Sermon Tone Analysis

Where are you headed?

This morning I would like to take a few minutes to talk to you about the sin problem we face in this world.

Jesus said that sin resides right in our heart, and at that point it is not actively doing something heard or seen externally, but it is still there.

It is still sin.

Paul identified it as, "sin that dwells in me."

Sin can clearly be likened to a disease and is, in that sense, the residue of Satan's spirit that infects us as a result of our contact with him, his fellow-demon spirits, and with this world in which we live, work, and play.

Well, be comforted, at least to some degree.

God knows this, and He has willed that this battle be fought, because it is part of our preparation for the Kingdom of God.

We are going to look briefly into a number of verses as we begin here in , because these verses feed into our responsibilities as taught by these Days of Unleavened Bread.

The Days of Unleavened Bread teach us our part in God's plan of salvation.

Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

Within the context of Jesus' instruction in this chapter, this is a remarkable all-encompassing statement.

It includes us right within it to some degree.

Regardless of race, ethnicity, political affiliation, academic standing, Pharisee or Sadducee, or economic status, all are slaves of sin.

No one escapes this identification.

Biblically, slavery generally indicates powerlessness.

It indicates one who has little independence of choice, rather dependent upon the virtual control of some thing or someone, indicating an owner.

So you have an owner/slave relationship.

In some contexts, this dependence can easily be classed as an addiction one is powerless before.

In a sense then, the addiction actually owns the person and is driving his life in many circumstances.

Peter describes false ministers very well when he says in , "While they [the false ministers] promise them liberty, they [the false ministers] themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."

Now the corruption is their false teaching, which they in all probability are living by.

Within the context here in , that person who brings one into bondage is primarily Satan.

He is the prime example of one living according to the very teaching he is using to persuade others to live by.

Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Through Jesus Christ, one's bondage to Satan is broken; however, the effect of that bondage remains by means of the residue of Satan's spirit, most noticeably in terms of engrained habits of thinking and conduct, and this must be overcome if we are ever to be like Jesus Christ.

The bondage is broken, and we are enabled to continue on, but we are not completely free of it.

That residue of his spirit is there.

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Though the absolute bondage to Satan is broken, the process of overcoming the residue of that spirit is not immediately accomplished.

Notice what Jesus said here.

It requires consistent abiding, continual spiritual contact with the Son, by faith, to work toward the completion of the project, and the completion of the project in this context is to be completely free of bondage to Satan.

In practical application this means by study, prayer, and faithful submission to God's word.

What matters in this context that involves study, prayer, and faithful submission to God's word is the relationship with Jesus Christ.

That is what matters here, because where is the strength to overcome, to resist the pulls of that bondage?

It is going to come from Christ by means of His spirit within the relationship that we have with Him, and it is the making of practical use of the truth of God that breaks through the engrained habit of following Satanic lies within one's life.

Why do you not understand My speech?

Because you are not able to listen to My word.

[This is an astounding statement.]

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

He is making a contrast between Satan and Himself and people's readiness to listen to His instruction, and He just said in verse 43 that the people to whom He was speaking "are not able" to listen.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

Some modern commentators translate that one phrase in verse 43, "Because you are not able to listen to My word," as, "You cannot bear to listen to My word."

This is pretty rich and is much clearer.

The reason they changed it to that is because those words, "You are not able to listen," have the sense of being unable to pick something up.

They cannot bear to do it.

It is either repulsive— whatever it is they are trying to pick up—or it just simply is too heavy.

And so the people to whom He was speaking, He gives them a good reason as to why they were not listening, getting what He was saying, because they could not even bear to it.

It was as though it was an automatic rejection of whatever came out of His mouth.

To them He could not possibly be right, and so therefore their mind was already set against what He was saying.

What we have to understand is that because of our conversion, we have been enabled to bear to listen.

That does not mean we always want to hear something Christ has to say.

Maybe we do not want to hear it because it is correcting us, and so our defense goes up.

But we still are enabled with the power to push that defense out of the way, and we are willing at least to listen.

We can at least mark it down that this is something we are going to work on and we are going to overcome it.

But that is only because we are receiving that bit of grace, that gift, from God's spirit that is in us.

In order to impress this on us to consider what God did with the people of Israel in Egypt, let us recall that Egypt was a type of Satan's world, and God shows this by this analogy what He literally did with Israel by getting them out and away from Egyptian contact altogether.

In other words, He really took them out of the world, but as we are going to see, they took the world with them.

They were unconverted, and they were not able to bear what they were being told by Moses and Aaron, so they kept rejecting it despite the fact that they were free from their bondage in Egypt.

From this analogy we can gain understanding as we perceive our life in Christ, and can make practical applications to it at this present time rather than merely see it as Israel's historical record.

This is without a doubt the most complete analogy in the entire Bible as to what we are to do with our life after being converted.

I am talking about the wilderness journey.

There is a scene in the Ten Commandments movie in which the question is asked which is of supreme significance to us.

In the movie, the scene was the morning after the Death Angel went through and passed by the Israelites, but the firstborn of Egypt were killed, and the Israelites were assembling to leave.

The Israelites were in a joyous mood.

Well Joshua announced that they were leaving their slavery in Egypt, and the response, in a rather cynical tone, a voice combined with a perplexed look on his face asked, "Where are we going?"

Nobody answered him, and I guess it was assumed that everybody else knew.

In one sense this issue of where we are headed with our life is of greater individual importance to us than it was to the Israelites coming out of Egypt.

The individual Israelite was pretty much going to go along with the crowd like Richard was talking about in the movie, but our calling, is far more individualistic, and that puts pressure on us in a way that it did not on the Israelites.

Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, "Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt."

So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.

And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt.

In one sense, the Israelites knew where they were headed in some of the same manner that we know today where we are headed.

It is doubtful than anyone of them had ever been to the Promised Land, even as none of us has even been to the Kingdom of God, but they knew the promise that was made to Abraham, because tells us clearly that the gospel was preached to them.

Moses would have told them.

They knew the land's location, but it was nonetheless a vague generalized goal about which they had few particulars.

They particularly did not know anything about the pilgrimage that lay ahead, and they were in for a number of surprises.

They knew nothing of the length of that pilgrimage, or of the manna, or of water from the rock, or of huge flocks of quail, or kind of need and scarcity.

They knew the land's location, but it was nonetheless a vague generalized goal about which they had few particulars.

They particularly did not know anything about the pilgrimage that lay ahead, and they were in store for a pretty great number of surprises.

They knew nothing of the length of that pilgrimage, or of the manna, or of water from the rock, or of huge flocks of quail, or kind of privation and scarcity.

The most direct route to Canaan was through the land of the Philistines, but the Philistines were a warlike people, and surely Israel would have resisted, and Israel was in no way prepared to overcome them.

They did not know that, but God did.

Are you aware that God knows exactly where He is taking you?

That your life is in for quite a number of twists and turns and surprises?

Are you still willing to follow Him even though there might be many, many periods of doubt that you had made the right choice?

Even two years later, on the borders of the Promised Land, they lost their faith and refused to confront the people of the land in war.

God knew what He was doing.

In a way, they were no more prepared for war two years later than they were when they went out, and so here, really, at the very beginning of their pilgrimage we might mark the first of many completely unexpected twists and turns that would occur before they ever got to Canaan.

How many would survive?

You already know that pretty much, but the loss was heavy, was it not?

These verses show the very clear pattern that God does not always lead one's life the way that seems on the surface to be best to us.

His ways are not our ways nor are His thoughts our thoughts.

Would Israel continue to follow God through Moses?

And even if they did, what kind of attitude would they be in when they were doing it?

Let us make a more direct connection to you and me.

We are going to go to .

We are going to make a connection from us to the Israelites.