F R E E D O M
AND WHAT REAL FREEDOM IS
From Sermon by Dr. Jowett
Jesus therefore said to those Jews which had believed Him, If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:31, 32 (R. V.). We are all talking about freedom nowadays. It constitutes the burden of our political progress. It forms the pervading air of our national songs. At the very entrance to our harbor there stands the Statue of Liberty, as though to announce to every pilgrim from the Old World that freedom is the very prelude to our national ambitions, raw material from which we would weave the substance of all our racial relationships, the alphabetical premises from which we would deduce all.the vital enactments of our national life. Thus we have much to say and to sing of the glories of freedom, but have we the real thing? Or is the freedom of which we boast no more essentially freedom than fine crockery constitutes a fine feast? I am asking concerning the quality of the freedom which makes the strains of our national songs. Is it the real thing, the very vital thing? According to the teaching of Jesus, there is a royal road to a royal freedom, and there is but one road which leads to it; it begins in belief in Jesus Christ our Saviour; it continues in an abiding in His Word; it climbs to a vital knowledge of His truth; and it culminates in the sacred freedom of the spirit, which is the franchise of the heavenly country, the freedom of the elect, “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Such is the teaching given to us by One Who knew all there is to know about it, and we are inexpressibly foolish if we presume to have found another and a better way. What is that freedom which is to be the very crown of our life7 Sovereign freedom is an unshackled spirit. We have experimental knowledge of Jesus, and our spirits are gloriously free. We have experimental knowledge of God’s forgiveness,— the chains of guilt are broken. We have experimental knowledge of God’s sleepless provi dences, and we are delivered from the bondage of harassing care We have experimental knowledge of God’s holy and genial love, and we are set free from the tyranny of enslaving fears. • When we know the truth as it is in Jesus, our souls are uplifted in the exhilarating prospect of eternal hope. Such is our liberty in j esus. “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free.” This road, I said, begins in belief, and it ends in freedom. It begins in trusting Jesus— it ends in sharing the wonderful love of God. It begins in surrender,— it ends in the conscious enjoyment of the boundless inheritance of grace. It begins on earth—it ends in heaven- —Dr. J. H. JOWETT. “My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty!”
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