That is a pretty ironic statement, "the slavery of freedom". Many of us seek freedom. The freedom to enforce our individual rights, the freedom to exercise our preference and choice, the freedom to express our thoughts without fear of reprisal, the freedom to enjoy life the way we want to. Freedom is equated with happiness. The greater the freedom, the greater the happiness. Every teenager growing up in every home across the world sits his bedroom looking out of the window at the world and dreams of freedom. Sons and daughters fight and rebel against their parents to win their freedom. The right to go where we want. The right to do what we want. The right to mix with whoever we chose. After all, freedom equals happiness. All across the world, men fight for freedom, the freedom of self-governance, the freedom of civil liberties, the freedom of democracy. After all, freedom equals happiness. Yet what are we really fighting for, this illusive freedom? When we finally seize that freedom, are we rewarded with happiness? Is life and society all that better once freedom is wrenched from the jaws of restraint?
Absolute freedom, my friend, does not equal happiness. The reason - for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Deep within the heart of man lies a terrible curse, the curse of sin. Like a cancerous disease, sin controls, consumes and slowly destroys. Its devastating effects are only slowed by the moral restraints of religion and the legal restraints of civil society. When man is left to his own devices, when there absolute freedom, like a car parked on a slope with the handbrake suddenly lifted, man inevitably slides to anarchy and society into destruction. The selfishness of the human heart will only use freedom to disregard another. The lustfulness of the human heart will only use freedom to violate another. The pride of the human heart will only use freedom to destroy another.
Freedom is not the right to do what you want. True freedom is the right to do what you ought. True freedom is moral freedom - the ability to do what is morally right. In God's moral universe, anything else is slavery. I have seen family after family in court destroyed because of the selfishness of the human heart. I have seen youths in bondage to gangs, immorality, self-mutilation, violence and substance abuse. To say that it is freedom to express themselves in this way is to mock the very meaning of freedom. The path of happiness lies to the one who does the will of God. For that is the entire duty of man (Ecc 12:13).
So the next time we decide to fight our parents, our bosses, our leaders and our government for freedom, let's ask ourselves what we are actually fighting for.