10/4 - Exodus 30-37 - What Does Escape Look Like?

³⁰ in the night …

there was a loud cry in Egypt … 

³¹ Then [Pharaoh] … said …

“Go away from my people …

Take your flocks and your herds

… and be gone …” ³⁴ So the people took

their dough before it was leavened …

³⁵ [A]s Moses told them … they asked the

Egyptians for jewelry of silver and gold …

³⁷ The Israelites journeyed …

Exodus 12

 

Your journey to freedom is about to begin!

 

Please allow the Exodus Pattern to remind you of four important blessings as you embark on your road to greater freedom in life.

 

1

God will help you

escape your Pharaoh

(and whatever is

enslaving you).

 

Once you have cried out to God with all that is within you, trust that God will help you escape. Your heavenly Father’s deliverance may be as dramatic as the Passover. But it may also be as gentle as the still small voice that whispered to Elijah on his 1 Kings 17 mountain in the midst of this prophet’s despair. God’s deliverance may be a sudden as the parting of the Red Sea, or it may be as gradual as Israel’s conquering of the Promised Land was promised to be – “The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you.” If you have rust that God is working! In fact, start looking for the Lord’s movement – in big or small, sudden or gradual ways.

 

2

When God delivers,

you get to keep

your godly assets.

 

Just as Israel got to keep their own “flocks and herds” when they escaped Egypt, you get to keep your godly assets when God sets you free. Now … that doesn’t mean that God may not ask you to surrender something else along the way! And it doesn’t mean that you get to take everything you think you need – after all, the Israelites left with only half-baked bread. But in general, God-the-Provider will let you keep what you need for the journey and then he’ll provide you along the way with everything else you need.

 

3

Furthermore,

God promises to

enrich you further.

 

Israel had what they had – a few flocks, a few herds, the clothes on their backs, and a few days worth of bread. That’s what they had. But when you leave with God, he allows you to take Egypt’s “³⁶ silver and gold” and “³⁶ plunder.” Some of you are escaping very hard situations in your lives. Some of you, for example, have been victimized, abused. God has absolutely been grieving with you. It’s time to escape. And the Exodus pattern promises that God won’t let you leave empty handed! At the very least we will learn from our experiences; we’ll come out wiser and stronger. The trials you survived with God’s help will equip you to help others weather their storms. And when we choose to lay down the ancillary enslavements like bitterness, unforgiveness, and defeat, we become the rich ones (because it is our tormentors who are truly impoverished).

 

4

Your future blessings

will be greater than

what you’re seeing

at the moment.

 

The Israelites escaped so hurriedly that their first taste of freedom was eating the unrisen, unleavened cakes that they made with their own hands. It was a small victory at first. But there would come a future day when they would eat bread provided daily and graciously by God’s hands (manna). And there would come an even greater day when they – living in the land flowing with milk and honey – would feast fresh and risen bread. That’s the way freedom truly works. Each journey to newly freed territory is a foretaste of the greater feast that God promises for our lives. Indeed, God yearns to give you living bread, and “whoever eats of this bread forever.” ^{John 6:51}

 

5

Finally, Pharaoh won’t just

send you out saying, “Go”;

under God’s provision,

you’ll be sent forth to experience

the fullest expression of freedom:

“Go, worship the Lord”!

 

It’s tempting to stay in bondage. It’s tempting to try for a few days, struggle, and want to head back to Egypt. (The Israelites were constantly whining about going back to Egypt and their oppression.) But when God sets us free, the invitation isn’t just “Go,” it’s “Go and discover the greatest freedom: The joy of worshiping the one who sets you free.”

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who wants

to say, “Arrr!”

(I want to pirate Pharaoh

and plunder Satan live a life

that is rich and free)