Slides: From Slavery to Liberty

Exodus: From Slavery to Liberty
by David Feddes

The Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. (Exodus 14:27-28)

Set free!

Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side… The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground… The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh… the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him. (Exodus 14)


Did Pharoah give freedom?

Pharaoh and his officials … said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” (14:5)

God gives freedom!

• The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” (Exodus 8:19)

• “I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.” (Exodus 12:12)

• “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’” (13:14)


God's motive: covenant love

 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction. (Deuteronomy 7:7-10)


No one like God or His people

 How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel--the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God. (2 Sam. 7:22-24).


Basis for Ten Commandments

 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”(Exodus 20:2)


Rescued for rest and rejoicing

 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.  You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:13-15)


Don't act like oppressors

 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed… Give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today. (Deut. 15:12-15)


Don't act like oppressors

 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. (Deuteronomy 24:18).


Freedom through Jesus

 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. (Luke 4:18)

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Luke 11:20)


Jesus has redeemed us from spiritual forces

 We were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. (Galatians 4:3-5)


The enemy won't quit

 God took his people away from Pharaoh, and Pharaoh wanted them back.

The Egyptians—all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them. (Exodus 14:9)

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)


Enslaved by fear

 They were terrified... “Didn't we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (14:11-12) [hearts agree to slavery]

By his death he destroyed him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Heb 2:14-15)


Never agree with the Enemy

 After Britain was defeated, Americans were free of British rule. What if a tax official of the old regime came to you and told you to pay money to King George?

New citizenship, new status: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)


Don't believe Satan's lies

 “Do not believe Saruman! He has lost all power, save his voice that can still deceive you, if you let it.”

• This life is all there is; death is the end.

• You can’t change; that’s just who you are.

• You can’t trust anybody.

• Sin is satisfying. Goodness is boring.

• You are worthless. You are nothing to God.


Never forget slavery's horrors

“Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4-6)

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! (Romans 6:21)


Sin's wages vs. God's gift

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22-23)


Dead to sin, alive to God

 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:24-25)

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin… So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:6,11)


Back to Egypt?

 “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt? ” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. ” (Numbers 13:2-4)


No going back

 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” (Deuteronomy 17:16)


Choosing Egypt is fatal

Why provoke me to anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live? … I will take away the remnant of Judah who were determined to go to Egypt to settle there. They will all perish in Egypt…  Those who escape the sword and return to the land of Judah from Egypt will be very few. Then the whole remnant of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know whose word will stand—mine or theirs. (Jeremiah 44)


No going back

Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. (Acts 15:10-11)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)


Authority to win

Whoever attacks you will surrender to you… no weapon forged against you will prevail. (Isaiah 54:15,17)

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority… to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:18-20)


The Lord will fight for you

 Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today… The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. (14:13-14)

The LORD is a warrior. (15:3)

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)