The work of the god of this world is to blind us to spiritual realities and keep us deceived. He twists things upside down, constantly deceiving with outward appearances. He lies to people about happiness, wisdom, and freedom. He constantly tells everyone that the rich and prosperous are the truly happy ones.
The work of Scripture is to undeceive us from his lies. Scripture tells us that it’s not the outwardly rich, but the poor in spirit, the mourners, the persecuted, the pure, and the meek who are truly happy people (Matthew 5).
He also lies about wisdom, suggesting the wisest are those who cheat, commit fraud, and become successful in this world. Scripture says those who gain the world but lose their soul are the greatest fools. The truly wise are those who are wise for their salvation, are rich toward God, and focus on the world to come.
In the same way, the devil also lies about freedom, which all people desire. This is the world’s great deception: that freedom is doing whatever we want without any limits. Obeying God’s law—walking with Him, reading His Word, and praying—seems like a prison and slavery.
Following rules or discipline… our children sometimes feel, “Oh, rules, rules, discipline!” They’re impatient with any restraint, seeing it as a chain that limits them. “When will I get the freedom to do what I want without control and to speak what I want?” They see discipline as a burden and want to break free from any control. The devil has made them think that is freedom.
Even we think freedom is having enough money, time, facilities, and health to do whatever we please. Isn’t that what most of us think? All who have gone in that direction have realized they’ve become more and more enslaved. Learn this well: carnal freedom without the control of God’s law is the worst kind of slavery.
Here are five reasons why it is the worst slavery.
1. It’s a Prison of Our Own Lusts
The worst punishment God can give us is His fearful and dreadful judgment. After long patience—teaching us again and again that our true happiness is in glorifying and enjoying Him—we keep running away from that toward the world. After much patience and trying to correct us, knowing we won’t listen and want to break His boundaries, He gives us up to the rule of our own hearts’ lusts, to do as we please and destroy ourselves without control.
As it says in Romans 2, we are given up to a depraved mind and the lusts of our hearts. Psalm 81:12 says, “So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsels.” We are left to our brutish affections. You don’t know what a terrible tyranny our lusts are. They create a prison for us, putting different chains on us and dragging us in different directions. This fleshly liberty makes a person slavishly follow their depraved heart and destroy the great means for them to be happy—which is to enjoy God by obeying Him.
Worldly people may enjoy this “freedom” as much as fish enjoy being in their element of water, yet the reality is that they are still slaves. They are in a spiritual prison; this is a true and perfect bondage. They spend their whole lives chasing vanity, which will never make them truly happy, and live with a deep void within themselves. This is because we were created to be happy when we enjoy God and obey Him. Pleasures, honors, profits, and wealth will never bring true happiness until they are sought for the glory of God.
Pleasure, delight, and contentment of mind and body are meant to be a subservient help to make us happy only when we seek them to glorify God. These things are not to be desired for themselves but subordinately, in order to our great end. But when they entice and detain our affections, they become our idols, and we become their slaves. The more we serve them, the more we lose our liberty.
2. Carnal Freedom Creates a Disordered Soul
This “freedom” brings great disorder to our soul and makes us slaves. The proper order of the soul is for the mind and conscience to first decide what is right—what will glorify God and make me happy. Man was created to be ruled by the mind and conscience, which move the heart and produce right emotions, which then move the will and body parts to perform right actions. But this sinful “freedom” reverses the whole order, making a person like an enslaved animal.
In the body, if the head were where the feet should be and the feet where the head should be, such a dis-ordination is in the soul when worldly things are sought for our own selfish lusts and not for God’s glory. This slavery creates an inversion where this order is completely reversed. Outward pleasures affect the senses, which affect the heart, which then overpower the mind and conscience. Although the mind feels it is foolish and not right, the will is carried captive, and the person becomes blinded and goes on headlong to their own destruction. Lust takes the throne instead of reason.
3. We Become Slaves of Our Lusts
Consider the great tyranny and power of sin; it takes away all a person’s right and power to control themselves and their actions. Many times, they want to change and stop certain habits, but they cannot. The power of slavery draws them with compulsion to do things they know will destroy them. When sin commands, they obey and cannot say no.
This bondage is more noticeable to those who feel some remorse or guilt because of health issues, inconvenience, shame, or loss, yet they still cannot leave their lusts. So, in despair, they resolve to continue as slaves. Romans 7:14 says, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” The corrupt passions are like wild horses that do not obey the driver but pull toward destruction. Titus 3:3 says, “Serving divers lusts and pleasures.” When a man yields himself to his own desires, he becomes a proper slave. Romans 6:16 asks, “Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Therefore, Basil of Seleucia calls a carnal man a slave who is dragged by the chariots of his own passions and corrupt affections. He cannot sleep properly, think properly, or feel properly. He acts like someone mentally unstable.
4. This Bondage Becomes Deeper by Practice
Sin becomes an unbreakable habit. The more we sin, the more we are enslaved by it. It’s like a nail; the more it is knocked, the more it is fastened in the wood. It’s like an incurable disease that gets worse with practice. We might know what’s right, but we can’t do it because sin has a total hold on us. This is the ultimate form of bondage—being unable to help yourself, even when you want to. Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good who are accustomed to do evil.”
First, a person yields themselves to sin as a servant through a partnership agreement. Then, they become a slave by conquest. “Lord, I am a slave; I gave my will to my enemy, and he made a chain of it to bind me and keep me from You. I can do nothing but sin against You.” Thus, we are enslaved little by little.
5. As Slaves, We Always Live a Life of Fear and Terror
Living in sin brings a constant, underlying fear. We are afraid of death, judgment, and the consequences of our actions. This fear is like a cruel master, always present and preventing us from having real peace. A life lived in constant fear is the opposite of freedom.
There is a fire smothering in the bosom of a sinner, and sometimes it flares up in actual moments of dread and horror. Living like that, a person cannot hear messages about death, hell, or judgment without trembling. They dare not seriously think about these subjects. They always live with a crushing conscience and fear. Small events in life—small vessels, thunder, news of an earthquake, war, some health problem—all send trembling into their soul. A cruel master will always keep them in fear.
Is this freedom? This is the condition of every “free sinner” without Christ. He is the worst slave: a slave to his sins, lusts, the world, and Satan. He is “subject to bondage all days,” living in danger of hidden fears. So, do you call this a free, jolly life? I call this a cursed life of slavery to sin.
The only deliverance for such a sinner is to realize his slavery and seek freedom from his sin through Jesus Christ.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 