BONDS IN shall make you free” ; “ If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” . We are to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke o f bondage (Gal. 5 :1 ). The applications of that verse certainly reach far beyond the imme diate connections. There are all kinds of manacles for ministers and prisons for prophets and for every ambassador in bonds of Paul’s variety there are hundreds entangled in fetters that cripple their own ministry and bring reproach upon the cause o f Christ. Some ministers are aware that they are in bonds of one kind or another and sometimes they try to escape by merely exchanging one bondage for another. Some become eccentric or engage in wild preaching or leave their churches or become free-lances. They assume a pose and boast of not being in bondage to any man. But “ of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage” and they become slaves of their own egotism. The way to ministerial freedom does not lie in erratic kicking o f traces. The ambassador in bonds must honestly face his condition, identify his shackles and get rid o f them as the Scriptures guide and as the Spirit enables. The truth will set him free and where the Spirit is, there is liberty. Sometimes they are bonds of personal habit, fetters in our private lives. In Noah’s day they did eat and drink and a minister’s eating and drinking can bring him into bondage. McCheyne used to say that even a love o f good eating could sidetrack a preacher. Bunyan declared that the effect of many a good sermon was lost in a Sun day dinner. That may sound like asceticism today but" these old-timers had amazing liberty which we sycophants have lost. The disobedient prophet who let himself be seduced into eating and drink ing instead of returning straight home from Bethel
by Dr. Vane« Havner takes up a whole chapter in the Word and his slain carcass by the roadside is a grim warning to us all. Of course there are those cantankerous children of the market-place who will find fault with a preacher whatever he does, whether he comes neither eating or drinking like John the Baptist or attending suppers with our Lord. But let a man examine himself and if his habit dims the inward glow or offends the weaker brother, it is a weight that doth beset him. Even if he is not certain about it, “ he that doubteth is condemned if he eat” and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” . Satan can weave chains out o f almost any material. He can twist tobacco, theatre tickets, magazines, and diverse other materials too tedious to mention into withes and bind Samson as securely as ever Delilah hoped to do. Even things not wrong in themselves by reason of being given too important a place can become bonds instead of blessings. A certain business man said, concerning his pastor, “ Any man who can play golf that well must have neglected something!” He said it only in fun but there is food for thought there. A spirit o f levity, cold professionalism, a taking things for granted and as a matter o f course, trafficking in unfelt truth, the language of the Spirit without the life o f the Spirit, how these chains can rattle on Sun day morning! Laziness in the devotional life, preparing the sermon without preparing the preacher, getting messages up instead o f getting them down from above, lack of prayer, of the Word and of medita tion — can anything more effectually put an am bassador in bonds? William Law used to rise early, as early as the farmers, for he declared that he could not lie folded up in bed when he was so far behind with his sanctification. Need we wonder at our anemic souls when we nourish them so scantily? A spirit o f stupor, a slothfulness arising
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