RECIPE FOR DELIVERANCE

RECIPE FOR DELIVERANCE Selected passages from Exodus April 1,  2001 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory Romans 15:4  - "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." Among other things I believe God wants us to understand from the Old Testament account of the exodus is what He wants to do for us in terms of deliverance. You will recall that God has called Moses to do the impossible - to go and convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out into the wilderness to worship the Lord Yahweh. Everyone from Moses to Pharaoh understood this was not going to be a weekend retreat to the wilderness and then these 2.5 million Israelites were just going to come right back and resume their slavery again. No, in this whole thing, Egypt was saying a permanent goodbye to their Israelite slave labor, and that's why, humanly speaking, Pharaoh was so stubborn in letting them go. Pharaoh made it tougher on the Israelites, and Exodus 5:22-23 reports: "Moses returned to the Lord and said, 'O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all." Moses was between a rock and a hard place. He had gotten no response from Pharaoh except that he made the Israelites' work three times harder than before. The Israelites in turn complained to Moses, "Where's this deliverance you were talking about?!" (see Ex. 5:20-21) It is at this critical juncture that God begin to reveal His recipe for Deliverance. And there are three key ingredients: The First Ingredient for Deliverance - Divine Promise Up until now, God had been pretty much telling Moses what he was to do, and Moses was more or less flying by the instruments. He didn't know much about the details of the plan. The Lord sees that Moses is pretty frustrated, so now He takes him into His confidence and explains further. The first thing God does is clarify and reemphasize His promise. Exodus 6:1-8. God has ways to build faith in us. Charlotte and I went last weekend to see her dad and his ailing wife. In a hospital bed and almost completely unresponsive to anything, Gloria hangs on to life precariously. Charles, in his deep love and devotion, provides complete, uninterrupted care for his wife. His sits many hours a day in his glider chair alongside Gloria. As we visited last Saturday he rocked back and forth and I noticed again the persistent squeak in the glider every time it rocked forward. I finally said, "Charles, do you think a little oil might remedy that nasty squeak." "Oh," he said, "the squeak doesn't bother me." I was just about to say, "Well, it's driving me crazy!" when he added, "It lets Gloria know I'm still here." God has His ways of reminding us He's still there and He's going to fulfill all He promised. One of the ways He reassures us is by rehearsing His faithfulness. Exodus 6:1-4. Basically God says, "Moses, I've never let my people down before, and I'm not going to let you down either. Look, I called Abraham and blessed him. 'Did the same for Isaac and Jacob. I made a covenant with them and promised them the land of Canaan, and I remember what I said. I'm no slacker-I said I would take you to the promised land, and I will do it." Joni is a child who needs a lot of reassurance. When you tell her you will take her bowling or to Wal-Mart or wherever, she will absolutely wear you out asking if and when you will take her. (We've determined to not tell her any such plans until the last possible moment.) We find ourselves going through the same recitation over and over again, "Joni, we promised you we would go, and we will. Have we ever lied to you about these things? Just be patient." Don't you get the idea this is what God is doing with Moses so Moses can go back to the people and reassure them? God wants us to know and believe that He is FAITHFUL-that He keeps His promises. And He does! Brothers and sisters, one of the most encouraging things you can do is to complete a Bible study on the promises God has made to His people and how He has faithfully made good on every one of them. We're still waiting on some of them-like His bringing His church into perfect unity, purity and power, making us into the spotless bride He said His church would be. We're still waiting for His second coming; we're waiting for heaven. But look at the things He promised that have already come to pass. Messiah has come; He has died for the sins of the world; He was raised on the third day; the Holy Spirit has been given to everyone who believes and obeys the gospel; the gospel is being preached to every nation; the Spirit is convicting the world of sin, righteousness and judgement. If He has been faithful in all these other promises, we can be certain He will fulfill all His other promises! Besides His faithfulness, Moses also needed a reminder of the Lord's LOVE for His people. Don't you just need to receive from God again a reminder that He loves you? Listen in to Exodus 6:5-8 - seven "I will's"! Can you hear the tenderness in these words? God is saying, "Moses, don't forget, I love my chosen people, and I'm not going to let them down. I know it's tough in Egypt right now, but trust my love for you-deliverance is on the way." The third element in the divine promise - He ratifies His promises. "I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord." (vs. 8) Have you ever wondered why there is so much teaching in the New Testament about our hope of heaven, everlasting life, resurrection and eternal rewards? You know what that is? That is God reminding us of His promises, so we won't forget. A key part of our salvation is the precious reminders we have in the Word of God about what is in store for us. The first ingredient in the recipe for deliverance is divine promise.     The Israelites were about to be delivered from their bondage in Egypt, just as God had promised. The Bible likens that deliverance to our deliverance from bondage to sin. In fact, the New Testament teaching leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the entire Exodus experience is simply a "foreshadowing" of what Christ would do as Savior of the world. No less than Israel in Egypt we are indentured servants to our own slavemaster-sin. 2 Peter 2:19 - "A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." And, like Israel, we are unable to break free from our bondage without a Deliverer. Galatians 4 says that, "…at just the right time, God sent His Son…to redeem [us]…that we might receive the full rights of sons…So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves…" (Galatians 4:4-8) Jesus said He came to set the prisoners free, and to released the oppressed. (Luke 4:18) In his book, Detours: Sometimes Rough Roads Lead to Right Places, Clark Cothern tells of a Christmas when his family encountered an unexpected houseguest. A squirrel had fallen down their chimney into the wood burner stove in the basement of their Michigan home. Cothern writes: I thought if it knew we were there to help, I could just reach in and gently lift it out. Nothing doing. As I reached in…it began scratching about like a squirrel overdosed on espresso. We finally managed to construct a cardboard box "cage" complete with a large hole cut into one side, into which the squirrel waltzed when we placed the box against the wood burner's door. We let it out into the safety of our backyard. Later, I thought, Isn't it funny how, before its redemption, our little visitor had frantically tried to bash its way out of its dark prison? It seemed that the harder it struggled in its own strength to get free, the more pain it caused itself. In the end, he simply had to wait patiently until one who was much bigger-one who could peer into his world-could carry him safely to that larger world where he really belonged. An article in the National Geographic (9/91) tells of a young man from Hanover, Pennsylvania, who was badly burned in a boiler explosion. To save his life, physicians covered him with 6,000 square centimeters of donor skin, as well as sheets of skin cultured from a stamp-sized piece of his own unburned skin. A journalist asked him, "Do you ever think about the donor who saved you?" The young man replied, "To be alive because of a dead donor is too big, too much, so I don't think about it." Divine Promise Second Ingredient for Deliverance - Human Obedience Exodus 6:13 - "Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he commanded them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt." See Exodus 1:1-10 Bottom line, the Lord told Moses and Aaron, "Just do what you are told, and stand back, because I will get this deliverance accomplished." It is quite simple, isn't it? Just do as I say. But how hard we make it! Just be my witnesses, share your testimony and the gospel with others and I will bring them to Me; just trust me-give your substance away generously and I will give you back more than you shared; resist the devil and he will flee from you-draw near to me and I will draw near to you. Step out on faith and accept the message of the gospel as true and I will save you. Reader's Digest wrote of the late Harvey Penick: "For 90-year-old golf pro Harvey Penick, success has come late. His first golf book, Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, has sold more than a million copies, which his publisher believes makes it one of the biggest things in the history of sports books. His second book, And If You Play Golf, You're My Friend, has already sold nearly three-quarters of a million. But anyone who imagines that Penick wrote the books to make money doesn't know the man. "In the 1920s Penick bought a red spiral notebook and began jotting down observations about golf. He never showed the book to anyone except his son until 1991, when he shared it with a local writer and asked if he thought it was worth publishing. The man read it and told him yes. He left word with Penick's wife the next evening that Simon & Schuster had agreed to an advance of $90,000. "When the writer saw Penick later, the old man seemed troubled. Finally, Penick came clean. With all his medical bills, he said, there was no way he could advance Simon & Schuster that much money. The writer had to explain that Penick would be the one to receive the $90,000." People often have Penick's reaction to the fabulous gift of salvation offered in Jesus Christ. We ask, "What must I do?" God answers, "Just receive." God never asks us to do something that will be impossible for us to do. But it is always something that stretches our faith and courage! Exodus 7:14-15; 8:20-21; 9:1-3, 13-14; 10:1-2; 11:1-3. When you hear God's promise, get ready, because there will be a command to obey that goes with it!     Those are the first two ingredients that go into Deliverance: Divine Promise and Human Obedience. He never does anything without promising in advance that He will do it, and He never does anything without using obedient people to get it done. The final ingredient is Divine Power, and it always shows up after the joining of Divine Promise and Human Obedience. Third Ingredient for Deliverance - Divine Power Look again at Exodus 6:1 - "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.'" Nineteen times in this account of the exodus God says, "I will", and do you know what? HE DID! How God did show His power to Pharaoh! Turning staffs into snakes (which ate the snakes the magicians produced), turning the Nile River into a brook of blood, overrunning the nation with frogs, gnats, flies, locusts. He brought instant "mad cow disease" on all of Egypt's livestock. Then He sent hail and lightning to destroy their crops and what remained of their animals. And all the while, only the Egyptians were affected, while the Israelites in Goshen were unharmed. Then there was that mysterious plague of darkness throughout the land for three days, but where the Israelites lived they had light. Doesn't it make you wonder why Pharaoh never gave in? He was a stubborn man, wasn't he? And because of his stubbornness God sent the final plague-the death of the firstborn of all of Egypt. Finally convinced, at least for a few days, he let Israel go. Then, in his last ditch effort to regain his lost lucrative slave labor, Pharaoh sent his army after Moses and the Israelites, only to have them drowned in the water that had backed up to let the Israelites through. God had told Moses, "Do what I tell you, and you will see my wonders as no one ever has!" God promised, God called an obedient leader and then He released His mighty power. This is how He gets deliverance done for the oppressed. And that's just what He did for us. He promised repeatedly in the ancient days through the prophets that He would send the Messiah. That Messiah came, obediently suffered and died on the cross for the sake of all mankind, and the power of God for salvation and deliverance was released in God's rebellious world. Now His promise is offered to everyone, those near and far-people who feel religious and those who feel hopeless. We all have come short of the glory of God-none of us has lived righteously. We are all sinners before God. But Jesus came as God's promise, His obedient Messiah to bring power for salvation. "Christ redeemed us from the curse…by becoming a curse for us…He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come…through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." (Galatians 2:13-14) Jesus was raised from the dead, not only to vindicate that God was at work redeeming mankind through His death, but also as the demonstration of God's power over the final enemy of man - death. And that resurrection assures us that we who trust in Christ will also be raised from the dead, incorruptible, to live and reign with Him forever. Lou Johnson, a 1965 World Series hero for the Los Angeles Dodgers, tried for 30 years to recover the championship ring he lost to drug dealers in 1971. Drug and alcohol abuse cost him everything from that magical season, including his uniform, glove, and the bat he used to hit the winning home run in the deciding game. When Dodger president, Bob Graziano, learned that Johnson's World Series ring was about to be auctioned on the Internet, he immediately wrote a check for $3,457 and bought the ring before any bids were posted. He did for Johnson what the former Dodger outfielder had been unable to do for himself. Johnson, 66, who has been drug free for years and a Dodger community relations employee, wept when given the gold ring. He said, "It felt like a piece of me had been reborn." Countless Christians can testify to a spiritual rebirth as a result of the price that Jesus paid on the cross in their place. He did for them what they could not do for themselves. Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He brought us God's deliverance-just as God promised He would. Now, ironically, we enter into the story identifying with the people of Israel. Will we agree with God, accept Christ's offer by faith and receive deliverance from our bondage of sin, OR will we, like Pharaoh, let our hearts be hardened? If you're like most, one of the most fascinating angles on the whole exodus story is the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. At first, he hardened his own heart by resisting and refusing God's will. Then, when he got good and crusty, God took over and began hardening his heart even more! You see, when you begin to resist God you endanger your future. It will get more and more difficult to say YES to God once you begin to say NO. Today's decisions influence tomorrow's decisions. Someone explained the whole notion of hardened hearts this way. If you lay a lump of clay out in the hot summer sun, and you lay a lump of wax beside it, in a very short time the clay will harden like a rock, but the wax will soften almost to a liquid. The same sun that makes the wax pliable, hardens the clay. That's the way it is with human hearts-some hear the will of God and resist. These hearts get harder and harder, until one day the gracious offer of God can't even penetrate them. Others listen and respond in obedience and become more and more pliable in God's hands. Here's the drama of that imagery-you get to decide whether you will be clay or wax-Whether you will hear and respond to God's offer of grace or be hardened. Hebrews 3 - "So, as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God…so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness…they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief." (verses 12-13, 19)       [Back to Top]