Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, of all the liberties to which we lay claim as free men, which is the chief? Which liberty is the first liberty? With the 4th of July coming, America turns its thoughts towards independence and freedom.

And generally, Americans have thought of their freedom under three broad types of liberty. Number one, personal liberty. That's the most direct and sensitive to Americans. It's my decision as to where I spend my money, what field of work I choose to go into, where I live, where I travel, whether what I choose to drink or smoke or eat or do on a Saturday night. It's my choice and precisely with whom I choose to do these things.

Second kind of liberty that we think of is political liberty. And here, we perceive ourselves as free to vote for whomever we choose, say whatever we want on any issue, contribute money to whatever cause we deem appropriate, and not have an oppressive, meddlesome government interfering at every turn as it is today. Politics, which the founding fathers saw as the divine science of setting policy, it seemed to be the right and domain of every citizen, not just the upper classes of society. And thirdly, we also think of religious liberty. This freedom means that I may practice the religion of my choice.

It's one of the most debated and contested liberties in history. So many states demanded not only the particular religion, but it's very sect to which it was legal to belong. Now, while the United States is Christian in its roots and principles, the widest liberty is allowed for one's personal conviction to worship or not worship at all. So these three liberties, personal, political, and religious, are at the heart of American freedom.

Our constitution ensconces them in limiting big government while articulating those specifically, for example, the first amendment, guaranteeing our freedom of religion and of speech, and the right to petition the government to redress of grievances. And of course, the fourth amendment that keeps government out of our personal business. All of them mean to protect our liberties. There is one liberty, however, that is presumed by our founding fathers to be the general case for most of America's citizens.

And it's not articulated in the earthly document of our constitution because, by definition, it is a heavenly liberty acquired only by petitioning the great governor of heaven, not a governor of an earthly realm. And that liberty is none other than a spiritual liberty, dear listener, a spiritual liberty, the freedom of spiritual life and birth and birth and the release from death and sin. Wisely, this power was beyond the reach of any of our founding fathers. It is in God's hands alone. But make no mistake about this.

Upon this one liberty, spiritual liberty, hang the destinies of all the rest of our liberties. As the book of John says, for example, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? And Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son set you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father.

Those are Jesus words. Well, two points I want to make with you today concerning the spiritual liberty. From these verses, number one, from verses 31 to 33, liberty, spiritual liberty. The first liberty, Jesus conditions on abiding in him and knowing the truth. Yeah, true spiritual liberty from whence all other liberties proceed.

Jesus conditions on abiding in him and knowing the truth. Oh, our text engages Jesus as he is in the teeth of confronting the Jewish leaders of Israel, the Jewish leaders of Israel. And like Denethor II and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the Jews are mere stewards of the place, position, and princedom of the king to come. They are not the perpetual holders of that power, title, and privilege, and privilege, that is the Jews.

But like Denethor, and I urge you to read Lord of the Rings if you're not familiar with him and his mythology. Like Denethor, so accustomed have the Jews become to their stewardship that they have mistaken it for actual ownership of that power place in princedom. Therefore, just as Denethor rejects the real prince when he comes, so the Jews reject Jesus when he comes. And Jesus is patiently laboring to point this out to them, even here in the text before us. And along the way, Jesus gives us insight into the nature of true liberty, which is first and foremost spiritual liberty.

And Jesus does this by initially addressing the Jews who had believed in him. There are several conditions upon which a man may rely to measure his quality of spiritual life, the fulfillment of which indicates his spiritual liberty. And these conditions are enumerated in what we call a conditional sentence. And one can identify this structure of a conditional sentence by the if-then structure. That is, if these conditions are met, then these results will follow.

And Jesus does this for us. What are the conditions then for real spiritual life? Well, Jesus tells us, he says, if you abide in my word, if you abide in my word, the word per se was not some physical bubble in which the disciples safely abode, shielded from the world around them. No, Jesus' word was that body of truth that he had consistently expressed to them in his preaching and teaching since the onset of his public ministry. Jesus has been clear that this is the essence and nature of his ministry from the very beginning.

The whole book of John begins. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Oh, therefore, dear listener, if you continue to live in Jesus' teaching such that you live in Jesus' person himself, you are a true disciple. The word of life leads inevitably to the life in the word. That is Jesus' person himself.

Oh, the true disciple will so desire to live in and dwell within Jesus himself, that he immediately flags himself as a particular kind of thing. Three consequences then follow. Then, first of all, then you are a true disciple, Jesus says. When you live in him and you live in his word, then you are a true disciple. Life in Jesus as the word is a banner indication that such a one is a true disciple.

In a world of false disciples and counterfeit apostles, it is necessary to have an infallible test. And this test is endorsed by Jesus himself when he says, abiding in my word, abiding, that is remaining in, dwelling in, living as a permanent resident within my word. The true disciple by nature shares the life of his master, and that life is communicated via the word, that is the life, teaching, and person of Jesus. And then the second thing that obtains is, then you will know the truth. Then, when you abide in him and his word, then you will know the truth.

There are a number of kinds of truths, aren't there? Mathematical and scientific and historical. All of these have their place. But the realm of truth Jesus has in mind is eternally abiding. That is, truth is that reality that God has created and determined and revealed in his word.

Fallen man asserts competing truths that vie in the hearts and minds of other fallen men for their allegiance and leave these false truths to them. Blind eyes do not see, deaf ears do not hear. You have been given spiritual life in your Savior, and you now possess the spiritual faculties to see and hear and know the truth. It is important to know the truth that we were once sinless creatures in our first father, Adam, but now stand in him as guilty and condemned sinners from birth.

And correspondingly, it is also important to know the truth that Jesus stood in our place as a condemned, guilty sinner, and he endured the punishment for it so that we might once again stand as sinless creatures in him before God, the Father. Knowledge of and faith in the one who has made it so is requisite for the last stage, which is number three. Then the truth will set you free. How the world loves to use this cliche. Then the truth will set you free.

Know the truth and the truth will set you free. It is passed into our lexicon as a kind of in-your-face challenge to accept what I assert to be true. Science has proven that there is a gay gene in our chromosomes, so deal with that. Know the truth and the truth will set you free. Science has proven that man-caused global warming is true, Mr. Denier.

Know the truth and the truth will set you free. If God hadn't intended us to have a right to bear arms, then he wouldn't have given us a trigger finger. Deal with it, Mr. Anti-Second Amendment. Know the truth and the truth will set you free. Well, how many of us so glibly use this cliche and even know who said it?

For example, a Harris poll says that seven of ten people do not even know who preached the Sermon on the Mount? How can we be expected to know who said this? And of those who do, how many know the context in which Jesus declares it? Know the truth and the truth will set you free. Just because you use the words of Jesus as an appendage to your assertions does not make them true.

The liberty of which Jesus speaks is the first liberty, spiritual life in him. And without this, all other liberties are trivial and meaningless. In fact, so dead and twisted is our nature that all of these liberties will be twisted into another form of death and slavery. The 4th of July, Independence Day, then becomes a dance of death, a hollow claim to rights, to spend on my wrongs, a mere shadow of what it was to our forefathers at least, a sad remembrance day rather than a true Independence Day. What is a true Independence Day?

The true first liberty is spiritual liberty, spiritual life in Christ. He is the personification, the embodiment, the very body of truth into whom you are engrafted when you believe in him. When you come to truth in Christianity, you do not come merely and only to a set of intellectual principles by which to live. When you come to truth in Christianity, you do not come to relative progressive thoughts and feelings that shift and change depending upon the evolving consensus of humanity. When you come to truth in Christianity, you come to a person.

You come to life in the person of Christ, who is in himself both objective and subject of truth. Jesus said to his disciples, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If only lost man could see this and live. Oh, dear listener, if only the Jews of Jesus day could see this and live.

But they manifest their spiritual death with their response. They said to Jesus, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Oh, dear listener, what kind of freedom do you suppose the Jews have in mind when they speak this way? They immediately hear Jesus' words in the context of race, race, blood, and nation.

Abraham, father of all these things, is the paragon and a talisman of freedom to them. We know that these men, the Jews of Jesus' day, were waiting for a political and ethnic Messiah. They were relying upon their blood and heritage, being faithful to it in order to inherit a political and ethnic redemption when it came. Dead and fallen men cannot but hear Jesus' words in any other context than dead and fallen categories. Jesus is not spiritually alive.

I mean, these men, these Jews and people of our day are not spiritually alive, and thus they are incapable of hearing the word of life in living categories, in spiritual categories. So, to this Jesus speaks. To this Jesus speaks to you as well, dear listener. All lost men speak in categories like those of these Jews. For instance, a man may say, I'm a Buddhist.

I've been released from suffering, so I am a free man and have never been a slave to anyone. Someone may say, I am a progressive and a member of the party. The Marxist truth of the inevitable triumph of communism has set me free. I have never been a slave to anyone. Or someone may even say, I am an American born in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I've never been a slave to anyone. This kind of thingy goes on and on. All of these and more. Tragically ignore that first liberty, however, spiritual liberty in Christ. Do not be such a one yourself.

Be liberated to Jesus and be liberated from. And that brings me to point two, verses 34 to 38 in John chapter 8. Liberty, spiritual liberty, the first liberty. Jesus conditions on release in him from the bondage of sin. Release from the bondage of sin.

To be set free is not only liberation unto something. That is the person of Jesus. But also, true liberation, spiritual liberation, is liberation from something. This is implicit in the declaration, know the truth and the truth will set you free. Prisoners of war are a vivid illustration of this principle.

For example, the Military Channel has an hour special on the Hano Hilton of the Vietnam War, where so many of our U.S. pilots shot down by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire, were kept prisoners. What a poignant scene when they were released from prison into the arms of their loved ones. Or, another example, a few members of the Branch Davidians. That was that cult in Waco, led by David Koresh. A few of them managed to escape before the compound was consumed in fire.

Remember them fleeing from the flames into the arms of family? Oh, the liberty from a thing about which Jesus speaks here is of even more urgency. It is freedom from sin. Freedom from sin. Your sin and your sinful nature, if not slain and dealt with, will kill you most assuredly, not only in this life, but the next.

It's urgent. Do not treat this lightly. Jesus likens our bondage to sin to slavery. He says, Truly, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. That is, who continues and practices sin as a way of life.

That's the idea of those who commit sin. This, however, is the default setting for the human soul ever since the fall. All men are born slaves, slaves to sin. This is our natural condition. We flatter ourselves if we think anything else.

We are all born POWs, prisoners in the concentration camp of death, in the war against sin and death. We are not born free. And later, some of us are seized as slaves and captives in this camp of death. No, all men are born into this life as slaves to sin as a condition of that life. Oh, thanks a lot, Adam, for doing this.

Lost man tries to make the best of a bad situation, however, by finding slivers of comfort in the slave camp. And he can do nothing else, really. Maybe a cup of clean water, an extra bowl of moldy rice, a clean shirt from time to time, a candy bar from home once a year, maybe. Oh, dear listener, without Christ, this is all, relatively speaking, that even the finest, longest, and most luxurious life can give you a few meager morsels in the POW slave camp. And then you die, temporally and eternally.

Jesus means to liberate you from this camp altogether, the camp of sin. And he means to set you free from your bondage to sin. And he means to set you free unto a life of freedom and prosperity and joy. Which would you rather have? Jesus employs the analogy in contrast between the slave and the son in a household.

As every Jew would have known from the earliest days on his father's knee, being raised in a solidly patriarchal society, Abraham's son by birth and blood in Sarah's womb, Isaac remained in his house forever. That is perpetually from generation to generation. Initially, though, even Abraham thought it would not, it would be his servant, Eliezer of Damascus, who would inherit his line. The text tells us, Abraham said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. It was not supposed to be that way.

The slave serves and passes on, inheriting nothing from his master. It is the son who carries on the name and inherits the rights and privileges and fortune of the father. How crucial this is in patriarchal societies. And to this principle, God promises Abraham that he will be faithful. He goes on to say, God said, no, but Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac.

I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his, his offspring after him, unquote. That's the sense in which Jesus means the son remains forever. It is a covenantal given a condition of a covenant cut in a patriarchal society. God has established an everlasting covenant with his son. And those consequently found in that son, you and me as Christians born in Christ, we are then co-heirs with him, heirs of life and prosperity and joy eternally.

Oh, dear listener, covenants are cut with sons, not slaves. And this is why Jesus can deduce with ineluctable logic. When he says, therefore, if the son set you free, you will be free indeed. Oh, liberty, true freedom is found first and foremost in Christ. Spiritual liberty is the first liberty.

Jesus has raided the slave and concentration camp and he has liberated the prisoners and he has made of them free men. They have become co-heirs with him of a spiritual kingdom. What liberty? What freedom? It is first and foremost a spiritual liberty.

That's the first liberty, the chief liberty without which all others are but mere morsels of temporary relief in a life of death. So go ahead and fight amongst yourselves for a raw potato. There's some grainy black and white film of U.S. prisoners of war in German POW camps toward the ends of World War II and all food was scarce. And they were fighting over a few raw moldy potatoes that were thrown into the camp by German soldiers. Oh, go ahead and fight over this because I'm out of here.

I'd rather be liberated, that is, free indeed, than linger for those occasional morsels of relief in this life. Just as every man must be confronted with the reality of his circumstance, that is, he is a captive in a slave concentration camp of the soul. Oh, he must be confronted with this. And if he will be free indeed, so Jesus confronts the Jews with the reality of their circumstance. He says, I know you are Abraham's seed, that is, by physical descent, but you betray you are not his by spiritual descent.

You are more like Eliezer than Isaac. And that evidence is manifest because you intend to kill me rather than letting me kill the slave in you and bringing you true spiritual life. That is, my words find no place in you, Jesus says to them. Oh, dear listener, if Christ's words finds place in a man's soul, he will come to life. He will see that Christ, he will flee from his abject slavery to true liberty.

This is the first liberty, spiritual liberty in Christ. It is a spiritual liberty, a life of freedom found only in Christ. The conclusion is that while Jesus testifies to what he has seen in his father, they testify to what they have heard from their father. That is, the devil, as becomes apparent in the following text, right? And note the contrast in census, too.

Jesus has seen the father. They have heard from theirs. There is an implicit claim to divinity here for Jesus himself, an implicit disparagement of them by alluding to their father, the devil. They have taken the liberty bestowed upon them by God in the faith of Abraham. They have taken it and distorted and perverted it into the works of death and slavery.

This is always the way of fallen man. He will inevitably take the good gifts and blessings given him and turn them into curses. Dear listener, without a true spiritual life in Christ, personal liberty is perverted into personal license. Like the freedom to marry someone of the same sex, or the freedom to use drugs of my choice. The freedom to live a life of dependence on the government dole.

Oh, do not make the fatal mistake of confusing a license with liberty. Oh, without true spiritual life in Christ, dear listener, political liberty is perverted into slavery and dependence upon government as God. Government as God. Many Americans live that way today. As we observe happening before our very eyes, Americans are becoming enamored of big government, seduced by the siren song of we'll take care of you.

Oh, which they will. They'll certainly take care of you. All right. Just because government provides you with the illusion of a free vote does not mean you live a free life. Only biblical Christianity provides a true answer in a constitutional republic where political liberty is grounded in limited government and true responsibility is assumed by the individual.

Oh, without true spiritual liberty, dear listener, true spiritual liberty in Christ. Why? Religious liberty is perverted into progressive tolerance and diversity such that even the death cultures of atheism or Islam are allowed to flourish to the eventual death of true religious freedom. And ironically, close adherence to biblical Christianity is the only true guarantee of religious freedom. That's one of the great ironies of it all.

So, dear people, the choice is now before you, dear American, on this Fourth of July. The gate is flung open. Liberty for the captive is yours. Will you be free indeed and find that spiritual liberty in Christ? Or will you continue to fight and scrap for a few morsels in an otherwise life of death and misery in the slave camp, the concentration camp of sin?

Keep this in mind, dear listener, as you celebrate Independence Day, the liberties that we cherish in the United States are sweet indeed. Personal liberty, political liberty, religious liberty, God has given them to us as unalienable rights. But without that first chief and prior liberty, spiritual liberty in Jesus Christ, all of them are, in comparison, but a few delectable passing morsels in an otherwise slave and concentration camp of death and misery and sin. So, dear listener, come to eternal life today. Come to eternal freedom.

The first liberty, spiritual liberty. Come to spiritual liberty in Jesus Christ today. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. We indeed worship in true spiritual liberty on Sundays. And we begin at 10 a.m. We meet at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

And we encourage you to find us and to seek us out and to visit us. And hopefully you will find true spiritual liberty in Christ amongst us. And we love Christ and we love the liberty he has given us, which is, first of all, a spiritual liberty. We celebrate that every Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.