Four Freedoms 1

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

What I’d like to do tonight is just share some teachings with you about the victorious life. We’ll
spend all of our meeting times during October listening to reports from Amsterdam, France, Germany,
London, and Puerto Rico. We’ll be seeing slides and hearing the testimonies of the brothers and
sisters about the work God was doing through them during the summer. So this week and next week
will be the only two teachings that we’ll have before November. I think maybe it’s better not to
have a question time during these two evenings but to begin the question times during November.

What I’d like to share is the truth that you find in John 8:32. It really is a freeing statement
that God gives us here in this verse. God says this through Jesus: “’And you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.’”

Now there’s no reason at all for you at any time in your Christian life to be anything but totally
free. Really — there is no reason for you to ever be anything but free. And the truth always will
make you free. It is only the deception of Satan and the lies of Satan that will ever bring you
into bondage. Yet why I share this is because a number of us at different stages in our Christian
lives come into bondage and we don’t need to.

It is true that the truth makes you free. If you look down a few verses at verse 36, you see really
where the truth is and how it does make you free: “’So if the Son makes you free, you will be free
indeed.’” Every time you deal with the truth that is in Jesus, you live free. And every time you
miss that truth you come into bondage.

Now there are four great stages in our Christian life where you can come into bondage. Just four
great times, and they correspond really to four parts of Jesus’ life. The first one is that whole
element of conscience. Many of us can come into tremendous bondage over conscience. And the second
one is our wills — just our independent selfish wills. Many of us come into bondage over our
wills. The third one is the psychological part of us, our mind and emotions. Many of us can come
into bondage about our mind and emotions. Then the fourth one refers to the inner part of us, our
spirits. Many of us can come into bondage in regard to our spirits.

Now there is a truth that is in Jesus that delivers us from bondage in each area of our lives. It
corresponds really in a way, to the birth of Jesus, to the death of Jesus, to the resurrection of
Jesus, and to the ascension of Jesus. It is really God’s will that we would experience the birth,
the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus completely in regard to each of those areas
of our lives. And if we don’t, we come into bondage.

Now loved ones, there is only one way really to experience the birth, and death, and resurrection,
and ascension of Jesus in reality in our own lives — and that is through faith. And faith is very
simple — it consists of believing and obeying. Each time in regard to this area of our lives all
we really have to do is to believe certain things about Jesus and to obey certain things in Jesus —
and we come into freedom.

Now let’s just take the first one — the old business of conscience. Most of us start our Christian
lives by coming into a real sense of bondage over a verse like Matthew 5:22. We read a verse like
this and we immediately come into a tremendous bondage: “’But I say to you that every one who is

angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to
the council, and whoever says, “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire.’”

Many of us come into great bondage in our consciences when we begin to realize that we are doing
things that God has told us deserve the penalty of external death and separation from him. And we
just come into a great bondage of guilt.

We know that the wages of sin is death and we know that we have sin in our own lives. Now the way
out of that bondage is very clearly stated in the Bible, and it refers to the whole business of the
new birth in the spirit. We are asked to believe a certain thing about Jesus.

It’s stated there plainly by God in Romans 4:24: “It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that
raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our
justification.” It’s stated plainly there that if you believe that Jesus has died for that sin in
your life, then that faith of yours will be reckoned as righteousness. You’re asked to believe.

The second thing you’re asked to do is that plain statement of Jesus which you are to believe. It’s
stated in Matthew 3:2: “’Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” And dear ones, that’s all
we’re called to do to be free from the bondage of guilt.

But many of us mess the whole thing up. We begin to realize, “No, we have to repent.” And we begin
to come under bondage about repentance. We have an incredible ability to turn God’s freedom into
salvation by works. Some of us will do that.

We’ll look at the believing and we’ll look at the obeying and the repenting and we’ll say, “Well,
the repenting. That means that I have to repent thoroughly.” And we get down to bringing about a
thorough repentance, and many of us begin to feel, “Unless we feel a desperate sorrow for our sins
we have not truly repented.” I know there’s a dear sister among us at this time who just feels she
doesn’t repent enough, and she feels, “No, I don’t feel repentance. I have to feel it. I have to
feel it.”

Loved ones, do you see that repentance is just what it says? You turn from your sin. And if you
keep sinning — you keep turning from your sinning. But repentance is a “metanoia.” {This is the
word in Greek found in the Bible meaning repentance.} It’s a change of mind. You turn from what
you’re doing and you turn to Jesus. It is not a matter of feeling repentance.

But many of us have turned from the truth that sets us free and have turned to the error of Satan
and we’ve begun to sense, “Oh, I must feel this repentance. I don’t feel it enough. God can’t
forgive me because I don’t feel it enough.” Do you see where that’s taking you? That’s taking you
into works. You’re saying, “If you don’t do this work thoroughly enough God cannot forgive you.”

Dear ones, you’ll never repent deeply enough to justify God forgiving you. God forgives you because
you are justified by the blood of Jesus. And it’s that truth that sets you free. It speaks about
this in Romans 5:9: “Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be
saved by him from the wrath of God.”

It isn’t the thoroughness of your repentance. Certainly God asks you to repent. He says, “If you
repent and believe, then the blood of my Son will justify you in my eyes.” But do you see? The
blood of Jesus justifies you in God’s eyes because you’ve repented and believed — not because of

the thoroughness of your feeling sorry at your sin.

Now loved ones, it’s very important to see it. Otherwise, you can begin to punish yourself, and
many of us have come into that. We’ve sinned and we’ve committed a sin 10 weeks ago and we know
it’s wrong. We begin to sense inside ourselves, “No, I deserve to have a period of real contrition
here before God can possibly accept me into his family again.” Therefore we impose upon ourselves a
certain time limit, and we say, “Unless we go through this period of contrition – really, God cannot
possibly forgive us.”

Now loved ones, do you see that’s just the doctrine of penance that brought so many dear ones in the
Catholic Church into bondage? That’s what penance is. It’s saying, “Unless I punish myself enough,
unless I sorrow enough, God will not forgive me.” Dear ones, repentance is turning from your sin
and believing that the blood of Jesus alone will make you right with God, not the thoroughness of
your repentance. Nevertheless, you have to be thorough. You have to go through all of the sins
that you have and repent of them. But you don’t have to squeeze yourself dry to get yourself
sorrowful enough.

Many of us have come into the same problem over confession which is part of repentance. Many of us
fall into the bondage of a sensitivity group. We feel, “Have I confessed everything? I must
confess. I must confess again. No, I didn’t make that right with that other brother correctly, so
I must make it right again.” Many of us come into a place where we think, “Oh now, have I confessed
everything? Have I confessed everything?” Dear ones have come to me, and said week after week
after week, “I have something else to confess. Something else to confess.”

Now loved ones, do you see that that is bondage? You confess all that you know is wrong in your
life. You make it straight before God. You make it straight with other people. You turn from it,
and that is your confession and repentance.

Now many of us come into bondage even over the believing. The believing is to believe that the
blood of Jesus justifies us before God — to believe simply that Jesus has died for our sins. But
many of us come into the old heresy of “a corner on truth.” We feel, “We believe in the
substitutionary death of Jesus in a subtly different way to all other churches. That’s what saves
us.” Loved ones, that just brings you into bondage. It brings you into a preoccupation with the
peccadilloes of the atonement.

Do you see that God expects you to believe that Jesus has died for you? Just to believe that. And
it’s the death of Jesus that makes you right with God. It’s not your exact precise statement of the
atonement, or of the way Jesus’ death saved you. It’s simply your believing that Jesus has died for
you.

There’s such a freedom that comes into your life when you reduce it all to simply repenting and
believing. Just repenting of your sins and believing that Jesus’ death satisfies your Father. Just
that. And suddenly there comes into your heart just a clear assurance of God’s acceptance with you.
But do you see that the truth makes you free? It’s the errors and lies of Satan that brings you
into bondage about that.

We won’t get through the four parts tonight — maybe we’ll just get as far as the second part. But
many of us after we’re born of the Spirit come into this problem of the will that will not obey
Jesus. We come into this area where we find that our wills do not want to submit to God’s law.

Indeed, they cannot submit. They just keep acting against God in rebellion. We try to send them in
God’s direction and we cannot do anything about them.

Now God has made provision for that too. It is madness for us to come into that hypocritical double
life and almost go insane thinking that God has not made provision for it. Loved ones, God has made
clear provision for it, and again here the truth makes you free. The truth really is very simple.
It’s stated in the Bible. Just as Romans 5:9 is the truth that sets you free there, the truth that
sets you free here is Romans 6:6 — that our old self was crucified with Christ. God has said that
this is made real in our lives, just as that other truth is made real in our lives, if –- again —
we believe and obey.

This time we believe Romans 6:11: you reckon you that you have been crucified with Christ. And you
submit, as it says in Romans 6:13. You submit your members to the Spirit of God. But again — it’s
believe and obey.

Really — it’s very simple. But many of us break away from the freedom that is in those words and we
come into bondage. We find this old will that we can do nothing about, and we start to rationalize
it. We say, “Well, I mean, masturbation isn’t too bad. It’s kind of a human trait that many of us
have to face through the early part of our lives, and marriage will clear it all up.” Or, if we
criticize people a bit we say, “Well, you need to use the old critical faculty – otherwise, where
would you be? You have to judge people to know who to agree with and who not to agree with.”

Or, we rationalize the not getting up in the morning. We say, “Well, we just happened to be people
who lay late and we work better late at night than we do early in the morning. And no doubt we’ll
be able to work into the deep prayer later on in the evenings.” Or, we say to ourselves, “Well,
witnessing, yeah. But I’m just a different kind of person. I’m not one of these people who can run
up with the four spiritual laws and witness like that. I have to go more slowly and subtly about it.
I believe in friendship evangelism.” And we believe in friendship evangelism — but it never gets
to evangelism. It just gets to friendship.

But many of us loved ones forget the truth that is in these verses. Instead we set about delivering
ourselves from this problem here again by works. We fall into a salvation by works. The only way
we can get rid of it is to rationalize the failings of this will. Many brothers and sisters walk in
bondage to that will, because they keep on rationalizing and rationalizing, or many of us just
repress it. We just keep repressing it. The old anger is coming up inside us and we just repress
it. We just press it down. And we try to love people on the outside despite the anger. Or, the
irritability comes up and we try to just repress it. We keep repressing these things.

Now loved ones, do you see that the truth sets you free? The truth doesn’t bring you into bondage
like that. It is not God’s will that you should walk in continual repression that shows like that
gray defeat in the back of your eyes. It is God’s will that you should walk free of this — not in
rationalizing and not in repression, but just in a real deliverance.

Some of us feel, “Oh well, yeah, yeah. I believe that. But I have to see it for myself,” and we
start introspecting and we start looking inside. We get all worked up with looking inside, and
looking at our motives, and our attitudes, and our reactions, and our desires, and again we come
into a tremendous bondage. Many of us who have come into an awareness of the problem of our selfish
independent will have not walked a way of freedom at all. We have walked rather the way of bondage.
We have walked either in continual introspection, or in continual repression, or in continual

rationalizing. Many of us just disagree with God. We come into a total despair.

Now loved ones, do you see that a total despair is a blanket rejection of what God has said is true
about us in the Bible? It’s in Romans 7:18: “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that
is, in my flesh.” Now, coming into despair is a rejection of that truth. Do you see that you
come into despair because you’re still hoping for something good from inside you? There’s a great
peace comes inside in your heart when you accept, “That’s right. There is nothing good inside me,
and God see’s that clearly and he expects me to accept that.”

But we come into bondage of despair when we’re still hoping for something good inside us. Or, the
other reason we come into despair is because we don’t really believe Romans 5:9. Romans 5:9 says,
“You’re justified by the blood of Jesus.” We come into despair because deep down we really believe
we’re going to be justified by our victorious life, or by our good works, or by our victory over
sin. That’s why we come into this despair.

But again, do you see? It’s the lie of Satan that brings us into bondage. The truth that is in the
Son sets us free, and the truth that is in the Son is there is no good in you at all. The reason
you’re having such trouble with yourself is you’re still expecting some good from inside you.

Actually, what God wants you to see is that there is no good in you, and to believe and reckon
yourself dead indeed with Jesus on the cross. The word “reckon” in Greek means to treat yourself as
really dead. But many of us keep on rationalizing and repressing. So when we come into a situation
where somebody attacks us or criticizes us in the office, we don’t act as a corpse. No, we’re very
much alive. We whip right back. The old corpse is lying flat on the ground. Suddenly the arm
lifts up and strikes the fellow back.

Do you see that that’s where we’re going astray? We’re rationalizing. We’re repressing. We’re
introspecting. We’re coming into despair. But we’re not reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto
Jesus. Dead indeed unto self and alive to Jesus.

Do you see that believing is an active thing? Loved ones, a number of us are coming into bondage
here because we’re thinking this is a game that you play in your thoughts. It isn’t. Believing is
a very active thing. “Beleafa” in Anglo-Saxon means that you be in accordance with what the truth
is. The truth is you were crucified with Christ.

So — let the other person tear you apart. What’s he tearing apart? An old dear corpse? What does
that matter? But do you see you? Be in accordance with what is the truth in Jesus. Belief is not
a juggling with thoughts. It’s not introspection. It’s not repression. It’s not rationalization.
It’s not despair. It’s simply acting as if you’ve been crucified with Christ and there’s no “you”
to respond.

Then obedience is the same thing. A lot of us are coming into this place where we say, “Well, I
believe that I am crucified with Christ. But I still don’t feel crucified.” It doesn’t matter
whether you feel it or not. It doesn’t matter whether other people see it or not. You believe that
you’ve been crucified with Christ, and you submit yourself to the Holy Spirit at each moment as he
tells you things.

But do you see? The truth is, in a way, a very external thing. And I think a number of us come
into bondage because we make it an internal judging with thought life. No, it isn’t. It’s a

(cid:9)
believing that you’ve been crucified with Christ, and an acting as if that’s true, and it’s a
submitting to the Holy Spirit the first time he tells you to do something.

But both of those are very external things. In fact, faith in the New Testament is a very external
thing. It’s a believing, a treating yourself as if this thing and that thing is true. And it’s an
obeying — an obeying God when he tells you to repent, and obeying his Spirit when he tells you to
do things. And loved ones, those truths set you free.

Now I’m sure a number of you are sitting there and you’re saying, “Oh but how does it all become
real?” That’s up to the Holy Spirit. It’s up to the Holy Spirit to make the truth of these two
facts real in you. It’s not up to you to look in and see, “Is my crucifixion with Christ real? Is
my new birth real?” It’s up to the Holy Spirit to make these things real in you as you take care of
those things that you can take care of.

That is the way of freedom, and the truth will always set you free. It will never bring you into
bondage. When you find a brother or sister coming into bondage over their crucifixion with Christ,
it’s not because they’re coming into the truth. It’s because they’re coming into one of these
subtle lies or errors of Satan. But the truth itself will always set you free.

Now loved ones, do you see, tonight really all I can do is present those truths briefly to you and
give you the scripture verses? You yourself need to go to the Holy Spirit and ask him, “Holy
Spirit, am I coming into bondage to some deception of Satan in these areas of my life? Is it
because I’ve accepted some of Satan’s lies that I’m in bondage about my forgiveness of my sins or
about my victory over sin? Am I really dwelling in the truth?” And loved ones, the truth is really
a joyful thing to live in, and the truth is those two things there, actually entering into those in
actuality. And that sets you free. It really does.

Next Sunday evening I’d like to do a little about these areas here that we’ve talked of before at
times, the mind and emotions and how they’re connected really with the resurrection of Jesus, and
the spirit and how it’s connected with the ascension of Jesus. Some of you may find that you’ve
come as far as the two things we talked about tonight, and you’re having victory there. Yet you’re
coming into bondage in these other areas.

But loved ones, do you see that it’s really a very simple thing? It really is, and we should see it
as that. And it’s an active thing. It’s not a feeling thing. It’s not an “internal juggling of
thoughts” thing. It’s an active believing and obeying. So will you just go to the Holy Spirit and
ask him, “Holy Spirit, have I come into unnecessary bondage in these areas?” And really get clear
and walk free. Walk free each day. It is the Father’s will.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that your way is a way of freedom. Savior, we know that
Satan is in among us trying to internalize this whole business until it’s all a psychological game.
But Lord Jesus, we know it’s a very sure appropriation of what has happened to us in you on Calvary.
And Lord Jesus, we know that it is the Holy Spirit that makes these things real in us. It isn’t us
by all our emotions, and all our introspection — it is the Holy Spirit.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that if we do our part you will do yours. We thank you that our part is so
clear and so obvious. In order to come into a real forgiveness of our sins and a real freedom from
guilt in our consciences, we’ve simply to repent. Turn from our sins and to believe that you have
died for us. And in regard to that old, selfish, independent will inside us that is making a mess

of our Christian lives, we’ve simply to accept that we were crucified with you and to live as if
that is really true — by submitting to your Holy Spirit each time he speaks.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that it is such a joyous way. We thank you that it is such a way of
freedom and liberty. Now I trust you Savior, by your Holy Spirit, to apply this to each brother and
sister here tonight, so that if there is anyone here walking in bondage in regard to their
conscience and their wills, they will come into real freedom in you.

Lord, we thank you that you have told us that we are to rejoice, and again you said to us, to
rejoice. We thank you that we can walk in continual joy because all of this has been done already
in you, and we’ve simply to accept it into our own lives.

We commit ourselves to you for this purpose. And now Lord Jesus, in the coming week we trust you to
find it easy to live freely in us. Lord Jesus, we commit ourselves to living for you — to put you
first. We commit ourselves to turning from own selves and all our self-concern, wondering what
people are thinking of us, wondering how we’re doing. We commit ourselves to looking to you and
being concerned about you this week — and not us. Savior, we trust you to give us a
Christ-centered life as we do this — so that you will, in every way, be able to live your life
again through us wherever we go these next six days.

Now, we commit ourselves to you. We trust you to fill us with your Spirit for this purpose. Now
the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each
one of us now and evermore.