In 1 Tim 2:3-6 Paul refers to Jesus as our Saviour, our mediator, and our ransom.  

Jesus is our Saviour who saves us from our sins.  1 Tim 2:4 says, “Who will have all men to be saved”, because all men are sinners.  He must be your Saviour because he is the only one who can save you from your sins.  You can deny that you’re a sinner, but you’ll be the only one in this room that believes that.

Jesus is our mediator because God is God and we are men.  We need someone who can mediate between us.  Jesus represents us before God because he is God.  And he represents God to us because he is also a man.  Jesus is the only one.  One God, one mediator.  Religions offer a host of other mediators.  You need none of them.  Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me”, Jn 14:6.

Jesus is our ransom.  This implies that we are in bondage or captivity to someone or something.  It’s like we have been kidnapped.  Ransom is defined as a consideration paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity.

This is what we want to talk about today, Jesus a ransom for all. 

First, you must realize that you are in captivity. 

Ransoms are paid to captors to free whom they have captured.  When God made the earth, Adam and Eve lived here and freely ate everything that grew.  There was no sin and there was no death.  They were not in captivity.  They were free and they didn’t have to work.  

God placed Adam and Eve in the garden and they ate freely of all the fruit.  The devil came and tempted them.  They disobeyed God.  At that moment they were taken captive by the devil and destined to die.  And so were all their offspring.  The Bible says of every descendant of Adam, “And he died”, Gen 5.  Death got every single one of them.  And death is going to get you.  The reason is that we are born in captivity to death and the devil.

When Jesus spoke with the Pharisees about getting free from this bondage of sin, they had no idea what he was talking about.  The Pharisees didn’t realize they were in captivity.  

Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”, Jn 8:32.  They said, “We be Abraham’s seed and were never in bondage to any man”.  Jesus answered them, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin”, Jn 8:34.  The Pharisees thought they were so good that they didn’t need to be freed.  They just didn’t understand.

Consider this, if someone were to come in here, lock all the doors, and take us all hostage, until his demands were met, you would be a “captive audience”.  Not going to happen.  But if that did happen, you would know certainly that you were captive.  You would be afraid, and you would want out, asap.

There would be no doubt about your captivity, no doubt about your fear, and no doubt about your desire to get out.

You wouldn’t care how much the negotiators had to give the captors to free us.  Wouldn’t matter.  You wouldn’t care if whoever freed us had to pay top dollar.  All you would want is to get out of here.  And once you were freed, you would know you are free, and you would be forever grateful to whoever ransomed you.

Like the Pharisees, though, you likely have no idea that you are in captivity.  However, if you pay attention to children, to people around you, and even to your own self, you will notice something.  People are sinners and they do what sin compels them to do.  “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin”.  People act like the devil.  They don’t act like God, unless they have been saved.  And at the end, they all die.

You must realize that you’re being held captive by the devil to sin,  as surely as if you were being held as a hostage in this room by a kidnapper.  And you should realize that you need a ransom paid for your freedom. 

Then Consider:

Jesus gave himself a RANSOM.

Jesus paid the ransom to free you from the bondage of the devil.  A ransom is a price paid to a kidnapper for ransom or to free a man that should otherwise die.  Ex 21:30 says, “If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him”.

The odd thing about people in captivity down here.  They don’t look to Jesus for the ransom; they keep trying to figure their own way out through religion or philosophy or denial.  They can’t get out.  The captor doesn’t let people out.  You have to be ransomed by someone else.  

Highest ransom paid in history.  From Guiness world records https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/greatest-historical-ransom.  Historically the greatest ransom paid was that paid for Atahualpa, the last emperor of the Incas, to the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1532-3 at Cajamarca, Peru, which constituted a hall full of gold and silver, worth in modern money some $1.5 billion.  Other ransoms include:

• Jorge and Juan Born, grain traders in Argentina, were ransomed for $60MM in 1974.
• Victor Li, son of a Hong Kong tycoon, was ransomed for $134MM in 1996.
• Walter Kwok, son of one of China’s richest businessmen, was ransomed for $77MM in 1997.
• Victor Samuelson, an ESSO refinery manager kidnapped in Argentina, was ransomed for $14.2MM in 1974.
• Charles Lockwood, a Roberts executive kidnapped twice in Argentina, was ransomed for $$2MM in 1973 and $10MM in 1975.
• Patty Hearst, heiress to the Hearst media conglomerate, was ransomed for $6MM in 1974.

Do you know what ransom Jesus paid to free you from the devil, sin, and death?

Jesus gave HIMSELF a ransom.

Jesus gave himself.  To God, you are worth the life of His only begotten Son.  There is no ransom higher than this.

“Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends”, Jn 15:13.  Jesus is the ultimate ransom.

Jesus is the ransom.  He died.  But to the dismay of the devil, He rose from the dead!!  And that’s how you know that he can free you.  Death couldn’t hold him and it won’t hold you either, when you trust Jesus.

Heb 2:14-15, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

You need the Son to make you free.  Jesus told the Pharisees, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”, Jn 8:36.

Jesus gave himself a ransom FOR ALL.

Ransom for all.  Strange thing.  Not all want to be ransomed.  They love the provisions of their captor and the place of their captivity more than their Saviour and the place of his freedom. 

We’re like deer on a very large ranch enclosed in a game proof fence.  Life’s good.  They are protected, they are well fed, they can mate, they are comfortable, they are like pets.  Of course, they face some of the hardships of other animals in the wild.  

Nevertheless, most of them are eventually shot by the tenant or the landowner because they are actually in captivity.  

The devil makes it pretty comfortable for some of us in bondage.  But we can tell that something is obviously wrong.  War, famine, disease, poverty, hatred, rebellion, perversion are all around us.  It’s like, what’s going on around here?  What’s going on is that you are in captivity.  You know what’s weird?  The devil isn’t the one that gets blamed for this trouble; God gets the blame for it.

Eventually death comes to your home and you die.  Folks, captivity here always results in the same end.  Death.  And in the meantime, the fear of death.  …deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

What’s worse, when you live in captivity and die in captivity, you spend eternity where your captor will spend eternity, in hell.  But when you choose to be freed from captivity, you spend eternity where the one who ransomed you spends eternity, in heaven.

Odd thing about people here.  When you receive Jesus Christ as your ransom, the people who are still in captivity often ridicule you.  They make light of your decision to trust Jesus.  Isn’t that strange?  They are still in captivity, and you are free.

Jesus gave himself a ransom for all, TO BE TESTIFIED IN DUE TIME.

Listen, if you were being held in bondage in this room, and I had the ransom, you would say that right now is the due time.  Don’t delay.  You would want out of the bondage, immediately. 

Yet, when it comes to getting out of the bondage of sin, death, and the devil, people hesitate.  “Let me have a little more time”, the say.  That’s crazy.

Many people figure this out later in life when they are facing death.  They know they are going to die.  They are afraid.  And they want out.  I’ve led a good many people to the Lord when they were near death.

Don’t delay.  My friend who died recently was ready to die.  Another friend who was saved recently said, “I was afraid to die.  But not now”.  My neighbor recently said, “My husband is ready to die but I’m not”.  And now, thank God she is reading the New Testament about how to be free.

You must know that you are captive right now.  You’re in bondage at this very moment.  Now is the time to be free.  And when you get free, you’ll know it.  Many have felt the burden of sin lifted.  Sho wanted to know what eternal life in Jesus felt like.  When Jesus saved him, he knew.  And so will you.  When Yomaris got saved she jumped up and exclaimed, “I’m free”!  You can, too.