Genesis chapter 1
In the beginning Yah created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Yah moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And Yah said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And Yah saw the light, that it was good: and Yah divided the light from the darkness.
5 And Yah called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And Yah said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And Yah made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And Yah called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And Yah said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And Yah called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and Yah saw that it was good.
11 And Yah said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and Yah saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And Yah said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And Yah made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And Yah set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and Yah saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And Yah said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And Yah created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and Yah saw that it was good.
22 And Yah blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And Yah said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And Yah made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and Yah saw that it was good.
26 And Yah said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So Yah created man in his own image, in the image of Yah created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And Yah blessed them, and Yah said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And Yah said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And Yah saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Introduction
The person who cannot see the ultimate becomes a slave to the immediate.
There is no greater burden than freedom, no heavier load than liberty. The paradoxical nature of this statement echoes the complexity of the concept of freedom. Freedom is like beauty and love-it is difficult to define, but you know it when you experience it. As we wade into the shallow shores of the ocean of the twenty-first century and take on the responsibility of custodians of a new millennium, the cry for individual, community, cultural and national freedom resonates from the human struggles of the twentieth century.
Over six billion people call our fragile earth home, and nearly everyone would claim that they are free without any working definition of the concept. Freedom is one of the most misunderstood ideals in human experience, and therefore it is rarely attained. The majority of humanity will never experience true freedom, even though freedom is the purpose and reason for man's existence.
Freedom, though little understood by most, has become the pursuit of man. Today we are living through another explosive diffusion of this ideal. The social, political and economic developments in Eastern Europe at the latter end of the twentieth century herald only the latest and most dramatic phase of the commitment of people all over the world to freedom. Since World War II, scores of countries all over the Third World and Far East have entered the struggle for freedom, embraced its value and sometimes lived by it. There is hardly a country whose leaders, however dubious, do not claim that they are pursuing the ideal of freedom. It is important to understand that the concept of freedom was not invented by man but for man. Freedom is not a Western or Eastern ideal. It is a biblical concept introduced by Yah Himself as the very essence and purpose of man's existence. Thus, freedom is basic to man's fulfillment and critical to his sense of value. The spirit of freedom is syno!
nymous with the spirit of man and resides inherent in his nature. It is for this reason that the desire, passion and pursuit of freedom are natural to mankind.
Oppression, suppression and any other form of slavery or any attempt to restrict the development and expression of the human spirit will always awaken the sleeping giant called freedom. This is why any form of slavery, whether by forced labor, ideology, a political regime, economic oppression, domestic abuse or spiritual or religious oppression is the ultimate sin against the human spirit.
David Brion Davis and his Yale colleague Edmund Morgan, in their book The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, demonstrated the enormous importance of slavery in the social and intellectual reconstruction and reconfiguration of freedom in our modern context. Davis attempted to explain why, after taking slavery for granted since the beginning of its history in the West, in a remarkably short period of time during the late eighteenth century, slavery was redefined as the greatest evil, a moral and socioeconomic scourge that had to be exterminated. His conclusion was that the promotion and protection of personal liberty was the highest virtue of man. In essence, slavery does not destroy freedom; rather, it magnifies its presence and value. Yet the question is, What is freedom?
Freedom is a biblical concept introduced by Yah Himself as the very essence and purpose of man's existence.
At the threshold of a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln complained that he knew no good definition of freedom. The situation is no different in our day, in spite of vast literature on the subject. In other words, while there is overwhelming agreement on the value of liberty... there is a great deal of disagreement about what freedom is. It is this very dilemma that explains how it is possible for the most violently opposed of political parties to pay homage to the "same" ideal.
Freedom has been defined in many works of Greek philosophers, and modern thinkers and many other scholars have explored this complex subject. Freedom is defined as a tripartite value. Orlando Patterson, in his book Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, offers this summary:
Freedom is a tripartite value. Freedom has a historical, sociological and conceptual relationship. There is first the concept of personal freedom, which gives a person the sense that on the one hand one is not being coerced or restrained by another person in doing something desired, and on the other hand, the conviction that one can do the same.
The second concept of freedom is called sovereign freedom. This is simply the power to act as one pleases, regardless of the wishes of others, as distinct from personal freedom, which is the capacity to do as one pleases, in so far as one can.
The third note of freedom is civic freedom, which is the capacity of adult members of a community to participate in its life and governance. A person feels free, in this sense, to the degree that he or she belongs to the community of birth, has a recognized place in it, and is involved in some way in the way it is governed. The existence of civic freedom implies a political community of some sort, which clearly defines rights and obligations for every citizen. This form of freedom can still be restrictive as it was in ancient Roman culture where only male members of the community could participate, or in recent history where women or blacks were allowed to participate in the political process by the vote.
These, then, are the three constitutive elements of the uniquely western chord of freedom.
Natural freedom exists in the very nature of man as a Yah-given right and responsibility established from the beginning of the creation of man.
However in this series we are going to look at a fourth concept of freedom that does not get its definition from the Greeks, the Romans or Western thinkers, but rather from the Creator of all mankind, Yah, and from His Word, the Bible.
This concept we will call natural freedom. This is freedom that exists in the very nature of man as a Yah-given right and responsibility established from the beginning of the creation of man. It is the human right delegated by Yah to man in the first book of Moses, Genesis 1:26:
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
-KJV, EMPHASIS ADDED
Here in this declaration is the source and foundation of true freedom ... and also the source of the very meaning of the word-free-dominion ... freedom. True freedom is therefore "the liberty to dominate the earth through one's unique gifts and talents in fulfillment of Yah's purpose for one." In essence, each individual was created by Yah to dominate the environment through his or her personal gifts and talents, in pursuit of fulfilling Yah's personal purpose for his or her life and to serve others with that purpose. Freedom is the liberty to fulfill Yah's will in serving others with the gift of that purpose, without restricting or controlling another while that person fulfills his or her purpose and serves you.
It is also important to note that Yah's instructions specify what man is to dominate and not dominate. Manis conspicuously missing from the list. True freedom is self- discovery of one's personal purpose and the liberty to pursue the fulfillment of that purpose according to the laws and principles established by Yah, without restricting others from doing the same. In this definition,the most important implication is that of personal responsibility.
This definition naturally establishes the fact that any domination of another human spirit is violation of Yah's natural law. This will be our working definition of freedom in this series. Who are the first people in every generation to get the idea that being free is not only a value to be cherished but also the most important thing that someone could possess?The answer, in a word, is slaves.
Freedom normally begins to manifest itself as a social value in the desperate yearning of the slave to negate what, for him or her and for nonslaves, is a peculiarly inhumane condition. This is because freedom is not the creation of a new social status given as a privilege to the disadvantaged, but rather a natural restoration to the normal state of what it means to be man.
When oppression becomes a mental condition, then physical freedom is not enough.
To fully understand freedom, we must have a better knowledge of the condition called slavery. As Orlando Patterson states:
Slavery is the permanent, violent and personal domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons. It is first a form of personal domination. One individual is under the direct power of another or his agent. In practice, this usually entails the power of life and death over the slave. Second, the slave is always an excommunicated person. He or she does not belong to the legitimate social or moral community; he has no independent social existence; he exists only through, and for, the master; he is natally alienated. Third, the slave is in a perpetual condition of dishonor. What is more, the master and his group parasitically gain honorin degrading the slave.
No discussion of freedom will be complete without a clear understanding of the nature of slavery. This specter of slavery is not only limited to physical oppression, but is also true of spiritual slavery and oppression. The biblical concept is that of the human race falling under the slave yoke of the prince of darkness as a result of the rebellion and disobedience of man's forefather, Adam. The impact of slavery is the same in every circumstance, whether spiritual, mental or physical, whether individual, cultural, community or national slavery. Any attempt to limit, control, hinder, restrict, inhibit, prevent or stop the fulfillment of Yah's purpose and will in another's life is rebellion against Yah. This is called wickedness. Rebellion is identified as the sin of witchcraft, which is defined as any attempt to control the will and spirit of another. In every case of oppression, the cry for freedom is eminent.
The impact of slavery is not limited to the physical damage it can wreak on the slave, but to the more diabolical mental damage it causes. This is the most tragic element of slavery- both physical and spiritual. In fact, the goal of the oppressor is mental slavery. This is called breaking the spirit. This is the surrender of hope in the human spirit,and is the most dangerous aspect of oppression.
When oppression becomes a mental condition, then physical freedom is not enough. It is this crucial principle that this series will address. The mind is the key to life. "As [a man] thinketh in his heart [mind], so is he" (Prov. 23:7, KJv). Therefore, your mental state is more important than your physical state. You are not free until your mind is liberated. Freedom is first a mental condition before it is a physical statement. This is the basis for the statement made by the ultimate man, the Prince of peace,the source of true freedom Yahusha Hamachiach -when He presented His proposition on freedom as recorded by His disciple in John 8:32: "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The source of freedom, according to Yahusha, is not legislation or a key to a chain,but rather knowledge-the discovery of information powerful enough to set you free in your mind. If a man is what he thinks, then a man is not free until he thinks free.
Therefore, it is possible to be delivered and yet not be free. Deliverance is physical liberation from physical restriction . Deliverance is the removal of the oppressed from the environment of the oppressor. Deliverance is the separation of the slave from the physical conditions of slavery. One of the major causes of frustration and disillusionment in the human experience, especially among those who have been victims of historical oppression and abuse, is their confusing deliverance with freedom. Deliverance is not freedom. Deliverance prepares you for freedom.
Many nations who were forged in the fires of oppression and emerged from the dust of colonialism and slavery are still struggling, after many years of independence, to find the trophy of true freedom. Some who have mistaken deliverance for freedom continue to stagger under the power of mental slavery. Some have even passed this oppressive mentality on to the next generation. How does the individual, the community and the nation break this spirit of mental oppression and move on to freedom?
To answer this question, we will study the model established by the Creator, who produced a prototype in the case of delivering a band of Hebrew slaves from the oppressive power of the Egyptian Pharaoh and moved them through the process of the wilderness to the land of promise, making them a sovereign free nation. A careful study of this excellent model provides us, as individuals, communities or nations, with the principles necessary to move from slavery to deliverance and to our destiny of freedom to fulfill Yah's purpose for our lives.
We must learn that freedom is not the absence of law, work or labor, but the embracing of responsibility. We must be awakened to the reality that true freedom imposes more laws than slavery, demands more work than slavery and demands more self-control and discipline than slavery. The foundation of true freedom is management-self-management and management of our environment. This is the first and ultimate purpose of Yah for mankind. In slavery you do not manage- you are managed. Therefore,freedom is a return to the responsibility of stewardship. Yah's first command to man was to manage the real estate called Earth. Man was given the management contract to manage the earth, and his freedom is inherent in this dominion mandate. You are not free until you are able to dominate an area of earth with your gift. I challenge you to read the following pages with an open heart and to experience the freedom awaiting you in the land of promise-the land of milk, honey and responsibility.
The price of greatness is responsibility. -WINSTON CHURCHILL
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