Covenant Theology: Blessings, Curses, and Sanctions: A Time Of Need

What Kind of Liberty do you Want?

Transcript: AI Transcript

Professor: John Weaver

Subject: Covenant Theology

Genre: Sermon

Dictation Name:

Date: 2024-12-01

Synopsis: Pastor John Weaver examines two kinds of liberty from Scripture: the true liberty found in obedience to God, and the destructive liberty of judgment that comes upon the disobedient. Using Leviticus 25 and Jeremiah 34, he shows that God's law and the Year of Jubilee teach economic and spiritual freedom, while sin is slavery. True liberty is the power to obey God, not to sin. The message calls believers to choose the liberty of obedience in Christ rather than the liberty of judgment.

[John Weaver] All right, today I want to deal with a subject. The title is, What Kind of Liberty Do You Want? And I want you to turn in your Bibles to two passages. The first one is Leviticus chapter 25, and the second one is Jeremiah 34. We're going to be looking at both of those passages, primarily Leviticus to begin with, and then you're going to see exactly what I'm talking about. So in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10, we read about the year of Jubilee, which happened to be every 50th year. The Bible says, and you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and you shall return every man into his possession. and you shall return every man unto his family. Actually, truly, there are basically two kinds of liberty that I'm going to be discussing today that are shown to us in the Word of God. However, we could actually enumerate different kinds of liberty.

[John Weaver] For instance, you remember the speech that Patrick Henry gave at the House of Burgesses in Virginia, and he concluded with these words, give me liberty or give me death. And the truth there, he was speaking about civil liberty because the colonists were getting ready to fight with George III because of his tyranny, and the tyranny then also of Parliament. So when we talk about liberty, when we talk about freedom, these words are used synonymously. We speak about liberty to act or freedom to perform, and we certainly use those words interchangeably. Amazingly, these two words, liberty and freedom, mean different things to different people. And I suppose one of the main reasons is simply because most people do not understand or know the biblical definition of liberty and freedom.

[John Weaver] Instead, what they do is they place a fleshly or a humanistic interpretation or meaning upon them. So when we read Leviticus chapter 25 in verse 10, I hope you understand that this passage speaks not only of economic freedom, but it also speaks of land freedom as well. And if you will remember, this is the verse that is inscribed on the Liberty Bell that we were to proclaim liberty throughout all the land.

[John Weaver] Now, the year of Jubilee was the year in which any possessions and actually it was not the possessions, it was the fruits of the land. The fruits of the land were bought and or sold, but at the end of the sabbatical years, when you got to the year of Jubilee, all of these fields and all of the fruits thereof went back to the original owner that the land was divided into when Joshua and the priest divided the land. And here is why, if you look in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 23, the Bible says this, the land shall not be sold forever, God is speaking, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me. So God has said the land is his, it is not to be sold forever.

[John Weaver] Now, consequently, the word of God tells us so many times, I think either three or four, I know it's in the Psalms. I know it's in the New Testament. But three or four times, the Bible says, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. So God is the creator, and God is the owner, and God is the possessor of all the earth. I find it absolutely astounding how so many states can claim ownership of the land and therefore tax you for it as if it was theirs, when in reality, it is not theirs. It belongs to God. himself.

[John Weaver] Now I want to give you the context of Leviticus 25 in verse 10. So I want you to look with me and beginning there with verse 1 and I want to read through verse 18. Then I'm going to start explaining this passage so that we can make some proper applications from it. So look in Leviticus 25 in verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses at Mount Sinai saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land which I give you, then shall you keep a sabbath unto the Lord.

[John Weaver] Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof. But in the seventh year it shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord. Thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard. that which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meet for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. And for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meet. And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years, which would be 49, and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 49 years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement.

[John Weaver] Shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land? And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you. You shall return every man into his possession, and you shall return every man into his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you. You shall not sow, neither reap that which growth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it by vine undressed, for it is the jubilee.

[John Weaver] It shall be holy unto you. You shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee, you shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest out of thy neighbor's land, you shall not oppress one another. According to the number of years after the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of years, thou shalt increase the price thereof, And according to the fewness of years, thou shalt diminish the price of it, for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell it unto thee. You shall not therefore oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God, for I am the Lord your God.

[John Weaver] Wherefore, you shall do my statutes and keep my judgments and do them, and you shall dwell in the land in safety. Now, I want you to note that every seventh year was a sabbatical year. During the sabbatical year, the debts were forgiven. Any Hebrew servant, maid or man, were released from bondage. And of course, then the owner thereof furnished them liberally out of what he had so that they may begin life anew on an independent basis. So after you had seven times seven of these sabbatical years, which would be 49, the 49th year, of course, would be a sabbatical year. Then the year of Jubilee would also be considered a sabbatical year as well. So God is requiring that the year of Jubilee be kept.

[John Weaver] Now, so let me just point out the fact that there are so many people today especially the seventh-day Adventists, but there are others, who are insisting on keeping the weekly Sabbath, and they are claiming that Saturday is the Sabbath. Well, I've gone over this before, but if you would take the time to read Exodus chapter 12, and Exodus chapter 14 particularly, God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt on Aviv at 14, and he said this date, this day, AVIB 14 shall be the beginning of your year. In other words, every year, their calendar began then on AVIB 14, which would be the first day of their new year. Now, so was Saturday a Sabbath? Of course, Saturday didn't even exist back then, but you understand what I'm saying. I'm just going through this so we can understand it.

[John Weaver] My birthday happens to be on September 3rd. I think this past year, it may have been on Wednesday. I don't really remember. But if it was on Wednesday this year, this past September 3rd, the next year is going to be on Thursday. The year after, it's going to be on Friday. The year after that, it's going to be on Saturday. So if the date is set, the day of the week changes. So Saturday would have been, huh, a weekly sabbath once every seven years, but so would every other day of the week be a weekly sabbath as well.

[John Weaver] So here's my point that I'm trying to emphasize. If someone is going to insist on keeping a weekly sabbath, why do they not keep the new moon sabbaths? Why do they not keep the sabbatical year? Why do they not keep the year of Jubilee? God required that all Sabbaths be kept. The word Sabbath just simply means rest. And in this sabbatical year, the land had to rest. Now, there was a method for God requiring this. I could just simply ask this. Why in the world did God say, you do this every seventh year? Why did he not say do it every eighth year or every ninth year?

[John Weaver] Well, the truth of the matter is this. It just so happens that most insects are on a seven-year cycle. Which means then, on the seventh year, if nothing is planted, and everyone is just freely eating whatever grows of itself, no one is harvesting it. And all the animals are eating. When the insects come out, guess what? There's not much for them to live on. And they die off. So it's a means of pest control. And moreover, Once everything dies of itself and goes back into the ground, it fertilizes the ground.

[John Weaver] And so this was God's way of keeping agriculture going. And of course, what we do today, we put all the chemicals, all the fertilizers there, and we literally rape the land until it won't produce anything. It is so absolutely barren. And of course, that is why years ago we came up with crop rotation. And that's why we came up finally understanding some things about certain sections of your field, you would just simply let lie dormant for one year, which was a biblical act. And I'm just saying, God had a reason for all this.

[John Weaver] So, in every seventh year now, the debts were forgiven, and the Hebrew servants, slaves, were let free, let go free, and they were furnished from the master, and then the year of Jubilee, everything returned back to the original owner. Now, so there's some vitally important lessons that we're to learn from all of this. The first one is this, Proverbs 22 and verse 7, where the word of God says, the rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. And the word servant actually said the borrower is servant to the lender. The word servant actually means slave.

[John Weaver] So the Bible is teaching us that not only is debt slavery, debt is the opposite of liberty and freedom. Think about this. If I am in debt, if I owe Steve, that means what I'm working, I'm not working for myself, I'm working for Steve because I owe him and actually, I'm enslaved to him until I pay back that debt that I borrowed from him. So actually, debt then is slavery in and of itself. The one that is in debt cannot do as he pleases, cannot do as he wills, because he is now the servant to the individual who loaned him that money.

[John Weaver] Now, here's the point I'm trying to make and show you. Judah and Jerusalem. went into captivity for violating God's Sabbaths. God was the owner of the land. God was the owner of everything. And God told them, you are to do this, which they did not. So I want you to look in Leviticus chapter 26 and let's begin reading there with verse 33, Leviticus 26, verse 33. This is the curse for disobedience. But look what God says. And I will scatter you among the heathen and will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. And you being your enemy's land, even then shall the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. It shall rest. because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when you dwelt upon it. So God says, if you do not keep my Sabbaths, then he said, I'm going to send you into captivity and the land is going to rest and you will not be planting anything.

[John Weaver] You will not be doing anything because you will be in captivity. Look in verse 43, Leviticus 26, verse 43. The land also shall be left of them. and she shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lies desolate without them. And they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity because even because they despised my judgments and because their soul abhorred my statutes. So obviously, clearly, then God is saying, look, there's a principle here and I'm going to show it to you.

[John Weaver] I want you to go ahead and turn in your Bibles. to the book of 2nd Chronicles chapter 36. 2nd Chronicles 36. And look if you would please at verse 21. There's an awful lot in the Bible about these sabbatical years. So in 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 and verse 21, in fact let's read verse 20. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where there were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill three score and 10 years. So for the 70 years that Judah and Jerusalem were in captivity in Babylon, the land was enjoying her sabbaths or the land was enjoying arrest and so they had abused this principle for a long long time now if you will turn or I don't over to the book of Daniel chapter 9 and look if you would please at verses 1 & 2 and you will see how Daniel understood that the captivity was about to come to an end so on Daniel chapter 9 beginning there with verse 1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the

[John Weaver] seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books, that is the writings of the Old Testament, the number of the years where the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

[John Weaver] Now we're going to look at some of that, but the point I'm trying to make right now is this. Seventy years of captivity was for violating the sabbatical gears.

[John Weaver] Now, in light of these passages, there's a principle of truth that should be absolutely obvious. Here it is. Freedom and liberty are to be found in obedience. Let me finish it. destruction, and of course, destitution are found in disobedience. Because we see these people taken off the land, and now they are dying, they're suffering, they're destitute of everything. So let me say it again like this, freedom or liberty, freedom or liberty happens to be found in obedience. And death and destruction are found in disobedience. Now, let me make this clear, because liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please. Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word. Now, we've just seen this in all of these passages, but let me make it even plainer.

[John Weaver] Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery. Our Lord said it like this in John 18 verse 34. Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

[John Weaver] Now the word servant is the word doulos in the Greek, which literally means slave. Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.

[John Weaver] Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Romans chapter six, because the Bible does teach us very plainly that sin is slavery. And when you look in the book of Romans chapter six, and I've preached a whole series on this passage, a number of years back. But when you look in Romans chapter 6, you actually see two kingdoms, you see two dominions, you see two kings. Sin is called a lord, is called a king, and sin has dominion. And then, of course, in this passage, Jesus Christ, of course, is king of kings, he is lord, and he has a dominion. The Bible in the very first part of this chapter speaks about the fact how we have died in Christ.

[John Weaver] That is, we were crucified in him. We were buried with him in baptism. We were raised from the dead in him to newness of life. And therefore, we were to walk in obedience.

[John Weaver] Now, look, if you would, beginning in verse 11. So God tells us this as Christians, likewise, Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So what he's telling us right now is we have died to the kingdom of sin, to the dominion of sin, to the lordship of sin. We've done, we're done with that. We're, we're, we've died in it. We're to reckon ourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Now look in verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Now he did not say, let not sin therefore be in your mortal bodies. It's in our mortal bodies.

[John Weaver] But he says, don't let it rain. In other words, the power of sin has been broken. Sin is no longer our Lord, no longer our master. We do not have to obey sin whenever sin says, chomp. We do not ask how high. No. The Bible tells us in 1 John 2 and verse 1, my little children, These things I write unto you that you sin not. So we do not have to sin because sin is not our Lord. So look at it in verse 13. Now he's explaining it. Neither yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.

[John Weaver] That's what we used to do. But now he says, yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. That is, our hands, our bodies, our minds, our legs, our feet, whatever we are. He says, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law. That is as a means of justification. But under grace. Now, he asks, what then shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace, God forbid.

[John Weaver] Now look at verse 16. No, you not that to whom you yield yourself servants to obey. His servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that you were, that's past tense, the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. So being made, being then made free from sin, that is from lordship of sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Now, let me just go ahead and look at verse 19.

[John Weaver] He said, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity and to iniquity, that is what you used to do, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. So freedom then from the lordship of sin is only found in Jesus Christ. So we were bond slaves to sin. We were under the dominion of sin, and sin was our Lord. And when that sin was our Lord, we yielded our bodies to sin. We voluntarily, willingly satisfied the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now, the apostle is saying, just like you willingly and deliberately serve sin, now that you're saved, you willingly and deliberately serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and you yield all of your members unto him and not unto sin.

[John Weaver] Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians chapter 5 and look at verse 1. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Our church is named Freedom Baptist Church, and there is a reason it is called Freedom Baptist Church. It is taken from this text. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Look what the apostle writes. stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. So he says stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Now the word liberty and the word free is the Greek word Eleutheria which literally is talking about true liberty. true freedom. And so liberty and freedom are used synonymously in the Bible. So he says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty where the Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage. So any sin, any legalism, anything that is bondage, we are free of by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the word bondage is the word duly, duly.

[John Weaver] which is slavery, bondage, or the condition of being a slave. Now, let me ask you a question because I want to answer it for you. Okay, here we go. Why did Jesus Christ come? Now, you could answer that in a number of ways. You could say, well, Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. He came to save his people. He came to redeem us. And all of that would be true. But I want you to look in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 4, and verse 18.

[John Weaver] And by the way, just mark Galatians, if you would, we'll be coming back there. So look in your Bibles to the book of Luke chapter four and verse 18, because here the Bible gives us specifically why Jesus Christ came. Yes, he came to save sinners. But what is involved in salvation? So here we go. Luke chapter four, verse 18. In fact, let's read verse 17. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he opened the book, he found the place where it is written.

[John Weaver] The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. It sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

[John Weaver] Now, verse 18 is taken specifically from Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2. And in verse 18, he speaks about deliverance, and then he also speaks about liberty. The interesting thing is, in each instance, the Greek word is athos, which means a release from bondage, a release from imprisonment, and includes the remission from the penalty of sin. Let me emphasize this again. True liberty and true freedom is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. David said it like this in Psalm 119 in verse 45. He said, I will walk at liberty or I seek thy precepts. So it's the word of God then that gives us true liberty.

[John Weaver] Now, there are several names for the Bible. the scriptures in the Word of God. For instance, James 2 in verse 12. In that passage he said, so speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. So the law of liberty is another name for the Word of God. And it also teaches us that God's law does indeed give us true liberty. Okay?

[John Weaver] Just stop and think about that. If I'm not an adulterer, I have freedom to love my wife. If I'm not a thief, I have freedom to love honest work. So it's called the law of liberty. But when you look in James 2 and verse 8, God said, if you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now it's called the royal law. Why?

[John Weaver] Because it comes from the king of kings. and also because it's given us in mercy and grace.

[John Weaver] Now, I want you to turn right over to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. I'm trying to set this thing up for you, but I want you to look in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. You should know this verse anyhow. The Bible says, now the Lord is that spirit. and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Well, if where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the opposite is also true. Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is slavery, there is tyranny.

[John Weaver] So let me put it to you like this. Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty. Stop and think about this. Even, I think it was Samuel Adams, who said that our Constitution is made for a moral and religious people. And he said, it is totally inadequate for any other. And of course, they use the word religious or the word Christian. So basically, he said, Our constitution is made for a moral and a Christian people. It's totally inadequate for any other. Now, when you stop and think about this, you look at what we call the third world countries. You look at all the countries where there's tyranny, where there's despotism, where there's bondage, where there's slavery. Guess what? None of them have the word of God.

[John Weaver] I don't care if you're looking at China. I don't care if you're looking at African countries, I don't care where you're looking, South American countries, where their word of God is not, there is no liberty, there is no freedom, because the spirit of God is not there. It's the spirit of God who wrote the word of God, inspired it to be written. Now, so we've been called unto liberty. And I want you to understand that liberty is not a freedom to sin. Freedom is not a liberty to do as we please. Doing as we please and fulfilling the desires of the lusts in the flesh is nothing more than licentiousness and wickedness. And if you think, for one instance, that liberty gives you the right to do as you please, you're badly mistaken. You have no right to go out and murder someone or to steal something. You have no right to come up and try to hit me.

[John Weaver] What's the old adage we used to say? Your freedom ends where my nose begins. Well, in other words, now you don't have the freedom to harm someone. You don't have the freedom to do whatever you want to do. And some folks have found out they don't have real freedom when they picked on the wrong individual. And the wrong individual just took them out. So I'm just simply pointing out, no. But we cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin. So I want you to go back to the book of Galatians, chapter five. I want you to hold this because we're going to come back in just a moment to the same chapter. So look in Galatians, chapter five and verse 13, Galatians five, verse 13. The apostle writes for brethren, you've been called into liberty. only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another. So we've been called into liberty, we've been called into freedom, but we cannot use our liberty as an occasion of the flesh.

[John Weaver] You know what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter six, he said, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You cannot continue in sin That is, you cannot continue in willful disobedience if you've been saved by the grace of God.

[John Weaver] Now hold Galatians five, but turn right over to first Peter, chapter two. And look, if you would please, at verse 16, first Peter, chapter two and verse 16. Here it is. As free, that's freedom. as free, not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a service of God. So we cannot use our liberty, our freedom in Christ as a cloak of maliciousness, nor can we use it to satisfy our flesh and do that which is displeasing and unbiblical and unholy and ungodly. Now, I want you to go back in your Bibles to Galatians 5 and now look at verse 17. Here is why. Here's why we cannot do that. The Bible says in verse 17, for the flesh lusted against the spirit. And the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. Now, first of all, when he says for the flesh lusted against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh."

[John Weaver] The word lusteth actually means to fight against. So your flesh is fighting against the spirit of God, and the spirit of God is fighting against the flesh. Then he says this, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. The Greek word for contrary means to set over against. It means to oppose. It means to be opposite. It means to be averse to adverse to. It means to withstand, thus to fight. So what he is saying is the flesh is warring against the spirit and the spirit is warring against the flesh. Therefore, he said, you cannot do the things which you would. So here is how you can very easily tell whether or not you're walking in the spirit or in the flesh, for instance, He said in verse 18, but if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are these, and he goes on. How do I know whether I'm walking in the spirit?

[John Weaver] Well, if I'm walking in the spirit, I'm not fulfilling the lust of the flesh or the desires of the heart and the mind. I'm not walking in the pride of life. If I'm trying to seek fulfillment of my fleshly lust, then I'm walking in the flesh. I'm not walking in the spirit, because these are contrary, the one to the other. So we are, in one sense of the word, in a constant state of war.

[John Weaver] Let me give you a quote by R.J. Rush Dooney. He was a good friend of mine, and I attended his funeral in California back in, I guess it was 1999. But listen to what he said. It's absolutely true. He said, men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare. Stop and think about that. Christ is the principle of that warfare.

[John Weaver] Why do we fight against the flesh? Why do we fight against wickedness? Why do we fight? Because of Jesus Christ. Why do we seek to obey the word of God? Because of Jesus Christ. Why do we oppose tyranny? Because of Jesus Christ. Christ is the principle of this warfare. Now, we have been set free from the tyranny and the bondage of sin that we might serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He did not free us so that we could indulge our flesh. He freed us that we might obey him.

[John Weaver] Now, if you interpret liberty or freedom then to be freedom to sin, you are once again badly mistaken. So, let me tell you where we are. There's a very important book that was written by a Puritan many, many years back. I have it in my library. Read it years ago. It was written by Thomas Boston, and the title of the book is The Fourfold State of Man. And he brings out the fact that man is in four totally different states. Okay? The first state he points out is what he calls the state of innocence.

[John Weaver] That's when God created Adam. God created Adam with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. But although Adam had original holiness, righteousness, and knowledge, God created him mutable. He could fall. He could sin. And he did fall, and he did sin. So many people like to say, well, each man is his own Adam. That's what Arminius said. No, no. Each man is not his own Adam. You do not come into this world with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. You come in this world sinful and depraved. Okay? This tabula ras that the philosophers talk about, that you come in as a blank slate and you must write upon the slate what you become. No, that's not true whatsoever. So when you think about the age of innocence or Adam, Adam is the only individual that ever existed in that particular state. The second state is a state of depravity, because when Adam sinned, he fell.

[John Weaver] He was driven from the garden and cherubims with flaming swords that were there to keep him out. And the Bible says in Romans 5 in verse 12, Wherefore, by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin And so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. And the very proof that we are sinners is that we die. If we were not sinners, we would not die. So now you have man in the second state. That is the state of depravity. And what does the Bible say in Romans chapter eight?

[John Weaver] So then they that are flesh cannot please God. There's no way a fallen, unsaved man can do anything that would please God. The third state is what you and I would call the state of grace. We have been saved. We have been delivered from the bondage of sin. We've been delivered from Satan. We've been delivered from the realm of darkness. We've been translated into the kingdom of light and into the kingdom of God's dear son. And so now in grace, we do have the ability to please God. But there's still a problem. Although we now have the ability to please God, we still have the ability also to displease Him. We can be disobedient. We can dishonor Him. And consequently, you know, we are not made perfect under the state of grace. And then the fourth state is that of immortality. That is where we're absolutely perfect and we will never ever sin again, period. So man is different in all four of these states. So when you think about where we are right now, we're in the state of grace where God has saved us and brought us into his kingdom and now given us the ability to please him and to obey him and honor him.

[John Weaver] But at the same time, we have also the ability to displease him and dishonor him. If you look back in your Bibles to the book of Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight, you'll see that when God cursed fallen man, he also cursed the earth. You can read about that in Genesis chapter 3. But I want you to notice what he says in Romans chapter 8, and let's begin reading there with verse 19. Romans 8 and verse 19. He says, for the earnest expectation of the creature or the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. So the whole creation is waiting for the sons of God to be made manifest. Why? Now look, for the creature or the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who had subjected the same in hope. So God has subjected the creation and hope as well as us, because the creature or creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption under the glorious liberty of the children of God.

[John Weaver] He said, for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. In other words, the whole creation is groaning. The whole creation is under a curse until the sons of God be made manifest. And so when we are totally and completely glorified, well, the earth is going to be released as well. I smile so many times, not because I think it's funny, but because it's so true. You plant a garden.

[John Weaver] And guess what you do? You fight the weeds. You fight the grass. You have to fertilize. You have to do everything just to protect your plants and to make them produce. But guess what? If you don't plant a garden, you never have to fertilize. You never have to work. The weeds and the grass are coming up anyhow. And this is part of what God was telling those people back in Leviticus 25.

[John Weaver] You better obey me if you want to prosper. So now. So actually, when you look in verse 21 of Romans eight, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty that were delivered and liberty actually come from the same Greek word Eleuthero, which is the verb which means to be set at liberty from the dominion of sin.

[John Weaver] Now, let me ask you this question. What kind of liberty do you want? That is the title of this message. I've only showed you so far one kind of liberty. That is the true liberty. That is liberty to obey God and to honor Him and glorify Him. But there is another liberty. I want you to go in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah chapter 34. And as you get to Jeremiah chapter 34, I want you to hold that passage because I'm going to tell you just a little bit about it before we begin reading it. In Jeremiah 34, Judah and Jerusalem are under attack from Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Jeremiah has already spelled things out very clearly and very distinctly for King Zedekiah. You remember all of those scriptures that I read where God said, look, you're going to go into captivity if you don't keep my Sabbaths. He said that when you're in captivity, the land is going to rest. OK, so let's begin reading in Jeremiah 34 and let's begin reading with verse six.

[John Weaver] Then Jeremiah, the prophet, spake all these words unto Zedekiah, king of Judah and Jerusalem. When the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Raish, and against Ezekiah, for these defense cities remained in the cities of Judah. This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king, Zedekiah, had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them, that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew or a Hebrewist, go free, that none

[John Weaver] should serve himself of them to wit of a Jew his brother. Now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his manservant, and everyone has made Zerubbabel go free, that none should serve themselves of them anymore. Then they obeyed and let them go."

[John Weaver] Now, let me stop right there. Why did they let them go? Well, you've got to remember this, that Jeremiah had spoken very plainly to King Zedekiah, and he said, if you don't do this, you're going to die. Look in Jeremiah 34, beginning there with verse 1, The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth, of his dominion, and all the people fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

[John Weaver] And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand. And then I shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth and thou shalt go to Babylon. Wow.

[John Weaver] Now, that is how They said, we need to make a covenant. We need to let our men servant and maid servants that are Hebrews go. And they did. Temporarily. When you get down to verse 11, Jeremiah 34, verse 11, but afterward, that is, after they let them go, after they did that which was right and obedient, afterwards they turned and calls the servants and the handmaids who made that go free to return and brought them into subjection for servants and handmaids. So they brought them back again into bondage. Wow. All right, get ready. Let's look in verse 12 and we're going to read. Oh, through verse 22. OK, look at this verse 12. Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying Thus of the Lord the God of Israel I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that are brought them forth out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondman saying at the end of seven years Let you go every man his brother in Hebrew Which had been sold unto thee and when he had served these six years thou shalt let him go free from thee But your father's harp and not enemy neither inclined their ear And you were now turned and had done right in my sight in

[John Weaver] proclaiming liberty to every man to his neighbor. And you had made a covenant before me and the house which is called by my name. They went in the temple and made this covenant. But you turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid. whom you had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, you have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

[John Weaver] And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they have made before me, where they cut the calf in twain and pass between the parts thereof. the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests and all the people of the land which pass between the parts of the cave. I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and of the hand of them that seek their life and their dead bodies shall be for meat for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the field. And Zedekiah, king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them that seek their life and to the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are going up upon you.

[John Weaver] Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.

[John Weaver] Now, I want to call your attention back, if you would, to verse 17. Look what God says. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, you have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his neighbor, and every man to his neighbor, or every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, God says, I proclaim a liberty for you. What kind of liberty? A liberty to the sword, and to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I'll make you be moved into all the kingdoms of the earth. Two kinds of liberty. There's a liberty that God gives us that we might obey. And there is a liberty that God gives the disobedient, and it's death and destruction. Now, I want to make some applications. I want you to think with me upon these.

[John Weaver] The first one is this. Liberty to sin is not liberty. It is slavery. No one has the right to sin against God. I don't have the right to take out a pistol and shoot Steve. I don't have a right to go up and slap Lorraine. I don't have a right to go steal because I'm low on funds. No one has a right to violate the law of God and to sin against God. When men claim liberty and freedom to sin, what they are asking for is liberty and freedom to be judged, condemned, and destroyed by God. In light of our present situation and circumstances in America, I would suggest that we begin a heartfelt obedience unto God, and we return to Him, or else we're going to find the liberty of judgment. Here's the second one. You've heard this saying, I'm going to read it to you. Here it is. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.

[John Weaver] As Americans and as Christians, we have to confess and acknowledge that we are weak in faith, in obedience, in morality, in truth, in justice, in a biblical work ethic, as well as in pure old common sense. Do you realize very few Christians can give us biblical principles of liberty and freedom? Very few Americans can tell us the principles upon which our nation was founded and in which we were given liberty and freedom. The truth of the matter is, We're now faced with this choice. We must choose as to whether or not we're going to obey Christ in the liberty and freedom that he purchased for us, or we're going to disobey him and have the liberty of judgment and condemnation and destruction.

[John Weaver] And when you consider it's not just your life, but your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, your society, your family, your friends, your nation, you better choose wisely. You better choose wisely. Moreover, liberty, true liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ. Our Lord said in John 6 in verse 44, no man can come unto me except the Father who sent me draw him. So no one has the ability by nature to come to savingly to Jesus Christ. But when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith, that is where true liberty and true freedom begin. Because now we may obey Him and honor Him, but no one can come to Him apart from grace and mercy. Our Lord said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. So what kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?

[John Weaver] You wonder what's going on in this country? It's judgment. And the more we disobey, the more severe it's going to become. Choose wisely. What was it Joshua said? Choose which God you're going to serve. God's over on the other side of the flood. or the one true and living God is for me in my house. We will serve the Lord God. That's where we need to be.

[John Weaver] Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. Give us, Lord, your true freedom to obey and to honor. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen. ♪ ♪ you

What Kind of Liberty do you Want?

John Weaver | YouTube

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	YouTube
Media ID	Ma25QrarD84
Subject	Covenant Theology
Course	Covenant Theology: Blessings, Curses, and Sanctions: A Time Of Need
Genre	Sermon
Date	2024-12-01
Dictation Name
Book	Book 043: Covenant Theology: Blessings, Curses, and Sanctions: A Time Of Need — Chapter 24
Source Timed Segments	73

Formatted Transcript

Introduction: Two Kinds of Liberty

Weaver introduces the topic by reading Leviticus 25:10 about the Year of Jubilee and notes that there are two kinds of liberty shown in Scripture.

All right, today I want to deal with a subject. The title is, What Kind of Liberty Do You Want? And I want you to turn in your Bibles to two passages. The first one is Leviticus chapter 25, and the second one is Jeremiah 34. We're going to be looking at both of those passages, primarily Leviticus to begin with, and then you're going to see exactly what I'm talking about. So in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10, we read about the year of Jubilee, which happened to be every 50th year. The Bible says,

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 25:10

"And you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and you shall return every man into his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family."

Actually, truly, there are basically two kinds of liberty that I'm going to be discussing today that are shown to us in the Word of God. However, we could actually enumerate different kinds of liberty.

For instance, you remember the speech that Patrick Henry gave at the House of Burgesses in Virginia, and he concluded with these words, "Give me liberty or give me death." And the truth there, he was speaking about civil liberty because the colonists were getting ready to fight with George III because of his tyranny, and the tyranny then also of Parliament. So when we talk about liberty, when we talk about freedom, these words are used synonymously. We speak about liberty to act or freedom to perform, and we certainly use those words interchangeably. Amazingly, these two words, liberty and freedom, mean different things to different people. And I suppose one of the main reasons is simply because most people do not understand or know the biblical definition of liberty and freedom.

The Year of Jubilee and God's Ownership of the Land

Explains the economic and land provisions of the Jubilee, emphasizing that the land belongs to God and was not to be sold permanently.

Now, the year of Jubilee was the year in which any possessions—and actually it was not the possessions, it was the fruits of the land. The fruits of the land were bought and or sold, but at the end of the sabbatical years, when you got to the year of Jubilee, all of these fields and all of the fruits thereof went back to the original owner that the land was divided into when Joshua and the priests divided the land. And here is why: if you look in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 23, the Bible says this, "The land shall not be sold forever," God is speaking, "for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me." So God has said the land is his, it is not to be sold forever.

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 25:23

Now, consequently, the Word of God tells us so many times—I think either three or four, I know it's in the Psalms, I know it's in the New Testament—but three or four times, the Bible says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein." So God is the creator, and God is the owner, and God is the possessor of all the earth. I find it absolutely astounding how so many states can claim ownership of the land and therefore tax you for it as if it was theirs, when in reality, it is not theirs. It belongs to God himself. Now I want to give you the context of Leviticus 25 in verse 10. So I want you to look with me and beginning there with verse 1 and I want to read through verse 18. Then I'm going to start explaining this passage so that we can make some proper applications from it. So look in Leviticus 25 in verse 1. "And the Lord spake unto Moses at Mount Sinai saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land which I give you, then shall you keep a sabbath unto the Lord."

The Sabbatical System and Its Purposes

Details the sabbatical year cycle, debt forgiveness, release of Hebrew servants, and the agricultural wisdom behind the seven-year rest.

"Wherefore, you shall do my statutes and keep my judgments and do them, and you shall dwell in the land in safety." Now, I want you to note that every seventh year was a sabbatical year. During the sabbatical year, the debts were forgiven. Any Hebrew servant, maid or man, were released from bondage. And of course, then the owner thereof furnished them liberally out of what he had so that they may begin life anew on an independent basis. So after you had seven times seven of these sabbatical years, which would be 49, the 49th year, of course, would be a sabbatical year. Then the year of Jubilee would also be considered a sabbatical year as well. So God is requiring that the year of Jubilee be kept.

Now, so let me just point out the fact that there are so many people today, especially the Seventh-day Adventists, but there are others, who are insisting on keeping the weekly Sabbath, and they are claiming that Saturday is the Sabbath. Well, I've gone over this before, but if you would take the time to read Exodus chapter 12, and Exodus chapter 14 particularly, God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt on Aviv 14, and he said this date, this day, Aviv 14 shall be the beginning of your year. In other words, every year, their calendar began then on Aviv 14, which would be the first day of their new year. Now, so was Saturday a Sabbath? Of course, Saturday didn't even exist back then, but you understand what I'm saying. I'm just going through this so we can understand it.

My birthday happens to be on September 3rd. I think this past year, it may have been on Wednesday. I don't really remember. But if it was on Wednesday this year, this past September 3rd, the next year is going to be on Thursday. The year after, it's going to be on Friday. The year after that, it's going to be on Saturday. So if the date is set, the day of the week changes. So Saturday would have been a weekly sabbath once every seven years, but so would every other day of the week be a weekly sabbath as well.

So here's my point that I'm trying to emphasize. If someone is going to insist on keeping a weekly sabbath, why do they not keep the new moon sabbaths? Why do they not keep the sabbatical year? Why do they not keep the year of Jubilee? God required that all Sabbaths be kept. The word Sabbath just simply means rest. And in this sabbatical year, the land had to rest. Now, there was a method for God requiring this. I could just simply ask this. Why in the world did God say, you do this every seventh year? Why did he not say do it every eighth year or every ninth year?

Well, the truth of the matter is this. It just so happens that most insects are on a seven-year cycle. Which means then, on the seventh year, if nothing is planted, and everyone is just freely eating whatever grows of itself, no one is harvesting it. And all the animals are eating. When the insects come out, guess what? There's not much for them to live on. And they die off. So it's a means of pest control. And moreover, once everything dies of itself and goes back into the ground, it fertilizes the ground.

And so this was God's way of keeping agriculture going. And of course, what we do today, we put all the chemicals, all the fertilizers there, and we literally rape the land until it won't produce anything. It is so absolutely barren. And of course, that is why years ago we came up with crop rotation. And that's why we came up finally understanding some things about certain sections of your field, you would just simply let lie dormant for one year, which was a biblical act. And I'm just saying, God had a reason for all this.

Debt as Slavery and the Principle of Obedience

Teaches that debt is slavery (Proverbs 22:7) and that liberty is found in obedience, while destruction comes from disobedience.

So the Bible is teaching us that not only is debt slavery, debt is the opposite of liberty and freedom. Think about this. If I am in debt, if I owe Steve, that means what I'm working, I'm not working for myself, I'm working for Steve because I owe him and actually, I'm enslaved to him until I pay back that debt that I borrowed from him. So actually, debt then is slavery in and of itself. The one that is in debt cannot do as he pleases, cannot do as he wills, because he is now the servant to the individual who loaned him that money.

Now, here's the point I'm trying to make and show you. Judah and Jerusalem went into captivity for violating God's Sabbaths. God was the owner of the land. God was the owner of everything. And God told them, you are to do this, which they did not. So I want you to look in Leviticus chapter 26 and let's begin reading there with verse 33, Leviticus 26, verse 33. This is the curse for disobedience. But look what God says. "And I will scatter you among the heathen and will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. And you being in your enemy's land, even then shall the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. It shall rest, because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when you dwelt upon it." So God says, if you do not keep my Sabbaths, then he said, I'm going to send you into captivity and the land is going to rest and you will not be planting anything.

You will not be doing anything because you will be in captivity. Look in verse 43, Leviticus 26, verse 43. "The land also shall be left of them, and she shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lies desolate without them. And they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity because, even because they despised my judgments and because their soul abhorred my statutes." So obviously, clearly, then God is saying, look, there's a principle here and I'm going to show it to you. I want you to go ahead and turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Chronicles chapter 36. 2 Chronicles 36. And look if you would please at verse 21. There's an awful lot in the Bible about these sabbatical years. So in 2 Chronicles chapter 36 and verse 21, in fact let's read verse 20.

Scripture Reading — 2 Chronicles 36:20-21

"And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten years."

So for the 70 years that Judah and Jerusalem were in captivity in Babylon, the land was enjoying her sabbaths or the land was enjoying a rest. And so they had abused this principle for a long, long time. Now if you will turn over to the book of Daniel chapter 9 and look if you would please at verses 1 and 2, Daniel chapter 9 verses 1 and 2, and you will see how Daniel understood that the captivity was about to come to an end. So in Daniel chapter 9 beginning there with verse 1, "In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the

seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books, that is the writings of the Old Testament, the number of the years where the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem." Now we're going to look at some of that, but the point I'm trying to make right now is this. Seventy years of captivity was for violating the sabbatical years. Now, in light of these passages, there's a principle of truth that should be absolutely obvious. Here it is. Freedom and liberty are to be found in obedience. Let me finish it. Destruction, and of course, destitution are found in disobedience. Because we see these people taken off the land, and now they are dying, they're suffering, they're destitute of everything. So let me say it again like this: freedom or liberty happens to be found in obedience. And death and destruction are found in disobedience. Now, let me make this clear, because liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please. Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word. Now, we've just seen this in all of these passages, but let me make it even plainer.

Sin as Slavery and Freedom in Christ

Shows from John 8:34 and Romans 6 that sin is slavery, and true freedom from sin's dominion is only found in Jesus Christ.

Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery. Our Lord said it like this in John 8 verse 34. Jesus said,

Scripture Reading — John 8:34

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."

Now the word servant is the word doulos in the Greek, which literally means slave. Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.

Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Romans chapter six, because the Bible does teach us very plainly that sin is slavery. And when you look in the book of Romans chapter six, and I've preached a whole series on this passage, a number of years back. But when you look in Romans chapter 6, you actually see two kingdoms, you see two dominions, you see two kings. Sin is called a lord, is called a king, and sin has dominion. And then, of course, in this passage, Jesus Christ, of course, is king of kings, he is lord, and he has a dominion. The Bible in the very first part of this chapter speaks about the fact how we have died in Christ. That is, we were crucified in him. We were buried with him in baptism. We were raised from the dead in him to newness of life. And therefore, we were to walk in obedience.

Now, look, if you would, beginning in verse 11. So God tells us this as Christians, "Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." So what he's telling us right now is we have died to the kingdom of sin, to the dominion of sin, to the lordship of sin. We're done with that. We've died to it. We're to reckon ourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Now look in verse 12, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof." Now he did not say, let not sin therefore be in your mortal bodies. It's in our mortal bodies.

But he says, don't let it reign. In other words, the power of sin has been broken. Sin is no longer our Lord, no longer our master. We do not have to obey sin whenever sin says, "Jump." We do not ask how high. No. The Bible tells us in 1 John 2 and verse 1, "My little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not." So we do not have to sin because sin is not our Lord. So look at it in verse 13. Now he's explaining it. "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin."

That's what we used to do. But now he says, "Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." That is, our hands, our bodies, our minds, our legs, our feet, whatever we are. He says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law"—that is as a means of justification—"but under grace." Now, he asks, "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."

Now look at verse 16. "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that ye were"—that's past tense—"the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin"—that is from the lordship of sin—"ye became the servants of righteousness." Now, let me just go ahead and look at verse 19. He said, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity"—that is what you used to do—"even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." So freedom then from the lordship of sin is only found in Jesus Christ. So we were bond slaves to sin. We were under the dominion of sin, and sin was our Lord. And when that sin was our Lord, we yielded our bodies to sin. We voluntarily, willingly satisfied the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now, the apostle is saying, just like you willingly and deliberately served sin, now that you're saved, you willingly and deliberately serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and you yield all of your members unto him and not unto sin.

The Nature of True Liberty

Explains that liberty is not the power to do as one pleases but the power to obey God, citing Galatians 5:1, Luke 4:18, and 2 Corinthians 3:17.

Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians chapter 5 and look at verse 1. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Our church is named Freedom Baptist Church, and there is a reason it is called Freedom Baptist Church. It is taken from this text. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Look what the apostle writes.

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:1

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

So he says stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Now the word liberty and the word free is the Greek word eleutheria which literally is talking about true liberty, true freedom. And so liberty and freedom are used synonymously in the Bible. So he says,

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:1

"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

So any sin, any legalism, anything that is bondage, we are free of by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the word bondage is the word douleia,

which is slavery, bondage, or the condition of being a slave. Now, let me ask you a question because I want to answer it for you. Okay, here we go. Why did Jesus Christ come? Now, you could answer that in a number of ways. You could say, well, Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. He came to save his people. He came to redeem us. And all of that would be true. But I want you to look in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 4, and verse 18.

And by the way, just mark Galatians, if you would, we'll be coming back there. So look in your Bibles to the book of Luke chapter four and verse 18, because here the Bible gives us specifically why Jesus Christ came. Yes, he came to save sinners. But what is involved in salvation? So here we go. Luke chapter four, verse 18. In fact, let's read verse 17. "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he opened the book, he found the place where it is written."

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Now, verse 18 is taken specifically from Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2. And in verse 18, he speaks about deliverance, and then he also speaks about liberty. The interesting thing is, in each instance, the Greek word is aphesis, which means a release from bondage, a release from imprisonment, and includes the remission from the penalty of sin. Let me emphasize this again. True liberty and true freedom is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. David said it like this in Psalm 119 in verse 45. He said, "I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts." So it's the Word of God then that gives us true liberty.

Now, there are several names for the Bible, the Scriptures, in the Word of God. For instance, James 2 in verse 12. In that passage he said, "So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." So the law of liberty is another name for the Word of God. And it also teaches us that God's law does indeed give us true liberty. Okay? Just stop and think about that. If I'm not an adulterer, I have freedom to love my wife. If I'm not a thief, I have freedom to love honest work. So it's called the law of liberty. But when you look in James 2 and verse 8, God said, "If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now it's called the royal law. Why?

Because it comes from the king of kings, and also because it's given us in mercy and grace. Now, I want you to turn right over to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. I'm trying to set this thing up for you, but I want you to look in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. You should know this verse anyhow. The Bible says,

Scripture Reading — 2 Corinthians 3:17

"Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Well, if where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the opposite is also true. Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is slavery, there is tyranny.

The War Between Flesh and Spirit

Describes the internal conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, and that believers cannot use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.

What's the old adage we used to say? Your freedom ends where my nose begins. Well, in other words, now you don't have the freedom to harm someone. You don't have the freedom to do whatever you want to do. And some folks have found out they don't have real freedom when they picked on the wrong individual. And the wrong individual just took them out. So I'm just simply pointing out, no. But we cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin. So I want you to go back to the book of Galatians, chapter five. I want you to hold this because we're going to come back in just a moment to the same chapter. So look in Galatians, chapter five and verse 13, Galatians five, verse 13. The apostle writes,

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:13

"For brethren, you've been called into liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another."

So we've been called into liberty, we've been called into freedom, but we cannot use our liberty as an occasion of the flesh.

You know what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter six, he said, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" You cannot continue in sin. That is, you cannot continue in willful disobedience if you've been saved by the grace of God.

Now hold Galatians five, but turn right over to 1 Peter, chapter two. And look, if you would please, at verse 16, 1 Peter, chapter two and verse 16. Here it is. "As free"—that's freedom—

Scripture Reading — 1 Peter 2:16

"as free, not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a service of God."

So we cannot use our liberty, our freedom in Christ as a cloak of maliciousness, nor can we use it to satisfy our flesh and do that which is displeasing and unbiblical and unholy and ungodly. Now, I want you to go back in your Bibles to Galatians 5 and now look at verse 17. Here is why. Here's why we cannot do that. The Bible says in verse 17, "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would." Now, first of all, when he says "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,"

The word lusteth actually means to fight against. So your flesh is fighting against the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is fighting against the flesh. Then he says this, "and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would." The Greek word for contrary means to set over against. It means to oppose. It means to be opposite. It means to be adverse to. It means to withstand, thus to fight. So what he is saying is the flesh is warring against the spirit and the spirit is warring against the flesh. Therefore, he said, you cannot do the things which you would. So here is how you can very easily tell whether or not you're walking in the spirit or in the flesh. For instance, he said in verse 18, "But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Now, the works of the flesh are these, and he goes on. How do I know whether I'm walking in the Spirit?

Well, if I'm walking in the Spirit, I'm not fulfilling the lust of the flesh or the desires of the heart and the mind. I'm not walking in the pride of life. If I'm trying to seek fulfillment of my fleshly lust, then I'm walking in the flesh. I'm not walking in the Spirit, because these are contrary, the one to the other. So we are, in one sense of the word, in a constant state of war. Let me give you a quote by R.J. Rushdoony. He was a good friend of mine, and I attended his funeral in California back in, I guess it was 1999. But listen to what he said. It's absolutely true. He said, "Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare." Stop and think about that. Christ is the principle of that warfare.

The Fourfold State of Man

Outlines Thomas Boston's four states: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality, emphasizing that in grace we have the ability to please God but still struggle with sin.

That's when God created Adam. God created Adam with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. But although Adam had original holiness, righteousness, and knowledge, God created him mutable. He could fall. He could sin. And he did fall, and he did sin. So many people like to say, well, each man is his own Adam. That's what Arminius said. No, no. Each man is not his own Adam. You do not come into this world with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. You come in this world sinful and depraved. Okay? This tabula rasa that the philosophers talk about, that you come in as a blank slate and you must write upon the slate what you become. No, that's not true whatsoever. So when you think about the age of innocence or Adam, Adam is the only individual that ever existed in that particular state. The second state is a state of depravity, because when Adam sinned, he fell.

He was driven from the garden and cherubims with flaming swords that were there to keep him out. And the Bible says in Romans 5 in verse 12, "Wherefore, by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." And the very proof that we are sinners is that we die. If we were not sinners, we would not die. So now you have man in the second state. That is the state of depravity. And what does the Bible say in Romans chapter eight?

"So then they that are flesh cannot please God." There's no way a fallen, unsaved man can do anything that would please God. The third state is what you and I would call the state of grace. We have been saved. We have been delivered from the bondage of sin. We've been delivered from Satan. We've been delivered from the realm of darkness. We've been translated into the kingdom of light and into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And so now in grace, we do have the ability to please God. But there's still a problem. Although we now have the ability to please God, we still have the ability also to displease Him. We can be disobedient. We can dishonor Him. And consequently, you know, we are not made perfect under the state of grace. And then the fourth state is that of immortality. That is where we're absolutely perfect and we will never ever sin again, period. So man is different in all four of these states. So when you think about where we are right now, we're in the state of grace where God has saved us and brought us into his kingdom and now given us the ability to please him and to obey him and honor him.

Creation's Bondage and Future Liberty

Shows from Romans 8 that creation groans under the curse and will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

He said, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." In other words, the whole creation is groaning. The whole creation is under a curse until the sons of God be made manifest. And so when we are totally and completely glorified, well, the earth is going to be released as well. I smile so many times, not because I think it's funny, but because it's so true. You plant a garden. And guess what you do? You fight the weeds. You fight the grass. You have to fertilize. You have to do everything just to protect your plants and to make them produce. But guess what? If you don't plant a garden, you never have to fertilize. You never have to work. The weeds and the grass are coming up anyhow. And this is part of what God was telling those people back in Leviticus 25.

You better obey me if you want to prosper. So now. So actually, when you look in verse 21 of Romans eight,

Scripture Reading — Romans 8:19-21

"because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty"

—that word delivered and liberty actually come from the same Greek word eleutheroo, which is the verb which means to be set at liberty from the dominion of sin.

Jeremiah 34: The Liberty of Judgment

Examines the covenant to release Hebrew slaves, their subsequent disobedience, and God's proclamation of a liberty to the sword, pestilence, and famine.

"Then Jeremiah, the prophet, spake all these words unto Zedekiah, king of Judah and Jerusalem, when the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah, for these defenced cities remained in the cities of Judah. This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king, Zedekiah, had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them, that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free, that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother. Now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his manservant, and everyone his maidservant go free, that none should serve themselves of them anymore, then they obeyed and let them go."

Now, let me stop right there. Why did they let them go? Well, you've got to remember this, that Jeremiah had spoken very plainly to King Zedekiah, and he said, if you don't do this, you're going to die. Look in Jeremiah 34, beginning there with verse 1,

Scripture Reading — Jeremiah 34:6-22

"The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." "And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand. And thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth and thou shalt go to Babylon."

Wow. Now, that is how they said, we need to make a covenant. We need to let our menservants and maidservants that are Hebrews go. And they did. Temporarily. When you get down to verse 11, Jeremiah 34, verse 11, "But afterward"—that is, after they let them go, after they did that which was right and obedient—"afterwards they turned and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return and brought them into subjection for servants and handmaids." So they brought them back again into bondage. Wow. All right, get ready. Let's look in verse 12 and we're going to read through verse 22. OK, look at this verse 12. "Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee, and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee. But your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. And ye were now turned and had done right in my sight in

proclaiming liberty to every man to his neighbor. And ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name." They went in the temple and made this covenant. "But ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth."

"And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they have made before me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof, the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests and all the people of the land which passed between the parts of the calf. I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and of the hand of them that seek their life and their dead bodies shall be for meat for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the field. And Zedekiah, king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them that seek their life and to the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you."

"Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant." Now, I want to call your attention back, if you would, to verse 17. Look what God says. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold," God says, "I proclaim a liberty for you." What kind of liberty? A liberty to the sword, and to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I'll make you be moved into all the kingdoms of the earth. Two kinds of liberty. There's a liberty that God gives us that we might obey. And there is a liberty that God gives the disobedient, and it's death and destruction. Now, I want to make some applications. I want you to think with me upon these.

Applications and Call to Choose

Applies the message: liberty to sin is slavery; America's weakness calls for heartfelt obedience; true liberty begins in saving grace; choose the liberty of obedience.

The first one is this. Liberty to sin is not liberty. It is slavery. No one has the right to sin against God. I don't have the right to take out a pistol and shoot Steve. I don't have a right to go up and slap Lorraine. I don't have a right to go steal because I'm low on funds. No one has a right to violate the law of God and to sin against God. When men claim liberty and freedom to sin, what they are asking for is liberty and freedom to be judged, condemned, and destroyed by God. In light of our present situation and circumstances in America, I would suggest that we begin a heartfelt obedience unto God, and we return to Him, or else we're going to find the liberty of judgment. Here's the second one. You've heard this saying, I'm going to read it to you. Here it is. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.

As Americans and as Christians, we have to confess and acknowledge that we are weak in faith, in obedience, in morality, in truth, in justice, in a biblical work ethic, as well as in pure old common sense. Do you realize very few Christians can give us biblical principles of liberty and freedom? Very few Americans can tell us the principles upon which our nation was founded and in which we were given liberty and freedom. The truth of the matter is, we're now faced with this choice. We must choose as to whether or not we're going to obey Christ in the liberty and freedom that he purchased for us, or we're going to disobey him and have the liberty of judgment and condemnation and destruction.

And when you consider it's not just your life, but your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, your society, your family, your friends, your nation, you better choose wisely. You better choose wisely. Moreover, liberty, true liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ. Our Lord said in John 6 in verse 44,

Scripture Reading — John 6:44

"No man can come unto me except the Father who sent me draw him."

So no one has the ability by nature to come savingly to Jesus Christ. But when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith, that is where true liberty and true freedom begin. Because now we may obey Him and honor Him, but no one can come to Him apart from grace and mercy. Our Lord said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me." So what kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?

You wonder what's going on in this country? It's judgment. And the more we disobey, the more severe it's going to become. Choose wisely. What was it Joshua said? Choose which God you're going to serve. The gods on the other side of the flood, or the one true and living God? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord God. That's where we need to be.

Closing Prayer

Weaver prays for God to give true freedom to obey and honor Him.

Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. Give us, Lord, your true freedom to obey and to honor. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.

Study Guide

Major Themes

True Liberty is Obedience to God

Summary: Liberty is not the power to do as one pleases but the power to obey God and keep His Word.

Evidence: Weaver states, 'Freedom and liberty are to be found in obedience... Liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please... Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word.'

Sin is Slavery

Summary: Sin brings bondage; whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and only Christ can set us free from its dominion.

Evidence: Weaver cites John 8:34 and Romans 6, saying, 'Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery... Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.'

God's Ownership and Economic Freedom

Summary: The land belongs to God, and the Jubilee provisions teach that debt is slavery and that God's law promotes economic liberty.

Evidence: Weaver explains Leviticus 25:23, 'The land shall not be sold forever... for the land is mine,' and Proverbs 22:7, 'the borrower is slave to the lender.'

The Two Kinds of Liberty

Summary: God offers a liberty of obedience leading to life, and a liberty of judgment leading to death and destruction for the disobedient.

Evidence: From Jeremiah 34:17, Weaver says, 'Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you... to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine.'

Liberty in Christ Alone

Summary: True spiritual liberty is found only in Jesus Christ, who came to preach deliverance to the captives and set at liberty the bruised.

Evidence: Weaver quotes Luke 4:18 and says, 'True liberty and true freedom is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ.'

The War Between Flesh and Spirit

Summary: Believers experience a constant internal war; the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and we cannot use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.

Evidence: Weaver expounds Galatians 5:17, 'For the flesh lusteth against the spirit... so that you cannot do the things that you would.'

Civil Liberty Depends on Spiritual Liberty

Summary: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; nations without God's Word lack true freedom.

Evidence: Weaver says, 'Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty.'

The Call to Choose Obedience

Summary: Believers must choose the liberty of obedience to Christ or face the liberty of judgment; true liberty begins in saving grace.

Evidence: Weaver concludes, 'What kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?'

Key Arguments

Liberty is defined biblically as the power to obey God, not to sin.

Summary: Weaver argues that most people misunderstand liberty because they impose a fleshly or humanistic meaning; Scripture defines liberty as obedience to God's law.

Evidence: He says, 'Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God.'

Debt is a form of slavery, and God's economic laws promote freedom.

Summary: Using Proverbs 22:7 and the Jubilee, Weaver contends that debt enslaves, and God's sabbatical system was designed to prevent perpetual bondage.

Evidence: He states, 'Debt then is slavery in and of itself. The one that is in debt cannot do as he pleases... he is now the servant to the individual who loaned him that money.'

Sin is inherently slavery, and only Christ can liberate from its dominion.

Summary: Weaver argues from John 8:34 and Romans 6 that sin is a slave master, and believers have died to sin's lordship through union with Christ.

Evidence: He says, 'Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery... We were bond slaves to sin... Freedom then from the lordship of sin is only found in Jesus Christ.'

There are two kinds of liberty: one to obey and one to be judged.

Summary: From Jeremiah 34, Weaver shows that when people reject God's commanded liberty, He proclaims a liberty of destruction—sword, pestilence, and famine.

Evidence: He reads Jeremiah 34:17, 'Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you... to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine,' and calls it the liberty of judgment.

True liberty begins in saving grace through Jesus Christ.

Summary: Weaver argues that no one can come to Christ apart from the Father's drawing, and that repentance and faith are where true freedom starts.

Evidence: He says, 'True liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ... when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith.'

Civil liberty is dependent on spiritual liberty.

Summary: Weaver contends that nations without the Word of God and the Spirit of God lack true freedom, citing Samuel Adams on the Constitution's moral foundation.

Evidence: He says, 'Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty.'

Believers cannot use liberty as a cover for sin.

Summary: Weaver argues from Galatians 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:16 that Christian liberty is not a license for the flesh but a call to serve one another in love.

Evidence: He says, 'We cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin... use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh.'

America's current troubles are a result of disobedience and judgment.

Summary: Weaver suggests that the nation's decline is God's judgment, and that returning to obedience is the only remedy.

Evidence: He says, 'You wonder what's going on in this country? It's judgment. And the more we disobey, the more severe it's going to become.'

Scripture References

Leviticus 25:10

Context: Introduction to the Year of Jubilee and the proclamation of liberty.

Leviticus 25:23

Context: God's declaration that the land is His and not to be sold permanently.

Leviticus 25:1-18

Context: The full context of the sabbatical year and Jubilee regulations.

Proverbs 22:7

Context: The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

Leviticus 26:33-43

Context: The curse for disobedience: the land will enjoy its Sabbaths while the people are in captivity.

2 Chronicles 36:20-21

Context: The 70-year captivity fulfilled the word of the Lord by Jeremiah so the land could enjoy its Sabbaths.

Daniel 9:1-2

Context: Daniel understood from Jeremiah's writings that the desolations of Jerusalem would last 70 years.

John 8:34

Context: Jesus said whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.

Romans 6:11-19

Context: Believers are to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God; sin shall not have dominion.

Galatians 5:1

Context: Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Luke 4:17-18

Context: Jesus came to preach deliverance to the captives and set at liberty the bruised.

Psalm 119:45

Context: David said, 'I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts.'

James 2:12

Context: The law of liberty is another name for the Word of God.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Context: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Galatians 5:13

Context: You have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.

1 Peter 2:16

Context: As free, not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness.

Galatians 5:17

Context: The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; they are contrary.

Romans 8:19-21

Context: Creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God and will be delivered from bondage into glorious liberty.

Jeremiah 34:6-22

Context: The covenant to release Hebrew slaves, their disobedience, and God's proclamation of liberty to the sword.

John 6:44

Context: No man can come to Christ unless the Father draws him.

Historical References

Patrick Henry's 'Give me liberty or give me death' speech

Context: Weaver mentions Patrick Henry's speech at the House of Burgesses as an example of civil liberty against the tyranny of George III and Parliament.

Liberty Bell inscription

Context: Weaver notes that Leviticus 25:10 is inscribed on the Liberty Bell: 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land.'

Samuel Adams on the Constitution

Context: Weaver quotes Samuel Adams (or possibly another founder) saying the Constitution is made for a moral and religious people and is inadequate for any other.

Thomas Boston's 'The Fourfold State of Man'

Context: Weaver references the Puritan Thomas Boston's book outlining the four states of man: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality.

R.J. Rushdoony quote

Context: Weaver quotes his friend R.J. Rushdoony: 'Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare.'

Babylonian captivity of Judah

Context: Weaver discusses the 70-year captivity under Nebuchadnezzar as judgment for violating the sabbatical years.

King Zedekiah and the siege of Jerusalem

Context: Weaver recounts the historical context of Jeremiah 34, when Nebuchadnezzar's army attacked Jerusalem and Zedekiah made a covenant to release slaves.

Arminius and the tabula rasa concept

Context: Weaver briefly mentions Arminius's view that each man is his own Adam and the philosophical idea of tabula rasa, rejecting both.

Important Quotes

Liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please. Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word.

Significance: Defines biblical liberty in contrast to the world's understanding, emphasizing obedience as the essence of freedom.

Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery.

Significance: A concise statement of the nature of sin as bondage, foundational to the message.

Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty.

Significance: Connects spiritual freedom to societal freedom, arguing that a nation's liberty depends on its relationship with God.

Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

Significance: The key verse from Jeremiah 34 illustrating the second kind of liberty—the liberty of judgment for disobedience.

Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare.

Significance: A quote from R.J. Rushdoony used to explain the ongoing conflict between flesh and Spirit in the believer's life.

True liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ.

Significance: Emphasizes that genuine freedom starts with salvation through Christ, not human effort.

What kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?

Significance: The concluding challenge that encapsulates the message's call to decision.

Discussion Questions

How does the world's definition of liberty differ from the biblical definition presented in this message?

Context: Weaver contrasts the fleshly/humanistic view of liberty as doing what one pleases with the biblical view of liberty as the power to obey God.

In what ways is debt a form of slavery, and how does the Year of Jubilee address this?

Context: Weaver explains Proverbs 22:7 and the Jubilee's provision for returning land and releasing servants, showing God's economic principles.

What does it mean practically to 'reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin' (Romans 6:11)?

Context: Weaver discusses the believer's position in Christ and the call to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies.

How can we distinguish between using our liberty in Christ and using it as an occasion for the flesh?

Context: Weaver warns against using liberty as a cover for sin, citing Galatians 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:16.

What does the war between the flesh and the Spirit look like in daily life, and how do we walk in the Spirit?

Context: Weaver explains Galatians 5:17 and the contrary nature of flesh and Spirit, emphasizing the constant internal conflict.

How does the account in Jeremiah 34 illustrate the two kinds of liberty?

Context: Weaver contrasts the people's initial obedience in releasing slaves with their later disobedience, leading to God's proclamation of judgment.

What evidence do we see in our nation today that might indicate we are experiencing the 'liberty of judgment'?

Context: Weaver suggests that America's troubles are a form of judgment and calls for heartfelt obedience and return to God.

How does the fourfold state of man help us understand our current struggle with sin and our future hope?

Context: Weaver outlines Thomas Boston's states: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality, highlighting the tension in the state of grace.

Applications

Choose the liberty of obedience over the liberty of judgment.

Summary: Weaver calls believers to consciously choose to obey Christ and walk in the true liberty He purchased, rather than face the destructive liberty of judgment.

Evidence: He says, 'We must choose as to whether or not we're going to obey Christ in the liberty and freedom that he purchased for us, or we're going to disobey him and have the liberty of judgment.'

Return to heartfelt obedience to God.

Summary: In light of America's situation, Weaver urges a return to God through obedience, suggesting that continued disobedience will bring increased judgment.

Evidence: He says, 'I would suggest that we begin a heartfelt obedience unto God, and we return to Him, or else we're going to find the liberty of judgment.'

Do not use Christian liberty as a cover for sin.

Summary: Believers must not treat their freedom in Christ as a license to indulge the flesh; instead, they are to serve one another in love.

Evidence: He says, 'We cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin... use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another.'

Recognize that true freedom begins with saving faith in Christ.

Summary: Weaver emphasizes that no one can come to Christ apart from the Father's drawing, and that repentance and faith are the starting point of true liberty.

Evidence: He says, 'True liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ... when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith.'

Yield your members as instruments of righteousness.

Summary: Just as believers once yielded their bodies to sin, they are now to deliberately yield their members to God for righteousness.

Evidence: He says, 'Even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.'

Choose wisely for the sake of future generations.

Summary: Weaver warns that the choice between obedience and judgment affects not only individuals but their children, grandchildren, and nation.

Evidence: He says, 'When you consider it's not just your life, but your children, your grandchildren... you better choose wisely.'

Serve the Lord as a household.

Summary: Weaver references Joshua's declaration, 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,' as the model for family commitment.

Evidence: He says, 'What was it Joshua said? Choose which God you're going to serve... As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord God.'

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T21:28:00Z

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-06T13:27:05Z

Clean Transcript

What Kind of Liberty do you Want?

Clean readable transcript. This view follows the Commentary.net cleaned segment text while preserving timestamps for audio follow-along.

All right, today I want to deal with a subject. The title is, What Kind of Liberty Do You Want? And I want you to turn in your Bibles to two passages. The first one is Leviticus chapter 25, and the second one is Jeremiah 34. We're going to be looking at both of those passages, primarily Leviticus to begin with, and then you're going to see exactly what I'm talking about. So in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10, we read about the year of Jubilee, which happened to be every 50th year. The Bible says, "And you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and you shall return every man into his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family." Actually, truly, there are basically two kinds of liberty that I'm going to be discussing today that are shown to us in the Word of God. However, we could actually enumerate different kinds of liberty.
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For instance, you remember the speech that Patrick Henry gave at the House of Burgesses in Virginia, and he concluded with these words, "Give me liberty or give me death." And the truth there, he was speaking about civil liberty because the colonists were getting ready to fight with George III because of his tyranny, and the tyranny then also of Parliament. So when we talk about liberty, when we talk about freedom, these words are used synonymously. We speak about liberty to act or freedom to perform, and we certainly use those words interchangeably. Amazingly, these two words, liberty and freedom, mean different things to different people. And I suppose one of the main reasons is simply because most people do not understand or know the biblical definition of liberty and freedom.
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Instead, what they do is they place a fleshly or a humanistic interpretation or meaning upon them. So when we read Leviticus chapter 25 in verse 10, I hope you understand that this passage speaks not only of economic freedom, but it also speaks of land freedom as well. And if you will remember, this is the verse that is inscribed on the Liberty Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land."
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Now, the year of Jubilee was the year in which any possessions—and actually it was not the possessions, it was the fruits of the land. The fruits of the land were bought and or sold, but at the end of the sabbatical years, when you got to the year of Jubilee, all of these fields and all of the fruits thereof went back to the original owner that the land was divided into when Joshua and the priests divided the land. And here is why: if you look in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 23, the Bible says this, "The land shall not be sold forever," God is speaking, "for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me." So God has said the land is his, it is not to be sold forever.
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Now, consequently, the Word of God tells us so many times—I think either three or four, I know it's in the Psalms, I know it's in the New Testament—but three or four times, the Bible says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein." So God is the creator, and God is the owner, and God is the possessor of all the earth. I find it absolutely astounding how so many states can claim ownership of the land and therefore tax you for it as if it was theirs, when in reality, it is not theirs. It belongs to God himself.
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Now I want to give you the context of Leviticus 25 in verse 10. So I want you to look with me and beginning there with verse 1 and I want to read through verse 18. Then I'm going to start explaining this passage so that we can make some proper applications from it. So look in Leviticus 25 in verse 1. "And the Lord spake unto Moses at Mount Sinai saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land which I give you, then shall you keep a sabbath unto the Lord."
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"Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof. But in the seventh year it shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord. Thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. And for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat. And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years, which would be 49, and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 49 years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement."
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"Shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land? And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you. You shall return every man into his possession, and you shall return every man into his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you. You shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed, for it is the jubilee."
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"It shall be holy unto you. You shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee, you shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbor, or buyest out of thy neighbor's land, you shall not oppress one another. According to the number of years after the jubilee, thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according to the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of years, thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years, thou shalt diminish the price of it, for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell it unto thee. You shall not therefore oppress one another, but thou shalt fear thy God, for I am the Lord your God."
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"Wherefore, you shall do my statutes and keep my judgments and do them, and you shall dwell in the land in safety." Now, I want you to note that every seventh year was a sabbatical year. During the sabbatical year, the debts were forgiven. Any Hebrew servant, maid or man, were released from bondage. And of course, then the owner thereof furnished them liberally out of what he had so that they may begin life anew on an independent basis. So after you had seven times seven of these sabbatical years, which would be 49, the 49th year, of course, would be a sabbatical year. Then the year of Jubilee would also be considered a sabbatical year as well. So God is requiring that the year of Jubilee be kept.
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Now, so let me just point out the fact that there are so many people today, especially the Seventh-day Adventists, but there are others, who are insisting on keeping the weekly Sabbath, and they are claiming that Saturday is the Sabbath. Well, I've gone over this before, but if you would take the time to read Exodus chapter 12, and Exodus chapter 14 particularly, God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt on Aviv 14, and he said this date, this day, Aviv 14 shall be the beginning of your year. In other words, every year, their calendar began then on Aviv 14, which would be the first day of their new year. Now, so was Saturday a Sabbath? Of course, Saturday didn't even exist back then, but you understand what I'm saying. I'm just going through this so we can understand it.
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My birthday happens to be on September 3rd. I think this past year, it may have been on Wednesday. I don't really remember. But if it was on Wednesday this year, this past September 3rd, the next year is going to be on Thursday. The year after, it's going to be on Friday. The year after that, it's going to be on Saturday. So if the date is set, the day of the week changes. So Saturday would have been a weekly sabbath once every seven years, but so would every other day of the week be a weekly sabbath as well.
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So here's my point that I'm trying to emphasize. If someone is going to insist on keeping a weekly sabbath, why do they not keep the new moon sabbaths? Why do they not keep the sabbatical year? Why do they not keep the year of Jubilee? God required that all Sabbaths be kept. The word Sabbath just simply means rest. And in this sabbatical year, the land had to rest. Now, there was a method for God requiring this. I could just simply ask this. Why in the world did God say, you do this every seventh year? Why did he not say do it every eighth year or every ninth year?
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Well, the truth of the matter is this. It just so happens that most insects are on a seven-year cycle. Which means then, on the seventh year, if nothing is planted, and everyone is just freely eating whatever grows of itself, no one is harvesting it. And all the animals are eating. When the insects come out, guess what? There's not much for them to live on. And they die off. So it's a means of pest control. And moreover, once everything dies of itself and goes back into the ground, it fertilizes the ground.
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And so this was God's way of keeping agriculture going. And of course, what we do today, we put all the chemicals, all the fertilizers there, and we literally rape the land until it won't produce anything. It is so absolutely barren. And of course, that is why years ago we came up with crop rotation. And that's why we came up finally understanding some things about certain sections of your field, you would just simply let lie dormant for one year, which was a biblical act. And I'm just saying, God had a reason for all this.
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So, in every seventh year now, the debts were forgiven, and the Hebrew servants, slaves, were let free, let go free, and they were furnished from the master, and then the year of Jubilee, everything returned back to the original owner. Now, so there's some vitally important lessons that we're to learn from all of this. The first one is this, Proverbs 22 and verse 7, where the Word of God says, "The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender." And the word servant actually said the borrower is servant to the lender. The word servant actually means slave.
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So the Bible is teaching us that not only is debt slavery, debt is the opposite of liberty and freedom. Think about this. If I am in debt, if I owe Steve, that means what I'm working, I'm not working for myself, I'm working for Steve because I owe him and actually, I'm enslaved to him until I pay back that debt that I borrowed from him. So actually, debt then is slavery in and of itself. The one that is in debt cannot do as he pleases, cannot do as he wills, because he is now the servant to the individual who loaned him that money.
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Now, here's the point I'm trying to make and show you. Judah and Jerusalem went into captivity for violating God's Sabbaths. God was the owner of the land. God was the owner of everything. And God told them, you are to do this, which they did not. So I want you to look in Leviticus chapter 26 and let's begin reading there with verse 33, Leviticus 26, verse 33. This is the curse for disobedience. But look what God says. "And I will scatter you among the heathen and will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. And you being in your enemy's land, even then shall the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate. It shall rest, because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when you dwelt upon it." So God says, if you do not keep my Sabbaths, then he said, I'm going to send you into captivity and the land is going to rest and you will not be planting anything.
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You will not be doing anything because you will be in captivity. Look in verse 43, Leviticus 26, verse 43. "The land also shall be left of them, and she shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lies desolate without them. And they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity because, even because they despised my judgments and because their soul abhorred my statutes." So obviously, clearly, then God is saying, look, there's a principle here and I'm going to show it to you.
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I want you to go ahead and turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Chronicles chapter 36. 2 Chronicles 36. And look if you would please at verse 21. There's an awful lot in the Bible about these sabbatical years. So in 2 Chronicles chapter 36 and verse 21, in fact let's read verse 20. "And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten years." So for the 70 years that Judah and Jerusalem were in captivity in Babylon, the land was enjoying her sabbaths or the land was enjoying a rest. And so they had abused this principle for a long, long time. Now if you will turn over to the book of Daniel chapter 9 and look if you would please at verses 1 and 2, Daniel chapter 9 verses 1 and 2, and you will see how Daniel understood that the captivity was about to come to an end. So in Daniel chapter 9 beginning there with verse 1, "In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, the
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seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by books, that is the writings of the Old Testament, the number of the years where the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem."
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Now we're going to look at some of that, but the point I'm trying to make right now is this. Seventy years of captivity was for violating the sabbatical years.
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Now, in light of these passages, there's a principle of truth that should be absolutely obvious. Here it is. Freedom and liberty are to be found in obedience. Let me finish it. Destruction, and of course, destitution are found in disobedience. Because we see these people taken off the land, and now they are dying, they're suffering, they're destitute of everything. So let me say it again like this: freedom or liberty happens to be found in obedience. And death and destruction are found in disobedience. Now, let me make this clear, because liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please. Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word. Now, we've just seen this in all of these passages, but let me make it even plainer.
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Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery. Our Lord said it like this in John 8 verse 34. Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."
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Now the word servant is the word doulos in the Greek, which literally means slave. Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.
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Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Romans chapter six, because the Bible does teach us very plainly that sin is slavery. And when you look in the book of Romans chapter six, and I've preached a whole series on this passage, a number of years back. But when you look in Romans chapter 6, you actually see two kingdoms, you see two dominions, you see two kings. Sin is called a lord, is called a king, and sin has dominion. And then, of course, in this passage, Jesus Christ, of course, is king of kings, he is lord, and he has a dominion. The Bible in the very first part of this chapter speaks about the fact how we have died in Christ.
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That is, we were crucified in him. We were buried with him in baptism. We were raised from the dead in him to newness of life. And therefore, we were to walk in obedience.
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Now, look, if you would, beginning in verse 11. So God tells us this as Christians, "Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." So what he's telling us right now is we have died to the kingdom of sin, to the dominion of sin, to the lordship of sin. We're done with that. We've died to it. We're to reckon ourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Now look in verse 12, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof." Now he did not say, let not sin therefore be in your mortal bodies. It's in our mortal bodies.
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But he says, don't let it reign. In other words, the power of sin has been broken. Sin is no longer our Lord, no longer our master. We do not have to obey sin whenever sin says, "Jump." We do not ask how high. No. The Bible tells us in 1 John 2 and verse 1, "My little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not." So we do not have to sin because sin is not our Lord. So look at it in verse 13. Now he's explaining it. "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin."
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That's what we used to do. But now he says, "Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." That is, our hands, our bodies, our minds, our legs, our feet, whatever we are. He says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law"—that is as a means of justification—"but under grace." Now, he asks, "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."
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Now look at verse 16. "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that ye were"—that's past tense—"the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin"—that is from the lordship of sin—"ye became the servants of righteousness." Now, let me just go ahead and look at verse 19.
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He said, "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity"—that is what you used to do—"even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." So freedom then from the lordship of sin is only found in Jesus Christ. So we were bond slaves to sin. We were under the dominion of sin, and sin was our Lord. And when that sin was our Lord, we yielded our bodies to sin. We voluntarily, willingly satisfied the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now, the apostle is saying, just like you willingly and deliberately served sin, now that you're saved, you willingly and deliberately serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and you yield all of your members unto him and not unto sin.
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Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians chapter 5 and look at verse 1. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Our church is named Freedom Baptist Church, and there is a reason it is called Freedom Baptist Church. It is taken from this text. Galatians 5 and verse 1. Look what the apostle writes. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." So he says stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Now the word liberty and the word free is the Greek word eleutheria which literally is talking about true liberty, true freedom. And so liberty and freedom are used synonymously in the Bible. So he says, "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage." So any sin, any legalism, anything that is bondage, we are free of by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the word bondage is the word douleia,
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which is slavery, bondage, or the condition of being a slave. Now, let me ask you a question because I want to answer it for you. Okay, here we go. Why did Jesus Christ come? Now, you could answer that in a number of ways. You could say, well, Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. He came to save his people. He came to redeem us. And all of that would be true. But I want you to look in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 4, and verse 18.
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And by the way, just mark Galatians, if you would, we'll be coming back there. So look in your Bibles to the book of Luke chapter four and verse 18, because here the Bible gives us specifically why Jesus Christ came. Yes, he came to save sinners. But what is involved in salvation? So here we go. Luke chapter four, verse 18. In fact, let's read verse 17. "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he opened the book, he found the place where it is written."
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"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
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Now, verse 18 is taken specifically from Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 and 2. And in verse 18, he speaks about deliverance, and then he also speaks about liberty. The interesting thing is, in each instance, the Greek word is aphesis, which means a release from bondage, a release from imprisonment, and includes the remission from the penalty of sin. Let me emphasize this again. True liberty and true freedom is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. David said it like this in Psalm 119 in verse 45. He said, "I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts." So it's the Word of God then that gives us true liberty.
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Now, there are several names for the Bible, the Scriptures, in the Word of God. For instance, James 2 in verse 12. In that passage he said, "So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." So the law of liberty is another name for the Word of God. And it also teaches us that God's law does indeed give us true liberty. Okay?
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Just stop and think about that. If I'm not an adulterer, I have freedom to love my wife. If I'm not a thief, I have freedom to love honest work. So it's called the law of liberty. But when you look in James 2 and verse 8, God said, "If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now it's called the royal law. Why?
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Because it comes from the king of kings, and also because it's given us in mercy and grace.
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Now, I want you to turn right over to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. I'm trying to set this thing up for you, but I want you to look in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17. You should know this verse anyhow. The Bible says, "Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Well, if where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the opposite is also true. Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is slavery, there is tyranny.
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So let me put it to you like this. Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty. Stop and think about this. Even, I think it was Samuel Adams, who said that our Constitution is made for a moral and religious people. And he said, it is totally inadequate for any other. And of course, they use the word religious or the word Christian. So basically, he said, our Constitution is made for a moral and a Christian people. It's totally inadequate for any other. Now, when you stop and think about this, you look at what we call the third world countries. You look at all the countries where there's tyranny, where there's despotism, where there's bondage, where there's slavery. Guess what? None of them have the Word of God.
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I don't care if you're looking at China. I don't care if you're looking at African countries, I don't care where you're looking, South American countries, where the Word of God is not, there is no liberty, there is no freedom, because the Spirit of God is not there. It's the Spirit of God who wrote the Word of God, inspired it to be written. Now, so we've been called unto liberty. And I want you to understand that liberty is not a freedom to sin. Freedom is not a liberty to do as we please. Doing as we please and fulfilling the desires of the lusts in the flesh is nothing more than licentiousness and wickedness. And if you think, for one instance, that liberty gives you the right to do as you please, you're badly mistaken. You have no right to go out and murder someone or to steal something. You have no right to come up and try to hit me.
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What's the old adage we used to say? Your freedom ends where my nose begins. Well, in other words, now you don't have the freedom to harm someone. You don't have the freedom to do whatever you want to do. And some folks have found out they don't have real freedom when they picked on the wrong individual. And the wrong individual just took them out. So I'm just simply pointing out, no. But we cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin. So I want you to go back to the book of Galatians, chapter five. I want you to hold this because we're going to come back in just a moment to the same chapter. So look in Galatians, chapter five and verse 13, Galatians five, verse 13. The apostle writes, "For brethren, you've been called into liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another." So we've been called into liberty, we've been called into freedom, but we cannot use our liberty as an occasion of the flesh.
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You know what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter six, he said, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" You cannot continue in sin. That is, you cannot continue in willful disobedience if you've been saved by the grace of God.
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Now hold Galatians five, but turn right over to 1 Peter, chapter two. And look, if you would please, at verse 16, 1 Peter, chapter two and verse 16. Here it is. "As free"—that's freedom—"as free, not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a service of God." So we cannot use our liberty, our freedom in Christ as a cloak of maliciousness, nor can we use it to satisfy our flesh and do that which is displeasing and unbiblical and unholy and ungodly. Now, I want you to go back in your Bibles to Galatians 5 and now look at verse 17. Here is why. Here's why we cannot do that. The Bible says in verse 17, "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would." Now, first of all, when he says "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,"
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The word lusteth actually means to fight against. So your flesh is fighting against the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is fighting against the flesh. Then he says this, "and these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would." The Greek word for contrary means to set over against. It means to oppose. It means to be opposite. It means to be adverse to. It means to withstand, thus to fight. So what he is saying is the flesh is warring against the spirit and the spirit is warring against the flesh. Therefore, he said, you cannot do the things which you would. So here is how you can very easily tell whether or not you're walking in the spirit or in the flesh. For instance, he said in verse 18, "But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Now, the works of the flesh are these, and he goes on. How do I know whether I'm walking in the Spirit?
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Well, if I'm walking in the Spirit, I'm not fulfilling the lust of the flesh or the desires of the heart and the mind. I'm not walking in the pride of life. If I'm trying to seek fulfillment of my fleshly lust, then I'm walking in the flesh. I'm not walking in the Spirit, because these are contrary, the one to the other. So we are, in one sense of the word, in a constant state of war.
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Let me give you a quote by R.J. Rushdoony. He was a good friend of mine, and I attended his funeral in California back in, I guess it was 1999. But listen to what he said. It's absolutely true. He said, "Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare." Stop and think about that. Christ is the principle of that warfare.
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Why do we fight against the flesh? Why do we fight against wickedness? Why do we fight? Because of Jesus Christ. Why do we seek to obey the Word of God? Because of Jesus Christ. Why do we oppose tyranny? Because of Jesus Christ. Christ is the principle of this warfare. Now, we have been set free from the tyranny and the bondage of sin that we might serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He did not free us so that we could indulge our flesh. He freed us that we might obey him.
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Now, if you interpret liberty or freedom then to be freedom to sin, you are once again badly mistaken. So, let me tell you where we are. There's a very important book that was written by a Puritan many, many years back. I have it in my library. Read it years ago. It was written by Thomas Boston, and the title of the book is The Fourfold State of Man. And he brings out the fact that man is in four totally different states. Okay? The first state he points out is what he calls the state of innocence.
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That's when God created Adam. God created Adam with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. But although Adam had original holiness, righteousness, and knowledge, God created him mutable. He could fall. He could sin. And he did fall, and he did sin. So many people like to say, well, each man is his own Adam. That's what Arminius said. No, no. Each man is not his own Adam. You do not come into this world with original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge. You come in this world sinful and depraved. Okay? This tabula rasa that the philosophers talk about, that you come in as a blank slate and you must write upon the slate what you become. No, that's not true whatsoever. So when you think about the age of innocence or Adam, Adam is the only individual that ever existed in that particular state. The second state is a state of depravity, because when Adam sinned, he fell.
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He was driven from the garden and cherubims with flaming swords that were there to keep him out. And the Bible says in Romans 5 in verse 12, "Wherefore, by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." And the very proof that we are sinners is that we die. If we were not sinners, we would not die. So now you have man in the second state. That is the state of depravity. And what does the Bible say in Romans chapter eight?
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"So then they that are flesh cannot please God." There's no way a fallen, unsaved man can do anything that would please God. The third state is what you and I would call the state of grace. We have been saved. We have been delivered from the bondage of sin. We've been delivered from Satan. We've been delivered from the realm of darkness. We've been translated into the kingdom of light and into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And so now in grace, we do have the ability to please God. But there's still a problem. Although we now have the ability to please God, we still have the ability also to displease Him. We can be disobedient. We can dishonor Him. And consequently, you know, we are not made perfect under the state of grace. And then the fourth state is that of immortality. That is where we're absolutely perfect and we will never ever sin again, period. So man is different in all four of these states. So when you think about where we are right now, we're in the state of grace where God has saved us and brought us into his kingdom and now given us the ability to please him and to obey him and honor him.
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But at the same time, we have also the ability to displease him and dishonor him. If you look back in your Bibles to the book of Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight, you'll see that when God cursed fallen man, he also cursed the earth. You can read about that in Genesis chapter 3. But I want you to notice what he says in Romans chapter 8, and let's begin reading there with verse 19. Romans 8 and verse 19. He says, "For the earnest expectation of the creature"—or the creation—"waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." So the whole creation is waiting for the sons of God to be made manifest. Why? Now look, "For the creature"—or the creation—"was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope." So God has subjected the creation in hope as well as us, "because the creature"—or creation—"itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
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He said, "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." In other words, the whole creation is groaning. The whole creation is under a curse until the sons of God be made manifest. And so when we are totally and completely glorified, well, the earth is going to be released as well. I smile so many times, not because I think it's funny, but because it's so true. You plant a garden.
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And guess what you do? You fight the weeds. You fight the grass. You have to fertilize. You have to do everything just to protect your plants and to make them produce. But guess what? If you don't plant a garden, you never have to fertilize. You never have to work. The weeds and the grass are coming up anyhow. And this is part of what God was telling those people back in Leviticus 25.
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You better obey me if you want to prosper. So now. So actually, when you look in verse 21 of Romans eight, "because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty"—that word delivered and liberty actually come from the same Greek word eleutheroo, which is the verb which means to be set at liberty from the dominion of sin.
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Now, let me ask you this question. What kind of liberty do you want? That is the title of this message. I've only showed you so far one kind of liberty. That is the true liberty. That is liberty to obey God and to honor Him and glorify Him. But there is another liberty. I want you to go in your Bibles to the book of Jeremiah chapter 34. And as you get to Jeremiah chapter 34, I want you to hold that passage because I'm going to tell you just a little bit about it before we begin reading it. In Jeremiah 34, Judah and Jerusalem are under attack from Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Jeremiah has already spelled things out very clearly and very distinctly for King Zedekiah. You remember all of those scriptures that I read where God said, look, you're going to go into captivity if you don't keep my Sabbaths. He said that when you're in captivity, the land is going to rest. OK, so let's begin reading in Jeremiah 34 and let's begin reading with verse six.
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"Then Jeremiah, the prophet, spake all these words unto Zedekiah, king of Judah and Jerusalem, when the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah, for these defenced cities remained in the cities of Judah. This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, after that the king, Zedekiah, had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them, that every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free, that none
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should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother. Now when all the princes and all the people which had entered into the covenant heard that everyone should let his manservant, and everyone his maidservant go free, that none should serve themselves of them anymore, then they obeyed and let them go."
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Now, let me stop right there. Why did they let them go? Well, you've got to remember this, that Jeremiah had spoken very plainly to King Zedekiah, and he said, if you don't do this, you're going to die. Look in Jeremiah 34, beginning there with verse 1, "The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire."
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"And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand. And thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth and thou shalt go to Babylon." Wow.
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Now, that is how they said, we need to make a covenant. We need to let our menservants and maidservants that are Hebrews go. And they did. Temporarily. When you get down to verse 11, Jeremiah 34, verse 11, "But afterward"—that is, after they let them go, after they did that which was right and obedient—"afterwards they turned and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return and brought them into subjection for servants and handmaids." So they brought them back again into bondage. Wow. All right, get ready. Let's look in verse 12 and we're going to read through verse 22. OK, look at this verse 12. "Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee, and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee. But your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. And ye were now turned and had done right in my sight in
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proclaiming liberty to every man to his neighbor. And ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name." They went in the temple and made this covenant. "But ye turned and polluted my name and caused every man his servant and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return and brought them into subjection to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth."
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"And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they have made before me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof, the princes of Judah and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests and all the people of the land which passed between the parts of the calf. I will even give them into the hand of their enemies and of the hand of them that seek their life and their dead bodies shall be for meat for the fowls of the heaven and for the beasts of the field. And Zedekiah, king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of them that seek their life and to the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you."
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"Behold, I will command, saith the Lord, and cause them to return to this city, and they shall fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant."
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Now, I want to call your attention back, if you would, to verse 17. Look what God says. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty everyone to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold," God says, "I proclaim a liberty for you." What kind of liberty? A liberty to the sword, and to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I'll make you be moved into all the kingdoms of the earth. Two kinds of liberty. There's a liberty that God gives us that we might obey. And there is a liberty that God gives the disobedient, and it's death and destruction. Now, I want to make some applications. I want you to think with me upon these.
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The first one is this. Liberty to sin is not liberty. It is slavery. No one has the right to sin against God. I don't have the right to take out a pistol and shoot Steve. I don't have a right to go up and slap Lorraine. I don't have a right to go steal because I'm low on funds. No one has a right to violate the law of God and to sin against God. When men claim liberty and freedom to sin, what they are asking for is liberty and freedom to be judged, condemned, and destroyed by God. In light of our present situation and circumstances in America, I would suggest that we begin a heartfelt obedience unto God, and we return to Him, or else we're going to find the liberty of judgment. Here's the second one. You've heard this saying, I'm going to read it to you. Here it is. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.
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As Americans and as Christians, we have to confess and acknowledge that we are weak in faith, in obedience, in morality, in truth, in justice, in a biblical work ethic, as well as in pure old common sense. Do you realize very few Christians can give us biblical principles of liberty and freedom? Very few Americans can tell us the principles upon which our nation was founded and in which we were given liberty and freedom. The truth of the matter is, we're now faced with this choice. We must choose as to whether or not we're going to obey Christ in the liberty and freedom that he purchased for us, or we're going to disobey him and have the liberty of judgment and condemnation and destruction.
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And when you consider it's not just your life, but your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, your society, your family, your friends, your nation, you better choose wisely. You better choose wisely. Moreover, liberty, true liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ. Our Lord said in John 6 in verse 44, "No man can come unto me except the Father who sent me draw him." So no one has the ability by nature to come savingly to Jesus Christ. But when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith, that is where true liberty and true freedom begin. Because now we may obey Him and honor Him, but no one can come to Him apart from grace and mercy. Our Lord said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me." So what kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?
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You wonder what's going on in this country? It's judgment. And the more we disobey, the more severe it's going to become. Choose wisely. What was it Joshua said? Choose which God you're going to serve. The gods on the other side of the flood, or the one true and living God? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord God. That's where we need to be.
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Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. Give us, Lord, your true freedom to obey and to honor. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.
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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T21:28:00Z

What Kind of Liberty do you Want?

John Weaver | Freedom Ministries

Pastor John Weaver examines two kinds of liberty from Scripture: the true liberty found in obedience to God, and the destructive liberty of judgment that comes upon the disobedient. Using Leviticus 25 and Jeremiah 34, he shows that God's law and the Year of Jubilee teach economic and spiritual freedom, while sin is slavery. True liberty is the power to obey God, not to sin. The message calls believers to choose the liberty of obedience in Christ rather than the liberty of judgment.

Introduction: Two Kinds of Liberty

Weaver introduces the topic by reading Leviticus 25:10 about the Year of Jubilee and notes that there are two kinds of liberty shown in Scripture.

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 25:10

"And you shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you, and you shall return every man into his possession, and you shall return every man unto his family."

The Year of Jubilee and God's Ownership of the Land

Explains the economic and land provisions of the Jubilee, emphasizing that the land belongs to God and was not to be sold permanently.

Scripture Reading — Leviticus 25:23

Now, consequently, the Word of God tells us so many times—I think either three or four, I know it's in the Psalms, I know it's in the New Testament—but three or four times, the Bible says, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein." So God is the creator, and God is the owner, and God is the possessor of all the earth. I find it absolutely astounding how so many states can claim ownership of the land and therefore tax you for it as if it was theirs, when in reality, it is not theirs. It belongs to God himself. Now I want to give you the context of Leviticus 25 in verse 10. So I want you to look with me and beginning there with verse 1 and I want to read through verse 18. Then I'm going to start explaining this passage so that we can make some proper applications from it. So look in Leviticus 25 in verse 1. "And the Lord spake unto Moses at Mount Sinai saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, when you come into the land which I give you, then shall you keep a sabbath unto the Lord."

The Sabbatical System and Its Purposes

Details the sabbatical year cycle, debt forgiveness, release of Hebrew servants, and the agricultural wisdom behind the seven-year rest.

Debt as Slavery and the Principle of Obedience

Teaches that debt is slavery (Proverbs 22:7) and that liberty is found in obedience, while destruction comes from disobedience.

Scripture Reading — 2 Chronicles 36:20-21

"And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths. For as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten years."

Sin as Slavery and Freedom in Christ

Shows from John 8:34 and Romans 6 that sin is slavery, and true freedom from sin's dominion is only found in Jesus Christ.

Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery. Our Lord said it like this in John 8 verse 34. Jesus said,

Scripture Reading — John 8:34

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."

Now the word servant is the word doulos in the Greek, which literally means slave. Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.

The Nature of True Liberty

Explains that liberty is not the power to do as one pleases but the power to obey God, citing Galatians 5:1, Luke 4:18, and 2 Corinthians 3:17.

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:1

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:1

"Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

So any sin, any legalism, anything that is bondage, we are free of by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the word bondage is the word douleia,

Scripture Reading — 2 Corinthians 3:17

"Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Well, if where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, the opposite is also true. Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is slavery, there is tyranny.

The War Between Flesh and Spirit

Describes the internal conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, and that believers cannot use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.

Scripture Reading — Galatians 5:13

"For brethren, you've been called into liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but by love serve one another."

So we've been called into liberty, we've been called into freedom, but we cannot use our liberty as an occasion of the flesh.

Now hold Galatians five, but turn right over to 1 Peter, chapter two. And look, if you would please, at verse 16, 1 Peter, chapter two and verse 16. Here it is. "As free"—that's freedom—

Scripture Reading — 1 Peter 2:16

"as free, not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a service of God."

The Fourfold State of Man

Outlines Thomas Boston's four states: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality, emphasizing that in grace we have the ability to please God but still struggle with sin.

Creation's Bondage and Future Liberty

Shows from Romans 8 that creation groans under the curse and will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

You better obey me if you want to prosper. So now. So actually, when you look in verse 21 of Romans eight,

Scripture Reading — Romans 8:19-21

"because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty"

—that word delivered and liberty actually come from the same Greek word eleutheroo, which is the verb which means to be set at liberty from the dominion of sin.

Jeremiah 34: The Liberty of Judgment

Examines the covenant to release Hebrew slaves, their subsequent disobedience, and God's proclamation of a liberty to the sword, pestilence, and famine.

Scripture Reading — Jeremiah 34:6-22

"The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Go and speak to Zedekiah, king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." "And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand. And thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth and thou shalt go to Babylon."

Applications and Call to Choose

Applies the message: liberty to sin is slavery; America's weakness calls for heartfelt obedience; true liberty begins in saving grace; choose the liberty of obedience.

Scripture Reading — John 6:44

"No man can come unto me except the Father who sent me draw him."

Closing Prayer

Weaver prays for God to give true freedom to obey and honor Him.

What Kind of Liberty do you Want?

John Weaver | YouTube

Lecture Metadata	Details
Speaker	John Weaver
Source	YouTube
Media ID	Ma25QrarD84
Subject	Covenant Theology
Course	Covenant Theology: Blessings, Curses, and Sanctions: A Time Of Need
Genre	Sermon
Date	2024-12-01
Dictation Name
Book	Book 043: Covenant Theology: Blessings, Curses, and Sanctions: A Time Of Need — Chapter 24
Source Timed Segments	73

Lecture Guide

Outline

Introduction: Two Kinds of Liberty: Weaver introduces the topic by reading Leviticus 25:10 about the Year of Jubilee and notes that there are two kinds of liberty shown in Scripture.
The Year of Jubilee and God's Ownership of the Land: Explains the economic and land provisions of the Jubilee, emphasizing that the land belongs to God and was not to be sold permanently.
The Sabbatical System and Its Purposes: Details the sabbatical year cycle, debt forgiveness, release of Hebrew servants, and the agricultural wisdom behind the seven-year rest.
Debt as Slavery and the Principle of Obedience: Teaches that debt is slavery (Proverbs 22:7) and that liberty is found in obedience, while destruction comes from disobedience.
Sin as Slavery and Freedom in Christ: Shows from John 8:34 and Romans 6 that sin is slavery, and true freedom from sin's dominion is only found in Jesus Christ.
The Nature of True Liberty: Explains that liberty is not the power to do as one pleases but the power to obey God, citing Galatians 5:1, Luke 4:18, and 2 Corinthians 3:17.
The War Between Flesh and Spirit: Describes the internal conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, and that believers cannot use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.
The Fourfold State of Man: Outlines Thomas Boston's four states: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality, emphasizing that in grace we have the ability to please God but still struggle with sin.
Creation's Bondage and Future Liberty: Shows from Romans 8 that creation groans under the curse and will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Jeremiah 34: The Liberty of Judgment: Examines the covenant to release Hebrew slaves, their subsequent disobedience, and God's proclamation of a liberty to the sword, pestilence, and famine.
Applications and Call to Choose: Applies the message: liberty to sin is slavery; America's weakness calls for heartfelt obedience; true liberty begins in saving grace; choose the liberty of obedience.
Closing Prayer: Weaver prays for God to give true freedom to obey and honor Him.

Major Themes

Key Arguments

Liberty is defined biblically as the power to obey God, not to sin.

Weaver argues that most people misunderstand liberty because they impose a fleshly or humanistic meaning; Scripture defines liberty as obedience to God's law.

He says, 'Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God.'

Debt is a form of slavery, and God's economic laws promote freedom.

Using Proverbs 22:7 and the Jubilee, Weaver contends that debt enslaves, and God's sabbatical system was designed to prevent perpetual bondage.

He states, 'Debt then is slavery in and of itself. The one that is in debt cannot do as he pleases... he is now the servant to the individual who loaned him that money.'

Sin is inherently slavery, and only Christ can liberate from its dominion.

Weaver argues from John 8:34 and Romans 6 that sin is a slave master, and believers have died to sin's lordship through union with Christ.

He says, 'Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery... We were bond slaves to sin... Freedom then from the lordship of sin is only found in Jesus Christ.'

There are two kinds of liberty: one to obey and one to be judged.

From Jeremiah 34, Weaver shows that when people reject God's commanded liberty, He proclaims a liberty of destruction—sword, pestilence, and famine.

He reads Jeremiah 34:17, 'Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you... to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine,' and calls it the liberty of judgment.

True liberty begins in saving grace through Jesus Christ.

Weaver argues that no one can come to Christ apart from the Father's drawing, and that repentance and faith are where true freedom starts.

He says, 'True liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ... when the Father draws us to Christ and we bow before him in repentance and faith.'

Civil liberty is dependent on spiritual liberty.

Weaver contends that nations without the Word of God and the Spirit of God lack true freedom, citing Samuel Adams on the Constitution's moral foundation.

He says, 'Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty.'

Believers cannot use liberty as a cover for sin.

Weaver argues from Galatians 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:16 that Christian liberty is not a license for the flesh but a call to serve one another in love.

He says, 'We cannot use our liberty and freedom that we have in Jesus Christ as a cover for our sin... use not liberty for an occasion of the flesh.'

America's current troubles are a result of disobedience and judgment.

Weaver suggests that the nation's decline is God's judgment, and that returning to obedience is the only remedy.

He says, 'You wonder what's going on in this country? It's judgment. And the more we disobey, the more severe it's going to become.'

Scripture References

Leviticus 25:10: Introduction to the Year of Jubilee and the proclamation of liberty.
Leviticus 25:23: God's declaration that the land is His and not to be sold permanently.
Leviticus 25:1-18: The full context of the sabbatical year and Jubilee regulations.
Proverbs 22:7: The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Leviticus 26:33-43: The curse for disobedience: the land will enjoy its Sabbaths while the people are in captivity.
2 Chronicles 36:20-21: The 70-year captivity fulfilled the word of the Lord by Jeremiah so the land could enjoy its Sabbaths.
Daniel 9:1-2: Daniel understood from Jeremiah's writings that the desolations of Jerusalem would last 70 years.
John 8:34: Jesus said whoever commits sin is the slave of sin.
Romans 6:11-19: Believers are to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God; sin shall not have dominion.
Galatians 5:1: Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.
Luke 4:17-18: Jesus came to preach deliverance to the captives and set at liberty the bruised.
Psalm 119:45: David said, 'I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts.'
James 2:12: The law of liberty is another name for the Word of God.
2 Corinthians 3:17: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Galatians 5:13: You have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an occasion for the flesh.
1 Peter 2:16: As free, not using your liberty as a cloak for maliciousness.
Galatians 5:17: The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; they are contrary.
Romans 8:19-21: Creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God and will be delivered from bondage into glorious liberty.
Jeremiah 34:6-22: The covenant to release Hebrew slaves, their disobedience, and God's proclamation of liberty to the sword.
John 6:44: No man can come to Christ unless the Father draws him.

Historical References

Patrick Henry's 'Give me liberty or give me death' speech: Weaver mentions Patrick Henry's speech at the House of Burgesses as an example of civil liberty against the tyranny of George III and Parliament.
Liberty Bell inscription: Weaver notes that Leviticus 25:10 is inscribed on the Liberty Bell: 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land.'
Samuel Adams on the Constitution: Weaver quotes Samuel Adams (or possibly another founder) saying the Constitution is made for a moral and religious people and is inadequate for any other.
Thomas Boston's 'The Fourfold State of Man': Weaver references the Puritan Thomas Boston's book outlining the four states of man: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality.
R.J. Rushdoony quote: Weaver quotes his friend R.J. Rushdoony: 'Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare.'
Babylonian captivity of Judah: Weaver discusses the 70-year captivity under Nebuchadnezzar as judgment for violating the sabbatical years.
King Zedekiah and the siege of Jerusalem: Weaver recounts the historical context of Jeremiah 34, when Nebuchadnezzar's army attacked Jerusalem and Zedekiah made a covenant to release slaves.
Arminius and the tabula rasa concept: Weaver briefly mentions Arminius's view that each man is his own Adam and the philosophical idea of tabula rasa, rejecting both.

Important Quotes

Liberty or freedom is not the power to do what you please. Liberty or freedom is not the power to do as you desire. That is licentiousness. Liberty and freedom happen to be the power to obey God, to keep and honor His Word.

Defines biblical liberty in contrast to the world's understanding, emphasizing obedience as the essence of freedom.

Sin not only brings slavery, sin is slavery.

A concise statement of the nature of sin as bondage, foundational to the message.

Civil liberty and all other liberties are based upon spiritual liberty. Where there is no spiritual liberty, there is no civil liberty.

Connects spiritual freedom to societal freedom, arguing that a nation's liberty depends on its relationship with God.

Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

The key verse from Jeremiah 34 illustrating the second kind of liberty—the liberty of judgment for disobedience.

Men cannot find peace in Christ until they accept the necessity for war with a fallen world, and Christ is the principle of that warfare.

A quote from R.J. Rushdoony used to explain the ongoing conflict between flesh and Spirit in the believer's life.

True liberty, true freedom begins in grace, in coming savingly to Jesus Christ.

Emphasizes that genuine freedom starts with salvation through Christ, not human effort.

What kind of liberty do you want? Do you want liberty to obey or liberty to be judged?

The concluding challenge that encapsulates the message's call to decision.

Discussion Questions

[Question]

How does the world's definition of liberty differ from the biblical definition presented in this message?

[Context]

Weaver contrasts the fleshly/humanistic view of liberty as doing what one pleases with the biblical view of liberty as the power to obey God.

[Question]

In what ways is debt a form of slavery, and how does the Year of Jubilee address this?

[Context]

Weaver explains Proverbs 22:7 and the Jubilee's provision for returning land and releasing servants, showing God's economic principles.

[Question]

What does it mean practically to 'reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin' (Romans 6:11)?

[Context]

Weaver discusses the believer's position in Christ and the call to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies.

[Question]

How can we distinguish between using our liberty in Christ and using it as an occasion for the flesh?

[Context]

Weaver warns against using liberty as a cover for sin, citing Galatians 5:13 and 1 Peter 2:16.

[Question]

What does the war between the flesh and the Spirit look like in daily life, and how do we walk in the Spirit?

[Context]

Weaver explains Galatians 5:17 and the contrary nature of flesh and Spirit, emphasizing the constant internal conflict.

[Question]

How does the account in Jeremiah 34 illustrate the two kinds of liberty?

[Context]

Weaver contrasts the people's initial obedience in releasing slaves with their later disobedience, leading to God's proclamation of judgment.

[Question]

What evidence do we see in our nation today that might indicate we are experiencing the 'liberty of judgment'?

[Context]

Weaver suggests that America's troubles are a form of judgment and calls for heartfelt obedience and return to God.

[Question]

How does the fourfold state of man help us understand our current struggle with sin and our future hope?

[Context]

Weaver outlines Thomas Boston's states: innocence, depravity, grace, and immortality, highlighting the tension in the state of grace.

Applications

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | weaver_study | 2026-06-06T13:27:05Z