There was an English nobleman, in mid-nineteenth century, who went to California, in the gold-rush. He made millions more. He came back to England through New Orleans and did what almost every tourist did at that time. He went to see the infamous African Slave Trading Block. As he came around the corner, he saw a beautiful young, black African woman being sold, and two men in the back of the crowd trying to vie with each other, to purchase her. They were whispering to each other what they would do to her if they got her, and it was not good. The Englishman was incensed. And so, he got the auctioneer’s attention and he said, I will pay twice the amount that anyone will pay for this slave. The auctioneer said, No one has ever paid that much for a slave before. Have you really got the money? The man reached into his pocket, pulled out the bills and waved them. The auctioneer said, Sold! The man came up; took the young lady down, and she spit him in the face. He wiped the spit away and took her into a downtown office, argued with the man behind the desk. Finally, he got some papers. He signed the papers, turned around and said, “here are your manumission papers and she spit him in the face. He wiped the spit away, and he asked, Don’t you understand? You are free. And she just stared at him. And then she collapsed at his feet, and she began to cry and cry. And finally, she looked up and she said, Sir, do you mean to tell me, that you paid twice the amount anyone has ever paid for a slave, just to set me free? He said, Yes. She began to weep again. And finally, she looked up at him and she said Sir, I have just one favour to ask of you, can I be your slave forever.

You see, that is the way a Christian feel. When he runs the race, knowing he has spit Jesus in the face so many times, but Jesus has borne our sins, wiped the sin away and died for us, so that we might live for him. And so, we become his willing servants, as Paul calls himself over and over again; in the Greek language it is doulos, which means slave, willing slave. No longer my own, but I belong to my master. Like the slave of Exodus 21:1–36, who voluntarily said, I do not want to be free, because my freedom is in belonging to my master. Nail my ear to the door and let me say at the gate of my master to every passer-by, I want to serve my master all the days of my life. That is the way to run the Christian race. May you be like that slave girl. And say, “Lord Jesus, can I be your willing servant forever?”¹

Joel Beeke