom to do what is right, unless you are a born-again believer.

However, Christians who, while they are slaves of God now, and no longer enslaved to Satan and the sin nature, if they are not filled with the Spirit, which the Bible calls "carnal Christians," they suffer great spiritual defeats, and enslavement to the old sin nature in their experience. They're back on the same ground as if they were not even born-again. That is even a sorrier sight – to see a person who has been freed from enslavement to Satan's authority, yet who chooses to live in a way that places that believer back under the authority of Satan. When the carnal Christian repents of whatever has broken that fellowship with the Father, and confesses that to God the Father (not to people, but to God the Father), that restores that believer to his freedom from being a slave to the sin nature, and under the authority of Satan.

So, it's a very marvelous arrangement that God has made – to take a poor, helpless sinner (who can't do a thing to please God), to suddenly find himself, through the grace of God, when trust is placed in Christ as Savior because Christ has paid the price for sin, that that person may now be transformed, and become spiritually alive, and in that moment, break the chains of Satan's enslavement over that. For once, for the first time, they can do right. They can not only resist sin, but they can do what is right. They can not only refuse to serve Satan, but they are free to serve God. Until that moment, that's not possible.

You must always remember that the most moral, winsome, compassionate unbeliever that you know, is a slave to Satan, and he is functioning on the old sin nature. That sin nature kicks out that which is sin, but the sin nature also kicks out that which is good. It's called human good. The Bible refers to it as filthy rags – man's righteousnesses.

So the old nature will fool you, because people will do some very good things – kind and compassionate things. And God looks down and takes a stamp of His judgment, and says, "That's evil." Why? Because it comes from man's human efforts (man's sin nature), and that contaminates everything. The disease is there, and everything it touches is diseased, even if it looks good in the eyes of men.

So, this is no small statement that we began with. Every person on earth, at this moment, is an act of slave of Satan or of God. And we have come to this point in the book of Colossians 1:14 where this is the issue that is now being dealt with: enslavement to Satan; or, enslavement to God. And if you've been freed from enslavement to Satan, then live accordingly, as those who are the slaves of the righteous God – slaves to His Holiness.

Redemption

In the Word of God (in the Bible), "redemption" is the deliverance of one who is enslaved to Satan by the perfect substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, Who is the ransom of God to His own justice.

Back in the Middle Ages, people struggled with: who gets the ransom? Who gets the payment? And one of the heresies that came up was that the payment was to Satan. So you had this gross picture of the medieval church teaching that Christ paid a ransom to Satan, so that he would release you from the slave market in which he had you as his slave. And, of course, you can see the grossness of that concept. The idea of ransom is there in order to make it clear to us that the price had to be paid. There's a reason that you are freed from enslavement to Satan. There is a reason why you can be free of your sin nature's lust patterns, because Somebody paid a price to buy that freedom for you. And the word "ransom" is inherent in this concept of redemption. But if there's any receivership of that ransom, first of all, you could just carry that idea without pushing it beyond that. But if you wanted to push it to the point of who gets the ransom money, it's God Himself. Well, what is God paying for? He's paying for the satisfaction of His own justice. So, it is God who is satisfying the demands of His justice, which means death for sin that receives the ransom.

Notice these Scriptures. Matthew 20:28: "Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." And here the statement is that there were many ransoms given to God in the Old Testament. There were many payments in the form of sacrificial animals. But it was only a symbol. They had did it again and again and again. There were many payments and many ransoms. Along comes Jesus Christ, and He gives His life – a ransom in place of those many ransoms which had previously been paid. All that's wiped out. There are no more animal sacrifices; o more ritualism; and, no more legalistic procedures. It's all been done, once and for all, by the Lamb of God – the final ransom. He is the price of freedom.

Notice Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, or on a cross." Jesus Christ is the ransom. He redeemed us by taking the curse that the law of God brings when it's broken. And everybody breaks it. Everybody breaks the Law of God, which reflects the moral character of God. Therefore, somebody has to pay the penalty. The penalty is death. Christ said, "I'll take the penalty. I'll take this curse of the Law when it has been broken. And I'll pay it for you, and you will be free.

Notice Ephesians 1:7-8: "In Him we have redemption (freedom from the slave market):" "In Him we have redemption through His blood (His death upon the cross), the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight." What a statement! We have redemption because He paid the price (the redemption price) – His death as a sinless one for our penalty of death, we who are not sinless. And he did this because of the richness of His grace which he lavished upon us.

Now, I want you to notice that the redemption of God is described as a lavish expression of the grace of God. This is a very significant point. If there's any real significance that we should focus on at the Christmas season, and the coming of the Christ child (the God-Man) to pay the penalty of our sin, it is because of the freedom that now comes to us because of this lavish act of divine grace. And it's more than just the fact that you've been freed. We'll look at a few words that will expand that to something that's almost impossible for us to comprehend – that this is the status in which we now stand. The price of redemption, of course, is the death of a sinless substitute.

Roman 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death." At the heart of the doctrine of redemption is securing one's personal freedom from Satan; from the lake of fire; and, from bondage to the sin nature. You are free to say "No" to Satan, who was once your slave master. It's the release that every human being needs. The final fulfillment, of course, of one's redemption is when we receive our inheritance in the light in heaven, when this redemption will not only be positionally true of us, but it will now be absolutely true in our experience. Now we often do not act as if we were free of Satan. We go right along with him. That's the trouble with the church today. The people in the congregations of churches live just the same way as the people outside of the congregations. They live the same way as the people out in the world. And those of you who are parents know how hard it is to tell your children: "No, the world is the enemy of God. The world's ways are always subtly to oppose Him. Therefore, we don't do certain things because we are Christians. And we act accordingly." And it is really great to know that parents who take this seriously have reared their children to be on-guard against the system of evil out in the world.

One of our high school girls recently was telling me how she likes the support at the public school that she's in now. The students have a Bible class. But she said, "The problem is that the leader talks to us about finding what God has for us that morning." Consequently, he is not prepared. In fact, she said, "I'm not sure that he's capable of being prepared. I'm finding that me and my other Berean kids that I'm associated with – we know more than he does. And he is talking about coming and finding out what the Lord has."

So, I said to her, "Well that's an excuse for not preparing. Anytime you have to step-up and face a bunch of people, and explain the Bible to them, I'll guarantee that you can't do it off the top of your head, no matter how much experience you have, or how long you've been at it. It takes intensive research, study, analyzing, and thought before you can open your mouth and really speak the mind of God."

I reminded her of a story that I had told before, of a lady who, every morning, that's the way she began her day. She wasn't a great student of doctrine. She just wanted what the Lord had for that day. And she would open her Bible and look, and there was God's message. She'd point to something. So, one morning she sat down expectantly; opened her Bible; put her finger on the page; looked; and, it said, "And Judas went out and hanged himself." Oh, she said, "That can't be God's message for me today." She closed her Bible; opened it again; closed he eyes; pointed to the Scripture; and read, "Go thou and do likewise."

Now that's the kind of biblical exposition you're going to get with that kind of fishy approach. And I thought it was good that our kids recognized that they had a leader, who happens to be in a position of authority, who could be a great influence for God, if only he did one thing: told him about doctrine – some little segment. What would that do? It would be moving them toward freedom. Freedom begins with Christ. They're out of the slave market. But you have to learn how to live as a free person.

What happened to Israel? The slaves were released from their bondage in Egypt, and they crossed the Red Sea. It was a great miracle of God. They knew that He was among them. They saw His fiery pillar at night, and His cloud by day. And they saw it moving, and they would follow. And Moses would go up, and they would hear God conversing with Moses. Now, what more in heaven's name would you want to say? There is this God; He is in charge; He is informing us; He is not silent; and, we will obey Him. But they didn't. When they finally got to Kadeshbarnea, the point of entry into the Promised Land, what did the dingos do? When they sent in the 12 spies to reconnoiter the situation, 10 of them came back and said, "Boy, there's a land flowing with milk and honey. There is no doubt about it." Okay, so what did they say? "God once more told us the truth. But we can't believe Him when He says that we can go in there, and whip the inhabitants of that land. They're taller than we are. They're like giants compared to us. They're a powerful people, and they are really brutal."

Joshua and Caleb said, "You're wrong. As God has properly told us that this is a wonderful land of fertility, it is also going to be true that we will conquer them. These people are a moral cancer upon the face of the earth, and God has judged them to death. The earth itself is vomiting them out. All we have to do is go up and do it." But could the slaves now rise to their freedom? No. They said, "We won't do it." And God became so angry that He was ready to wipe them out and start over again with Moses. And it was the intercession of Moses that saved them. But then the judgment was that the slaves, because they couldn't rise to their freedom, in effect, remained slaves for the rest of their lives. For the next 40 years, they wandered out in the wilderness, until their carcasses were scattered all over every place. And a new generation, those who had been under 20 years of age, were now able to enter that Promised Land. They knew freedom, and they used it.

So, this is important. Our children understand not only what freedom in Christ is, but how it is the Word of God that enables them to have that freedom. If you turn to Satan and say, "I will be a slave to you, and I will do the things that you want me to do, which the Word of God condemns as an act of slavery," then you are slave to Satan. The apostle Paul says, "Whoever sins is a slave of sin." And when you're a slave of sin, you're a slave of Satan. And I'll tell you that there is never anything good that comes from that. The results when you're a slave of Satan are always bad.

Now, it's a very shameful thing for a Christian not to be able to understand that he has been released from the enslavement to Satan. Three verbs in the Bible, dealing with the concept of the doctrine of redemption, spell it all out for us clearly. The first is in Revelation 5:9: "And they sang a new song, saying, 'You are worthy to take the book and to break its seals.'" This book contained the judgments of God which Christ held: "For You were slain, and did purchase for God with Your blood, men from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation:" For You did purchase." There's the word "redemption." And in the Greek Bible, it looks like this: "agorazo" (ag-or-ad'-zo), A G O R A Z O.

To Pay a Price in a Marketplace

If you go into a pawn shop, for you to be able to take something out that you have placed there, and, in effect, lost control of (lost freedom of access to), you go there and you take the pawn ticket, and the amount is there, and you pay the redemption price. And now that object is no longer under the control of that proprietor. He's the slave master of that object until the price of redemption has been paid. "Agorazo" stresses the fact that all our bond slaves of sin by nature require a redemption payment. Somebody has to make a payment. So, that's point number one – that there is a payment for sin.

Out of

Irreversible

Set Free

So, why use your mind in a thinking pattern that shows that you're still a slave of Satan? Why use your body in a way that demonstrates that you're not in freedom – you're paid for, and you're out, but you're acting still under enslavement of the lust patterns of the sin nature. But if you don't know the system of the combination of spiritual dynamics, which is doctrine, such that you know full knowledge in your human spirit, and temporal fellowship with God the Father, so that the Holy Spirit can use the knowledge of doctrine at the appropriate time to guide you, you are always going to be a slave. You will be everybody's fool. And people will con you, And people will deceive you. And people will be able to take advantage of you, because the Spirit of God is not free to give the signals to alert you.

Freedom is not free. It was paid for. You were led out of the authority realm of Satan. You've been taken off the slave market's master sale block, and Christ tells the slave, "Now you have freedom." And you stand around, and what will you do with it?

It is at this point that Romans 12:1-2 come into the picture. The Lord Jesus Christ now appeals to those of us, who are free men and free women, to yield to Him as voluntary slaves of the living God: "I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is; that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect." The mercies of God have included redemption. That's what we're talking about. You have been redeemed by a payment. By being let out of the authority, you now stand as a child of God with full freedom. That is the mercies of God. The response would be: "I now want to present my human body as a sacrifice to God. This is acceptable and it is our spiritual service. It's an act of worship. Here I am Lord, use me. I can use the parts of my body in a very sinful way, violating the character of the moral code of God. Or I can use them in a way that is honoring to God, and that is commendable with my freedom. Once I break the code of God with the parts of my body, then I'm back being a slave of Satan in my practice."

This compares to what we have: freedom. And verse 2 spells out that freedom. It says. "Do not be conformed to the world." The world's system about us is put together by Satan. Every institution of this world is evil, and it is more evil than ever before. Who would've ever thought that the time would come, in the history of the United States, when, on public media news information, you knew as you sat there listening to the news being reported, that a great deal of it, in certain areas, was outright misrepresentation – outright lies. And only those who have other sources of information, that give the true picture of what happened, and what is going on, would know that that famous talking head is lying to me. He is deceiving me. That's part of the world system. Every night, huge, powerful forces give you information to deceive you.

I refer you to read the article about being a pilgrim. Three great examples you'll find there. One of them was a judge. The ACLU got down upon him because he had the 10 commandments on the wall in his courtroom. They said, "You can't do that." And he says, "Oh, yes I can, because they've got them on the wall in the Supreme Court." And then they got him because he opens his court with prayer. They said, "You can't do that." He said, "Oh, yes I can, because they do it up at the Supreme Court." Well, the court's ruled against the judge. They went with the ACLU. The judge says, "I'm still going to do it. You can come after me."

Now I guarantee you that that was a judge who slipped in on Satan. He was not part of the world system. Somehow, somebody made a mistake. This man, was an ex-military man in Vietnam, in an infantry company, who is now a judge and a man of God at the same time, in the finest tradition of American jurisprudence. And here the world system says, "You can't act like that, because that suggests that Satan is not our master." That's what it's all about. Every article you read, and everything that you are seeing at Christmas time is to seek to divert you from Christ; to presence; and, to all the other things that are so subtle in the world's system, such that you wonder how on earth Americans ever came to the point where they are now, when they had such a great spiritual heritage.

The World

The devil comes to you and says, "Here, this immoral immorality will give you great freedom." What was the cry of the 1960s? The cry of the 1960s was that the drugs will give you a great consciousness of God. They will give you great personal freedom. And today, we are bearing the bitter fruit of those who grew up and believed that satanic lie. And they're all the slaves of Satan. Yet they make decisions for all of you who stand outside of the slave market as free people. And you're looking in the slave market, and these are people who are running the show.

The freedom in Christ – this is what redemption did. The price was paid. You are out of it. You have freedom to do right. And no one can ever take that away from you, unless you compromise it yourself.

Conform

Doctrine

"Agorazo" – the payment has been made. "Exagorazo" – I've been jerked out from under the authority of Satan. "Lutroo" – I'm set free now forever to do right, and to serve God accordingly. That's what redemption is all about.

The Mechanics of Redemption

Here, this is knowing something, and it's in the Greek perfect tense, which means that when you have learned this, the truth goes on forever. This is something you learn, and then it goes on forever. This is: "Knowing from instruction in the Word of God, that, forever, you are not redeemed with perishable things." You were not redeemed with silver and gold. And you were not redeemed because you paid for it. You were not redeemed from your old sin slavery of life that separated us from God. You did not go to some Roman Catholic priests, and pay him to do Masses in your behalf, so that you'd be redeemed. You did not get away with saying, "I want to get something for God," so you bribed Him, and said, "I'll put this in the offering box next Sunday if you'll do this for me." And certainly, you cannot buy your salvation from God by paying for it: "From your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers" – that is, from the life of being enslaved to Satan. That's a futile life. And you inherit that from your parents. You are born into the slave market. And Peter tells these people, "You know that because we have instructed you. You know from doctrine that you cannot pay your way into heaven (1 Peter 1:19).

What is the mechanics, then, for redemption? How is it done? "But with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished – the spotless blood of Christ. It says, "As of a Lamb." Here you have the picture of the Jewish sacrificial system which required a perfect, unblemished, spotless animal to be offered in sacrifice upon the brazen altar. The sins of the individual bringing the sacrifice were placed upon the lamb by the priest, and the lamb was then slain. This was a picture of Jesus Christ, Whose death would cover that sin. And that person was then said to be redeemed. He didn't pay anything for it. It was the lamb that paid as the substitute for him. It was the blood of Christ' that is, His death, which is what is referred to in Colossians 1:14: "The redemption that we have is through the blood of Christ."

So what is necessary that one must do to be freed from the sin slave market? It's simple. The Philippian jailer asked that of Paul and Silas that night when the jail doors broke open, and they were given freedom: "What must I do to be saved?" What was he asking? He said, "What must I do to be redeemed?" How can I be freed from the enslavement to sin, as all you now have suddenly, by an act of God, been freed from this prison? Act 16:31, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." A person can decide to remain in the slave market of sin, or he can decide that God has paid his way out. And don't forget that that's true for everybody: "God has paid my way out. And I'm going to accept that;" or, "No, I'm going to remain a slave in the slave market. I'm going to still be under the curse of sin. I'm still going to be under all the terrible things that sinning does to a person. And ultimately, I'll face death, and I'll face a God Who will judge me in the lake of fire." A person can decide to remain in the slave market even though the redemption price has been paid.

Faith in Jesus Christ

Romans says, "Get that mind transformed into the mind of God – doctrine to make you clean cut in your thinking. Jesus Christ did not go around as a sinless Man, fantasizing about evil relationships, and evil things, and evil activities. His mind was the mind of God. And you are free to have the same thing, unless you want to say, "I'd rather be a slave of the devil. I'd rather walk through his garbage, and his filth, and act as if I was not a child of God.

The price is paid. Satan no longer has control over you. Your sin nature has been crushed by that act of God's grace when you were saved. Now you have been led outside of the encasement of the slave market, and you've been told: "Live your life. You are free. Live your life for God."

Romans comes along, and says, "Keep transforming your mind with the Word of God, regularly: morning; noon; and, night – every time the church door is open, be there, if it's a teaching church. Forget that baloney about being an inspirational church. If it's an inspirational church, you're not going to get anything. But if it's teaching the Word, you're going to get something every time. And you cannot afford to miss a single service. Some of you are going to check out of this life, maybe sooner than you think. Now is the time to get with it – to get fully transformed, so that your mind is the mind of God. Why would you wait? You've been paid for. You're out of it. You're free.

Unlimited Atonement

And when John Lennon, three hours before his death by assassination, spoke to a group of young people and said, "Look how far we've come. And we have to keep going. We can't lose." They hadn't come anywhere except as slaves of Satan. And where they had come was into the depths of the drug culture, and all the enslavement that that connoted. And he said, "But let's be thankful for how far we've come, and let's thank . . ., well, whoever or whatever is out there that has made this possible.

Oh boy. Three hours later when the assassin's bullet crashed into him, he found out Who was out there. And what he found out was a God who, because of His great love, and His great mercy, and his great grace, lavishly poured upon John Lennon, had redeemed him; had paid the price; and, made it possible to have the hold of Satan broken, and for him to walk as a truly free man. And that was possible because the atonement of Christ (the covering) was universal. For him, unlimited atonement meant that he was paid for. One thing was required. He had to accept it. He had to accept Christ. And the result would've been, instead of his body being hit with bullets, he would have, at that moment of acceptance, been permeated with the glory light, and freedom of God. His mind would've been transformed. Suddenly, he would have found himself with new hope; new perspective; and, freedom to loathe all the things that he represented that were his enslavement to Satan. Unlimited atonement, with redemption, will give you peace as nothing else will.

Next time we look at the doctrine of unlimited atonement.

Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for the fact that we have been redeemed. We sing about it enthusiastically. But we pray that now when we sing it, we will be able more fully to appreciate what's involved in that simple little word. A price has been paid.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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