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b'**** Note: This podcast is for the ears of mature adults and those who will not be unduly disturbed by Frederick Douglas\'s accounts of the cruelties he witnessed. I decided to leave in some of the emotion that spontaneously waved over me during this recording, because I care more about being authentic with my listeners, than professionalism, and also prefer to grieve alongside my listeners at what also grieves the heart of our God, which is an honorable and even holy thing.\\xa0\\nThe parallel of physical slavery to spiritual slavery is obviously not my own, but is God\'s. "Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved." \\xa02 Peter 2:19. While the parallel of physical slavery to spiritual slavery is a familiar one, what struck me during my recent reading of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, was the uniformity of the manipulative techniques used by the both Civil War era exploiters of humanity and current users of people who sell and promote addictive sin to their own advantage.\\nIn my work with police officers for years servicing personal victims of everything from domestic violence to a school shooting, I have seen firsthand the pain of being enslaved to alcohol, pornography, drugs, sex, violence, theft, and every other kind of enslaving addiction that ravages people\'s lives, but often is a "gain" for the drug dealer, pimp, or other inventor of evil. "For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own\\xa0appetites"(Romans 16:18) These precious souls need emancipation from the slavery of sin, for the slave driving enemy of soul is today as cruel as ever.\\nOne notable difference between physical slavery and spiritual slavery, is that spiritual slavery is actually voluntary, and one chooses who will be one\'s master, either the master who will bring suffering and death or the Master who will bring freedom and eternal life. "Do you not\\xa0know that when you present yourselves to someone\\xa0as\\xa0slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of\\xa0sin\\xa0resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?\\xa0But\\xa0thanks be to God that\\xa0though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that\\xa0form of teaching to which you were committed,\\xa0and having been\\xa0freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness... For the outcome of those things is\\xa0death.\\xa0But now having been\\xa0freed from sin and enslaved to God, you\\xa0derive your\\xa0benefit,\\xa0resulting in sanctification, and\\xa0the outcome, eternal life.\\xa0For the wages of\\xa0sin is death, but the free gift of God is\\xa0eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6).\\nWhen Christ makes us free, we are free indeed (John 8:36).'