The Way to Liberty.

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WHAT is it? There is only one answer—CHRIST. It is not to be found in struggles for reformation. Who is to tell you when you are what you ought to be? A flatterer may tell you that your ways are faultless. But God looks at the heart. Friends may all agree that your manners are charming. But what of your motives, your hidden springs? “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts” (Psa. 51:66Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. (Psalm 51:6)). God looks at the intents of the heart. And the God Who searches your ways, hears your words, knows your heart of hearts, and weighs you in His balance, proclaims that you “come short” of His glory. If you never find liberty until you can make yourself what you ought to be in His sight, liberty will never be yours—NEVER! If you are never free until you are free from the presence of indwelling sin, you will die a hopeless slave. But you may be free from all expectation of making better of it, free from its power.
It is Christ that makes free. “Stand fast,” said the Apostle to the Galatians. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free” (Gal. 5:11Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)). If He has borne my sins and their full weight of judgment, I am free to look at my sins in that “marvelous light” (1 Peter 11:24; 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18)). If the sin I find in my flesh has been judged in His holy Person on the cross, I am free to expect no more good from the flesh, but free to judge it in the same “marvelous light” (Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3)).
If God has set Christ in glory before me, and tells me that all that He is, is mine (1 Cor. 1:29-3129That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:29‑31)) as God’s unspeakable Gift (2 Cor. 9:1515Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. (2 Corinthians 9:15)), I am free to look up to heaven and say, “All, all I want is there.” I am free to read my title to glory in the marvelous light of Him Who is there in the midst of that glory already. And He tells us even in the Old Testament the result of so looking. “They looked unto Him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed” (Psa. 34:55They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. (Psalm 34:5)). He exhorts them to continue looking. “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus (or looking of unto Jesus) the Author and Finisher of faith” (Heb. 12:1, 21Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1‑2)).
It is said that in the days of slavery in the Southern States of America, when a slave was escaping for his liberty, he had only one mark to guide him. He knew not a single friend in the country through which he was passing. He had studied no geography, and possessed no maps. If he had they would have been of little use, since, for fear of being captured, he had to hide in the day and travel by night. But he had one sure mark to guide him―THE POLE STAR. The North Polar Star was his only mark, but it was fixed and reliable. He knew that liberty was to be found in that direction only, and with his eye upon that Pole Star he hastened forward till he reached what he yearned for.
He regarded not the engrossments of others. “This one thing I do,” he could say. So with the Christian, even after he has been set free here. He looks to Christ. He presses on to the place where Jesus is Who set him free, and to enjoy in His presence “the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:2121Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)).
GEO. C.