CAPTIVES SET FREE
Norman J Henry
Isaiah 49: 8-9 (to “yourselves”)
The moral conditions in the world that existed when Isaiah the prophet wrote this book still exist today. There is advancement in everything, but darkness in the souls of men remains. There is certainly a difference between what we read in Isaiah 14 as to Satan, and then what we have in Luke 4. Instead of binding men and keeping men in bondage, we have the Deliverer coming in. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … to preach”. What a preaching that was! Think of Jesus gracefully doing it. The One we are preaching here tonight is to be your Lord and Saviour and your Redeemer.
The prophet here in Isaiah 14 refers to the aspirations of the devil. The devil had the status of sonship but he fell. He fell; pride was found in him. He spread out his evil, the effect of pride and being against God, into the whole human race. One sin brought the race down: one sin. It was something immediately before man that God used to put him under responsibility, that he had not to eat of one of the trees. There were plenty that were fruit-bearing; there was the tree of life which stands out peculiarly, Gen 2: 9. One tree was “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. You might ask why God put it there. There was another will in the universe aside from God's will, and therefore man was placed in such wonderful circumstances but under the commandment that he was not to eat of that tree. Immediately he ate it, the other will than God's will permeated the race with awful results. It is not just every sin, but every amusement in the world, every sport, everything in the business world, everything is permeated by the wicked hands of Satan, who exercises his will contrary to the will of God. He said, “I will ascend into the heavens, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit upon the mount of assembly, in the recesses of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High”. You think of that; that is man's pride, and the world is permeated by the pride of man; it sustains man.
When we come to Luke 4, we have the descent of the humble Jesus; He treads His way according to the will of God. He stands up in the synagogue in Luke 4 and He reads in simplicity, but so powerfully, of the abundant grace of God. It is a wonderful message; what they needed most was in that message that He brought. He has been bringing it ever since. Wonderful! I am just touching this first passage lightly, but you will see very clearly what has marked the world that is round about us. The prophet says, “none the less art thou brought down to Sheol”; That is what God said about Satan: he was cast out of his domain from the heavens; he is brought down to Sheol, “to the recesses of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee; they shall consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that shook kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities”. Everything of the world is caught up; they serve their gods, “the god of this world” is referred to in the 2 Corinthians 4: 4. It says that he “dismissed not his prisoners homewards”; he does not let man go. How can man be delivered from the world's system? He has no power to do it. The power of the devil is greater, and he has kept prisoners in this world; no one can deliver unless God does it; He can do it. If God comes in, He comes in in Christ. Men are held as prisoners in a power that they cannot get delivered from. No wonder the message from Luke is so attractive.
We will move on to this beautiful scripture. “He came to Nazareth, where he was brought up; and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Esaias was given to him; and having unrolled the book he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. Thank God it is still running; the acceptable year of the Lord is still running; it has not closed yet. That is wonderful. It is going out for men; when man does not have the power, he does not have any power to deliver himself, the Deliverer comes. He is speaking here in the synagogue; He is saying what He has come to do, and preaching the acceptable year of the Lord; is that not wonderful? I think it is a wonderful matter. Thank God for every person that has opened their ear to such an appeal.
It says, “having rolled up the book, when he had delivered it up to the attendant, he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him”. What an object for them. Here was One who could deliver me from my lost estate. I know what it is like to get deliverance from sin. I was captive to the world in sin; I knew I had to get out of it some time, but I had no power to get out. Divine grace brought me out. Abundance of grace is preached: “abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness”, Rom 5: 17. That is the God we are dealing with; He has abundant resources to meet the prisoner today, to get deliverance for the prisoner, those who are captive to their desires and everything that holds men. You have so much presented to man; it is extraordinary; some other new things that they are introducing to try to hold man, to satisfy his heart of desire. God knows that; God is aware of that. He has the means to deliver the sinner. That is what the glad tidings involve. You need deliverance from sin and to be free of self. Everything that marks this world, the devil, the god of this world, engenders this in the hearts of men so that they can live without God. They are so far away from God that they just want to walk in their knowledge, but at the same time they are making inanimate things, gods for their heart. They put those items in their heart and it is something they can look at and that was a form of idolatry that spread, even in the Christian world.
Here, Jesus is the blessed attractive Man. He comes here, and He is the Deliverer, God's Deliverer for men. What a Saviour He is. Do you feel the need? Are you going to make use of what is in Christ? His power is far greater than Satan's. He will yet take him and cast him into the pit for a thousand years; finally he will be banished for ever, his influence will be gone. At the moment he still wields power. Think of the bondage that sin brought in, death. Men have turned the world of life into fear and bondage, to sin and to death: man's hopeless condition. Someone said to a person recently, 'I want to speak about the Lord', and the person replied that he did not want to hear it. He said, 'I will tell you: hell will be full of persons who did not want to hear it'. Then the man listened to what he had to say. People want to close their ears: “they … held their ears”, Acts 7: 27. They did that when Stephen was martyred; they did not want to hear him, Stephen and his faithful message to them. Man is fixed and savaged by his lost condition. God in His mercy gave man a conscience. You might ask how men can men do things like that. God appeals to the conscience of men. Instead of anything the world might call great and mighty, it is the blessed One who stood up saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor”: poor in spirit, poor in mind. How cheap things seem to satisfy men, you wonder at it. We are speaking about the most exalted things from God to satisfy men, and loving them; and yet man is satisfied with poor quality.
Even that younger son in Luke 15, craving the husks: even the pigs had something better. Everything here is poor; that is what men live on. They would appear to be satisfied. There is only one chink God could use; the younger son came to himself. Instead of looking out, he came to himself; and he remembered what he had left. Oh, that men might come to that today through the gospel, they might come to themselves. What a poor diet he was having, what a change to come into the father's house where he was invited, brought there by the father. The Father is active today in the preaching; I do not doubt it for a minute. The Spirit of God is working in the testimony, but also presenting Christ. The Father is calling out; He wants to bring you into blessing; He wants to fill your heart. What a God He is: the supreme God taking the name of Father; the greatest in the economy of love, taking that name Father. Is it not enough to touch our hearts? We are dealing with the most feeling and remarkable features of divine Persons; both the Son and the Spirit are referred to as Comforters. He is a feeling God. He knew what Saul of Tarsus went through: “it is hard for thee to kick against goads”, Acts 26: 14. He knew of the things that would come in through divine grace, to try and steer the animal in the right direction. Saul was hard work. It was easy work for the Lord because He was greater, a light above the brightness of the sun shone round about him, Acts 9: 3. He was the one who was to be blessed and he was brought down by heavenly light from the most glorious Person who preached in the synagogue in Luke 4. What a Deliverer! What a Person! “He has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. Each state of soul can be met by this blessed Saviour; there is none like Him.
Jesus is a glorious Saviour. A psalm speaks of opening the gates of righteousness and entering in, Ps 118: 19. God would encourage persons to come into righteousness. There is an abundance of righteousness; righteousness is by faith. It is all provided in the gospel; enter it. You say, 'I am embarrassed; I am frightened to do it; I am cowardly to do it'; no, the gates are open. Go through the gates of righteousness and enter in. You will come into blessing. Men need to come to themselves, instead of living with the unclean, day and night, but finding the gates of righteousness are open and there is a way in. Those persons that need it so much are brought in; God gives us strength to walk, and He will take you by the hand. He will help you through. It must be the gates of righteousness; you must come in rightly. Righteousness was established at the cross. It has been rightfully established and now all those persons who are prisoners to sin, captives to sin, impoverished, living in debauchery, poor, living on what is provided for animals and not what is provided by God, can enter through the gates of righteousness.
Here, Jesus sits down: “and having rolled up the book …he began to say to them, To-day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. What a message! I know, of course, He had to go down into death, but He was after their hearts. The message is to go into the heart. They “wondered at the words of grace that were coming out of his mouth”. This is the opposite to the lawless one; he aspired to sit in the seat of God; that is what he wanted to do. Here the Lord Jesus is speaking in grace; He took a lowly place to serve. If a disciple needed a little help, He washes his feet: how beautiful! If you go to the Middle East, it is dry sandy ground that is coarse on the soles of the feet: He washed their feet, the same Person who made the worlds.
We turn to the last scripture. I feel we need more confessions; confessions show where you stand with God. It says here, “prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves”. I think that is true confession. You have stated where you stand with God. The person is encouraged to shew themselves. God will meet you in His grace; what a God He is. He knows where you are; He knows if the word is having an effect. You could be in the middle of millions of persons as they have had on the streets of London in the past week, and God knows the state of every soul. Who is going to break through and get salvation, get deliverance, and cease to be prisoners? The younger son was no longer a prisoner, neither was Saul of Tarsus still a prisoner; they received deliverance. Wonderful, those who are delivered are told, “Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves”. God knows who is in darkness. Show you have been delivered from the moral darkness of the world. That is true confession. We confess where we are with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved”, Rom 10: 9.
I trust what I have said may be for blessing for all our hearts, so that we know more and more the value of having such a God to speak about and such a Saviour to trust.
May it be so for His Name's sake.
West Norwood
18th September 2022