What are we freed from? The people back then [in the time of Ezra], they were freed…by the word of the Lord's anointed. Do you remember that? In Isaiah, God says to Cyrus, you are my messiah. You are my anointed one. You are my
Michael Voytekchrist,as he calls him by name and says, you are my anointed: I have anointed you to do my bidding. And his bidding was to speak these words which we find in Ezra 1:1–11, to free the captives. By simply speaking the word, their soul was healed in a sense; they were free to go back to their inheritance. Is it the same for us, that by the Word of Christ, the Word of God, we are freed? It is by the work of Christ, yes. But the application of the work of Christ, by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, we are freed from sin. We are justified by faith. We are at peace with God. We have access unto that grace. We are identified with him. We are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness.1
1 La première année de Cyrus, roi de Perse, afin que s'accomplisse la parole de l'Eternel prononcée par la bouche de Jérémie, l'Eternel réveilla l'esprit de Cyrus, roi de Perse, qui fit faire de vive voix et par écrit cette publication dans tout son royaume: