Jim was a slave! He could only dimly remember the happy days of his boyhood when he had been free to run and play where he liked round his father’s hut in the wilds of Africa; but he could never forget the terrible day when he was caught by some cruel slave raiders, packed with hundreds of others on board a ship and taken far away across the sea to be a slave. Ever since he had been made to work among the cotton plantations, sometimes for kind masters, but more often for those who cared nothing for him and treated him cruelly. How he hated those who bought and sold him in the market-place, and longed to escape from them all! But his arms were chained, and it was no use hoping ever to be anything else but a slave.
But one day, while he was standing in the market-place waiting to be sold, an elderly gentleman spoke to him and asked him where he had been born. The poor slave told him with tears in his eyes of those far-off days when he had been free, and the gentleman seemed to have pity on hire. However, soon after, the slave heard the gentleman bargaining with his master about his price, and he hated to think that one who seemed so kind should want to buy a slave for himself. But so it was, for the bargain was struck and he was marched off behind his new master.
As soon as they arrived at the gentleman’s house he unlocked the fetters that bound the slave’s arms and said to him, “I have bought you as a slave, but only so that I might set you free. You are a free man now and can do just what you wish and go where you will.”
When he heard these wonderful words, the freed slave fell at the gentleman’s feet overcome with gratitude, and exclaimed,
“Master, from this day I am yours, and will serve you forever!”
There is only One Who can free us from the chains which sin binds about us. The Lord Jesus gave His life a ransom for many upon the Cross of Calvary. Have you ever thanked Him? Those whom He sets free, are glad to be His servants forever, for they say,
Whose slave are you? Either Satan’s or the Lord Jesus’, whom do you serve?
ML 09/06/1942