OON OF LIBERTY.

The next thing the Spirit of God does is to give us liberty. He first
imparts love; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty, and that
is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the
present day. And I am sorry to say there must be a funeral in a good
many churches before there is much work done, we shall have to bury
the formalism so deep that it will never have any resurrection. The
last thing to be found in many a church is liberty.

If the Gospel happens to be preached, the people criticise, as they
would a theatrical performance. It is exactly the same, and many a
professed Christian never thinks of listening to what the man of God
has to say. It is hard work to preach to carnally-minded critics, but
"Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Very often a woman will hear a hundred good things in a sermon, and
there may be one thing that strikes her as a little out of place, and
she will go home and sit down to the table and talk right out before
her children and magnify that one wrong thing, and not say a word
about the hundred good things that were said. That is what people do
who criticise.

God does not use men in captivity. The condition of many is like
Lazarus when he came out of the sepulcher bound hand and foot. The
bandage was not taken off his mouth, and he could not speak. He had
life, and if you had said Lazarus was not alive, you would have told a
falsehood, because he was raised from the dead. There are a great many
people, the moment you talk to them and insinuate they are not doing
what they might, they say: "I have life. I am a Christian." Well, you
can't deny it, but they are bound hand and foot.

May God snap these fetters and set His children free, that they may
have liberty. I believe He comes to set us free, and wants us to work
for Him, and speak for Him. How many people would like to get up in a
social prayer-meeting to say a few words for Christ, but there is such
a cold spirit of criticism in the Church that they dare not do it.
They have not the liberty to do it. If they get up, they are so
frightened with these critics that they begin to tremble and sit down.
They can not say anything. Now, that is all wrong. The Spirit of God
comes just to give liberty, and wherever you see the Lord's work going
on, you will see that Spirit of liberty. People won't be afraid of
speaking to one another. And when the meeting is over they will no