Let My People Go!

Well, brethren, as we approach closer to the Passover season, there is a particular phrase in the Bible in the biblical account of the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt that's always stood out to me, and perhaps it has to you as well. It is a very meaningful phrase that's used several times in the Exodus account. Perhaps it could even be thought of as the battle cry of the Exodus, or perhaps the marching orders of those children of Israel coming out of Egypt. So what phrase is that I'm talking about? You may well remember. I'll give you a few hints. It's used nine times in the Bible, all of them in the book of Exodus. It was spoken first by Moses and Aaron to the Pharaoh of Egypt. They were actually quoting the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when speaking to Pharaoh. The phrase is just four words long. Only one of the four words is longer than three letters, and there are only 13 letters in the entire four-word phrase. So I'm sure some of you remember or recall what that phrase is. It's simply, let my people go. Let my people go. We're going to talk about what that means today. I'd like to answer a number of questions. Why did God want Pharaoh to let his people go? Also, in what manner did God let Israel go? Thirdly, what does the Passover have to do with Pharaoh letting God's people go? How did the children of Israel react to being let go from Egypt?

Is God still in the process of telling an evil spiritual Pharaoh to let my people go?

And what were the children of Israel to do upon being let go from Egypt? So first of all, let's answer the question, why did God want Pharaoh to let his people go? You may remember that Israel was in bondage to the Egyptians. You recall that Joseph, one of the children of Israel, had gone into Egypt and had actually risen to second in command of Pharaoh. He had been in prison for a while, but God delivered him out of prison, and God was working with Joseph to actually intervene for Egypt. There were great famines in the land. In fact, Jacob and all of his family ended up coming to Egypt because of the famine.

And there came a time after God basically spared Egypt because of the children of Israel, there came a time when they were concerned about how quickly the children of Israel were multiplying and were becoming more powerful than even the Egyptians. So in Exodus 1, verse 11, it says, Therefore they set taskmasters over them. There arose a Pharaoh who didn't know Joseph, as it says. He didn't respect what God had done through Joseph. This Pharaoh set taskmasters over the children of Israel to afflict them with their burdens.

They built for Pharaoh supply cities in Python and in Ramses, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they grew, and they were in dread of the children of Israel. They were afraid that if they ever went to war, the children of Israel might turn against them. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve them with rigor. They were harsh to them. They were very cruel to them. In fact, they began killing the boys, or at least they gave the order to have the midwives kill the sons that were born.

And so, they were certainly turning against the children of Israel. And if we go to Exodus chapter 2, we'll see that they began to cry out to God because of all the bondage and the harshness that was upon them. In verse 23 of chapter 2 of Exodus, it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died, and then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage. And they cried out, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. Now, certainly God had not forgotten this covenant. It's just the way the Bible terms it here, but God had certainly not forgotten this covenant.

When God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them, remember the covenant that God had made with Abraham, that He would lead the children of Israel to a promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So they were crying out to God, and God was compassionate to their cries. If we go to chapter 3, verse 6, and this was at the account of the burning bush, when God appeared in a burning bush to Moses, in verse 6 of chapter 3, Moreover, He said, I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Now, this was actually the one who became known as Jesus Christ, because Christ clearly said that no one had seen the Father at any time. But this was an account of actually the one who became Jesus Christ. Many people don't understand that, they don't grasp the fact that Christ had a pre-existence. He was actually the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, essentially the God of the Old Testament.

However, God the Father is mentioned some in the Old Testament, but it's primarily about the one who became Jesus Christ. Now, if we continue reading here, verse 7, And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows, so I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

So, again, God was concerned, He was compassionate toward their pleas, He cared for them, He loved them, so He was going to bring them up out of Egypt. Verse 8 again, chapter 3, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Amorites, Parazites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Then let's go forward to Exodus, chapter 5, and let's notice verse 1. Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus does the Lord God of Israel let my people go. This is the first place that this key phrase is used, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

Of course, they were going to go actually to keep one of God's annual holy days, so that they might hold a feast to me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Eternal, the Lord, nor will I let Israel go. So they said, The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.

Then the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work get back to your labor? So the Pharaoh actually made things harder than for the children of Israel. They would no longer be given straw to make brick. So, in a sense, initially it backfired on Moses and Aaron. When they went to get help, they actually ended up having to work harder than ever. But God was beginning to deliver them at that time, and God was testing Moses and Aaron as well, whether or not they would do what he asked.

Verse 17, the Pharaoh said, You are idle, idle. Therefore, you say, Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. So, initially, Pharaoh was not responsive to this cry of, Let my people go. Pharaoh was biting back, you might say, tooth and nail. He didn't want to let his forced slave labor go. Of course, God wanted Pharaoh to let his children go, because he loved them. He did not want them to continue to suffer under the hands of the Egyptians.

So, what does this mean to us today from a spiritual perspective?

Well, brethren, we know that the nation of Egypt is actually symbolic of sin. It was a very pagan country. They worshipped the sun god. They worshipped a variety of gods. They were not worshiping the true god. So, Egypt is symbolic of sin. These people were just filled up with sin, you might say. In Egypt, God no longer wanted his children around that influence. He wanted them out of there. Today, the same thing is true. We have a spiritual Pharaoh, so to speak, called Satan the Devil, who still has blinded this whole world and has kept the entire world in oppression. Satan is the one that is the cause of many of the great evils in the world today. Now, we've helped, human nature has helped, by bringing about a lot of these curses as well, because we have not been faithful to God. We've been disobedient to God. We haven't done what God said to do. We haven't kept his commandments.

So, we paid a price for that. But Satan also has a lot of blame to bear in all of this.

God obviously isn't calling the vast majority of people today out of the world, but he still wants to let his people go. Those he is calling today, God wants Satan to let go. But Satan still hangs on, just like the Pharaoh of old tries to hang on to his people. I dare say that all of us would agree that Satan still is actively tempting us. He's still actively trying to destroy us spiritually.

Satan doesn't want us to succeed spiritually. He wants us to fail. He wants us to give in and to give up. So, it is very important that we realize that a lot of these parallels that took place back in ancient Egypt still apply today. Satan is the Pharaoh, the evil Pharaoh that's trying to hang on to you, and he doesn't want you to escape from him. He wants you to be in bondage.

Again, the Bible clearly shows that God loves us. In fact, he sent his own son to die for us.

Again, he's not calling everyone now. Even though God does love the whole world, right now not everyone is God's people. Now, only those elect that God is working through are, in the fullest sense, God's people. Those are the ones that he's concerned about Satan letting go at this time. Sin causes a great deal of suffering, and of course, ultimately, it leads to destruction and it leads to death. God wants his people to be free from the effects of sin. He does not want us to be in bondage to sin. First of all, he wants us to stop sinning. When God's people stop sinning, then things really improve a great deal because sin does bring curses upon us. When we disobey God, then we open ourselves up to various curses. The Bible talks about those curses. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. I'm not going to take the time to go there, but it catalogs what's going to happen to those who choose to sin.

And this world is filled with the effects of sin. The world we live in every day is filled with the effects of sin. Sin has taken a great toll on us. You can go back and read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, and it tells you of all the human heartache that would happen when people continue to sin.

If we're honest, we can see that that's what's still in effect today. Those things are still in effect. Those curses are still in effect. Satan is still the God of this world.

Satan hasn't let go of the vast majority of the world, and he doesn't want to let go of any of us. He doesn't want to let go of you. He wants to keep you in bondage. But God is wanting us to be free. So again, the answer to the first question, why did God want Pharaoh to let his people go, is because that's a part of God's plan.

God is calling some people today. He's calling an elect. He's calling those who are among the firstfruits, Christ being the firstborn among many brethren. He's calling others at this time as well.

And he wants us to be free. First of all, he wants us to stop sinning, and then he also wants us to be able to have the sacrifice of Christ applied on our behalf when we do sin. Because being in the flesh, we're still subject to sin, we're subject to temptation. There are times, even though we strive against sin, we try not to sin, we still find ourselves doing things that we wish we hadn't, as the apostle Paul found himself at times doing things that he didn't want to do, or not doing things that he knew he ought to do. And we're in the same boat that Paul was in. So it's wonderful to know that there is repentance in Christ Jesus when we repent of our sins, when we're truly sorry for the sins that we commit, and we ask God to forgive us and to apply the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, then we can know that we are free from sin. We're free from the penalty of sin. The penalty of sin is ultimately eternal death. And we're free from that penalty when we've accepted Christ as our Savior, when we've repented of the sins that we commit, and when we continue to fight the good fight, when we continue to fight the battle and we don't give in, and we continue to do our part, when we stumble or sin, when we get up and we keep going, we ask for forgiveness, we strive against sin, and we try to do those things that are pleasing to God, then we are free from that death penalty. As long as God's Spirit is dwelling in us and working in us, we are free of that death penalty, that ultimate death penalty. So that answers the first question.

Let's go on to a second question. In what manner did God let Israel go? In what manner? In other words, how did He let Israel go? And in what way? Well, I think we all understand that God led them out with great miracles and with great power. Now, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God has led you out of bondage through great miracles. God has opened your mind to truth, to understanding. He has granted you repentance. He has shown you a better way, a better way to live. So God is working miraculously in your life today, in some ways, in the same manner as He did back at the time of ancient Israelites when they came out of Egypt.

Now, there were certainly some physical interventions that God did back in those times. In fact, let's go to Exodus 3. Let's notice a promise that God made. Exodus 3, verse 16.

Exodus 3, verse 16, Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen what is done to you in Egypt. And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Parazites, Hivites, Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then they will heed your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt. And you shall say to him, The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us.

And now please let us go three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. But I am sure, in verse 19, that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand, and I will strike Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in its midst. And after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. And it shall be when you go out that you shall not go out empty-handed, but every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely of her, who dwells near her house, articles of silver, gold, clothing. And you shall put them on your sons and your daughters, so you shall plunder the Egyptians. So God was going to miraculously work so that the Israelites would even plunder Egypt on the way out that they would give them gold and silver, and they would want them out of their country. But God promised to do wonders and miracles. Now, in Exodus 5, verse 22, Exodus, chapter 5, verse 22, so Moses returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? This was after Pharaoh was actually making it harder for the children of Israel, rather than just letting them go. He was going to make it tougher on them. And Moses says, Why is it that you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people. Neither have you delivered your people at all. So Moses was being pretty blunt with God, and God was very gracious to allow Moses to talk to him in that way. The Eternal said to Moses, Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of this land.

And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. Now let's read a little bit further. I am the Lord.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name, Eternal, or Lord, I was not known to them. I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant. Therefore, say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as my people. I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as a heritage. I am the Eternal, the Almighty, the all-powerful One, and that is the manner in which God used to deliver the children of Israel.

Let's go to Exodus 7, as God begins to pour out plagues upon Egypt, one after another.

Exodus 7, verse 14, so the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, when he goes out to the water, and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him, and the rod which was turned to a serpent, you shall take in your hand. And you shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness, but indeed, until now, you would not hear. Thus says the Lord, by this, you shall know that I am the Lord. Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that are in the river shall die, the river shall stink, and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the waters of the river. And that is exactly what happened. That was the first plague, that God turned the waters to blood. In Exodus chapter 8, verse 1, we see the second plague. And the Eternal spoke to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and say to him, Let my people go, that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all your territory with frogs. Now, at first thought, you might think, Well, that's not that big of a deal. A lot of frogs. Well, this was a whole lot of frogs.

This wasn't just a little bit of frogs. This was a bunch of frogs. This was a miraculous thing. And I think I've probably shared with you that when I was a child growing up in northwestern Ohio, we had a creek about a half a mile from our home. And there was one particular summer where we had a plague of frogs. I'd never seen before that time or since, I've never seen so many frogs in my life. But these were tiny frogs. They were not big frogs. I have a feeling a lot of these frogs back in Egypt were a lot bigger, and they stunk a whole lot more when they died.

And, you know, that was just, for me, a little taste of what it might have been like, a very small, very tall, tiny taste. Because we had a great time catching frogs that summer, though.

There were so many frogs. But let's go on and continue here in chapter 8.

So, the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into your house, into your bedrooms. Now, wait a minute. That doesn't sound so good.

How would you like a bunch of frogs in your bedroom?

On your bed, not just in the bedroom, but inside the sheets. On your bed, into the houses of your servants, on your people, into your ovens.

Okay, now you're cooking frogs, whether you want to or not.

And into your kneading bowls. So, you know, getting down in your kneading bowls where you knead the different things that you use to make whatever, cakes or bread or different things.

And the frogs shall come up on you, on your people and all your servants. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, said to Aaron, stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt. So Aaron stressed out his hand, and sure enough, the frogs came.

Now, the magicians also were able to bring up some frogs, which is, Satan is powerful and Satan can do some things, and God allows Satan to do some things.

Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, and treat the eternal that he may take away the frogs from me and my people, and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord. Now, that's what he said, but of course he wasn't willing to do that. So that was the second plague, lots of frogs. And notice verse 14, well, Moses did cry out to God and God intervened because of the frogs. And verse 13, the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courtyards, out of the fields. They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.

But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the Lord had said. And then God brings the third plague of lice.

Now, that one seems worse to me than frogs. Frogs are bad, but lice is worse.

I've never had lice. I don't think I've ever had lice. It seems like there was lice in the house once when I was a child. I'm telling on myself. Now, this was way back, and I was a young... I remember Mom washing all of her heads and making his foot stop. I don't think I ever got him, though. I don't remember. I think one of my other brothers had lice, and I think we staved it off before I ever got it. But, you know, I used to work in the schools, and I would go into a school once in a while, and they would be having a lice problem. This was the third plague. There was lice everywhere. Verse 18, Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not.

They were not able to bring forth lice. So the magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. But Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said. And then the next plague is that of flies. And by the way, many of these plagues, perhaps all of the plagues, were reminiscent of some of the Egyptian gods.

I know at least some of the Egyptian gods were in the form of frogs. They were in the form of flies.

And so, undoubtedly, God was using this as a way to show that he had power over all the gods of Egypt.

So the fourth plague was flies. And this was, I was living in Michigan at the time when there was a plague of flies that came onto our new home that we had just purchased.

I had never seen so many biting flies before. There were lots of flies in our garage.

It didn't last long, but it was, again, just a tiny reminder to me of what it might have been like to have many millions and billions of more flies to contend with. So flies was the fourth plague.

The fifth plague was livestock. God was bringing pestilence upon the livestock.

The sixth plague was boils. And you could go back and read the various accounts of the pestilence upon the livestock of the Egyptians. God was making a difference between the Egyptians and also the Israelites at this time because these plagues were not coming upon the Israelites' livestock. God was ferrying their livestock, but he was killing the livestock of the Egyptians. So there were boils on the Egyptians as well and all of their beasts in the sixth plague. And then the seventh plague was hail, and God was pouring out hail. And I do remember, by the way, one hailstorm that got caught in when I was a child. I remember that hail was big. They were like almost golf ball size. It was no fun getting whack in the back with a golf-sized hailstone. Of course, this plague of hail was much, much worse, obviously. There were great plagues of hail that were pouring down upon the Egyptians and ruining their crops, decimating their crops. In Exodus 10, it talks about the eighth plague, which was that of locusts. And then, of course, darkness was the ninth plague. Locusts and darkness, eighth and ninth plague, chapter 10. Again, swarms and swarms of locusts everywhere. So these were signs and wonders that were meant to send a clear message that God meant business and that Pharaoh was supposed to let the children of Israel go. Of course, Pharaoh claimed that he would let them go time after time, but he recanted and would not let the children of Israel go.

And in fact, it wasn't until the tenth plague, the plague upon the firstborn of Egypt, that God actually moved in such a mighty way that the Pharaoh finally did let the children of Israel go. Let's go to Exodus 13, where we see that God begins to lead them out miraculously by night.

Exodus 13, verse 21, And the Eternal went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light so as to go by day and night. So again, this was miraculous. God was obviously showing his power and his might by being in the cloud and by being in the pillar of fire by night. Verse 22, He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, which would bring relief to them because it was very hot days. They were able to travel by day because of the cloud, and then the pillar of fire to lead them at night and to also give them warmth.

So God was leading them out of bondage miraculously.

In Exodus 14, we see that Pharaoh begins to pursue the children of Israel.

Exodus 14, verse 4, God says, God says, God says, God says, and they did so. They went to the children of Israel and told them what God was going to be doing.

So it was told to the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, that the people had fled, and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people.

And they said, why have we done this? That we have let Israel go from serving us.

So he made ready his chariot and took his people with him.

Pharaoh still didn't realize fully that God was going to protect his children no matter what, but Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he wasn't thinking logically.

Of course, these were miraculous things that were happening, supernatural things that Pharaoh wasn't used to.

No, he wasn't used to God intervening like this and showing his power over Egypt. And he kept thinking, I guess, that God would eventually not be there, that God wouldn't intervene and do anything, and that Pharaoh would continue as the most powerful being on earth.

Of course, that wasn't the case, and God was determined to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Verse 8, Verse 9, The eternal hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel, and the children of Israel went out with boldness.

So the Egyptians pursued them in verse 9, chapter 14 of Exodus, all the horses and the chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and he overtook them, camping by the sea.

And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, so they were very afraid.

And the children of Israel cried out to the eternal.

They cried out to God, and also they complained. They said to Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us to bring us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness? So all of the children of Israel were not as believing as Moses was in regard to God's promise.

Some of the children of Israel were lacking faith. Of course, we understand that. In fact, we know that the majority of them did lack faith. They really didn't trust in God. They didn't believe in God.

It was really a small minority who really had faith in God.

Verse 13, And Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today, you will see again no more forever. The Eternal will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.

So Moses told him just to stand still and watch God's deliverance, that God would fight for them.

Certainly, God was going to do that, but the Eternal looked at it a little bit differently.

He said to Moses, Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.

God does want us to do our part as well. Even though God will fight the battle for us, God wants us to move forward.

God wants us to do our part in being obedient toward Him and in stepping out in faith. So don't just stand still and expect God to do everything for you.

God will deliver you out of Egypt. He will deliver you out of sin and bondage.

But there is a part that you need to do.

You need to react and to act upon the things that God is revealing to you.

Remember, the Scripture says many are called, but few are chosen.

And the reason why so many are not chosen is because they don't respond.

They don't follow through on God's call. They get sidetracked.

They let the cares of this world, the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and so forth, get in the way to blind them spiritually so they don't respond.

Maybe they respond for a while for a time. They seem so excited.

In fact, being a minister, I've met a lot of people that seemed very excited at first. God was calling them. They were beginning to understand the truth of God. They were beginning to understand God's plan of salvation. And for a while, they were really, really excited.

But because that spiritual Pharaoh, who is the God of this world, didn't want them to continue forward in faith, he began to work more diligently in their lives. And he began to get them to doubt. He began to get their minds off of those things that they were so excited about. And instead, some of them began to worry about having to work on the Sabbath, for example. Instead of continuing in faith, believing that God would take care of them no matter what, they began to look to their own human reasoning. And they began to doubt. They began to get discouraged. And so not everyone responds. Many are called, few are chosen, because it's only a few that will step out in faith. Just like Joshua and Caleb were the two spies who stepped out in faith, all the other spies were unfaithful. They were unbelieving. They didn't tell the people to go in and take the Promised Land. They told them they were too weak to go in and possess the Promised Land. Joshua said, and Caleb said, we have God on our side. It doesn't matter how big the giants are in Canaan. If we have God on our side, He's more than enough to give us victory. So they didn't trust in God. They didn't believe in God. They didn't have faith in God. So only those who have faith in God and continually walk forward.

God wants us to move forward. He doesn't want us to take it easy or rest on our laurels and just think that He has to do everything for us. Yes, God is the one that will give us ultimate victory. We are saved by grace. We're not saved by anything that we do. But on the other hand, we're not going to be given the gift of eternal life if we're not willing to step out in faith and do our part. We still don't earn it because the wages of sin is death. And that's, frankly, what we've all earned. And I'm talking about eternal death. That's what we've all earned because the wages of sin is eternal death. God is perfect. He's never sinned.

God has life in Him, life inherent. He's the giver of life. He gives us life on His terms.

That's really what it amounts to. God gives us life on His terms.

We don't deserve life. We don't deserve eternal life. It is a gift that God gives us.

So Moses said, Stand still. God says, Move forward. Tell the children of Israel to go forward. Lift up your rod. Stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.

And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.

And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, that they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all of his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.

God is going to do that again, isn't He? God has, for the most part, been rejected in the world today. There are many, many atheists who don't even believe in God, and they've accepted evolution without a God. They don't believe that there was a God who started it. It was just some random big bang. So they don't give God honor. They don't look to the Creator. They don't honor God. And there will come a time, just before Christ's return, when God will also act in miraculous ways to bring people to their knees. Just like He decimated Egypt, He's going to decimate this earth in a greater way. The book of Revelation goes through plague after plague after plague, that God is going to pour down upon this world because of its sins.

So there are great parallels with what's going to happen in the future and what has already happened in the past. And when we come to Passover, we should reflect on those lessons that God wants us to learn. And so today we're talking about some of those lessons. There are many more.

So Pharaoh did pursue the children of Israel. If we go now to verse 30 of the same chapter, Exodus 14, and I'm skipping over the account where the Egyptians rushed into the water, or they actually rushed into the water, which is on both sides in the beginning. But as the army gets further and further into the river, the river begins to come down upon them. The river collapses, and they're drowned in the river. Verse 30, So the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Thus Israel saw the great work of the Lord, and they believed the Lord and His servant Moses. So to a degree, for a short time anyway, the people feared God and they believed God, but unfortunately it didn't last. So God brought them out in a miraculous way.

And God is working in your life miraculously to bring you out of bondage. John 644 is where Christ says, No man can come to me except the Father draws him. God is drawing a select few, not because of their own goodness, because God clearly said that He has called the weak and the foolish of the world. That's whom God has called, that He might confound the mighty in due time. I'm sure many people will be confounded that we really knew what we were talking about.

There will come a time when our neighbors will be shocked to find out that, wow, they really did know what they were talking about. I thought they were crazy.

So God is drawing a person to Christ, and Christ is revealing the Father to that person. These are miracles. You are here today out of a very small group in a city of about a half a million people. We draw from about a half a million people here in Tulsa. There are a few other groups that observe the Sabbath and God's annual Holy Days, and there are others that are converted in this area. But if you put them all together in one room, it would still be a very, very small number of people from a percentage-wise that God is working with.

Most people don't buy what you've bought into. They don't buy it. They don't believe it. They don't see it the same way. They reject it. They think you're fanatical. They think you've lost your mind. Well, these are miracles. If you understand it, it's because God is working a miracle in your mind. So that answers the second question. In what manner? In a miraculous manner, God is delivering us from Egypt. Another question. What does the Passover have to do with the Pharaoh letting God's people go? Well, it was only after the 10th plague, the one in conjunction with a Passover. Remember, God passed over the children of Israel. And so their children, their firstborn, did not die that fateful night. Anyone who had the blood of the Lamb on the lintels and on the doorposts was passed over. But those in Egypt who did not have the blood of the Lamb on their doorposts, they lost their firstborn. Their firstborn died. And that was a devastating plague to have the firstborn wiped out. How many of you are firstborns? Do we have any firstborns here?

Okay, and then in your family, there are firstborns, right? I mean, you may not be a firstborn, but you have a brother or a sister who was a firstborn. You have a mom or dad who was firstborn.

So that would be a devastating plague in your family to have the firstborns all killed, to have them all die.

In Acts 4, verse 12, it says, There is no other name by which we may be saved, but only through Jesus Christ may we be saved. There is no other name. A lot of people still want you to believe that every road leads to heaven, right? The Baptists, the Catholics, the Hindus, the Buddhists, eventually it all leads to what they consider heaven.

Not according to what the Scripture says. You know, the Scripture says it's only those who accept Christ as their Savior, who come to understand the true Christ and accept Him and also repent of their sins. That's another part of accepting Christ and believing in Christ is to do what He did. Christ said, If you love Me, keep My commandments.

So Christ is our Passover Lamb who shed His blood for us.

So the Passover has an awful lot to do with letting God's people go. In fact, those who do not keep the Passover the way that God intends will not be in that first resurrection.

Only those who keep the Passover in the way that God intends.

Only those who have accepted Christ as their Savior and are repentant of their sins, who have gone under the waters of baptism, who have accepted Christ again as their Savior and have faith in Christ in that Passover Lamb. 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7. Let's go there briefly.

1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7.

1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7. Therefore purge out the old leaven. And again, leaven is symbolic of sin. That's why we keep the days of unleavened bread and we put leaven out of our homes.

Because leaven is symbolic of sin.

So purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump.

Since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Christ is our Passover. He was sacrificed for us. The Lamb that was slain was kept up until the 14th and slain. The Lamb without blemish. Of course, that's the Passover Lamb. That's Jesus Christ who is slain for us. Let's go on to another question. How did the children of Israel react to being let go from Egypt? Well, their initial reaction was to be afraid. When they were pursued, they became afraid and they didn't trust God. And, you know, there's many examples in the Bible that show they didn't trust God. They complained about not having adequate food, not having adequate water. God was with them in the wilderness. God was giving them water. He was giving them manna to eat. He was giving them quail to eat. But rather than being patient and waiting on God and, again, trusting God, they would begin to complain. The Israelites were known for their complaining. I already read when they were pursued, they became afraid. They did not trust God. And you remember the incident of the golden calf when they started bowing down and worshipping a golden image, you know, shortly after coming out of Egypt. Because Moses hadn't come down out of the mountain right away and they lost faith. They were steeped in paganism from living in Egypt and it wasn't long before they went back to it. Now, we were all steeped in paganism to some degree or another when God called us, to some degree or another, you know, because this whole world is steeped in paganism. So how have you been reacting from your deliverance from sin? Are you getting further and further away from the ways of this world? The Bible says, come out of her, my people. Come out of Babylon. Don't be affected by Babylon. But this world's influence is pervasive and it's becoming, I believe, more and more pervasive because of the entertainment that we can have 24-7 now. And a lot of it is just pure filth.

And there's a big mixture in between of good and evil. So it's very easy to be swayed by today's society and to get caught up in things that we shouldn't get caught up in and to get close to things we shouldn't get close to. So we need to be sure that we're not reacting as a lot of the Israelites did. In fact, the majority of the Israelites who did not have faith in God, they did not trust God, they did not believe God, they did not walk in faith.

Again, Satan will get those who don't have faith. Eventually, he will wear you down.

All right, let's go on to another question. We've got to wrap this up. Is God still in the process of telling a spiritual Pharaoh to let my people go?

Of course, God is still telling Satan to let my people go.

Satan is still holding on. Some of you have been in the church a long, long time, and you've seen people come and go in and out of the doors of the church.

You've seen people fall away. You've seen people at once very, very excited and seemingly just so converted, and yet they're not here today, and they fell by the wayside.

And some have been gone for a long time and have returned.

They went back to the vomit, but God was merciful, and God continued to work with them, and they repented, and now they're back on the right track again.

Satan is again alive. I won't say he's well, but he is alive.

He is still influencing people and trying to sway us in a number of different ways.

So God is still telling us to resist Satan. Remember what James says, chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, resist the devil. He will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

In John 10, verse 28, Christ says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. You know, Christ is more powerful than Satan, so it isn't... Christ is not going to allow that to happen. It's only you that can give in and give up. It's up to you, what you do with your calling. God doesn't force you to obey Him. God doesn't force you to stay faithful. It's your choice. Remember what Paul said after talking about the weaknesses of the flesh in Romans, chapter 7. He says, Who will deliver Me from this body of death? He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord. It's only through Christ that we will be forgiven our sins. So Passover is very meaningful. When we come to Passover, we commemorate the death of our Savior Jesus Christ, our Savior who shed His blood for us. One last question, and what were the children of Israel to do upon being let go from Egypt? What were they to do? One final scripture in Romans, chapter 6.

Romans, chapter 6. What are you to do? What am I to do? What are we to continue doing in order to be faithful to God? Romans, chapter 6, verse 16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one, slaves, whom you obey, whether of sin, leading to death, or of obedience, leading to righteousness. God says you're all going to have to be slaves, but you have to choose who you're going to be a slave to. Verse 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered or entrusted. And having been set free from sin, God has set us free from sin through the sacrifice of His Son that paid the penalty for our sins. Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. That's a good thing, to be a slave of righteousness, to strive, to obey God, and to keep His commandments. Now, some people have tried to earn their salvation by their own efforts. That won't work. It doesn't work. It can't work.

It's only through surrender to Christ that we can be given salvation.

You're not good enough. That's your problem. You're not worthy. You know, we talked about that last Passover season. Are you worthy to keep the Passover? No, you're not worthy. But, thankfully, Christ deems us worthy if we surrender to Him. But we are not worthy of Him by ourselves. None of us are. We all need Christ's sacrifice. He says, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death. So, again, sin leads to death, and we were all caught up in sin.

But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, it's okay to be a slave, but we need to be a slave of God. You have your fruit to holiness, and the end is everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

In Christ Jesus, our Lord. So, brethren, we ought to rejoice that we are now slaves of God.

We are not slaves of sin. We're not slaves of this evil Pharaoh of Satan the Devil, because by being a slave of God, we are truly set free. Remember, the truth shall set you free.

For the truth of God will make us free indeed. So, brethren, God has surely made the prevailing battle cry of the Exodus come true. God has indeed let my people go. You know, we are examples of people that have been let go. Satan no longer has that bond. He no longer holds us in bondage.

We have been let go. Now, it's important that we continue to be free, and that we continue to fight that good fight, never giving in to Satan because he will continue to battle with us. So, we have to fight back. We have to fight the good fight, but always having our faith in Jesus Christ, who is our Savior.