Sermon Tone Analysis

Exodus 5:20-21 Comfortable Bondage

Opening Prayer: Jeremiah 15:16, Psalm 119:162, Jeremiah 23:29, Heb 4:12

Liberty is not free and neither is it cheap.

There is a cost and a big one.

Historically, we look at a society and can trace their liberty, albeit a humanitarian one, to the cost they paid for it at some point in their history, which cost involved a fight.

When Jesus died for our sin to emancipate us from the slavery of sin, He suffered and died on the cross, which testimony we are glad to make public but suffer for His name sake we will not.

Jesus did not negotiate a better way for us.

He bought us with His blood.

He did not do what He did for us in a boardroom but on the Cross.

He did not negotiate political asylum for us.

He came to break the yoke of bondage.

He did not secure safe passage for us.

He secured eternal life for us.

He did not come to make you amenable to the world.

He came to free you from its evil grip.

Of course, His great work subsumes all these lesser works.

We speak of liberty, emancipation, and freedom, but to fight for it is another story.

To fight means to get up close to the enemy, which, for obvious reasons, is incredibly daunting and better left alone.

To many people slavery is a gift that gives them an unusual form of security because it accustomizes life for them or them to that life.

They labour under the delusion that if something is standard then it is accepted and regulated, which regulation has noble intentions.

Nazism was standardized in Germany in the 1940’s and it was regulated and accepted by the majority but it was wrong morally.

This is a distinction Christians seem unable to make these days and that is because they are mental slaves.

Many years ago, Bob Marley in his ‘Redemption Song’ sang, “emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind.”

Though he recognized the need for mental emancipation, it was the source of the emancipation that would not avail.

We cannot look to ourselves and when we do we end up with a more severe form of bondage.

So many of you are in bondage that you have forgotten that it is.

You have grief and grudges that you have been nurturing and nursing over time and now find that they are your close companions.

You have troubled marriages for such a long time that you think it normal to have troubled marriages, after all, you are two sinners.

You cannot live without your griefs, grudges, and fears.

Your life story is designed around these motifs and now to change all that would mean to rewrite your script entirely.

This is too much work!

In fact, some of you even boast about it.

This is true of fear!

It is now a comrade to many of you.

It is a life concomitant.

It is your guide and guard.

Your fear is that if your fear is removed, how then will you live, if not fearfully?

It is normal to live in fear.

We have high walls, electric fences, guard dogs, armed response, and domestic weapons to boot.

Everything in society is designed around and driven by fear, whether clothes or cars, food or family.

This is because threats exist.

Even the health, wealth and happiness programme is driven with this agenda that undergirds it.

Were it not so, it would not be successful.

You treat your fears as you would a spouse.

You can’t imagine your life without it.

Fear involves torment, writes the apostle John (1 Jn. 4:18).

It is an irrational self-infliction.

In Matthew 10 Jesus inaugurates and instructs the disciples who will henceforth be apostles.

In His lengthy treatise He says this to them, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (v.

28).

In the section before us, the officers of Israel set up a meeting with the Pharaoh behind Moses’ and Aaron’s backs, who did find out about it and waited outside for them but as soon as these representatives of the working class came out they saw the two appointed leaders and off loaded onto them all their pent up vitriol.

Evidently, their meeting with the Pharaoh did not go as planned.

What they did not realize, because they are not leaders, is that by going to see the Pharaoh behind their leader’s back, they showed that man that they do not respect their own God-appointed leaders and by coming to him first implied that he is before them.

To the Pharaoh, who is wicked but not stupid, this implied, as it revealed, their disrespect for their leadership, and this was something he could exploit, and exploit it he did.

This, by and large, is a major contributing factor when Christians address their political leaders.

These leaders know that Christians have no unified voice.

It is an abundantly evident thing for a politician whose bread and butter expediency.

This is a morsel he can hardly refuse.

Take the mandate of John the Baptist, who, by today’s so-called Christian standards, was an intriguing but not an appealing testimony because He lifted up the name of the Lord despite facing danger from the authorities.

It was His motto, and possibly mantra, when he said regarding the Lord, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn.

3:30).

Would to God that such a motto would be yours.

The text before us, in its narrative form, reveals certain issues about people operating purely on fear instead of faith.

They Fearlessly Turn Against their Leader

This is the most apparent observation.

Men get scared at the decisions their leaders make.

Granted, some leaders are irrational and are to be distrusted.

However, in the majority of cases they are afraid of their earthly rulers and thus are nervous about the decision that their spiritual leaders will make that will imperil that relationship.

Twice they mention the sight of these earthly rulers but never once do they mention the sight of the Lord.

It is their primary concern that they look less abhorrent or less stinky in the earthy ruler’s eyes than in their Maker’s.

More intriguing, leave alone confusing, is that these are the ones citing Scriptural injunctions and principles to you while living in opposition to that.

They will cite from Romans 13 while completely forgetting that Paul was writing that entire letter to vindicate the Lord’s sovereignty in all things, chiefly in salvation and complete and eventual redemption.

Notwithstanding, they will lecture you, scold you, and for dramatic effect, even wag their finger at you, as these did to Moses and Aaron here, to insist that it is our ultimate obligation to look good in the sight of our Pharaoh for, apparently, this is our testimony.

Looking good in the sight of God comes a close second, if that.

Of course, they do this, not knowing, or perhaps, in some cases, knowing, that Pharaoh has nothing to do with God and just because God has allowed him to rule for a time for God’s purposes, and not his, does not mean that God approves of him or, for that matter, so should you.

The fact that Moses and Aaron went in and spoke to the Pharaoh (v. 1) shows you where the relationship starts and ends.

They did not intend on doing anything clandestine.

They went to inform him of their obligation to God first, which is the very thing the apostles did when they were confronted by their authorities (Acts 4:19, 5:29).

We are here to be respecting of and submitting to God’s Law while serving and accommodating to the Pharaohs.

All would end there had the Pharaoh felt the same but that he does not, which means that they leave him and obey God.

Respect was given to the Pharaoh in that he was conferred with but as the previous verse says, “they came out from Pharaoh” (v.

20).

While it is a factual observation it is, more importantly, a deliberate and deeply spiritual remark.

Of course, it is true that Moses made them abhorrent to Pharaoh but the indictment came out of their own mouths.

He had to do it because they wouldn’t.

They should have done this a long time ago.

You don’t have to go out there and look for creative ways to be abhorrent.

All you have to do is put the Lord first in all things and you will find that you will become abhorrent very quickly.

Yes, the Pharaoh has a sword and Paul writes of it too in Romans 13 but this was given to him by the Lord and were he to misuse it, as he is currently doing, it will return on his own head.

Paul reminded us at the close of chapter 8 that we will never be separated from the love of God, no, not even by the ill-use of this sword (8:35).

This is true throughout the Christian world but the ones who complain most about this are they who have never counted the cost of their relationship with Christ.

These are the comfortable and convenient Christians.

They know how to “abound”, i.e., to live in prosperity but unlike the apostle they do not know how to be “abased”, i.e., live humbly.

Dare you remind them of the latter then you are a legalist.

These are the ones who don’t want trouble.

They are more afraid of their loss than the defamation of the Lord’s name.

That the Lord’s name is blasphemed is not an issue to them.

For them, the Lord is a big boy and He can take it.

The bigots and the ones with double standards are the first to bring up the Lord when they want to defend themselves.

‘The Lord is my witness’, they will say.

Considering what they are saying and if they have sense enough to hear themselves say it, they would know that they would not want the Lord hearing their bigotry.

It is not as important to them to have the Lord hear that as long as they get you to hear that.