Intro: What is true freedom? Jesus promises us true, lasting freedom from the real causes of our bondage & misery in the world. "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (8:36)
Exposition: They are in true bondage Many enjoy comforts & pleasures on every hand & do not even see that they are slaves. Perhaps this is the most serious kind of bondage there is.
1. Slavery to Sin (v34-36) "Everything that man hates it is. Who turns the soft & gentlest heart to stone? Who hurls reason from her lofty throne, & impels sinners, mad as Gadarene swine, down the precipice, into a lake of fire?-Sin" (Thomas Gutherie)
See Ez 36:26-27
2. Slavery to the Devil (v37-45) The people are in willing servitude to "your father the devil, & the desires of your father you want to do" (8:44)
Jesus gives us "the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (1:12-13). This is what Paul calls "the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom 8:21)
3. Slavery to Ignorance (v46-50) "Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God" (8:47, see 6:45)
"The first step of our manumission from this spiritual thralldom consists in having our eyes opened, & being turned from darkness to light, Acts 26:18" (Westminster preface)
4. Slavery to Death (v51-58) The people of this world "through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (2:15)
Conclusion: "Who are you?" "Who do you make yourself to be?" "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'" (Ex 3:13-14)
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