Redeemed

            We sing a song with the words, "Redeemed how I love to proclaim it." It reminds me of how Paul Lee Tan illustrates the meaning of redemption. He writes that A. J. Gordon was a preacher, who met a young boy carrying an old cage. The cage held some wild birds.

            Gordon inquired, “Son, where did you get those birds?”

            The boy replied, “I trapped them out in the field.”

            “What are you going to do with them?”

            “I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have at home.”

            Gordon offered to buy them, and the boy exclaimed, “Mister, you don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very well.”

            Gordon replied, “I’ll give you $2 for the cage and the birds.”

            “Okay, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.”

            The transaction completed, the boy went away happy with his money. Meanwhile, the following Sunday, Gordon “took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ’s coming to seek and to save the lost—paying for them with His own precious blood. ‘That boy told me the birds were not songsters,’ said Gordon, ‘but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, ‘Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!’”

            “You and I have been held captive to sin, but Christ has purchased our pardon and set us at liberty. When a person has this life-changing experience, he will want to sing, “Redeemed, Redeemed, Redeemed!”