Let me close with a call to commitment which is nearly 2,000 years old.

Toward the end of our pilgrimages in the Holy Land, we visited the remarkable and emotional site of Masada.  This desert fortress adjacent to the Dead Sea was built by Herod the Great.  An astounding architectural achievement, the fortress became the home of Jewish rebels from AD 67-73 in their revolt against Rome.

After Titus and the Romans destroyed the Temple and ransacked Jerusalem in AD 70, they turned their attention to the Zealots at Masada.  It took them three years to build a ramp which they used to batter down the defensive walls of the fortress. 

Now it was the last night.  The next morning the Romans would stream through that broken wall and enslave the rebels inside.  Eleazer ben Yoir, the leader of the rebels, gathered the group for one last meeting.

He said: "Since we, long ago, my friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, or to any other than God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice….

"We were the very first that revolted from the Romans, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in the state of freedom which has not bee the case of others who were conquered unexpectedly. 

"It is very plain that we shall be taken with a day's time, but it is still an eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends.  This is what our enemies themselves cannot by any means hinder, although they would be very desirous to take us alive.  Nor can we propose ourselves any more to fight them and beat them….

"Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted slavery; and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom as an excellent funeral monument for us. 

"But let us first destroy our money and fortress by fire, for I am well assured that this will be a great grief to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies; and shall fail of our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions; for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessities, but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death to slavery."

Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, records the results: "They presently lay all they had upon a heap, and set fire to it.  Then they chose ten men by lot out of them to slay all the rest, every one of whom laid himself down by his wife and children on the ground, and threw his arms about them; and they offered their necks to the stroke of these who had by lot executed this melancholy office; and when these ten had, without fear, slain them all, they made the same rule for casting lots for themselves, that he whose lot it was should first kill the other nine, and after all should kill himself. 

" [Then] the nine offered their necks to the executioner, and he who was the last of all took a view of all the other bodies, lest perchance some or other among so many that were slain should want his assistance to be quite dispatched; and when he perceived that they all were slain, he set fire to the palace, and with the great force of his hand ran his sword entirely through himself, and fell down near his own relations.  So these people died with this intention, that they would not have so much as one soul among them all to be subject to the Romans" (Josephus, Wars 7.8.6; 7.9.1).

Two women and five children, hiding in a storeroom, heard and saw all of this and recorded it for us.  960 Jewish rebels chose death over slavery, and were set free.  Now you and I have the same choice to make.  We can be enslaved to that which keeps us from following Jesus fully, or we can die to ourselves and live with him in abundant joy, purpose, and peace. 

The decision is ours.