The Coolidge examiner., 1936-07-03

a tyrant as ignorance is. Ignorance
of life, of God, of the best in life,
of the rights of others.
A man is free yes, but enslaved to-
habits. No drunkard could ever be
free as long as he remains slave
to drink. Free, yes, but enslaved
to self Why not? A man is his
own worst enemy. If he cannot con-
quer himself, he is of all men most
miserable, slave to himself.
Lastly, man is free, but enslaved
to sin, which includes much of the
above. How can a man claim free
dom when he is in the thraldom' Of
sin? Poor, deluded creatures that
we are, crying freedom" when
there is no freedom.
The second question that | am
going to ask is, do we even want to-
be free? Most assuredly not. There
Is nothing so uninteresting and
dull as to feel that no one expects
anything of you. No responsibility,
no obligations, no one to depend
upon us, or to seek our help and
guidance: would this be freedom
that would be enjoyed. The man in
prison is the nearest to free of any
one. For "Stone walls do not a
prison make, nor iron bars a cage"
We have seen that there is no
real freedom of the sort that we
have dreamed Of, and l trust that
we have thought thru and have seen
that we do not even want freedom.
Now, let us come back to the text.
II am captured by Christ" 1t does
not seem so harsh and rugged now.
One slavery might be as good as
another. But in this case we find
that captivity of Jesus is perfect
freedom. Now, we are getting
places. When l become a captive
of Jesus Christ, l am freed from,
self, from sin, from evil habits,
from ignorance and darkness.
have been freed from these, now
what does my present captivity con-
sist of? Freedom.
We fought to free the slaves in
the L. S. but England took an
entirely different and wiser route.
She bought hers. After she had
bought them, at an expense OF
many millions of dollars, she owned
them, but what did she do? England
freed them. That is excatly what
Christ does in our lives. We are
bought with a price, and then we
are freed. o it's great to be alive,
now that Freedom rs here. And
the great thing about it all is that
as long as we submit ourselves to
this captivity, we are forever freed
from the old captivity that bound
us so tightly to the baser things of
life and frought such havoc and
chaos in our lives. The slave has
been bought and Freed. 1t is said
that Car Nicholas of Russia was
very kind to his officers. One night
after all the others had gone.to bed,
young officer remained at
table with a pencil and paper and
tallow candle. On this paper he
was adding up a long line OF
gambling debts. At the bottom was
line and great total. In despera-
ton, the young officer wrote be-
meath the total, who can Pay"
Tired and discouraged, his head fell
forward on his arms and he slept.
When the Czar came thru the bar
racks, the candle had burned low
and the young man was still asleep.
Picking up the paper, the Cazar
noticed the long line of figm es,
with the question underneath. Then
taking out his royal pen. he wrote
underneath this, 4, Car Nicholas
Of Russia, will pay in full"
Christ comes to us, deep in the
slavery of sin and darkness. We
have written in desperation, "Who
can pay for our deliverance?"
Underneath this he writes, 81, Jesus
Christ, have paid in full" ;