Everyone Wants to Be Free
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains,” wrote French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762. Born free. What a wonderful thought! But as Rousseau observed, millions of people throughout history have never experienced freedom. Instead, they have spent their lives “in chains,” imprisoned in a system that has robbed them of any lasting happiness and satisfaction in life.
MILLIONS today still find that “man has dominated man to his injury.” (Ecclesiastes 8:9) In their pursuit of power, ambitious men and women continue to show little or no compunction about crushing the freedoms of others. “Rampaging death squads kill 21 people,” says one typical report. Another speaks of “butchery,” with security forces ‘killing unresisting and defenceless women, children and old people, cutting throats, shooting civilian prisoners in the head, and following a scorched-earth policy of destruction of villages and random shelling.’
No wonder people deeply desire and, indeed, fight for freedom from repression! The sad truth is, though, that fighting for one man’s freedom often involves trampling on the rights and freedoms of another. Innocent men, women, and children are almost inevitably sacrificed in the process, their deaths “legitimized” by declaring the cause worthy and just. Last year in Ireland, for example, a car bomb planted by “freedom fighters” in the small country town of Omagh killed 29 innocent bystanders and injured hundreds more.
Still “in Chains”
When the fighting is over, what is gained? When the “freedom fighters” win their battles, some limited freedom may be won. But, then, are they really free? Is it not true that even in the most liberated societies in the so-called free world, people are still “in chains” to such brutal masters as poverty, imperfection, sickness, and death? How can anyone say that he is truly free as long as such things continue to enslave him?
The ancient Bible writer Moses accurately described life as it has been for so many throughout history and as it still is today. We may live for 70 or 80 years, he said, “yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things.” (Psalm 90:10) Will this ever change? Will it ever be possible for all of us to live fully satisfying lives, free from the pain and terror that so many suffer today?
The Bible says yes! It speaks of “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) Let us consider closely that freedom, spoken of in the first century by the apostle Paul in a letter he wrote to Christians in Rome. In this letter Paul clearly explains how each of us can gain true, lasting “glorious freedom.”
[Picture Credit Line on page 3]
From the book Beacon Lights of History, Vol. XIII