August 25, 2006
*Part one of a tale that illustrates spiritual bondage as well as the freedom and healing that can be found in Jesus Christ.
There was once a land ruled by a wicked king called Mohjac, although he wasn’t really a king but a usurper who had enslaved the people. Delighting in his power over his subjects, he had heavy iron collars clasped about their necks and shackled them with burdensome chains that constantly rubbed sores in their weary flesh.
With nearly no bread with which to feed their famished bellies and no water for their parched throats, they ever yearned for nourishment and rest for their tired frames that were cruelly forced to work in Mohjac’s fields. He had servants, too, this false king… servants who walked among the slaves, giving them a mysterious drink that so intoxicated those who drank it that they became delirious and believed themselves well-fed and free from bondage, even laughing sometimes at their own plight, thinking it only a dream.
Those who were especially susceptible to Mohjac’s liquor were rewarded with worthless baubles, bits of broken glass that might flash and glitter to the dull stare of their owners, but also cut their fingers. Those to whom the little bits of glass were given became vain and were convinced that the glittering trinkets they held up to the gray skies were diamonds, rubies, and other priceless gems. When met by someone who refused Mohjac’s treacherous wine, they would scorn them and insult them. To those who became especially enamored with his false treasures, Mohjac would give whips with which they themselves could inflict further pain and anguish on those who were weaker than they.
Among the slaves was a young woman named Abigail. She and her brother, Narryl, had lived under the tyranny of Mohjac for so long that they didn’t know any other way of life. They grew up as orphans, their parents having deserted them in the midst of their own suffering and torment. All day long, every day, they labored in workgroups, harvesting vile tasting berries which, though poisonous if eaten outright, were used in the making of Mohjac’s wine. Among the nearly twenty workers in their group, most could not be trusted, prone as they were to betraying each other if it meant a brief moment of relief from pain or even an extra sip of Mohjac’s peculiar drink. Sometimes, though, those most given to laziness and vanity would ultimately find in their vice, their own destruction. Mohjac’s slave drivers, garbed with long, somber-looking cloaks, would take the poor, hapless slave away and no one would ever hear from him again.
Even so, Abigail had become friends with a few of the others who also refused Mohjac’s wine. Narryl had also begun to make friends with others, but most of these had already been won over by the wine and trinkets tossed their way. Soon Narryl began to be preoccupied with the rewards that he perceived the others were receiving. Much to Abigail’s sorrow, he began to indulge more and more in Mohjac’s liquor himself and eventually began to act as if he could not get enough.
“Narryl,” Abigail would call to him. “I miss our talks. Could we visit together after our work is done tonight?”
Narryl always responded in the same way: with a cold glance in her direction and a shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t think so. I’m too busy. I’ve got plans with my friends.” He would then turn away and ignore her, immediately leaving after the day’s labor was done to join his new friends, laughing and drinking the drink of delusion that Abigail so distrusted.
Abigail’s best friend was a girl called Anne. Always cheerful, even when Mohjac’s servants were their cruelest and other workers their most foolish, she taught Abigail songs that she knew and spoke of amazing creatures that could sing and fly high above the ground in the blue sky (which neither Abigail nor Anne had ever seen for themselves since Mohjac had banned blue skies from the land).
As might be expected, Mohjac’s servants did not like Anne much and accused her of disrupting the work of the other workers with her songs. Because she was her friend, Abigail also found herself disliked as well, and both were usually assigned especially difficult places to work, angry tangled areas of briars and brambles, littered ground with sharp rocks, or festering bogs of rancid pools. And when the day was done, they would return to their quarters… scratched, cut, and covered with slime, their hurts making them unpopular to all but squadrons of persistent flies.
Occasionally fits of malice would beset the slave masters, leaving them especially cunning in their cruelty. They would send Abigail and Anne to vines and bushes that were very nearly barren and when they would come back with sparsely filled baskets, the slave masters beat them viciously. Afterward, when the girls would huddle together in a damp and drafty shed, holding each others’ bloody and tear-streaked bodies for comfort, they could hear Mohjac’s servants laughing and joking about the pain that they had inflicted upon them.
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We today are also living in a land of shadowy slavery. The slavery and bondage that people face today is more subtle, perhaps, but it is no less real than the one described in this story. If you think that this isn’t really so, please consider the problems that keep our society reeling. Violent crime doesn’t become less common, but more so, with even less clear cause and far more creativity. Divorce is habitual and characteristic of huge numbers of families in America while unmarried cohabitation is normalized. Abortions continue to still be a matter of “choice” and not a matter of “survival” for babies. Suicide rates have not decreased but have increased. Internet crime such as identity theft is carried out with astonishing effectiveness and online pedophilia is now an “industry”.
With our digital calendars in hand, people toil away their lives, drinking in the delusion that they are working for a better tomorrow for themselves. But all their busy-ness and all their successes still leave them empty. But apart from Jesus Christ, there is no real meaning or real value in all those activities and accomplishments. Why settle for the lies of the world? Why live the entirety of our lives only to find in the end that we had invested in nothing at all? Let us turn to God while we may and find in Him the only genuine source of life, hope, and peace.
“Give ear and come to Me; hear Me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you.... Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:3a, 6-7 NIV).
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past eleven years. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at the Ariel Theatre. He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
