The Sound of Liberty; Accommodation vs. Transformation

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The Sound of Liberty

by Dr. Paul Chappell

“Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”
Leviticus 25:9–10

In 1751, Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, ordered a bell for the State House in Philadelphia. When the bell arrived from England, it cracked on the very first test ring. The metal was melted down and recast by John Pass and John Stow. Around the bell the words of Scripture from Leviticus 25:10, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof,” carried a powerful message. The bell rang to call the members of the Continental Congress to assemble as they debated declaring independence from England. For many years after, it was rung on ceremonial occasions, until in the 1840s a major crack ended its life as a bell, but not its message.
The Lord has called us to be messengers of hope and liberty to a world in chains—not to political oppression, but to sin. When Jesus began His ministry, He selected a passage from Isaiah as the text for His sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18). Freedom from sin has already been purchased through the blood of Christ, but the lost will not know that truth unless someone tells them. It is our duty to proclaim liberty.
 

Today’s Growth Principle: 

We are most like Jesus when we tell those in bondage to sin that there is liberty in Him.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. --2 Timothy 3:16-17 Nearly a generation ago, Francis Schaeffer, the great biblical apologist and philosopher said, “Here is the great evangelical disaster: the failure of the evangelical world to stand for Truth as Truth! What does this mean to you and me? I’ll tell you. Dr. Schaeffer was saying that believers were failing to stand upon God’s Word as the ultimate source of Truth. This disaster continues today and it’s called “accommodation.” The evangelical Church has accommodated the spirit of the age, and this accommodation is pervasive throughout the Church. Rather than championing the Scripture to transform the world, the Church has turned to other sources and resources. Maybe it’s happened in your church. Somewhere along the way the choice was made to switch things up in order to reach a specific crowd, or to express an opinion, or to follow a trend. But in those actions we’ve accommodated the world rather than tending to the transformation of the world through the Scriptures. Rather than changing the world, many find themselves changed by the world! Resolve this issue for yourself today. As a Christ-follower, make certain you are grounded in the life-changing Truth of Jesus Christ, which is the Word of God.   RATHER THAN CHANGING THE WORLD, MANY FIND THEMSELVES CHANGED BY THE WORLD!