Jump directly to the Content
Jump directly to the Content

Sermon Illustrations

Home > Sermon Illustrations

Freedom Is Not Autonomy

I particularly like to warn my American audiences about this. Freedom is not the same thing as autonomy. Freedom does not mean I am a law unto myself. Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, speaking to a hostile university audience that jeered him, stopped in the middle, and in nonregal language he said, "Shut up! Freedom can be destroyed as easily by making a mockery of it as it can by its retraction." That's precisely what man has done.

In an attempt to be reasonable, man has become irrational. In an attempt to deify himself, he has defaced himself. In an attempt to be free, he has made himself a slave. And like Alexander the Great, he has conquered the world around him but has not yet conquered himself.

Related Sermon Illustrations

God Never Made Birdcages

The Spirit of God is always the spirit of liberty; the spirit that is not of God is the spirit of bondage, the spirit of oppression and depression. The Spirit of God convicts vividly ...

[Read More]

No Freedom without Discipline

Freedom and discipline have come to be regarded as mutually exclusive, when in fact freedom is not at all the opposite, but the final reward, of discipline. It is to be bought with ...

[Read More]