As a child, it always astonished me when I would go to a farm or a zoo and there would be birds running loose. Chickens, ducks, geese, peacocks, all these birds were quite happy roaming the area, and even with the front gate wide open, there were no escapes. And being birds, even when the gate was closed, I'd seen them in trees, or on the walls.
I even have a photo (left) of a peacock stood atop the gate to the sheep pen, which was higher than the main gate. Why did the farmer trust this bird, the other peafowl, and all the other birds on the farm to roam so freely? I've also grown up with cats. Usually, we have between 3 and 5 at any given time. These animals, no matter how many times we let them out, always return. What makes us think that the cat will actually come back?
The answer is in the illusion of freedom. No matter the intention of the farmer, or the pet owner, or the zoo keeper or any other kind of animal handler, an animal will quite happily remain in captivity as long as it doesn't believe it is. You can raise a chicken from the day it hatches until the day it ends up on someone's plate, if you keep providing for it, it will stick around.
Humans are like animals in many ways. We can be manipulated into doing, or not doing certain things just by causing us to think in certain ways. This is why governments tend to seek control over the educational system, and why parents who differ ideologically from the ruling class sometimes prefer to home school. But most importantly, it's why Satan loves to dominate the culture.
In the Bible, sin (our evil thoughts and deeds) is personified as an abusive slave master that eventually kills its captives. As a chicken being raised for slaughter, so is a sinful man being prepared for Hell. But there is an answer to this problem. All of our sin was taken care of, not by punishing us, but instead by punishing Jesus on our behalf. All we need to do to avoid an eternity in Hell and instead inherit eternal life in Heaven is to repent of our sin and confess Jesus as the resurrected Lord. Just one problem: We treat sin like a chicken treats a farmer. If we're going to run to freedom, we need to know that our farmer eventually intends to eat us.
By our very nature, sin is enticing to us. We don't even need to be tricked into loving it, it's just something we do. It's like a child choosing an ice cold bowl of ice cream over broccoli or Brussels sprouts. Knowing the true nature of sin increases our resistance to it, but what if we don't know? Or what if we don't care? What if we don't know there are consequences? What if we're so surrounded by it in our culture that we become desensitized to it? What if our parents have raised us with such bias that we just can't listen to alternative views?
If you're an unbeliever reading this, you sin. You're probably aware of at least one thing in your life that Christianity teaches is sinful. Ray Comfort does a thing where he goes through the 10 commandments and shows people how they've broken them. I'm not going to do that here, but if you feel so inclined, I recommend you check his material out. What I want to address today is the reaction he sometimes gets. Many people, upon being shown they've broken God's laws, still believe they are "good" people, and by earthly standards, they usually are. But they think this means a just God cannot convict them and send them to Hell.
That's the first way you're kept in bondage to sin. Maybe you're an unbeliever, but you're still aware that God exists. But you've judged yourself by earthly standards. You've acknowledged that you have broken God's laws, but you tell yourself it's not that bad. You're still a good person, right? Why does it matter if you stole from your mom's purse recently? So what if you spent your last hour before bed last night browsing porn on the internet? Who cares if you use God's name as a cuss word 12 times a day? You're not going to Hell for that, that's just mean, right? Unfortunately, while you rely on God's justice to save you, it's actually what will convict you if you don't repent. A just judge cannot just overlook sin. It must all be accounted for.
Another way you're kept in bondage to sin is to convince yourself that what you're doing isn't a sin. This is most commonly seen among Christians, so Hell isn't necessarily a threat here (though even if Hell is off the table, one should certainly fear the Lord). This one is a little close to home for me, because this excuse dominated my early Christian life. When I first converted, I was in the process of "coming out" as gay. Several of my friends knew, but none of them were Christians. At the time, I didn't know what the Bible said about homosexuality, but my atheist friends had it locked and loaded as an argument against Christianity. Thus, when they found out I was a Christian, they pointed out that the Bible is very much against homosexuality, but in my bias, I was lead to search for compromise. I found several pro-gay Christian websites who have a multitude of arguments to explain why the Bible doesn't really mean what it explicitly says. I liked that a lot, so I made no effort to leave homosexuality. Eventually (clearly) God won. I was being dishonest, and that offended me far more than any homophobic slur I'd ever encountered, so I eventually took God at His word. If you're a Christian, so should you.
But if you're not a Christian, you've likely fallen for a similar trap: Absolute denial. There is no God in your mind. No Heaven, no Hell, no one to judge you for your sins. Other humans are the only thing that can deter you, and if you can get them out of your way, you will. If that's the case, this probably isn't the post for you. I can tell you you're in bondage to sin, and a lack of repentance will lead to Hell, but you'll just wave it off. This article isn't intended to prove God's existence to you, though this site does contain evidence for Christianity.
But the final way to keep a man in bondage to sin is the hatred he harbors for God. There are people in this world (though it is unlikely they will have read this far into this article) who hate God so much that even though they know He exists, and that He will send them to Hell, will openly say that they would rather go to Hell than worship Him. There is even a theory (with which I strongly disagree, but feel it is worth mentioning) that if God were to pluck such a person from Hell after a long time of being there and said "if you worship me, you don't have to go back in", they would spit in His face and jump back in of their own free will. Much like the previous group, this article is not really designed for such people.
If you see yourself in any of these scenarios, you now know that you are captive to sin. This should bother you. But the good news is you don't have to stay there. Even if you fall into the last category, and are so hard hearted that God could appear right before your eyes and you would hate Him, I'd like to encourage you to pray. Right now, before you've even finished reading this article, clear your mind of everything else and ask God to set you free. He can do it, and He is willing to do it, and so if you ask Him now, He will.