“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, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Luke 4:18 and 19
The love of God given unto His children through the life, the death and the sacrifice of Christ…
As the Savior stood in the Synagogue in Nazareth, unrolling the scroll that he had just found, he searched for where the words had been written. They were the proclamation of the Lord, given as a prophesy to Isaiah generations before that he could announce them to God’s children, giving unto them the good news of the coming Messiah, of whom God had promised since the earliest days of man’s first fall to sin.
In those few short words, in those few sentences uttered by Christ in front of the congregation assembled there, in the town he had grown up in and had, for so long, called home, he gave an account of the entirety of his calling here on earth, as the son of God was formed into flesh and made man. He was there, sent by His Father, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal those who were broken hearted, to let the blind see, and to give freedom to those who are wounded at the hands of others.
Just as in the days gone past, the age of their fathers, Jubilee was pronounced, a year when all those in servitude would be forgiven of their debts and given the chance to once more lay hold of their liberty, he was there to pronounce a new Jubilee, a new year of the Lord, one that would never end, for he had come to offer deliverance to the captives and to ransom even the most lost of souls.
Christ’s mission, his ministry, his life and his death, that great sacrifice that he made on Calvary, the conquering of sin, death and the Devil during those three days when he descended into Hell, his resurrection, all of it, it was for one purpose and one purpose alone, the deep and abiding cause of liberty… the freedom for all men and women, that captivity to the forces of darkness may be set to flight and, in a deep and abiding sense of justice, all might be forever set free, lost and fallen humanity no longer held in the dark bondage of slavery.
Amidst that is whispered one deep and abiding truth, one transcending wisdom that has been carried from age to age, from prophets to judges to kings and apostles and disciples and saints, telling us that the Lord… our Heavenly Father, He is a God of Deliverance who forever contends with the cause of His children, whatever their plight, whatever their struggle, whatever dark forces may lurk in the shadows seeking to ensnare them..
And if this is the love of God given unto His children for the cause of their souls, that He would challenge the authority of the old Adversary through His son, the Savior of a lost and fallen humanity, refusing to yield or relent against all of his power, against that deep hold that he has over this world, how much more can He do against the adversaries of flesh and blood that dwell in this world?
All around us we see the evil that can be done against our fellow man, as wicked men of vile iniquity work their ways within this world, seeking power and glory, authority and wealth for themselves. We see it as they hold life to be cheap and they use it as nothing more the tools of their agenda, laying to waste all that stands in their ways. Here we come to know that there are so many forms of captivity that grip humanity and rip the dignity and the integrity away from human life. From the brutal tyranny of governments that persecute their citizens and the citizens of other countries, locking them in prisons or executing them at their will and discretion, to the harsh reality that slavery still exists and there are those who force others to build and to work for their own glory as they hold him through fear as hatred guides their way. From human trafficking that destroys the innocence of all those that this trade touches, treating our children as nothing more than livestock to be used and abused, and then cast away dead when they no longer serve a purpose to the acts of piracy and terrorism that grab men and women from the street and ransom them off to the highest bidder or kills them for no other purpose but to let the world watch so they can make their point, captivity is all around us as liberty and freedom, justice and equality is discarded, held cheap and without meaning.
Yet God, our Heavenly Father, he does not contend with the cause of the wicked and He does not leave His children to be like lambs unto the slaughter that they may be devoured by the wolves. If He was willing to give unto us His only begotten son to set us free then what is He unwilling to do for the cause of His children amidst the current age in the current struggle as iniquity and sin grips the lives of the captives and holds their lives, the life that He breathed into their lungs, as without value?
God shall, as He always has, stand beside the poor and the afflicted, the weak and the downtrodden; He shall work through this world and in this world to set them free, to release them from the hands of those that would strangle the life from them. As He delivered His children from the lands of Pharaoh, as He delivered His children from the bondage of Satan, so too shall He now deliver them from the power that captivity has over them in this world, in this day. The love of our Lord shall work with mercy and compassion to push back the tides of darkness as He remains faithful to those assurances and promises that He has given unto us never to fail or forsake His people, that they may never be abandoned to wickedness amidst the pain and the anguish of the soul.
Be of good faith and know that the Lord God Almighty, the shield of our righteousness is there to do battle and to proclaim His Jubilee that none shall be neglected or deserted in their hour of deepest needed. He shall be there for the poor and the inflicted, for the wounded and the captive, pronouncing His love and His judgment in all that we see and all that we know, ransoming even the most lost or hidden of souls from the bondage that now so constrains them amidst the wickedness and iniquity of those who do not walk in the ways of the Lord.
That shall forever the promise that He delivers unto His children, in this age and in all ages, so long as evil tries to assert its dominance over us, seeking to subjugate us and destroy us through its brutality and transgressions against the will of our Heavenly Father.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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