The Truth Shall Set You Free - John 8:31-32

I've been rewatching the tv show Lost, and I feel like there’s a general feeling on this show that really resonates with the plan of salvation. I’m not saying to look to that show for any kind of guidance or spiritual truth or anything like that, but the premise is familiar. There’s a place where lots of crazy things happen, that has a long and complicated history, and no one knows that there is a protective, controlling hand overseeing it all. I imagine us like the group of people who crash onto the island and are thrown into this survival situation that is complicated by all types of monsters and people doing crazy things with all sorts of agendas. It’s absolute chaos, and no one really knows what’s going on, except that they want to survive. I feel like my life would be exactly like that if I didn’t have the gospel. Maybe that’s why the Lord had me be born into the gospel, I wouldn’t have been able to function without it and would have ended up catatonic and useless to everyone. I love the gospel, it completes me, and I have to have it in my life. As the show goes on and the people that crashed on the island discover more about the island’s history and the people who are in charge of it, the more they know how to survive and thrive even. The reason I bring this up is that Jesus makes a statement that demonstrates the two different types of existence we can have in this life. We can either experience the day to day grind of trying to survive, with mixed and usually difficult results, or we can live this life in the gospel and thrive through guidance, hope, happiness, and the eternal perspective.

Jesus tells those who are continuing to listen to Him, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.” Interestingly, the word “continue” is cross referenced with the word “commitment,” and I feel that this is fitting because to continue doing something, especially when you are in the early stages of discovery, indicates a loose association with. To me, it means that your involvement could either come or go, there is really no firm dedication to it as a cause, just if it is convenient. However, the gospel is not a concept to be lived “conveniently.” We are required to make a commitment to Jesus before we can expect him to make a commitment to us, which makes sense. Then Jesus makes the promise that if they commit to being his disciples then, “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This is the distinction between living life in a vacuum, we are born, we struggle, then we die, or living a life with a different perspective, we came from God, we are here to learn to become more like God, and then we return to Him after we die.

This begs the question, what freedom comes from knowing accepting the gospel? I can only speak from personal experience here, but the “world” view that I have endured before truly immersing myself in the gospel is pretty bleak. The world says that I’m worthless, I’ll never be good enough, what I want is not important, what I do is not important, who I am is not important, there is only this life, and that this life is the only consciousness that I will ever experience to I better live it up now because this is it. The gospel says that I am a daughter of God, He knows who I am and he loves me very much. The gospel says that He has a plan for my life and that what I do is vitally important and that I can make someone’s life better by bring kind. The gospel also tells me that happiness comes from living the commandments and that even though this life is difficult, if I do my best, then I will be rewarded with peace and love in the next life. Which perspective is freedom and which one is bondage?

Maybe we should define freedom and bondage first. Clearly freedom is the ability to choose, and bondage is the inability to choose. This could be because other people are restricting your options, such as physical slavery, which is abhorrent, or because your circumstances are not conducive to choosing. If we look at it that way, we are all in bondage in one way or another. We are free to choose our attitudes, we are free to choose our perspectives, and we are free to choose what we believe. To me personally the difference between freedom and bondage is personal peace. If we look at people throughout history, we can see those who were physically coerced into bondage and were able to be happy in that situation, and we can see those who appear to have every choice available to them, and they are desperately unhappy.

In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl demonstrates that even in the most extreme cases of suffering, one can choose one’s own attitude. He talks about using humor to lift spirits, he talks about despair, and the need for meaning in one’s life. He says tat even though he was imprisoned in several different concentration camps during WWII, he was still able to see happiness and meaning in his suffering. Let’s look at the case of Abinadi and King Noah. Abinadi was physically restrained ad unable to choose to flee for safety, whereas King Noah sat on the throne of authority, had the ability to do whatever he wanted, and could come and go when he pleased. When it came down to the time to face death, who was afraid? Abinadi who could have renounced everything at the last moment and been spared? Or Noah who faced his own people that he had betrayed?

Bondage is fear and confusion and despair, any negative emotion such as anger, hatred, and jealousy, etc. Freedom is any positive emotion such as happiness, meaning, fulfillment, love, hope, and empowerment. These positive emotions allow you to move forward in your afflictions, whereas the negative emotions of bondage will not allow for spiritual progression, and that is the bondage. This life is bondage, in many different ways; the only real choice is how we are going to deal with our own personal lot in life. The IM quotes President James E. Faust as teaching, “Obedience leads to true freedom. The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated… Freedom and liberty are precious gifts that come to us when we are obedient to the laws of God and the whisperings of the Spirit… Obedience to (principles of revealed truth) makes us truly free to reach the potential and the glory which our Heavenly Father has in store for us.”

Let’s imagine this life as a marathon, we are all running it, we all started at the same place, the pre-mortal world, and we are all going to the same place, the final judgment. Freedom is the ability to run the race, and bondage is anything that impedes your ability to move forward. One person’s trial might be another person’s stepping stone, and the freedom to move forward during the race is a set of life skills. Someone who is physically enslaved can go further in the marathon than someone who has been given every opportunity in the world, it’s not about resources, it’s about who you are as a person. I remember a general conference talk by President Monson, who recounted the experience of a woman living in an eastern European country during WWII. Her husband was killed in the war, and the country she was living in expelled her and her 4 children in the middle of winter because they were of German descent. She took her 4 kids and set out on foot for Germany and along the way each of her children died one by one, and she buried them in graves she dug in the frozen ground with a spoon. By the time she reached Germany, she was days away from dying of starvation and exposure herself, and all alone. Once part of a family of 6, this woman was now in a country absolutely decimated by war, with people she didn’t know, and completely alone. But she says that after she recovered she was very happy, because she was alive and because she knew that she’d be with her family again. Compare that to the leader of Germany during WWII who is viewed as one of the most vile people in human history, who killed himself rather than be captured, and between the two, who is free?

The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching some of the ways that the gospel makes us free such as, “free from the damning power of false doctrine; free from the bondage of appetite and lust; free from the shackles of sin; free from every evil and corrupt influence and from every restraining and curtailing power; free to go on to unlimited freedom enjoyed in is fullness only by exalted beings.”