In the year AD 73, a small band of 930 Jews resisted the entire might of the Roman Empire

from a rock fortress called Masada. Masada, which really the Hebrew word means fortress, rises

1,300 feet above the surrounding desert at the sudden end of the Dead Sea.

From the top, if you stand on top of Masara, you look down, you still can see the outline of the Roman military camps that have camped over there in order to stop the supply from going in to the 930 Israelites inside that fortress.

On one side of the fortress, you still can see the remains of a ramp that the soldiers were trying to build a dirt ramp that would be 1,300 feet high in order to go up to the top of the fortress and go in that way.

But finally, when Roman troops stormed the wall of that fortress, they were met by an eerie silence.

The dead bodies of 930 men, women, and children stole away the thrill of victory for the Roman

soldiers.

These 930 Jews have chosen to die free than to live in the indignity of slavery.

Now, please hear me right.

Suicide under any condition is wrong, very wrong.

But the spiritual lesson that I want to draw out here is this.

That until we learn to die to self, we will live our Christian

life in defeat. Until we learn to die to sin, we will live our Christian life in bondage.

Until we learn to die to pride, we will continue to live our Christian life in spiritual

slavery and servitude. You know, in modern Israelites, Israeli soldiers, when they enter the military,

they take them for a swore in ceremony right there in Masara, as if to say there they vow never

to be brought into bondage again. And we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have our own

swearing in ceremony. And it is found in James chapter 4, verse 7.

And there it is made of two commands, and both commands are dependent on each other.

One is dependent on the other.

Look at verse 7.

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