Only the Truth Can Set You Free
BY JOSEPH BROWN
John 8:31-34 JEsus says in THE Gospel of John, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (8:31,32).
This passage teaches that whether or not we are truly His disciplesor, in other words, whether or not we are savedis reflected in our attitude toward what Christ has declared in His word.
The whole Bible, of course, is the Word of God. But let's just look at a few of the key statements of Christ and see what your attitude toward them is.
What has Christ said? He tells us that He and the Father are one. "He that hath seen me has seen the Father." And Jesus claims preexistence. He says, "Before Abraham was, I am." He claims to have a kingdom. He claims to be able to forgive sins. He claims to have rulership over death itself.
He claimed these things, and do you "continue" in His word? That is, do you hold to His teaching? Unless we see Jesus as God Emmanuel, incarnate deity, we are not His disciples indeed.
The only mediator. Christ has also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).
What is your attitude toward Jesus Christ being the only mediator between God and man? Are you going to say, "Well, He's just one of many ways to heaven? A Buddhist finds God his way; the Moslem finds God his way; and the cultists find God their way. It's all the same."
No, it's not all the same. Jesus says, there is no other way to God but by Him.
The Bible declares flatly that there's only one mediator. Not Mary, not the saints, not the lodge, not your good works, not your ritual, not your church. The God-man Christ Jesus is the only mediator between God and man.
Being God, He can stretch forth deity hands. Being perfect second Adam, He can reach up with perfect human hands. And He can put you in between God and man and sanctify you and make you what God wants you to be because He is the One who died to save you.
Obedience. Another thing He saidHe said He had given His apostles directions for us to follow and live by. Jesus told them, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:18-20).
They were to teach all nations to be obedient to all His commands. The commands of God are spelled out in the Bible. What's your attitude toward the Bible?
Someone said to me, "Oh, I don't need to study the Bible. I can pray and God will give me special revelation. I can pray and the Holy Ghost will reveal things unto me."
You know, more people have messed up their lives and messed up everything else by getting so-called special revelation that doesn't conform at all to what God gave to the apostles. John said, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error" (I John 4:6).
Satan, the spirit of error
The devil, of course, is the spirit of error, the spirit of falsehood. He's an expert in twisting God's word to deceive people.A man said to me yesterday that Christ died not only for our sins, but for our diseases and sickness as well. He noted that Jesus healed many sick people when He was on earth.
And he quoted a verse in Isaiah 53, where it says, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquitieswith his stripes we are healed" (v. 5), and he thought he had me.
Now, that verse doesn't say anything about "sickness and diseases", does it? The healing that Jesus did was meant to be a metaphor for the healing of our sin-sick souls.
In fact, the very next verse in Isaiah 53 says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." Clearly, God is talking about sin in that context.
I said to him, "If Christ died to give us healthy bodies, why do you catch cold?" He said, "I don't catch cold."
"There is not a man, woman, boy or girl that puts foot on this earth that hasn't had a sniffle," I told him. "Come on, tell the truth." Caught in his lie, he said, "But that's only because I didn't have enough faith." That's fanaticism!
God heals. Frankly, I wouldn't want to live in this house of clay all through eternity. This thing is weak and vile and humiliated. I want a better house. And the Bible says that because Christ died and resurrected, we who believe will be given an immortal, glorified body when He returns.
To be sure, Christ does heal. All healing comes from God. And He heals all whom He wills to heal. He heals bootleggers and liars and cheats and rapists and thieves, and the Hitlers and the Stalins. But those whom He hasn't willed to heal can pray the prayer of faith, call the faith-healer, give all their money to the church and still end up dying.
We pray for the sick every day. But I tell you what we don't do: we don't command God. God tells us to fear Him, not to make Him a bellboy that answers every time we pull a chain.
In Philippians 2, we read about Epaphroditus having been sick unto death. Paul didn't say, "I rush over there and pray the prayer of faith." No, he said that Epaphroditus got well by the mercy of Godnot by his prayer.
Tongues. Going right along with miracle healing is this jibber-jabbering tongue business. There are people out there looking for a thrill and a frill instead of looking to Jesus and growing in the Word of God. They try to be puffed up and proud because they can let some sounds come out of their throat.
Anybody can talk that way. They call it motor psychology. You keep on telling someone something about something and they will subconsciously want it. And if they want it bad enough, they'll produce what they want.
Caught in his lie, he said, "But that's only because I didn't have enough faith." That's That's why when folk tell me they had an experience of tongues, I don't argue with them. They had it. But don't tell me it's from God. It's from their own conscious or subconscious mind; or it's from the devil.
One lady said to me the other day, "If you don't talk in tongues, how can you know you have the Holy Spirit?"
"May God have mercy on you!" I said. "My Bible tells me that saving faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And it tells me that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The fact that I can trust my soul to the blood of Christ is proof that I have the Holy Spirit."
The sign of Jonah
In Matthew 12, some Jewish leaders came to Jesus and wanted to see a sign from Him. He answered in verses 39 and 40:An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.So, don't be attracted by those supernatural things. The only miracle Jesus wants us to know is that He died and rose again on the third day. And the only miracle we want to seek is regeneration by the Spirit of God. Are we going to obey the Word of God?Damnable heresies. I'm telling you this because many will come and try to proselyte you with this sign-and-wonder appeal. The wolves are out there. Paul had warned that false teachers would come and secretly introduce destructive heresies. And to say that we are not good Christians unless we tongue-talk is a heresy! It's from the pit!
Here's another dangerous heresy. Somebody was checking out a church and was told that he has to be baptized to be saved. They believe heaven is an island and you've got to swim to it. They believe that water baptism is essential to salvation.
Tell me, who baptized the thief on the cross?
No, no, no. Nobody took him down from the cross and baptized him in water. He was baptized all right, but he was baptized by the Holy Spirit. He was placed in Christ through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Water baptism is not essential for salvation.
Knowledge of Truth
Let's look again at verse 32. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."What Jesus was saying is that if you follow my teaching and are truly my disciples, then after I've gone back to heaven and sent you the Holy Spirit, you will know for sure that I am the way, the truth and the life. You will be absolutely certain that trusting in Me is the only means through which you can be saved.
Another thing we can be sure ofwhen Jesus says, "I am the truth and the life"is that we can have absolute truths concerning values, morals and principles of life. They are absolute because everything that Jesus says is true. We accept it. We live by it and we die by it. It's our authority.
Nowadays, we hear people say: "If those two want to shack up, that's all right with me"; "If she wants to have an abortion, let her"; or "I don't care if we have a homosexual in a top government position as long as he is qualified to handle the job."
People are saying these things because they don't have any standard of truth. They haven't found out that Christ is the truth. Mama may not tell the truth all the time. Papa sure isn't going to tell the truth all the time. But Jesus always tells us the absolute truth.
Slaves of sin. Now, in the next two verses in John 8, we find Jesus telling some fellows another important truth: "They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."
Jesus said, "You need to be made free," and these fellows got insulted. They said, "What do you mean? We've never been in bondage. We've never been slaves of anybody." When they said that, they were actually in bondage to the Roman government!
But Jesus is talking about spiritual bondage. He's saying that people outside of Him are all in slavery to sin. The Jews didn't like to hear that then, and people don't like to hear it today either. Unsaved people don't like to be told that they're not free to do whatever they want.
You who drink every day, you're not a social drinker, you're an alcoholic. You who smoke dope, you don't do it just for a pastime, you're hooked. You who are promiscuous, you're trapped. You're a slave and you need to be emancipated.
The blacks in this country were in physical bondage and they yearned for the day when the big bell would ring. When Abe Lincoln on that historic day finally issued what we call the Emancipation Proclamation that set them free, there were bells ringing and there were people shouting and there was joy. The big bell has rung!
But the blacks that were made free didn't know where to go. They were released from bondage and servitude, but they were just as helpless as before. Most of them wandered all over without anyone to guide them.
Real freedom. At Calvary, God rang the bell of emancipation and said, "Whosoever will, come and take of the water of life." And believers in Christ have since been set free from their bondage in sin.
But when Jesus set us free, He didn't leave us alone. In His Spirit, He dwells in us and guides us and leads us and provides for us. Hallelujah, we're free in Christ!
In those days, the blacks used to say when they met one another, "My honey, how long have you been in the storm? How long have you been in the house of bondage?" And they would answer, "I've been in this storm a long while. But I see that someday God is going to set us free. Then, there will be no master to tell me to get up and go out into the field. There ain't going to be any slave-drivers to whip me on my back."
They were released from bondage and servitude, but they were just as helpless as before. Well, thank God Calvary was a storm. But it also was a bell. Hallelujah! I'm free! And can no man ever make a slave of my soul!
Because Jesus hung between heaven and earth and rang the victory sound and said "It is finished", man's sin has been paid for. All of Joe Brown's dirty, filthy, rotten sin is paid for. They nailed Him in His hands, took Him in His side and He saved me. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! o
Rev. Joseph Brown is pastor and founder of Grace Memorial Hour, P.O. Box 2575, Baltimore, MD 21215.