In early 1865, Patrick Anderson’s farm fell on hard times. On the brink of bankruptcy, he wrote to Jordan Anderson, who had lived on the farm from age 8, asking him to return to the plantation to work. Though he shared a last name with him Patrick was not a relative to Jordan but his former owner.
The reason the farm was failing was it had
lost its source of free labor when Union troops upon occupying the plantation,
emancipated the slaves held therein. Now here was Patrick Anderson asking for
the slave to come back to the plantation with no mention of pay.
Jordan, by then, had
started a new life as a free man in Ohio and had found gainful employment. The
return letter he sent back went about as you expected too. Jordan's sarcasm-laden
message reminded the slave owner of the atrocities he had done and how he had ‘shot
at me twice before I left you’. He said he be willing to come back and “forget
past scores” if Patrick would show his sincerity and send Jordan the back
pay he was owed for 32 years of work he had and his wife had done for him.
Why would anyone
think a slave would want to go back to the one who had mistreated him?
Yet we do so all the
time. Satan enslaves us by sin and then mistreats and abuses us in that state. However,
freedom can come to us through Christ. Yet when Satan comes begging us to come back,
rather than remind him and ourselves of the state we were in, we slip back to
the old place and allow him to entrap us all over again. It is no wonder Peter compares this action to
a dumb dog or a dirty pig in 2nd Peter 2:20-22. We need to be smart enough not to allow the
tyrant to enslave us again.
Never give up your
freedom and be enslaved again.
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