I added the picture above to this message I shared below.
[source: ANPN.org]
“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” (Luke 4:18).
Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came so that we can have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). He died and shed His precious blood on the cross so that we can be free from the bondage of sins and sicknesses (John 8:36). The Bible says that He was manifested to take away our sins and in Him is no sin (1 John 3:5). He came so that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Additionally, Christ came to set the captives free. He demonstrated this unique and amazing ministry of setting the captives free on many occasions in the Bible.
He is a God of freedom and He intends for us to live and enjoy a life of freedom. Not freedom to do whatever we like. Absolutely not! But His freedom is for us to live a good, godly, healthy, peaceful and prosperous life. God’s freedom is meant for us to be good, kind and show love to others, be law-abiding citizens and just remain open, submissive and fully obedient to His words and instructions.
We are told in Mark 4:25-34 of a woman who suffered constant bleeding for 12 years. She was held captive by this nagging hemorrhage. It was a complicated, terrible health condition that deprived her of her freedom, joy, peace, happiness and prosperity. To make things worse, her health condition defied all medical prescriptions and treatments. She spent all that she had for doctors and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse.
But this woman had a different thought when she heard about Jesus- about His miracle-working power, about His healing and deliverance power. She refused to resign to fate that she could never get well. She chose to believe with her heart that Christ can heal the most chronic and severe illness and that He can restore hope to a hopeless situation. She chose to believe that that same Jesus, Who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), can make her whole. The Bible says: When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak. Because she thought, “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed” (Mark 5:28). She approached Jesus by believing, renewing her thought/mind and having confidence in the ability of the Master to set her free. Her bleeding stopped immediately and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering (Mark 5:29).
Regardless of how long the problem might have been, what matters is your faith in God. You must constantly renew our mind/thought in God’s faithfulness and ability to turn past failures into success. We must believe that He can turn frustrations, hopelessness and disappointments into lasting victories. We must believe that He can turn sorrows to joy and restore peace and calm to a stormy situation. He is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
He gave sight to a man that was born blind (John 9: 1-7), He cured the lepers (Luke 17: 12-14), He restored life to a man that was already dead for four days (John 11: 39-44), He miraculously fed five thousand with just five barley loaves and two small fishes in a desert place (John 6:8-13) and He performed many other great, incredible miracles.
It is important for us know that we are His children and His desire is to deliver us from every bondage and oppression. He is a God of freedom. In Luke 13:11-16, Jesus saw a woman who was unable to stand up straight. She had been crippled by an evil spirit, making her to bend double for 18 years. To demonstrate that He truly came to set the captives free, Christ pronounced this woman healed. And she recovered by a touch from the Master. Even when the leader in charge of the synagogue was furious at what Jesus did (being a Sabbath day), He replied appropriately. Jesus said the woman had been held in bondage by Satan for 18 years and wondered whether it’s not right that she be freed even on a Sabbath (Luke 13: 16).
Just like this woman allowed the Master to free her, we should make room for Him to do His work of deliverance in our lives.
We must choose not to be afraid by the threats that the circumstances may pose, but to only believe (Mark 5:36). We must choose not to loose hope, but to just remain calm and optimistic of what God will do. The Bible says: Who can snatch the plunder of war from the hands of a warrior? Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go? But the LORD says, “The captives of warriors will be released, and the plunder of tyrants will be retrieved. For I will fight those who fight you, and I will save your children” (Isaiah 49: 24-25).
I added the picture above to the message I shared below.
[source: StudyLight.org]
Verse Isaiah 49:24. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty - "Shall the prey seized by the terrible be rescued"] For צדיק tsaddik, read עריץ arits. A palpable mistake, like that in Isaiah 42:19. The correction is self-evident from the very terms of the sentence; from the necessity of the strict correspondence in the expressions between the question and the answer made to it, - and it is apparent to the blindest and most prejudiced eye. However, if authority is also necessary, there is that of the Syriac and Vulgate for it; who plainly read עריץ arits, in Isaiah 49:24 as well as in Isaiah 49:25, rendering it in the former place by the same word as in the latter. - L.
These two last verses contain a glorious promise of deliverance to the persecuted Church of Christ from the terrible one - Satan, and all his representatives and vicegerents, persecuting antichristian rulers. They shall at last cease from destroying the Church of God, and destroy one another.
[source: BiblePlus.org]
We were lawful captives to the justice of God, yet delivered by a price of unspeakable value. Here is an express promise: Even the prey of the terrible shall be delivered. We may here view Satan deprived of his prey, bound and cast into the pit; and all the powers that have combined to enslave, persecute, or corrupt the church, are destroyed; that all the earth may know that our Saviour and Redeemer is Jehovah, the mighty One of Jacob. And every effort we make to rescue our fellow-sinners from the bondage of Satan, is, in some degree, helping forward that great change.
[BibleStudyTools.com]
Shall the prey be taken from the mighty?
This is an objection to the accomplishment of what is predicted and promised above, taken from the power of the enemy, and his right to detain the people; and are either the words of the nations among whom the Jews were, according to Kimchi, boasting of, and presuming upon, and opposing to what is said, both their might and right, to keep the people in their own hands, bidding as it were defiance to any to attempt to take them from them; or the words of the prophet, in the name of the people, as Aben Ezra, objecting to their deliverance, doubting the effecting of it, or admiring at it: it may be applied to the taking of the Lord's people out of the hands of Satan, who may be said to be "mighty" or "strong", as he appears to be from his nature, a spirit; from his names, the strong man armed, a roaring lion, the great red dragon, leviathan, the piercing serpent; and from his power and dominion over the evil angels, and over men, both their bodies and souls; and to whom the Lord's own people are a "prey", while they are in a state of nature, as all mankind, and every unconverted man, be; a difficult thing it is to take any out of his hands, and a wonder of grace it is when it is done: or the lawful captive delivered?
justly and lawfully taken captive in war, as the Jews were by the Babylonians: or, "the captivity of the righteous be delivered" F20; that is, either the righteous who were taken captives; or those that took them, who were so in their opinion, at least with respect to the taking of them, doing, as they judged, what was lawful and just. The people of God are in their state of nature led by Satan at his will, and are lawful captives in the judgment of him, and his principalities; and are in reality taken in war by him, and not only led captive by him at his will, but with their own will, and are justly given up unto him. Perhaps all this may be better referred to the people of God being a prey to the Romish antichrist, and detained as a lawful captive by him, and to the difficult and wonderful deliverance of them from him in the latter day; see ( Revelation 13:4 Revelation 13:7 Revelation 13:10 ) ( 18:4 ) . The Targum interprets this and the following verse of the captives of Esau and Ishmael, by whom seem to be meant the Pope and Turk.
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