Martyn Lawrence - Paradox of Liberty - Class 2 - From the House of Bondage

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Our first speaker this morning is Brother Martin Lawrence from the Cleckheaton, UK Ecclesia. The theme for Brother Martin’s classes this week is Paradox of Liberty. Today’s class is entitled From the House of Bondage, Brother Martin. So yesterday morning we channelled our inner founding Fathers and we were trying to begin a journey about understanding what it means to be free in a post Christian, almost anti Christian world.

2. 0:34

   And, and we began our journey with well, a series of series of questions, really trying to understand what it looks like fighting and and challenging our discipleship everyday that we live. And we worked, if you remember, through some of the background in the Garden of Eden, we moved into the incidents around Noah and the way in which the, the, the Noah and well, Noah and the flood.

3. 0:56

   The story points us both backwards towards the creation account and also forwards to the release from bondage, which comes later on. And we finished up with the Tower of Babel. And again, just some of the threads that began to teach us about what would come. These, if you remember, if you can make it out on the screen, were our, our, as our agenda for the week.

4. 1:16

   We’re, we’re in session 2 and we’re thinking pretty obviously, as you’ll guess in the title, about liberty coming from Egypt today. These were the principles that we tried to tried to capture yesterday. This list is going to grow over the course of the week, by the way. So if you’re writing them down, by all means use ink rather than pencil.

5. 1:34

   But they are going to get bigger as we go on down through the through the week. God’s freedom is wide, but it has guardrails for our benefit. And and we don’t like God’s freedom and we don’t like his guardrails and all of. Those other challenges as we saw coming out through the Garden of Eden. Genesis chapters 4 through to 11 are interesting because they’re really focused towards the east.

6. 1:56

   It’s all about coming out of the garden and going away from what God had promised. And it’s only where we finished right at the end of yesterday’s session with the introduction of Abraham that we begin to move in the opposite direction. When Abraham comes from of the Coles and begins to travel westwards towards the land and all of the ways in which we described yesterday, that he gives up things that he owns, whether he gives up his past. Gives up his.

7. 2:22

   Present or gives up his future in the promise of his son in order to show his dedication to his heavenly Father. And in this session, we’re going to see first a series of, and this is a phrase I need to have with caffeine inside a series of mini exoduses, which will anticipate the great Exodus where God leads his people to be servants to himself.

8. 2:47

   So if you want to put in one in a particular way, brothers and sisters, Genesis is going to prepare us for the book of Exodus. And you know this even if you don’t think you know this, because you know the incidents that we’re going to talk about. So Abraham, as we’ll see in detail in just a moment, is going to go down into Egypt where there will be plagues and he’ll come out.

9. 3:11

   And then he’ll go down into Egypt again in Genesis chapter 20, slightly different, with the same kind of patent. And then Jacob will have a mini exodus. Because if you remember, he comes out fleeing from his brother and the sunsets on his old life when he has his dream of the ladder that reaches up to heaven.

10. 3:29

    And he’ll go and work 14 years for, well, originally for a wife and then for a second as well. And then we’ll come back. And at the moment when he wrestles with the Angel to the break of day, the very point that the sun rises is the point where he gets his. New name.

11. 3:44

    It’s almost as if the night has fallen and then the sun has come up again. So he himself has had a little exodus and he comes back to his people after that, and then Joseph. Will go, would you believe it, down into Egypt as a forerunner of the people. And his family will follow him voluntarily because, you know, we like going places where we’re not free.

12. 4:05

    So they go down to because of the famine and the whole family go down there. And there, of course, they multiply. And just in case we haven’t got the picture by now, when we open up the beginning of the book of Exodus, Moses will have a mini Exodus. In fact, Moses will have two mini exoduses, which is not a phrase I can say particularly easily just to make sure we don’t miss the point that God is telling us something about freedom. That everything that we understand the great exodus from Egypt to be is not just one random, one off incident as great and spectacular as it was, but that it’s something that has been already foretold in the lives of the Fathers. As well, let me bring you to Genesis chapter 12 and to look at the first Abraham incident and look at the Moses incident as well before we get into the Exodus itself. So Genesis chapter 12.

13. 5:03

    Because really, all I’ve just said for the last two minutes is a quick overview and it’s, and it’s helpful to have a look at some of the detail. Genesis chapter 12, you know it incredibly well. Abraham’s turned his back on his family. He’s come into the land and in verse 9 of chapter 12, he’s going to go on southwards and there’s a famine in the land. Would you believe it?

14. 5:23

    It has a habit. It has a habit of repeating and Abraham went down into Egypt to sojourn there for the famine was grievous in the land. And then there is this incident with Pharaoh, isn’t there? Where where Pharaoh takes a liking to Sarai and all sorts of complications happen. And in verse 16, Pharaoh petitions Abraham or petitions Abraham for his wife and gives him sheep and oxen and donkeys and servants and everything else.

15. 5:52

    But as a result of this, of Abraham going into Egypt and, and all the complications with, with his wife, there are plagues on Pharaoh and on his house because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife and Pharaoh. I, I can’t think of a better word, throws Abraham out of Egypt. Look at all the trouble that you’ve caused me.

16. 6:15

    He says, what is this that you’ve done to me? Why did you not tell me she was your wife? If you why did you say she’s my sister? I might have taken her to be my wife. And he sent Abraham away and his wife and all that he had. Just think about the way in which this pattern begins to work. Brothers and sisters down into Egypt because of a famine. Protected.

17. 6:34

    Can you see that you can’t see? I’m going to tell you what it says. Need to make sure I get these slides darker for tomorrow. Sorry about that. He’s protected and he’s delivered from plagues and he comes out right at the end of verse 20 with everything that he has. It’s an anticipation of the Exodus. It’s going to, it’s telling us that what’s happening to Abraham is exactly the same as what’s going to happen to the nation again.

18. 6:54

    He’s having an exodus before the Exodus. And then, just in case we haven’t taken the hint properly, when you come into chapter 13, the story is going to continue because he meets or he comes with lots and there is a strife, isn’t there, between Abraham’s servants and Lot’s servants, Chapter 13, verse 8. And they divide the land.

19. 7:17

    Just as the nation will do when they come into the land later on and the land is divided between the 12 tribes. And so Lot decides that where he wants to go is the land that looks like the Garden of Eden. And so he travels verse 11 of chapter 13. Eastwards. Which is probably a little foreboding, but Abraham of course dwells in the land of Canaan.

20. 7:41

    Lot dwells in the cities of the plain and pitches his tent towards Sodom. So they’ve gone into Egypt, they’ve been, there have been plagues, they’ve come out of Egypt, and now they’re dividing up the land. And if you remember what happens next, of course there’s going to be a conquest. And Brother Steve told us about that in our exhortation on Sunday morning.

21. 7:59

    Because of course, the conquest is going to take place in Genesis 14 with the Battle of the Kings, where Abraham is going to be having been the Moses before the Moses. He’s now going to be the Joshua before the Joshua. And he’s going to lead his 318 men trained in his own house, who are going to carry out this, this conquest of the kings, which is a great anticipation of latter day events.

22. 8:25

    But which is also, of course, a great anticipation of the exodus to come. And he’s going to go all the way north, all the way to the very point where the children of Israel. Will defeat the Giants of the king of Baishan. You remember that journey that they take up the east side of the Jordan.

23. 8:45

    They come to the place where the Deuteronomy is given. Then they go another 40 miles north to to fight the battle against the giant to make sure that that generation know that, you know, giants are not anything to worry about. And then they come back down again. And it’s the exact same journey that Abraham is doing in chapter 14 to anticipate all the events that will take place later on.

24. 9:03

    It’s a dress rehearsal for the Exodus from Egypt and everything about Abraham’s journey, everything about these incidents within these chapters, and I’m conscious that you can’t quite make out the text that I’ve got on the screen there. Everything about Abraham’s journey is telling us that something greater is going to come, something bigger is going to happen. Come and have a look at the example of Moses beginning of Exodus if we can, because long before Moses leads his people. Let me just get back that main slide for you so you can at least see some of the some of the text long before Moses leads the people from Egypt.

25. 9:46

    He’s going to have not merely one, but two exoduses of his own. And in just the same way that the Abraham Exodus was telling the later readers of that book that God was able to work in the lives of of all of his people, so too Moses was learning the same. So he’s going to have an exodus when he’s saved by water as a baby, and he’s going to have another exodus when he kills that Egyptian and goes off into the wilderness for 40 years.

26. 10:20

    And they are little, little trailers. Not suggesting that you go to the cinema, but if you were to go to the cinema, you always In the UK, if you go to the cinema you turn up about 40 minutes late. Because if you turn up any early, you have to see all the trailers in the adverts and stuffs.

27. 10:34

    But you know what those are like. And they’re this, these are the trailers before the main, before the main event. Just telling us about what’s going to happen next. So where have I got you to? We’re in Exodus, aren’t we? And Exodus chapter 2, we’re actually going back to chapter one in a few minutes, but I bring you to chapter 2, that there went a man of the House of Levi, took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bear a son and saw he was a goodly child and hit him three months. It’s, of course, against the backdrop of what Pharaoh is going to do with the baby boys in Egypt. And when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes and dogged it with slime and with pitch, and put the child there in, and put and laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

28. 11:15

    And Miriam stood afar off to see what would be done to him. Jochebed knows there’s something special about this particular boy. So she builds him an ark and she pitches it around, just as Noah has done before, and she floats him off. Well, the details are quite important, aren’t they? She took an arc of bulrushes and put him right on the edge of the river.

29. 11:39

    She floats him off next to the reeds. Of course, when Israel come out of Egypt, they’re going to go through what you and I call the Red Sea. And it’s not really the Red Sea, it’s the Reed Sea. So there’s a little connection between what’s happening to Moses and what’s happening to the people later on.

30. 11:52

    And Pharaoh’s daughter is the one who hears the cry 1st 5 when she comes down to wash by the river, and she opens it and sees the baby and he’s crying and has compassion upon him. Let’s see whether this slide is any more visible than the last slide. Just a little bit more, that’s useful. So everything that’s going to happen to Moses is familiar. We recognize it.

31. 12:19

    There’s an ark, he’s saved by water. The cry goes up and he’s heard. And then later on, when he becomes part of Pharaoh’s daughter’s family, he is an Israelite slave adopted into the royal lion. It’s a little anticipation of Exodus chapter 19. That you will be to me a Kingdom of priests and the holy nation.

32. 12:41

    And Miriam sees everything just as she does when she makes her great song in Exodus 15. When the actual Exodus has taken place, sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously and Miriam and the women sing that great song of triumph and she’s seen this just as she will see the later event.

33. 12:58

    So Moses first Exodus is just is just dropping little bread crumbs down for us to make sure we begin to follow a trail. There is a great release from Bondage coming, but we shouldn’t be surprised when we get there. Because all of these events are already taking place, let’s have a look at the other one.

34. 13:18

    Verse 11 of Exodus chapter 2 came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their burdens and spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way. And when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand and went out the second day. And two men strove together.

35. 13:37

    And he said, why are you smiting your fellow? And the other man said, Well, who made you a Prince and a judge over us? Did you intend to kill me just as you killed the Egyptian? And he flees, doesn’t he? Now, sometimes we look at this incident and we we think that that what’s happening is that Moses has got God’s timing wrong and he’s trying to preempt something that isn’t yet ready to happen. The Exodus isn’t ready, but Moses is almost trying to kick start it and do something too soon. But actually I don’t know if that’s right, because the text doesn’t say Moses is doing anything wrong and and everything looks remarkably like. The national exodus, which is going to happen 40 years later. There’s an Egyptian causing injustice to an israelite. Moses comes to bring relief.

36. 14:27

    The Egyptian is killed just as the. Egyptians will be killed in the sea when they come through. There is a departure into the wilderness. We’ve actually not read that bit. Verse 16 And then there is going to be water provided in the desert in verse 16 and 17 when the priests of Midian’s daughters come and are trying to fill up their their water troughs and Moses has to intervene and help them out with it everything. Looks like the Exodus from Egypt before the Exodus from Egypt, and it really is just like a trailer before the main movie. We’re recognizing some of these patterns and so when? Moses has a son when Zipporah has a son. Let’s be more accurate than that. And Moses names him verse 22.

37. 15:15

    He calls him Gershom. I am a stranger, a sojourner in a strange land. What Moses is telling us, and we have to be careful to make sure we don’t jump over it, is Moses is saying I am living your Exodus. I am myself a sojourner in a strange land, just as you yourselves are, just as the Abraham incident was, brothers and sisters. So the Moses incident is another dress rehearsal for what’s going to happen next.

38. 15:41

    They are proving to Moses what God can do. If you ever sit there in your darkest hours and just go. I know, I know the Bible is true and but I just, there were just too many things going on and I just, it’s the day-to-day stuff which wears me down. And I wonder whether these are the kind of things that we can come back to for encouragement, that God speaks to his, to his great faithful men and women and gives them little pictures of what he will later do to encourage them and to strengthen them and to build them up.

39. 16:12

    Because Moses isn’t a revolutionary. This is not an old world. Che Guevara. Moses is an 80 year old sheep farmer. He’s not perhaps the best poised. To lead the people out of Egypt. And yet God is encouraging him and showing him what God is capable of doing with his people. Why does that matter?

40. 16:29

    Why is that connected to freedom? Why? Why do we need to go through that particular process? Because I think sometimes we can teach scripture in little pockets. We silo up parts of Scripture and say, right, this is the Abraham story there. And it, we tie it up with a ribbon and stick it on the shelf.

41. 16:46

    And that’s the Abraham story done. And then we take the Moses story and we go, well, here it is. And we put it there and we know about them, but we forget that they’re connected together. Or we take the Exodus event and we know about what happens and we stick it on that shelf.

42. 16:58

    And again, it’s not connected to the other ones. The. Point I’m trying to make with this, with this grand theme that God is is revealing to us in his word is that all of these things leading to something else. And it’s not just that, you know, Genesis was about creation and patriarchs and promises and Egypt and Exodus is about leaving the House of bondage. It’s that that we are all leaving a House of bondage, whether we’re in the book of Genesis or whether in the book of Nehemiah, or whether we’re in our day and age, we are all leaving a House of bondage.

43. 17:29

    It’s the same for the time of the kings as well. That’s why when Paul writes to Corinth, he says, I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud. It’s your story too, he says. It’s your exodus too. You are part of it by adoption to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones?

44. 17:57

    You ever thought how odd that is? He’s anticipating the exodus. He’s making sure that they come back into the land. But he could have used other phrases. He could have given commandment or could have been described as the fact he was giving commandment concerning his his remains given commandment concerning his body. There would have been some other British euphemism that would have kind of fudged the issue completely probably, but specifically told he gave commandment concerning his bones.

45. 18:23

    And then of course, the book of Joshua picks this up and tells us that he’s reburied in the land because Joseph knew the very same things that Abraham knew and Moses knew that there was a greater release for the people of God. But the reason that phrase is so significant is because Ezekiel will then capture it in the valley of dry bones and says, you know what Joseph saw? He saw a time when another people would be raised back to life, when those bones would have flesh put on them and sinews to bind them, and they would become a new people. That every Exodus we read of in this session, every mini exodus or major Exodus we think about, is anticipating the great release that God will show to His people later on. And it extends to us.

46. 19:15

    If we are prepared to spend time in exile, if we are prepared to walk away from the House of bondage and follow the one who leads us from captivity, come back to Exodus chapter 1. Oops. Too soon, Leave it there. Exodus chapter 1. And it’s a bit of a gear shift.

47. 19:39

    Let’s go in. Where do I want to take you? Verse 7. So after Joseph has died, children of Israel are fruitful and they increased abundantly and they multiplied and they waxed exceedingly mighty and the land was filled with them, which is a pretty significant build up of phrases, isn’t it? To make sure that we don’t miss the point that they are now getting much more abundant as a nation. Verse 8.

48. 20:02

    Now there arose a new king over Egypt who knew not Joseph, and he said to his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on, let us deal shrewdly, widely, wisely with them, lest they multiply, which they already have actually. And it comes to pass that when there falls out any war, they join also to our enemies and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. This is what Pharaoh’s great fear is. Pharaoh’s fear is that they will fight against the the Egyptians on behalf of their enemies.

49. 20:32

    And that they will escape, in other words, and I take a deep breath when I say this out loud. In other words, brothers and sisters, Pharaoh has an immigration. Problem. And you understand why I had to say it carefully. So they set the taskmasters over them to afflict them. And verse 12, the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew and they made them serve Verse 13, with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick.

50. 21:06

    Catch your Babel echo from yesterday. And in all manner of service, they made them serve with rigor. Just highlighted those on the screen. For you, you can just see the emphasis that that. Little section of Exodus chapter 1. Goes to to make. Sure, we understand the way in which they were being treated. Now, all of these verses seem to suggest that Israel were slaves in Egypt.

51. 21:32

    And God is going to bring them out to be free. We are unconsciously thinking that I suggest to you as we read. Those verses through that, what we’re about to find out about is that Israel was slaves in Egypt and God brought them out to be free. In fact, one of the Passover texts the Jewish.

52. 21:48

    Passover texts actually says that specifically that he brought us out from slavery to freedom. And I just suggest you that that’s not quite true. Don’t, don’t throw things at me yet, but I just suggest you that that’s not quite true, that those words verses 10 through to 14, they certainly tell us that the Israelites worked like slaves, but we are not told that they came out to be free.

53. 22:16

    And we’ll see what that means in a minute. Let me just carry on that there are a whole series of phrases built up. We don’t, I’m not going to take you through all of them, but but you can mark them if you need to that three times in chapter 1, the Egyptians bring hard bondage on the Israelites. And then if you just look at chapter 2 and verse 23, that when that king of Egypt dies, the children of Israel continue to sigh by reason of the bondage and cried and their cry came up to God by reason of their bondage. And then it’s only in chapter 3 that things shift slightly. God says when He appears to Moses at the Bush, chapter 3 and verse 7.

54. 22:55

    I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt. I’ve surely seen the affliction of my people who are in. Egypt, Israel cried because of their bondage, because they were not free. God’s responses not specifically to that. God’s responses to their suffering is to their affliction. In other words, the problem in Egypt was not that they had to work.

55. 23:22

    Work is fine, Paul says in the New Testament. Work is OK. The problem in Egypt was the affliction. It was the hard bondage, it was the ruthlessness with which they were treated. In fact there were there were three challenges, I think, for the Israelites when they were in Egypt. The first was that it was hard labour.

56. 23:39

    In other words, it was no longer equitable for wages. It was what you and I would call slavery. The second challenge was that they were foreigners. In other words, the immigration policy changed if Pharaoh wants to do something different with the foreigners. And the third. Thing was, and perhaps this is the most significant, was that there was no escape mechanism.

57. 24:02

    There was no there was no opt out X is Israel couldn’t exercise freedom. In other words, working in Egypt was not the problem. The fact that they couldn’t not work in Egypt was the problem. The fact that they had no choice, no opportunity to change their circumstances. Which is just going to lead US one step closer to making sure we know what freedom is actually all about and to understand what’s going on. I just need to take you back again just to make sure that we understand the story.

58. 24:27

    Genesis 47 coming back into Exodus in just a second, but Genesis 47? This is the bit of the Joseph narrative that we forget. And if you’ve if you know the musical. It’s after the after the first song and it’s after the after the Technicolor Dreamcoat and it’s after the the dreams with Pharaoh and it’s after Joseph’s come down into Egypt’s after and in fact, it’s after the very end of the musical and the musical wasn’t interested in this.

59. 24:54

    But even though I think it’s the most important chapter, so Exodus, Genesis chapter 47, this is when Joseph has been has been raised to power before Pharaoh in Egypt, and there is a famine once again in the land. 47 verse 13, there is no bread in the land, for the famine was very sore.

60. 25:17

    So that all the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the corn which they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. So what’s the first step in relieving your burden?

61. 25:38

    When there is a famine in the land of Egypt, you buy corn with money. That’s step one. But the problem is that you have a finite amount of cash and at some point you spend all of your money buying corn to relieve the problem. And verse 15, the money runs out. So when the money runs out in the land of Egypt, down in the land of Canaan, all these the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money fails.

62. 26:13

    And Joseph said, give me your cattle and I will give you for your cattle if money fail. So step one, in the famine you buy corn with cash. When the cash runs out, you then buy corn with your animals. You trade them in because that’s all that you have left. Verse 17 They brought their cattle to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses and flocks and cattle and asses, and so on and so forth, and fed them with bread all that year.

63. 26:40

    Step one, Buy corn with cash when the cash runs out. Step 2. You trade in your animals well. What happens when the cash is all gone and the livestock’s all gone? What do you do next? What is the only thing? Left that you can do next. Well, they came at the end of year 2, verse 18 and said we won’t hide it from you. All the money’s gone and you’ve got all of our animals and there’s nothing left.

64. 27:06

    What are we going to do? Verse 19, Why should we die before your eyes by us and our land for bread. And we in our land will be servants to Pharaoh, and give us seed, that we may live and not die, that the land be not desolate. And so Joseph brought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold everyone his field because the famine prevailed over them.

65. 27:33

    Step 1 You buy corn with cash. Step 2, You buy corn with animals. Step three, you buy corn with yourself. You give yourself as laborers in order to earn the food that you need to feed your families. In other words, who are the servants in Egypt? When the Book of Exodus starts? It’s not the Israelites, it’s the Egyptians. When the Book of Exodus begins, brother, the Egyptians are the ones working.

66. 28:06

    For Pharaoh, because Joseph has set it up like that. And what are the Israelites doing? Well, verse 27, Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they had possessions and grew and multiplied exceedingly. Isn’t it interesting? The Egyptians are Pharaoh’s servants and the Israelites are the land owners. It’s completely backwards from what we think is going on. And that’s why Pharaoh’s panic in Exodus chapter one, that the people are going to do something completely different. They’re going to rise up against us. And here’s my immigrant problem is such a massive shift in policy because he’s having to turn an entire structure upside down because as the book of Genesis ends and Exodus begins, the Israelites are not serving.

67. 28:58

    They are actually the ones who own the land. Isn’t it interesting? Everybody in the book of Genesis is serving somebody. There was a real trend. It runs all the way through. Esau serves. Jacob shouldn’t have done, but he did because he was hungry. And then Jacob serves Laban for Leah seven years, And then Jacob serves Laban for Rachel another seven years.

68. 29:26

    And then Joseph, when he is taken as a slave and goes down into Egypt, serves Potiphar. And then after the dreams, Joseph serves Pharaoh. And then as. We’ve just seen here the Egyptians serve Joseph, while the Israelites are the freeholders in Egypt. And it’s only when we get to Exodus chapter one that the new Pharaoh with his new policy and his new dislike of immigration issues, forces Israel into this hard bondage, this hard labor come back into Exodus and come to chapter 3, please again.

69. 30:09

    So I think we did we don’t didn’t quite do justice to this this incident with the burning Bush Exodus chapter 3 and and this marvelous phrase that God uses in verse seven. I’ve seen the affliction of my people. I’ve heard their cry, I know their sorrows, and I’m come down to deliver. Them again, this is for the dark Knights of the soul brothers and sisters.

70. 30:35

    I’ve I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it, I know it and I’m come down to deliver. If you lose track of your faith. If you lose weight in your journey. This is the God who speaks to us. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it, I know about it, and I’m come down to deliver in the person of my son.

71. 30:55

    Come down to verse 11. Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt. And he said, I will be with thee, and this will be a token to thee. When I have sent thee, when thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God. On this mountain, in other words, you’re currently servants to Pharaoh, but when you come out of Egypt, you will be servants to me and you will serve God on this mountain. A phrase, incidentally, which is used more of Israel after they come out of Egypt than it is of them before they come out. So that trend of people serving other people through Genesis in the beginning of Exodus actually needs another line because of course Israel are going to leave Egypt to serve God at Mount Sinai.

72. 31:49

    They’re not coming out of Egypt to be free. They’re coming out of Egypt to serve again. In fact, they’ll go out in two stages, you remember, because the first stage was to go 3 days journey out and worship. That was how Pharaoh tried to swing it, wasn’t it? When he realized that there were problems brewing and he said, well, you could go out a bit and come back.

73. 32:08

    And Moses said no, we all going to go together and we’re going to go properly. Nobody is free. Everybody is serving or being subject to somebody else. Even even Pharaoh is a servant of the deities. Now we I. Don’t believe in Egyptian mythology. I don’t think you do either. But but, but in that, in that time, in that way, Pharaoh is subject to what the deities are saying.

74. 32:32

    In other words, brothers and sisters, Egypt is not painting a picture between slavery and freedom. It’s painting a picture between service in Egypt. And service to Almighty God. And that’s the point I’ve been at pains to try to get you towards that. That God is not interested only in freedom from something, as we talked about yesterday, but that he’s interested in freedom for something, for worship, for growth, obedience or joy or glory. Apologies for continually quoting non Christadelphians, but I read widely and sometimes I underline passages. David Foster Wallace gave a valedictory speech in 2005. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism, he said.

75. 33:20

    There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is not is what to worship. That is not the dominant narrative of 2025. That is not the dominant narrative that your kids are picking up in school, where freedom is understood as freedom from oppression or from constraint, where society says you can do anything you want with whoever you want, however you want, whenever you want.

76. 33:45

    Everybody worships. But I want freedom of speech. I want to be able to say what I want however I want, even if it demeans and degrades you because, well, you know, I’m free to say it, aren’t I? Or I want freedom to bear arms regardless of the potential body count. Or we talk about the free markets and yet don’t talk about the consequences of unfettered consumerism where everything is up for debate and I can buy anything I want.

77. 34:13

    Or I am free in my sexuality to explore and sleep with anybody I want to, because, you know, who cares about the consequences on other people. And society is mature and progressive when that goes on, and it’s traditional and backwards and limited when it doesn’t.

78. 34:28

    Everybody serves, Everybody worships. The only choice you get is what to worship. Scripture tells an altogether different story of what freedom looks like. God cares about what you say because His will, His words, brought the galaxies into being, and He knows that certain words can send people into counseling for the rest of their lives. God cares about who we sleep with because He cares about the people doing the sleeping.

79. 35:01

    Freedom isn’t absence of responsibility. It’s it’s not license. It’s defined by responsibility. It’s defined by those very broad guardrails that we talked about in Exodus in Genesis chapter 2 yesterday. Freedom principle number six, service to no one is not an option. Everybody serves. Whether you’re in Egypt serving Pharaoh or whether you’re on the mountain serving God, everybody serves.

80. 35:31

    It’s what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 6. Thanks be to God that you who once were slaves to sin have become slaves to righteousness. And Scripture is is full of the consequences of our faith, the fact that our faith demands us not merely to believe something, but to live out our discipleship in trembling and in fear. Need to get these slides slightly darker for tomorrow, don’t I?

81. 36:00

    But I’ll read the words to you. Paul says in Ephesians 2, By grace you have been saved. You’ve been created in Christ for good works, not just that you have been saved, but that you have been created to do something specific, to live out your discipleship in a particular way. Paul says to the Corinthians, the love of Christ controls us or constrains us. The impact of his of his love makes us live in a particular way.

82. 36:27

    It makes us treat people in in certain ways. Paul says to Titus, the grace of God has appeared training us to renounce ungodliness and live self controlled, upright, godly lives zealous for good works. There is a consequence to what you believe. To use a a bumper sticker expression doctrine is something that you do.

83. 36:51

    It’s not just something that you believe, it’s something that has an impact on us. What are the consequences, brothers and sisters, of believing that God is 1, not 3? What are the consequences of believing in the promises? What are the consequences of believing that sin is my fault and not that I can outsource it to somebody else and blame them?

84. 37:09

    We are created in Christ for good works. Don’t misunderstand me. If Christianity, if the gospel is not freeing, then it’s nothing, right? But it does not mean that everything that our world calls freedom is what God calls freedom. We’re not just talking about individual, external stuff that might oppress you from the outside, but understanding that there is something on the inside from which we need to be freed.

85. 37:39

    Who’s read the Narnia stories? Thank you. Two people. Yes. OK, You can. It’s OK. There’s no shame here. You can admit it. Remember the line, the witch and the wardrobe? That that When? When Aslan is taken by the witch and, and, and is bound to the table and, and killed, and it’s the CS Lewis’s picture of death and resurrection and it has its holes and all that kind of stuff.

86. 38:01

    But Aslan is bound to the table because she thinks that the way you control it is, is by limiting people. And she has no idea that there is this deeper magic that comes from beyond the dawn of time, that it’s not physical freedom that matters, it’s spiritual freedom. There is something bigger than just being tied down to something. That’s why Moses comes to the people with one specific request to let the people go three days journey to worship and then to go out all together because Egypt is associated with a lack of freedom to worship.

87. 38:29

    You can’t do what God wants when you are in Egypt. That’s why you have to come out and serve on the mountain. This is freedom principle number wherever we’ve got to seven. Freedom is not doing what you want, it’s doing what you were called to do. And all of those verses higher up on the screen just begin to bear that out.

88. 38:51

    Egypt is associated with a lack of freedom to worship, not a lack of just doing whatever the heck I please. And isn’t it therefore ironic, deeply ironic, that all of the pleas from the Israelites to go back into Egypt during the wilderness journey are all couched in freedom language? Everything they say is about going back in that way.

89. 39:19

    Exodus chapter 14, They’re just, they’re just to keep us moving through. We wanted to serve in Egypt rather than to die in the wilderness, which is a ridiculous expression. But you and I say that in our deepest hearts every day, much rather serve sin than die with God. What a preposterous expression. And yet we hold to it far more than we should.

90. 39:43

    In Exodus 32, where we’ve got the golden calf is incident. Moses comes down the mountain and he breaks the tables of stone under his feet. They are described specifically as having broken loose. It’s freedom language again. They have. They have tried to make themselves no longer servants to God. They’ve tried to become free under their own ways.

91. 40:03

    I just threw it in and out It came and it now it looks like a golden calf. Numbers 11. When there is no water and the people are hungry, we ate freely in Egypt. We had the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlics and the cucumber. Didn’t eat freely in Egypt at all.

92. 40:20

    But that’s the way they’re describing their past experiences. And later on in Numbers 11, you remember that’s when the quail comes down and it gets stuck in their teeth and they get sick. Numbers 11 talks about the quails as having been gathered without limits, and it’s almost as if we were meant to see a contrast between the, the quail gathered without limits that made people ill and the manner that had this specific quota. You remember 2 owners per person per day. It was a, it was a, it was a limit that they were to gather. And by some miracle, everybody had precisely that amount. In Exodus 16, when the people are left of their own devices and they get to get what they want, everybody gets sick. And all the way down in Nehemiah, when we’re told that they appointed a Captain Cora, I think they were not just going back to Egypt.

93. 41:08

    They were going back to bondage. We don’t like God’s guardrails. We don’t like being free in the way that He describes it. Exodus chapter 4, please. Exodus chapter 4 and verse 22. You shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord Israel is my son, even my first born. And I say to thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me. And if I refuse to let him go, I will slay thy son, even thy first born.

94. 41:47

    We don’t like guardrails. Not even Pharaoh likes guardrails. Pharaoh’s big mistake, my brothers and sisters, was not his immigration policy, it was not his HR policy, it was not his employment policy. It was making somebody else’s son work for him. When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son. Pharaoh is the son of Rah.

95. 42:14

    When he when he died, he will become divine. And all of the plagues one by one are systematically undermining his his quote sonship as one of the sons of the deities. So at the end of the plagues, in the darkness of Passover night, when Israel has been sorry, when Egypt has been uncreated and left as the beginning of Genesis 1, it’s like it’s without form and void.

96. 42:38

    There is blackness everywhere. Suddenly everything has been turned back on itself again, and the plagues are employed to show Pharaoh who has got dominion. Is it the first born son of Pharaoh, the son of the Egyptian God? Or is it the first born son of Yahweh out of Egypt? I called my son John chapter 8 just to finish, please.

97. 43:03

    John chapter 8 connects us up to Abraham as well, doesn’t it? You remember we talked about Mariah yesterday where Abraham goes to offer his son and and the challenge for the challenge. That’s a silly word, the that the great task that Abraham is given. It’s not so much the sacrifice of his son, but the journey that he makes knowing that he’s going to give his son back to God, realizing that Isaac is not his.

98. 43:32

    But gods, and that’s the realization process that Pharaoh never comes to John chapter 8. Where do I want to bring you? It’s going at verse 31. Jesus said to the Jews who believed on him. If you continue in My word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. And they answered him.

99. 43:59

    They answered him. We are Abraham’s seed. And we were never in bondage to anyone. How can you say we shall be made free? Did it make any sense? And that dialogue is going to continue, isn’t it? Truly? I say to you, the Lord says whoever commits sin is the servant of sin, and the servant does not abide in the house forever, but the Son abides forever.

100. 44:23

     If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I know you’re Abraham’s seed, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I by contrast, speak that which I have seen with my father, and you do things which you have seen with your father.

101. 44:46

     And they answered him and said, well, Abraham’s our father. And Jesus said, if Abraham were your father, if you were Abraham’s children, you would do the work of Abraham. And he goes on to say, doesn’t he? Verse 44 You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. We have never been in bondage before is the great lie that you tell yourself.

102. 45:07

     And I tell myself we have never been in captivity. I have always been able to do it myself. I do not need shackles. I want to go out and do whatever I choose. And I just suggest to you, brothers and sisters, if you continue to insist it, and if I continue to tell myself that in my private moments that then we haven’t repented. Because I’m absolutely convinced that all of my sin is still somebody else’s fault.

103. 45:32

     I’m not mine. And it goes to the very heart of our key doctrines, doesn’t it? That we are sin prone and that we need redemption, Not that we can be our best selves if only we can get everything else out of the way. Not that my lack of ability to be my authentic self is just the frameworks and the structures and the other things that get in the way of me. Because if the barriers are the only problem, then everything must be right with me.

104. 45:59

     And we know very well that that is not the case. 2025 has got some, some real problems. There is division in this country, there is division in my country, there is division across most of the Western world at the moment. It’s why things are so utterly dysfunctional. So you can never get anything done.

105. 46:21

     And there was this conflict going on between, or so it seems we are being told this between, you know, me and my choices and the artificial forces of society. And I am born good, so the theory goes. But I am tricked by Big Pharma and Big government and civilization itself and all of these other issues into some living something short of my best life.

106. 46:40

     And all I need is to get these things out of the way and I’ll be able to be who I should be. Get rid of the external barriers, and success will naturally follow.

107. 46:49

     And it ain’t true. That’s how dictators. Come to power, actually. By saying that other people are to blame for the job market, other people are to blame for the crime levels. Because after all, if we’re Born Free, then the fault must be somebody else’s. We are not Born Free. Brothers and sisters, whatever you are being told, you are literally not Born Free.

108. 47:07

     You are literally born tethered to somebody else. Everything from the very moment of your birth tells you that you are not Born Free, even though the narrative goes in completely the opposite direction. Why is that so important? Because because any rehab patient will tell you that you can’t get through rehab until you realize what you are sick with. You can only come through it if you’ve identified what the problem is.

109. 47:34

     We’ve only recognized our discipleship and understood what God is telling us if we realize that the issues with our freedom come from here. Not that I can farm it out and somebody else and blame them. I saw. I forget who I said this to on Saturday. So somebody in my gym wearing, not my gym, in the gym I go to randomly because I think I’m unfit.

110. 47:56

     Saw somebody in that gym wearing AT shirt and it said I can’t hear you because of how epic I am. And I thought if that does not sum up everything I want to say in this series, I don’t know what does. I cannot hear you because of how epic I am. I need to fix me, and God will take care of the stuff on the outside because He’s in control of these things as He was for His people, as He was when He called them to be His servants on a mountain, as He was when the fire came down and Moses exceedingly feared and quaked and all of that great power and glory was shown on top of the hill.

111. 48:36

     Our task is to make the exit, the Exodus, louder in your life and mine. Our greatest threat to freedom comes from us, which is why, I suppose, when you think about it, delivering Israel from Pharaoh took 10 plagues, but delivering that first generation from themselves took 40 years because it was not as easy as just moving from one physical place to another. That’s why baptism matters, because it’s a memorial to freedom on God’s terms.

112. 49:08

     That’s why bread and wine matters, because it’s a memorial to freedom on God’s terms. That’s why the apostle Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom because he’s speaking in the context of Egypt and the Exodus. The God of Israel sets us free. The God of Exodus sets us free.

113. 49:31

     Free from sin, Free from the burdens of the law. Free to speak boldly, Free to enter the veil without fear. Free, perhaps above all, to serve in spirit and in truth.