10/05/26

Psalm 142:4-7 NASB95 — Look to the right and see; For there is no one who regards me; There is no escape for me; No one cares for my soul. I cried out to You, O LORD; I said, “You are my refuge, My portion in the land of the living. “Give heed to my cry, For I am brought very low; Deliver me from my persecutors, For they are too strong for me. “Bring my soul out of prison, So that I may give thanks to Your name; The righteous will surround me, For You will deal bountifully with me.”

When you read the words Hanoi Hilton, many of our younger people will immediately think of a hotel. Others will remember reading about the horrible prison in the North of Vietnam. A place where many people were tortured and held captive by the Vietnamese army. There were other prisons where people were held. They were also places where people were tortured. One example was a mobile Bamboo cage hardly large enough to sleep in. James Rowe was captured and held in this mobile prison for five years. He was never alone outside of that bamboo cell in the dense forest swamp. If they had him chopping wood or fetching water, he was always tethered to a guard with a gun drawn to shoot him if he tried to escape. These two examples give us three realities of the prison of sin that every lost person finds himself or herself in.

Let's start with the hotel concept. Oftentimes, when a person is held by sin, everything around them looks comfortable. They look free. However, there is no one to offer support or comfort; they feel all alone in their hotel room. David describes this in our text. Speaking of being held in the bondage of sin, he says, "Look to the right and see; For there is no one who regards me." They might look free, but they have no one to guide them as they dwell alone in the prison of their sin.

Then there is the prison group. They are always locked away, feeling they have no freedom in their sin. David says, "There is no escape for me; No one cares for my soul." I am held in my cell, tortured in my sin.

Then there is the one who always feels under guard. They can see through the bamboo cell and feel freedom is so close, yet they feel like the sin guard will never release them from their tether. David, seeing a chance for freedom in God, cries out, "Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. “Bring my soul out of prison."

His hope is found in the Lord. All three of these places serve the same purpose: to keep the prisoner bound and imprisoned so they can not experience the freedom of God's mercy and grace. They are all three tortures in their own way. The truth is, if they can keep you bound until death, you will never experience freedom.

If sin can keep you bound until death, then you will die in the prison of sin and spend eternity in the prison of hell in the lake of fire.

However, if, as David realized, you find freedom in God, who has the key to the prisons. And frees you into the comfort of the assembly of the saints, which God desires us all to experience. Whether it be leaving the hotel and attending Church, being released from prison and fellowshipping with Christian brothers and sisters in Christ, or having the tether broken and walking freely alongside Jesus. You can be free. David says in our text that God can and will "Bring our soul out of prison, so that we may give thanks to His holy name; The righteous will surround me, for You will deal bountifully with me.”

God is ready to set you free through the redemption of His Son, no matter what your prison looks like.

You simply must follow him in faith. Romans 10:9-11 NASB95 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

Everyone at some point in time is imprisoned. Only Jesus has the key to free every single one from the prison of your sin. He desires to deal bountifully with you. If you confess Him as Lord and believe in your Heart that God raised Him from the dead. When you do this, He proclaims, "There is the key to your freedom."

Love Brother Scott