Your glorified Savior is meek and mild with his lambs, and his voice is one of tender freedom—freedom from the would-be oppressors. The spirit of this world, your flesh, and the devilish hoard want only to enslave and control you. They do not have your freedom and best interest at heart. Yet they will disguise that spiritual and earthly slavery in the pretense of freedom. What is more, those deceived by these lies (even the elect, if that were possible, Matt 24:24) will be the ones requesting their custom-made prison (well furnished of course!). This is what the voice of oppression looks like, as it is bandied about like freedom.

Recently, whose voice have you been hearing most, your Good Shepherd, or the voice of the Liar? The voice of truth, or that of manipulation and control? The voice of freedom, or the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) call to oppression? There are so many sham-offers of false freedom—facsimiles of the true thing: “be yourself”, “you do you”, or even the slogan on a shampoo bottle “liberate yourself”. (What, with shampoo?!)

They have taken many forms in the past, and they will continue to morph, be repackaged, and take different shapes on into the future. There will be appeals to what true freedom looks like on either side of a debate: “freedom looks like masks”, or “freedom does not look like this mask”. You even hear the siren’s call from the varying quarters of the church, causing you to wonder who is right and who has imbibed a tincture of the deception, but with the assertion of truth.

Here is where Christ’s promises are so genuinely liberating and so sorely needed.

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