A Japanese soldier named Shoichi Yokoi was stationed on Guam in WWII. When the Americans began to get the upper hand in the war in 1944, Shoichi fled to an isolated jungle cave to avoid being captured. He stayed in the cave during the day and came out during the night to gather food. His diet consisted of frogs, rats, snails, nuts and mangoes. He avoided all contact with anyone and lived alone in that dark cave for 26 years. Finally, two hunters found Shoichi in 1972 and brought him out to civilization. He found out that the war was over and his life was not in danger. He was finally free, after 25 years of unnecessary self-imposed captivity in a cave.
Many people today live like Shoichi in a spiritual sense. They live in captivity to fears, worries, habits and sins, living as if imprisoned in a cave, not able to enjoy life, separated from a life with God and the people of God. In fact, everyone has at one time lived in captivity to sin. Because everyone of us has done wrong things, which the Bible calls sin. NLT Romans 3:23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
God’s glorious standard of living was shown to us in the life of Jesus Christ. None of us measures up to Jesus who lived a sinless life, we fall short. Children don’t have to learn how to sin, it comes naturally to them. It’s been programmed into their lives since the time of Adam’s fall. NLT John 8:34 Jesus replied, “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” Everyone who sins, which includes everyone, is imprisoned by sin. They are in captivity, living as it were in a cave, venturing out in spiritual darkness, stumbling around in the night, not able to see where they are going.
This is the problem of sin, a problem that every person who has ever lived must deal with. The sin problem is not just in this life, but it extends into eternity. Death doesn’t solve anything for the sinner, death is merely the doorway from the frying pan into the fire. NLT Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death. That means that sin will result in spiritual death, eternal separation from God in a place called hell in the life to come.
Sin is a huge problem. Sin is the biggest problem any of us will ever face. It’s such an enormous problem that we can’t get around it. No matter what we do, no matter what we try on our own, we can’t overcome it.
But God did something about our sin problem. God did something in history that defeated an enemy named Satan who used your sin against you as his weapon. The battle was won some 2000 years ago. Yet people still live in caves of sin, locked up in habits of depravity, injuring themselves and others, miserable and unfulfilled. God won the battle through the person of Jesus Christ, the most courageous human being who ever walked this planet.
Jesus came to this earth with a mission, a mission to set the captives of sin free. He lived a sinless life on earth, and then at the young age of 33, He willingly allowed Himself to be crucified on a cross to set us free. Jesus’ death was not an accident, it was not something that was out of God’s control. No, Jesus choose to die, because He loved you and me, He wanted to set us free. NLT John 10:18 No one can take my life from me. I lay down my life voluntarily.
Why did Jesus give up His life? What difference does Jesus’ death make for us today? How does Jesus’ death deal with our sin problem?
To hear more about this topic, listen to my March 20, 2005 message entitled Why Jesus’ Death Matters