Who is a tyrant? A tyrant is a lawless dictator and in some cases, such leaders would have usurped a lawful ruler’s authority to gain power. Tyrants share a few attributes like cruelty and repression of human rights.
“sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15)
In a similar fashion, sin is portrayed as a tyrant, this time, a tyrant within men, who usurped man’s original position of authority with the sole objective of controlling him and bringing him into captivity.
The submissive state of man to sin is responsible for the mystery of iniquity that has damaged mankind’s psyche with dark and sordid thoughts of deep-seated wickedness.
In this state, every thought and action of man from his subconscious is vile. Here sin is the tyrant within man, ruling supreme with such absolute force that man without divine help cannot measure up to God’s acceptable standard. In his fallen state man will think and choose to do what is wrong even against his own volitions. (See Romans 7:24-25).
In terms of ruthlessness and repression, like all tyrants have done, sin as the tyrant within has inflicted untold suffering and destruction on mankind. Charles Spurgeon called sin the world’s greatest despot.
Indeed sin within is the world” ‘s most ruthless tyrant ruling with such absolute force that millions of men, taken captive have become slaves to sin and tools in the hand of Satan to wreak havoc on themselves and others.
The despotism of sin continues to bring men into captivity of self-destruction in the form of addictive behaviors, unquenchable lusts, bottomless greed, and all sorts of self-defeating personality disorders and godlessness.
Even as thought leaders continually justify some of these behaviors as normal or analyze them through the prism of human psychology, the victims remain captive and unable to break free from the grip of sin’s oppression.
Thankfully, God did not leave men in this sorry state of captivity but sent his only begotten son Jesus Christ to set man free from slavery to the tyrant within.
At the outset of his ministry, Jesus rolled out his master plan for defeating the great tyrant within man saying:
“ The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19).
In his state of slavery to sin, man is spiritually poor and blind, enslaved, and imprisoned in a dark dungeon without the light of salvation. He is oppressed by the tyrant within who puts him into a forced labor of sinful habits that leads to self-destruction and alienation from God’s light.
Only Jesus can save man from his sins and no other God, no other way, and no other method has the healing and delivering power to set the captive free from the tyrant within.
Are you ready to receive total freedom from the tyrant within? Then you must accept that you are a sinner in need of deliverance and forgiveness.
This is the only way you can receive your freedom and be justified by God’s gift of grace which leads to a new life in Christ Jesus, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith”. (Romans 3:23-26).
This grace is accessible to all who throw away the garb of religion, morality, their own goodness, and arrogance and come to Jesus asking him to set them free from the oppression of the tyrant within. Beloved come to Jesus and see that the freedom he offers is total.
And if you have done so in the past but you are still under the reign of one sinful habit or another it is also not too late to renew your commitment to Jesus again today. God bless you as you do so, amen.
Reading
Romans Chapter 5:12-21
@aspire ministries
