In this sermon, the preacher begins by exhorting the congregation to bless the Lord with all their soul and not forget His benefits. He then shares a testimony about the angel of the Lord intervening in a prayer meeting, causing doors to open, locks to fall, and an earthquake to shake the place. The preacher goes on to explain that Jesus is God in the flesh, who died on the cross and was raised to life in order to save sinners. He emphasizes that through Jesus, believers can be set free from bondage and experience the healing and restoration of Christ's life. The sermon also highlights the contrast between serving oneself and serving God with love.

Will you open your Bibles again to Acts chapter 16? The Apostle Paul, probably more than any other man of his generation, or possibly any since, knew the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the fullness of Christ, was manifest in and through his life in a measure that all of us should long for. But I think it's entirely right that we should understand that our Lord Jesus said, I did not come to send peace, I came to send the earth. And the world, still no friend of grace, can only make friends with religion when religion has lost its friendship with God and its measure of blessing from God. It's imperative that we recognize this. The closer you walk with the Lord and the nearer you come to him, and the nearer you approach to the place of union with Christ that's the norm held forth in the Word, the more out of step you're going to be with the world principles and the world system. As you know, Paul and those with him were being disturbed by the woman possessing an evil spirit of divination following them everywhere they went and commending them. It's usually a very strange thing when the demons commend the servants of God. There's always an ulterior motive in it. And finally, after enduring it and trusting that it would go away and undoubtedly praying about the matter, there was no other means of dealing with it but the means that Paul employed. He simply turned and addressed the spirit possessing the young woman, commanding that evil spirit to leave her body and come out of her. And in so doing, she lost her value to those that had been profiting from her possession. And as soon as this happened, then when they realized their hope of gain was gone, they caught Paul and began to persecute him and make trouble for him. As long as religion contributes to profit, it's generally acceptable even to the world. But when it comes to the place that obedience to Christ and submission to Christ is going to cost money, then that's where the world sort of parts company with the church. And this is the responsibility of the church to point up always the complete otherness of the gospel, the altogether opposed spirit of Christianity and the world. It's your responsibility not to oppose the world as such by fighting it, for this gains little for you or for God, but it's your responsibility to so live in Christ and so to allow Christ to live in you, that you become that bright and shining light that he's intended you to be, that witness and testimony he's wanted you to be. But remember that this is costly, just as a candle can only give light by consuming itself, so you can only be a rebuke and a testimony to your generation at cost, great personal cost to yourself. This is the first thing that you must understand about the text before us. Paul had a ministry. You want a ministry. Paul had a testimony. You desire a testimony. I'm saying that it's costly. It's extremely costly. Now, Paul got into trouble, great trouble, with the businessmen of his day and generation, not that all of them were affected, but they recognized that if what he was preaching continued and spread, they all would be affected, and so they thought they'd better deal with this while it was small enough to stomp out without too great a problem. And thus, Paul found himself before the magistrates, the zeal of the magistrates was on the side of the taxpayers and the supporters, political supporters, and he found himself beaten with Silas, and not only imprisoned, but imprisoned in the deepest part of it, the deepest dungeon, and not only in the dungeon but in stocks. They were going to take great care of this man. So with a bleeding back, bruised body, he and his partner were there with their hands, their neck, and their feet through stocks. They were fastened in such a way that they couldn't get out, door after door after door, and finally in the stocks in the innermost part of the prison. And yet, Paul was the freest man there. He was probably the only man in the prison that was free, because you see, bondage does not consist of chains, nor bars, nor stocks, nor locks. He was freed from many things that had been the source of bondage in the past. For instance, in the many years of his life, this man, Saul of Tarsus, had lived in complete subservience to teachers who had tradition without truth. And so, he was twisted according to their patterns, bound according to their concepts and their prejudices, and though living in a religious context, he was quite unprepared to recognize the Messiah when he came. And this put great bondage around his mind and his spirit. Perhaps we are failed to recognize that this was far more real than the stocks and the bars that surrounded him, the stone that surrounded him at present. I am sure as Paul would sit there with his back aching, his bones just so sore, his flesh still bleeding, that he would look back and say, this isn't anything in comparison to what I had when I thought I was free. For the traditions of the elders had woven around him a web through which he could not break. The prejudices, the attitudes that had been the products of his teachers working without truth, had probably put him in prison. Then of course, the other thing that was so, made such a prison for him in other days, was the fact that he had ritual without reality. He was going through the motions of religion without knowing the God whom he was desirous of worshiping. And whenever a person has religious ritual without reality, he's in prison, whether he has bricks and stones and bars and chains or stocks or not, because he's in prison to the repetition of activity without reality. And so, he could sit there and know Christ in his heart, and he could look back and say, oh, these stones, these bars, these chains, this wood is nothing in comparison to what once I had to endure. For then I had ritual without the reality of God's presence. Then of course, the other thing was that Paul had been freed from a very terrifying type of slavery, service without satisfaction. He'd gone through innumerable pursuits of righteousness. He had fasted two days every week. He had tithed all he possessed. He had prayed five times a day. He had been indefatigable in labors in behalf of the Sanhedrin, which he was one of the most youthful members. He had submitted himself to the investigating committee that was to try and exterminate the church. No effort too great for this man, and yet all of it was a prison, because he had to compete with himself, and this year's task had to be greater than last year's, and this year's reputation had to be greater than last year's reputation. So he had service without any satisfaction, and it became a prison to him. And then of course, the other thing was he served lords who ruled his life without love. For it wasn't God who ruled him, it was the opinions of his elders. It was those that could promote him. It was these that had the power to send him off into some place of exile and religious activity. It were these that had the ability to deprive him of the things he'd come to count upon for his satisfaction. And so he had to serve lords who ruled without love. And oh, what a terrible thing it is to be in that kind of bondage and that kind of servitude, where you're serving opinions of men who are capricious and whimsical. Today you're the fine fellow, fair-haired fellow with the great prospects, and tomorrow because of some little whim or turn, you're just nobody. And so here was the bondage into which he'd come. He was in a religious hierarchy, a structure, where he had not so much as to say, does this please God, but what will Rabbi Ben Israel think of it? And is this going to please the committee that has the appointments at the end of the year? And so here he had been in a terrifying kind of bondage. Now, he's set free. He's set free. Oh yes, you say, free? Doesn't look like he's free to me. Look at those boulders there that make up the walls of that dungeon. Look at those chains that have been forged by an honest craftsman. Look at those stops that have been made of the hardest oak and sealed with bolts that only a wrench can loosen. You say, he's free? Yes, he's free. Because you see, all they could do with him was to take a little twisted by this time, because it's been badly beaten and left under the hail of stones, and emaciated and warped body that's like a suit is getting threadbare as the years pass, and Paul counts to be of relatively little importance anyway. And so they take that body that they've beaten and bruised and twisted and hammered on, and they put it inside of some chains. He soars, just leaves the place, lets his body sit there, and nature take its course. The healing life of Christ begin to restore where there'd been nothing but aches and bruises, and they think they've imprisoned Paul. No, he's not in prison. He's the freest man there. Because you see, while he's sitting in a dungeon, he's actually seated in the heavenlies. Because he's been told elsewhere that he's blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. So they take his body and fasten it in some wood and chain it to the ground, and they say, we'll hold him. No, you can't hold him. Because one day he saw that when Jesus Christ died on a cross, he died. And ever since then, he's not been in bondage to his body any longer. He's not been under the tyranny of his flesh any longer. He's not been under the demands of his appetites any longer. He's able to use it, but he can't be controlled by it. And so when they bruise it, it's bruised, that's all right, they bruise my body. But I'm not my body, said he. I am a person that Jesus Christ loved from before the foundation of the world, loved so much that he took me with him to the cross. And the day he died, I was died, and longer I need not be in tyranny to people, and to positions, and to places, and traditions, and to rituals. I've been set free, for he that is dead is freed. And this man has already gone down with Christ through the cross into the grave, and he knows union with Christ. Now, the jailer didn't know that, said, oh, we're going to hold him. They couldn't hold him. He'd already been through death. Actually, I think he'd been through death, spiritual and physical, but that's a personal opinion. I think when they left him outside the city there, under a hail of stones, that he was dead. And if he went in that to the third heaven, and God saw him, let him see things too wonderful to honor, then brought him back and healed him instantly, and sent him back on his way, so he'd have a little foretaste, for no man had suffered as had Paul. But that's my opinion, you needn't share it. But at any rate, he'd been certainly crucified with Christ. He knows what it is to be freed from the tyranny of the things of time and sense, and so now they've bruised him, they've whipped him, the flesh is torn from his back, and they've put him in a dungeon, and they've locked him in stocks, and they said, oh, we've certainly fixed him. They haven't fixed him at all. Because if right then they'd known what happened, what was happening, they'd see that he was seated in the heavenlies in Christ, enjoying all the victory of Calvary. He was being blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. He was enjoying a foretaste of heaven. Angels were ministering to him in psalms and songs and spiritual songs, and he was seeing them as in the presence of the Lord he loved, cover their faces and their feet and cry, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. You can't imprison a man like that. You can't imprison a man who doesn't want a position. If he had wanted a position, then you could have imprisoned him. If he'd have wanted a possession, you could have imprisoned him. If he'd have wanted something, you could have imprisoned him. But this man doesn't want anything. He said, for me to die is gain. You can't hurt me. And for me to live is Christ. And so I'm going to live every day in the presence of Christ, and you can bruise me and put me here, but you can't keep me here. He's the freest man there. Now I'd like to have you see the man who's the most bound. You know who he is? He's the jailer. Not the other prisoners, the jailer. I'll tell you why. The jailer is the one that is in the deepest kind of bondage because, first off, he's been reared all his life in racial pride and prejudice. He was a Roman. He was a centurion. And he'd been reared from the very earliest days of his youth from the idea that we're the people. And so he had, from his very, very earliest youth, been indoctrinated with the attitude that there's none quite like us, no one quite like me. By virtue of the accident of my birth, I am now a this. And so in his racial pride, he had had bars forged by his parents, and his tradition, his environment, all of these things had become bars that were in front of him. That was one side of him. The prejudices that had been built into his life, that had been systematically built into his life, for Rome ruled the world, and the only reason that they could rationalize for ruling the world was that they were better than everybody else, and therefore they had a right to rule the world. And thus, if he was to be an adequate member of this ruling race, it was necessary for him to be early prepared for it, and thus he was imprisoned from his earliest youth by the idea that he is flesh, he was better than others. And anyone that has this illusion, anyone who feels that he is a better stuff than the rest of the human race and human family, is in a prison. Certainly the accident of birth can in no sense in any situation ever give one the right to feel that he's better. It was a proud, haughty, arrogant spirit that had characterized him. Secondly, he was imprisoned to gods who had no power. For Rome had, with characteristic thoroughness, ransacked all of the countries that they had conquered, taking their art, and taking their culture, and in the case of Greek, taking their language, and their gods. And so Romans grew up with the idea that all the gods were good if you could just get the control of them and get the use of them. And so this man had grown up in bondage to gods that had no life and no power. To convictions which had been built into his mind and heart, but which had left him devoid of any kind of life, he was in subservience to gods that were nothing but traditions, and even then the traditions were being undermined, for skeptics were turning him and his younger generation away from the devotion of the fathers. So much so that about this time and a little later, Pliny writes and says that the temples to our gods are left deserted. Without for want of war, worshippers of fires have gone out on our altars. And so this man is living in the day when he's in bondage to gods of wood and stone, of tradition and fable, and they have no power, they have no life. Furthermore, he's in bondage to a system. He's in bondage to a system that has the power, as it were, of life and death in his own career. He is a centurion. He is the leader of a group of a hundred soldiers. He's there by someone's appointment. The next emperor, should the one that's on the throne die, would appoint another group of men loyal to him, and in so doing, this man would probably have some change in his career. And therefore, it's necessary for him to curry favor with the ones that are above him in the structure. So he's in bondage to them. Just as Pilate was afraid of what they might say to Caesar and what Caesar might do to him, and so his own conscience and his own convictions were taken from him, so this man is living under the constant threat of what can happen to him. No man can be free when this is the case. He can't know the meaning of freedom. He can't know the dignity of freedom when he has to depend upon the whim of someone for his position. But it isn't only the structure of which he's a part, but it's worse than that. He has to curry favor with the magistrates, for there was a deal between the leaders of the town and the Roman officials elsewhere, the political officials. And if this centurion were to have stood up on anything approximating convictions, and had grieved the rulers of the village who had succeeded in bringing the businessmen, succeeded in bringing Paul and Silas before the magistrates and getting them thus dealt with, he had no power to face down the authorities above him, nor the community around him. So his bondage is even worse. Now notice, he has succeeded in following the whole stream of antagonism. When something is introduced into the community that A, threatens your money, B, threatens your smugness, and C, threatens your place, deal with it by trying to destroy it. This is what they'd done with Christ. Christ came in and said, give what you have to the poor, I don't need your money, sell it, give to the poor, come follow me, while he was going to destroy the whole economic system. They listened to him. Furthermore, he said, what you have isn't enough, you must be born again. Being religious, following the Jehovah, if you're a Jew or the gods of the land, if you're not a Jew, isn't enough, you have to have a personal experience through me, said Christ, I've got to come into your heart and life, you must be born again. And so he challenged their religious security and their smugness, and then he proceeded to show them that the whole structure of which they are part was doomed and would be destroyed, and so they said, away with him. He can't live, the world isn't big enough for us. This is what they did to Paul. And they had the man now that was a worse slave, a worse prisoner in every sense of bondage, than Paul could ever been. The only thing they could do to Paul was be put some bracelets of metal around his wrist to which chains were attached. That wasn't so bad. The only thing they could do was take a whip and hit his bag. Now they could only hit him so long and he would die. So they'd have to be careful he didn't go that far, or else, if they did, they couldn't hurt him any longer. And then all they could do would be to put him in the deepest dungeon. It wasn't any deeper than that, and so he couldn't be any worse off than the deepest. And then they could put him in stocks, and there wasn't anything worse than the stocks. So they'd done their worst to Paul, and they hadn't hurt him at all. But something terrible had happened inside of the magistrates. Something awful had happened inside of the business people. Something dreadful had happened in the heart of the centurion. For they had had light come, and they had refused to walk in light. And there is no bondage so intolerable, there's no bondage quite so unbearable as the bondage that comes from knowing you've had light and haven't walked in it. That person who has refused to walk in light, well, he's pathetic. Bondage. This is what's happened. This is exactly what's happened to these men. They've had someone come in their midst who's other, different. There's some quality about him that's completely other. And so what do we find? He acts in accord with his bondage, and Paul acts in accord with his freedom. This man, knowing that he has nothing but locks and bars and stone and chain and wood, has to sit up all night. Now customarily the centurion didn't sit in the prison. Customarily this wasn't his place. So he has to act in accord with his fear and the nature of his bondage. And so he's there. Has someone bring him in a couch, and he's there in the prison to personally see to it that this horrible criminal doesn't escape during the night. So he's acting in accord with his bondage. And what's the apostle doing? He's acting in accordance with his freedom. In the midst of all of his difficulty, he's acting as a free man he is. Someone says to him, why are you here? Now I'm having to put this in because it isn't there in the text, but it does say that the people, the prisoners heard him. Why are you here? What did you do? What are you so bad? Well we were preaching Jesus. We delivered a demon-possessed girl. What's the matter with that? Who's Jesus? Well Jesus is God come in the flesh. What did he do? Well he died on the cross, and he was raised three days later, and he's alive. Is that so? What did he do that for? Well so that he could save sinners. Once I was a sinner, once I had no hope, I was enslaved and in bondage. What do you think those change? Oh these are nothing. These are nothing. I don't worry about these. When my Lord gets ready to take me out, you watch, these things will just fall off. My Lord is able to make these locks on the door just like that, and all the doors will open. Yes, that's nothing to that. Oh yes, you see, he's alive, and there's no problem with my Lord. Nothing can hold him. He has me here for a purpose, and since he has me here for a purpose, I delight in his purpose. And since part of his purpose is for me to be here, Silas, let's sing a little. He's been talking quite a while, lost his voice, so he says, Silas, I used to too. And so Silas begins to sing, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? And so Paul joins them on the chorus, and they sing psalms, and they sing praises. And then when it comes in, when thou saidst unto me, seek ye my face, my heart said thy face, Lord, will I seek? Wait on the Lord. Can I say, wait on the Lord? Be of good courage. I say another one. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgive us all our iniquities, and heal us all our diseases. And then he begins to testify, and they sing. About midnight, the angel of the Lord gets done with some important meetings he had to take care of. You see, he didn't want to break up a good prayer meeting. And he waited till they were a little hoarse, and he says, now is the time. And the angel of the Lord steps in, and one word, and the locks begin to fall all over the floor. Doors open, tumblers fall out, keys rattle on the floor, the earth quake, the place shakes, every door swings back. Paul says, well, praise the Lord, you got here, didn't you, in time? That's fine. Well, all right, Lord, that's, that's wonderful. Praise the Lord. He doesn't have to change anything. He's been free all the time. Shackles are off. All that's happening now, when the angel of the Lord comes, is to show everybody what Paul knew all the time, that there can't be any bondage in the will of God. There can be no bondage in the will of God, for the will of God is its own perfect freedom. There can only be freedom in the will of God. There can't be bondage. There can only be bondage within. The bondage of fear, the bondage of vanity, the bondage of ambition. There is the only bondage that can hold a human heart. There can't be bondage to that one that's released in Christ. Oh, there can be bars and stones and wood and iron, but he is freed, and Christ said, whom the Son makes free is free indeed. You're in bondage today. It's not because he hasn't broken the chains, he hasn't broken the locks. There's not a thing that Satan can do to you, there's not a thing the world can do to you. The only one that can put you in bondage is yourself. Because the Son has died and conquered every enemy and every foe, that he might let his people go free. He came to preach liberty to the captives. Oh, what a tragic thing it is. In the sight of such great salvation and glorious redemption to see people laboriously set in place the bars of prejudice, the bars of ambition, the bars of vanity, the bars of resentment, and imprison themselves. But all heaven and all hell, all earth can't imprison the child of God. Only he can do it as a man himself, woman himself. Grows my flesh, but you can't imprison me, only I can imprison me, by my resentment and by my bitterness and by my ambition, by my anger. Nothing else can imprison the child of God, for whom the Son makes free is free. Satan thought in the book of Revelation that he could exterminate the church. Oh, why? All hell gloated. Christians are finally off the earth. We're done with them. The Lord says, now it's finished. And the first thing you know, heaven opens, and down from heaven comes a church. And there they are, resplendent in beauty, glorious in dress, like a bride had borne for her husband, a temple of God, a habitation of God through the Spirit. The new Jerusalem, the place of his dwelling. And Satan from the pit looks up and says, I beheaded him, I killed her, I destroyed him, but what did I do? I just beat them up to be built into that glorious thing that's there as a testimony to my failure. Nothing can hurt the church of God, and nothing can imprison the child of God, for whom the Son makes free is free indeed. Now let's go back to the jailer. Here's this poor man. In addition to being imprisoned by his traditions, and imprisoned by his ambitions, and imprisoned by his employers, and imprisoned by gods of stone that have no power, he's now imprisoned by the horrible fear that if his prisoners escape, his life will be taken. Why wait for this? Everything else has failed. And he's living in the utter holocaust of a destroyed life. And so he draws his short sword from the scabbard, holds it against his chest, perseveres to fall upon it and end his miserable life. He's the jailer. They put Paul in prison. And now he begins to recognize the nature of his intolerable bondage. And Paul cries out, though perhaps he couldn't even see to where he was, but he knew by the Spirit of God, do thyself no harm. We're here. We're not running away. If we were to run away, we would testify that you can hurt us, and you can't hurt us. We're here. We're not going. And he called for a light, and he went to the innermost prison, and there was Paul with the shackles that had been so carefully forged and the stocked bursts and the dungeon open, still sitting where he was. Why should he go anywhere? He hasn't been in prison. It was the prison that was in bondage. And the man now has lost his racial pride, he's lost confidence in his God's esteem, he's lost his heartiness and his arrogance, and he falls on his knees and he looks into the face of a Jew that had been bruised and beaten, and he said, what must I do to be saved? My friend, there's only one place in all the universe for a sinner to ever be saved, and that's where that jailer was. Utterly bankrupt and totally broken, and willing to learn from anybody that knows. And that's the right time to expect someone to be saved. You go up to a staggering drunk on the street, and you say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and you're not telling him the truth. There will be a time when it's truth, but it's not true now. Right now you've got to show him the revelation of the holiness of God until, like the Philippian jailer, he realizes that he's in prison, and he has to be delivered from prison. And when he cries out from the midst of his bondage, I'm helpless, I'm hopeless, I've no answer, I don't know the way, I'm filled with confusion and perplexity, there is nothing I can do, and cries from the depths of his heart, what must I do to be saved? I'm at the end of myself. Then you whisper, commit yourself entirely and wholly to the person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for you, and raised triumphantly from the dead, waits to save you. This is what happened. And when he'd come to the place of a little child, sir, what must I do? When he'd come to the place of brokenness, when he'd come to the place when he realized that he was the prisoner and Paul was the free man, then he could, he could ask for help. No one is ever going to go free until he realizes he's in bondage. And until you as a thinking that you've led life and ruled your life discovers that you've been in bondage to the God of this world, walking according to the course and plans he's made for you, dear sinner friend, there's no hope. But when you realize that where you thought you were free, doing what you wanted to do, you were actually in bondage doing what he wanted you to do. And you realize the weight of the chains and the cutting edge of the shackles, and cry out, what must I do to be saved? Then God, for the sake of his Son, Jesus Christ, will let the erstwhile jailer go free, but that one that's in Christ. You see, he can't ever be put in jail again. He can't ever be put in bondage. Oh, you can put his body there. Yes, you can take him out of circulation. You can even give him an express ride to heaven. But you can't imprison him because whom the Son makes free is free indeed and isn't subject to bondage anymore. Listen, let me ask you. First, do I speak to someone without Christ? You say, well, I've been doing what I wanted and I thought I was free, but I realize I'm the victim of my attitudes and my prejudices and my ambitions and my vanity, my lusts. I'm a bond slave. What must I do to be saved? I have good news for you, good news for hopeless people. The Lord Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was helpless. If you're there, he's the one for you. But perhaps I speak to some that say, oh, no, I've been saved from hell and the fear of dying, but I'm still in prison. I'm in prison to my fears. I'm in prison to my ambitions. I'm in prison to my traditions. I'm in prison to my resentments and my prejudices. I'm in prison to my attitudes. I'm a bond slave. My friend, you are a bond slave only because you've allowed yourself to be. Satan couldn't do it. Men couldn't do it. God wouldn't let angels do it, nor would he do it himself. You've done it to yourself. That's the only prison a Christian can make, the prison of his fears, the prison of his resentments, the prison of his bitterness, the prison of his ambitions, the prison of his vanity, the prison of his pride. And if you're a Christian, then it is that you have the key on the inside. You say, well, how will I get out? Well, you get out by realizing that whom the Son makes free is free indeed. And if you will confess your vanity and your pride and your ambition and your bitterness and your resentment as the sin it is and ask for forgiveness, God will forgive you and he'll save you from the prison of your own making. For he wants his children to be free and he's preached deliverance to the captive. For whom the Son makes free is free indeed. Oh, what a glad day it is for the jailer's family when the jailer goes free. For the good news came to his house, his servants, his children. What a glad day it might be for you, Christian friend, if today be the day when you'd go free from the prison of your own making for those that work for you and live with you. If you just realize that the day Jesus Christ died, you died and were buried and quickened and raised with him. Then you too could know the deliverance that comes to the children of God for whom the Son makes free is free indeed. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ, the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not be the slaves of sin. Shall we bow in prayer? Do I speak this morning to a burdened heart, sinful heart, one that you know you're under the sentence of death? If you died as you were, you'd go immediately to hell. Then I have good news for you if you're at the end of yourself. Jesus Christ died to save lost people. He'll save you. Do I speak for a Christian that's not known the freedom, can't be imprisoned by circumstances, by conditions, by persecution and opposition? The only thing that can imprison you are the bars of your own forging. Oh, don't you want to be free? Free from fear, men's faces and free from ambition and free from resentment and free from bitterness. Don't you want to be free? The Lord Jesus died that we could be free. He came to preach liberty to the captives in the setting of liberty then that are bound. Our heavenly Father before thee this morning are a company of men and women that would learn from thy word that whom the Son makes free is free indeed. And there's no prison made that can hold the child of God. Grant our Father that sinners shall realize they're in constant captivity to the God of this world and that Christians can become into captivity to themselves. Lord, we would be free. Free from everything. Free in that sense of freedom that the Lord Jesus intended us to know. And we ask that there might even now in insight and recognition of need come an appropriation of thy grace. And that there should be much rejoicing in many hearts because they've seen the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. That the death and burial and the resurrection of Christ, yea, his precious blood testifies to the emancipation proclamation that he purchased for us and made to us. Grant to us therefore Father that we shall appropriate everything that's ours in him. Bless us now as we go into the service of communion. Grant that our heart shall rest in the fullness of thy grace and love and that there shall be a new sense of appreciation for what our Lord Jesus died to make ours. In his name and for his sake. Amen.