Let My People Go!

Thank you, Mr. Musgrove. Good morning, everyone. Happy Sabbath. Good to see all of you here today, and certainly good to see the ABC choir. Really enjoyed the special music. Quite a diverse group here. Really appreciate all the work that went into doing all those songs for us, and also all that the directors did in preparing them and getting them ready for this. So really appreciate that. I was thinking, as I was listening, that it was too bad that Mr. Musgrove wasn't here earlier, so he could be a part of the choir. We'll see. Maybe I'll find out if he can sing or not someday.

I did appreciate the comment about not destroying the house, too, as well. So we're looking forward to having the teens over tonight, though, and their parents will be lots of fun, I'm sure. Well, brethren, there's a particular phrase in the biblical account of the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt that has always stood out to me, and perhaps it has also stood out to you.

It is a very meaningful phrase that is used several times in the Exodus account. Perhaps it could even be thought of as the battle cry of the Exodus. Now, I'll give you some hints regarding the phrase. 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 of 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 what phrase do you think I'm talking about? Anybody think they know?

Okay, some hands, some hands, a few hands. So all of you who know, just say it. Let my people go. Exactly. Very good, class. Very good.

All right, that's right. Let my people go.

Now, who is God delivering from Egypt? Why did God want Pharaoh to let his people go?

In what manner did God let Israel go? 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 figurative Pharaoh, let my people go? And what were the children of Israel to do upon being let go from Egypt? Believe it or not, we're going to answer all those questions in today's sermon, even though I don't have much time. We may go a little over today, but we will blame ABC Choir for that. First question, who was God delivering? Well, we know it was the Israelites, right? The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who had been enslaved in Egypt. God was delivering his chosen people. We know he made a covenant with Abraham. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.

So God was truly calling these people out. He calls them my people. He says, now I know when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. Now, he knew that God was going to resurrect his son. I think that's pretty obvious by what it says in Hebrews, but nevertheless, he had the faith in God to do that, and he was willing to do that. So how about you? Does God know about your faith? Do you have the faith of Abraham? Now, in the book of Exodus, which you've hopefully been reading in preparation for the Passover, in chapter one, we see Israel was in bondage to the Egyptians. The Egyptians were harsh taskmasters who treated the Israelites very, very badly. They had forgotten how an Israelite, remember Joseph, had brought them out of famine and despair and had built Egypt into the greatest, most powerful nation on earth. In chapter two, we see that the Israelites were called out to God in their bondage. They also called out to God in their bondage. God heard them and God acknowledged them. And then in Exodus 3, we learn that God really desires to deliver them and give them a land flowing with milk and honey, a promised land that he had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And then in Exodus chapter five, we see the first place that this key phrase is used. So let's go to Exodus chapter five. We'll read it together. Exodus chapter five, verse one.

Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus says the eternal God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. So it was God who said, Let my people go. God wanted Pharaoh to let his people go primarily because he loves us. For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son. He loved the Israelites. They were his chosen people. He wanted them out of bondage, out of slavery. And he was going to shake heaven and earth to make that happen. God wanted Pharaoh to let them go because they had suffered long enough. They had been in Egypt for 400 years and lately they had been under great bondage. And so God heard their cries. He heard their prayers. And also it was time to fulfill a prophecy regarding the Israelites and the Promised Land.

So I hope that answers that question pretty well.

Why? Because he loved them and also noticed it was to serve God. He called them out to serve me. He loved them and he wanted them to serve him.

Next question, number three, I think. What does this mean to us today from a spiritual perspective? What we've been talking about. Well, again, God loves us and we are his call out once today. And frankly, we have all been in bondage, haven't we? We have all been in bondage. When God called us out of this world, Satan had us in bondage. He had enslaved us and we had to respond to our calling. Some of you may be in the process of that right now. You know, God is calling you. You're in bondage to some degree. If you're not baptized, in a sense, you are certainly under bondage because Satan is the one who wants to be your master. And until you make that choice, that you want the eternal God to be your master, in a sense, you're still in bondage. Now, you're a whole lot better off being here with us. That's for sure because God's looking out for you. You know, God loves you and God is very patient as we learn to turn to him and rely on him and learn to serve him. So from a spiritual perspective, it's very important that we all come out of bondage and that we stay out of bondage because Satan wants to bring us all back into bondage. He's intent on bringing us all back into bondage. Egypt is symbolic of sin. We have to come out of Egypt. We have to come out of our sins. We have to put them behind us. That's what the days of Unleavened Bread are all about. Putting that leaven out of our homes, out of our quarters, out of our vehicles, so that we get the lesson spiritually that God really wants us to take this seriously. He wants us to put sin out of our lives. In Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28, you recognize these chapters as the blessing and cursing chapters. God shows very clearly that there are blessings for obedience and righteousness, and there are consequences for sin. When we're in bondage to sin, there will be consequences. That sin will hurt us. It will be painful. So we're doing ourselves a great favor to learn to submit and to surrender to our Lord and to our Master and to God the Father.

God wants His people to be free. He wants us to be free from sin, free from bondage. He sent His Son to live and to die for us. He does grant us repentance. He does forgive sin upon true repentance. The righteousness of the righteousness of our Savior, Jesus Christ, is imputed on our behalf, and we shall be cleansed of sin. That's what this Passover is also all about, is being cleansed, having our sins washed away once again in the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

All right, let's go on to another question. In what manner, how and in what way did God let Israel go? Well, He led them out with miraculous intervention. He did not do it in a light fashion at all. He did it very miraculously. He showed His wonderful and powerful presence, and He delivered them with a great high hand.

If we go back to Exodus 3, and we're not going to for sake of time, but God promises to deliver them by His might, by His power, and by great wonders and miracles. He was going to make it very, very plain to the Egyptians that these were His people, and He was going to let them come out of bondage and not leave them in bondage any longer. Well, we know things got worse in the beginning because Pharaoh was hard-hearted, and Pharaoh did not like the fact that they were trying to leave because they were a tremendous force, you know, as far as building and working.

They just loved having them there do all the work, or a good bit of the work, in Egypt. So it got worse. They had to have the same quota of bricks, but now they had no straw. Remember that? So Moses wasn't looking too great at that moment, but he hung in there and he continued on because he knew God had promised that He was going to deliver them with tremendous power. In Exodus 7, we find the first plague that is poured out on the land of Egypt. Water is turned to blood. Now, there's an Egyptian god of the Nile River named Hapi, H-A-P-I. Also, another Egyptian god named Noom, K-H-N-U-M. This god was the guardian of the river. Osiris, another god, was one whose blood was supposedly the Nile River. So kind of strange, but that's the way it was. These pagan lands. So the first plague was to turn water to blood. The second plague, remember what that one was? Actually, there was a plague of frogs near my house back many years ago when I was about 10 years old. This little stream near our house was just inundated with thousands and thousands and thousands of frogs. I'd never seen it before and I never saw it afterwards. It was really strange. I don't know if I'd been praying that God would show me frogs or what exactly happened, but loaded with frogs. Now, they weren't giant frogs. I have a feeling these were pretty good-sized frogs, maybe bull frogs. Can you imagine the sound?

Throughout the land of Egypt with all these frogs. Now, there's an Egyptian goddess of fertility named Hecate. H-E-K-E-T. Guess what type of head this Egyptian goddess of fertility had? The head of a frog. That's right. You may have seen pictures of Hecate who had the head of a frog.

Now, in Exodus chapter 8, I think I will turn there just briefly. Exodus chapter 8, Notice, in the Lord spoke to Moses, Go to Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go. Nine times he says, Let my people go.

And then he says that they may serve me. See, that's what God wants you and I to do. He wants us to serve him. He wants us to surrender to him and to serve him completely and fully. That's why he's bringing us out of Egypt. So that is your calling. It is to serve God. And there are many ways to serve and you need to figure out how you can serve because that's why God's bringing you out of Egypt. That's why he's bringing you out of bondage. So if you're not very involved, it's time to get involved. You can do more. All right. The next plague was the plague of Lys, the third plague. Now, the magicians could not duplicate this plague. Somehow they were able to duplicate the other, the first two. Not sure how that happened. Satan, evidently involved in that, too. Or sleight of hand or something crazy. I don't know what was going on because I sure couldn't do it.

Now, the third plague, however, was Lys and the magicians could not duplicate this one. And there was an Egyptian god of the earth named Seb or Geb. I'm not making this stuff up. In fact, I've got a Barnes chart that I'm going to leave at the back table. And I didn't bring very many, but I'll make some copies and we'll get them in the back for you. Because it has all the names of these different gods. And I'm not mentioning all of them, even. There were lots of Egyptian gods. So, God had Aaron smote the land with his rod and Lys covered the land. Dust became Lys. Now, I won't ask a show of hands of who's had Lys out there, but my guess is some of you have had Lys.

When I was a kid, I can't remember. I don't think I had Lys, but someone in my family had Lys. And I don't know how they got it at school. It can get passed around pretty easy. And we had to go through that regimen, you know, all the stuff in the hair to kill the eggs and nasty.

So, the land was covered in Lys. The magicians could not duplicate that. That was an awesome sign. A wonder. Number four, the fourth plague.

And again, in Exodus 8 verse 20, it talks about, let my people go that they may serve me.

And the fourth plague was that of flies. Now, I was also hit with flies one year. Lots of flies. We had just moved into a new house. And I couldn't believe how many lousy flies there were. Thankfully, that was the only year that we had flies. So again, maybe I was praying that God would show me one of these plagues so I could identify a little more fully. So, the fourth plague was flies. And God was really beginning to make a difference now between Egypt and the children of Israel because the other plagues had hit the land of Goshen.

But now, God was going to really make a difference. And they were not going to hit the land of Goshen. Or the children of Israel any longer. And maybe that's because, you know, we're a part of Egypt sometimes. You know, we're flesh. The heart is deceitful above all, you know, of all things. It's desperately wicked. And so, we bring some plagues upon ourselves sometimes.

So, maybe that's one reason why God allowed some of those plagues to hit the land of Goshen. Now, the fourth plague was the plague of flies. I better get some water out. The plague of flies.

And this Egyptian god's name was Kepri. K-H-E-P-R-I. And I'll give you some sources of where I'm getting all these names here in a minute. But the flies, guess what this god had the head of? A what? Exactly, the head of a fly. But God was showing that he had tremendous power over the gods of Egypt. Even though it was the powerful, most powerful physical nation on earth, they could do nothing against the god of Israel. So, the Egyptian god of creation, Kepri, which also governed the movement of the sun, rebirth, had the head of a fly. Also, another god named U-Achet. U-Achet? Have you ever heard of that? U-Achet, who is considered the god of flies in Egypt. Now, the fifth plague, Exodus chapter 9, was pestilence on the livestock of all the Egyptians. Now, this god was Hathor, H-A-T-H-O-R, the Egyptian goddess of love and protection, usually depicted with the head of a what? Cow or a bull. Also, Apis, a god that was depicted with also the head of a cow or a bull. So, God was showing his power over Egypt once again, and there was pestilence on the cows and the bulls in Egypt and the sheep and the different livestock that were clean. I don't know what he did to the pigs and stuff like that if there were any around, but hopefully he killed them. All right, number next one. Sixth plague. This was boils on the Egyptians and their beasts, and the Egyptian goddess of medicine and peace was Isis. Also, Sekhmet was the S-E-K-H-M-E-T, not that you really care, but that was the goddess of epidemics and Imhotep, the god of healing. So, there were various gods in Egypt that had to do with this sixth plague. So, God sent boils on the Egyptians and on their beasts. There were no boils on the children of Israel. I bet they were really grateful that it didn't strike them in that way. Now, I'm going to throw in a bonus question. I never asked this question, but why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? I'm sure we've all wondered why, and there may be a number of reasons why, but I thought of something that to me makes sense. You know, Pharaoh is symbolic of Satan the devil, and Satan is more stubborn and more determined than human beings typically are. They give in more quickly. So, maybe he hardened Pharaoh's heart to show just how hard Satan is, just the type of heart that Satan the devil has, because he probably would have let him go sooner.

God wanted there to be 10 plagues for one thing. He wanted to, you know, he had a plan here that he was working out, but I've always wondered about hardening Pharaoh's heart. In some ways, it didn't seem fair, but on the other hand, he did represent Satan the devil, and Satan is very, very hard-hearted. All right, Exodus chapter 9 outlines the seventh plague. This was hail mixed with fire. Believe it or not, there's an Egyptian goddess of the sky named Nut. N-U-T. Maybe it's pronounced differently. Anyway, those who feared God were spared because they came out of the fields. You know, some were beginning to say, this God is powerful. If he says something, I'm going to start listening and do something about it. And so, some of them were spared because they did not go out in the fields. Again, this was not on the children of Israel. It was only on the Egyptians. Then the eighth plague was Seth. Seth was the Egyptian god of storms and disorders. And from the sky came locusts. Many, many locusts, millions and gazillions of locusts. Doesn't tell us exact number, but a lot of locusts came. And this was somewhat common that there would be locusts, but this was far worse than any locust plague they had ever seen. And God, again, was powerfully intervening to decimate the land of Israel. So, this there was another god also that depicted the locusts. That was Serapia, a deity who was to protect Egypt from locusts. I guess they had a lot of different gods for different purposes. This one was to protect Egypt from locusts. So, this directly showed power over the god Serapia. The ninth plague was the three days of complete darkness. Remember that? Three days of complete darkness. And Ra, the sun god, had no power at this time for three days. Of course, never had any power anyway because these gods are really nothing. You know, Satan's behind them, but the gods that people make up in their heads, they're nothing.

Three days of complete darkness. There was Amun-re, Aethen, Aetom, and Horus, all related to sun worship in the land of Egypt. And also, there was a moon god named Thoth. Darkness was representative of death, of judgment, and hopelessness. So, God allowed this to happen. Darkness, I mean, it was very frightening. This was a dark darkness that they had never ever experienced. And, you know, the sun is something you can count on. You know, it comes up every day. Now, I don't know. I mean, God obviously covered the sun, made it super dark, and He was certainly showing His power in a mighty way over the gods of Egypt. Now, the tenth plague, as we all know, was the plague of the firstborn. The firstborn in Egypt were to die, but Israel would put the blood of the lamb on the lamp posts, on the lentils of their homes, and God would pass over those doors. God would not allow the death angel, or whatever we want to call it, would not allow the eternal working. He would not allow this to happen for those who were covered by the blood, by the blood of the lamb. So Pharaoh was the ultimate god. You know, they had turned Pharaoh into a god. Now, Pharaoh was a man, but they in Egypt felt this was God manifested in the flesh.

And the most powerful god of all was the Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. He had all power. And his firstborn child died. His firstborn son died. And then finally, he let the children of Israel go. Now, some sources for what I've been sharing with you. You can go to Wikipedia, look up Egyptian gods, ancient Egyptian religion. It'll have these. There are articles like 10 Plagues for 10 Gods at stat.rice.edu.

There's another article, 10 Plagues for 10 Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, at a website called OWLCATION. The World History Encyclopedia talks about the 10 plagues of Egypt and mentions many of these gods. And then Richard H. Wilkinson wrote a book called The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. So there's lots of resources that you can go to to see that there really were gods of Egypt. And the God of Israel was showing his power over the gods in Egypt through these 10 plagues. So signs and wonders were to send a clear message that only the God of Israel has that kind of power. No one else. So we know that God miraculously led them out of Egypt and he appeared to them, he began to appear to them in a cloud by day and a fire by night.

And now Pharaoh, his heart hardened once again, comes after them. Really stupid. I mean, you would think by now he would just let it go. But he didn't want to let God's people go.

So he comes after them and the fire was keeping them away. God opens up the the Red Sea. They go through on dry land. You know the rest of the story. They were all drowned in the Red Sea. And Pharaoh pursued Israel and his armies into the sea. And I don't know if Pharaoh was watching up on the land like some movies depict, but we know that the army was decimated, the land of Egypt was decimated, and God had indeed let his people go. Now, even today, it is by God's miraculous intervention that his people are delivered from the bondage of sin. God is still working miraculously. And we know in the book of Revelation, we're going to see more plagues poured out on the earth, one after another after another after another, to decimate the earth at that time. But even now, God is miraculously working in people's lives. God began to work in my life in a miraculous way at age 18, maybe even before that. And he's working in your life as well. Let's go to John chapter 6.

John chapter 6. We'll see that God is calling us. It's not happenstance that you're here today.

It's because God has called you and you have responded. John chapter 6. And that's because you are to serve the Eternal. You are his called out ones, and you are to serve the Eternal. So in Exodus chapter 6, I'm sorry, John chapter 6, John chapter 6 verse 43, Jesus therefore answered and said to them, and you can go back and read the context because we don't have time to do that now. But he answered and said to them, do not murmur among yourselves. Don't complain. You know, that was something that Israelites did at times also, wasn't it? The stiff-necked Israelites. Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent me draws him. So no one can really come to accept the true Jesus Christ of the Bible revealed in his fullest way until God draws them. Now they may have some understanding, certainly, of Jesus. You know, the Bible's here. People read it. Scholars read it. People read it. But Jesus is also Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is a sign between God and his people. So some things God has not revealed to everyone, but there's a lot that can be gleaned if someone reads the Bible. Christianity has changed this world in ways no other religion has gotten even close. I mean, Christianity is a powerful force. If you look at down through history, how much the world is different because of the teachings of Jesus Christ. And even though people weren't converted necessarily to believe in the true Christ, some of it they did believe in, and some of it they put into action. And it has changed this world in drastic and dramatic ways. And God has poured his Holy Spirit out on the world, too. And that makes a difference. And that's one of the reasons things aren't any... they're not worse than they are. You know, God's Spirit is present everywhere. And that's a powerful, powerful force. And God knows who he's calling and when he's calling them, and we don't. So, you know, we have to be careful the kind of judgments that we make toward others, but also we must judge righteous judgment, and we must look at the Bible by their fruits. You will know. All right, so John 6 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Christ is forever faithful, forever loyal to those God is calling. The Father is calling. God is here for you. Christ is here for you. You can count on them. All right, let's go on to another question. What does the Passover have to do with Pharaoh letting God's people go? The Passover, we mentioned it to some degree already, it was that 10th, that 10th plague when they put the blood on the lintels and the doorposts.

Only after the 10th plague, again, the one in conjunction with the Passover, did Pharaoh finally let God's people go. So, number one, the Passover sacrifice is all about forgiveness of sin. Today, you know, God forgives us of sin. When we accept the blood of Jesus Christ as our Savior, that's one of the questions that are asked. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord, your Savior, your Master, your soon-coming King? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, knowing that He died for you, that His blood was shed for you? And have you repented of your sins? They go together hand in hand. The Passover sacrifice is all about being able to be forgiven our sins because we are all sinners. Now, there's no one perfect in this room. We've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God, and we need a Savior. And thankfully, we have a Savior. With tremendous power. Number two, the Passover blood delivered Israel's firstborn from death, and Christ's blood delivers His firstfruits today. We are the firstfruits. Christ the firstfruit, and then all of those who follow Christ, and at Christ's return, those who are alive will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, and those who have died will rise first, coming out of the graves to meet Christ in the air, and will rule and will reign with Christ for a thousand years. It's a beautiful plan, and it's revealed in the Bible, and that's why you need to be a student of the Bible. Study the Bible. I've been studying the Bible for 50 years now, and I'm not tired of it.

It's a great book. There is no other anywhere close, nothing else like it. In Acts 4, 12, let's go there for a moment. Acts 4, 12, we find that there's only one name given under heaven in which we may be saved. Acts 4, 12.

And we know that God was working in a very powerful way during the early church. This is Acts 4. People were being healed of devastating diseases, of being crippled, of having issues of blood for many years. Different things were happening. Even the shadow of Peter, when it passed over, some were healed. So God was working with signs and wonders at this time in the early church. So Acts 4, 12, and this was after they stood up. The Jewish leaders were after them because they healed a man. Silver and gold have I none, but what I have you, I give you. In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. And the man did. And that was miraculous, just like God bringing them out of Egypt. God calling them and drawing them. So in Acts 4, 12, nor is there salvation in any other, this is right after he talks about Christ being the chief cornerstone, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must save, only through Jesus Christ. Not the Hindus or the Buddhists or anything else. It doesn't matter. I mean, people say that all religions are fine. You can make it to heaven, wherever. No, God's calling people in his own plan. Now is not the only day of salvation, thankfully. Otherwise, billions of people would be in hell according to what many believe. Thankfully, that's not the case. It's not the truth. There is no other name by which we may be saved. Accepting Christ as our Savior is the key. Not all roads lead to heaven. Christ is our Passover Lamb who shed his blood for us. In 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7, we often read this during the days of 11 bread and probably will on our holy day, but regardless, we'll read it now. 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7. Let's read verse 6 as well. He says, Your glorying is not good. He was correcting the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth had a lot of issues because they were in Corinth. Corinth was a bad city and a lot of bad influences. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore, 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.

Therefore, let us keep the feast. Now, this was long after Christ had died. They're keeping the feast. Why don't people keep the feast today? Jesus did. His apostles did. After he had already dead, these laws were not done away. Thankfully, we are keeping the feast. Why? Because God opened our minds to understand that this is what he wants. Because why? Because we're his chosen people.

Just like Israel was when he led them out of Egypt. He's doing the same thing for us today. Let's go on to another question. How did the children of Israel react to being let go from Egypt? What was their first reaction? Well, let's go back to Exodus 14. Exodus 14. Exodus 14 verse 10.

And when Pharaoh drew near, that is, he drew near to the Red Sea, 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 God. So at least they did cry out to the Eternal, but they were very afraid, even though all this all these wonders and signs had happened. In some ways, you might think they would have a little more trust and faith in God. But they were afraid. They were human, you know, and sometimes we're that way, aren't we? We get scared. We don't always have perfect faith. Well, they didn't have perfect faith, certainly. God is putting his Spirit in us so we may have greater faith than they exhibited. Then they said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, were you, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Okay, wow. They turned very quickly, didn't they? To die in the wilderness. Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up 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 we should die in the wilderness. So they were convinced they were all going to die. God had performed his last miracle.

But Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the eternal, which he will accomplish for you today. Now, Moses is showing a lot more faith for the Egyptians, whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.

The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace.

And the Lord said to Moses, and I find this interesting, he said, why do you cry to me?

Just tell the children of Israel to go forward. Go forward. Go forward. God doesn't usually want us to just stand still. He wants us to go forward. He wants us to move ahead. Now, there are times, and there are examples in the Bible, where God did tell them to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

But oftentimes, God wants us to do something. He wants us to do our part. He wants us to move ahead, to move forward. And that's what he tells Moses here. Tell him to go forward.

Verse 16, But lift up your rod and 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, and they shall follow them.

Look, God's opening. He's opening this sea for them. God hasn't left them. God is still with them. I think I'd say, I'm not going in there. I'm not doing that. That's stupid.

Common sense sometimes should prevail, but oftentimes it doesn't.

So anyway, they go after them, and we know they all get drowned in the sea.

And God, again, delivers them miraculously. So, afterwards, we know that eventually they began to complain. It didn't take long. They complained about not having adequate food and water. God gave them water from the rock. God gave them manna and quail. He wasn't always very happy with them, because they did not respond in the greatest way, given the fact that he had just delivered them miraculously out of Egypt.

And then the golden calf incident. What's that all about? Going back to the gods of Egypt, after God had delivered them so miraculously and so completely, it shows us how weak the flesh is. We are a weak people in many ways. You know, we need God's deliverance. We need him actively working in our lives. So how have you been reacting from your deliverance from sin? How have you been reacting? Have you been moving forward in faith continually? Or have you had a lot of doubts that have been dragging you down?

Maybe you need to spend more time on your knees, so you can draw closer to God and to have the strength and the power that he can give you.

Do you ever show signs of returning to Egypt, going back to sin? Maybe you are one who takes periodic day trips back to Egypt.

You go back for a day, an hour. There's pleasures of sin in Egypt.

There's temptation. It's not hard to take a day trip or an hour trip, but resisting Satan is so valuable and so important for us. We will grow exponentially if we learn to say no to sin. We don't go back into sin and we don't go back into Egypt. God wants us to stay out of Egypt. He wants us to keep moving forward.

God says, come out of her, my people. Come out of Egypt. Come out of Babylon. Be different. Show yourself difference. Set the right example for others. Let's band together and be good for each other always.

Fear endowed again many had, but there were faith for the few. Let us be like Joshua. Let us be like Caleb. Let us move forward in faith like Moses. Okay, we're getting near the end. Is God still in the process of telling an evil, figurative Pharaoh, let my people go? Is God still doing that? Again, we've seen that Pharaoh is clearly symbolic of Satan the devil. God is still in the process of calling people to him. He's not finished. New people come in here every now and then. God's continuing to call people. Pharaoh is still clinging tightly to those who have been serving him by following his example and by the way they live their lives. They haven't come fully out of Egypt. And so they're trying to serve two masters. And the Bible says that doesn't work.

Now, we should be moving toward complete surrender. That's our goal, is to move toward complete surrender so that we are not serving two masters. And that Satan no longer has us in bondage in any way. Not even for an hour. Not even for a moment. I mean, that's the goal. We may not get there. We won't get there in the flesh. But God will give us victory in our Savior Jesus Christ, our Passover.

So, Satan's heart is hard. God doesn't have to harden his heart. He is our enemy. He is our adversary. He's seeking whom he may devour like a roaring lion. James chapter 4, 7, and 8 says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. We're supposed to cleanse our hands. We're supposed to be clean. Yes, we should examine ourselves.

We've got less, well, two weeks to the Passover. We've got two weeks to consider this, to think about it more than perhaps we have already. To examine ourselves and admit where we fall short, admit our sins, and dedicate ourselves in greater ways to God in the future. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. So he will leave you for a time. But he's going to go looking for an opportune time. That's what Luke 4, I think, says about Satan was tempting. He was tempting Jesus. Jesus was strong. So he basically said, I'm leaving and I'm coming back at an opportune time. But he never found an opportune time with Jesus because Jesus was perfect.

But you and I let down. But you and I let down. And he's looking for opportune times. We may be strong at one point, but then we let down and Satan comes back into our lives. So we have to be completely vigilant and on guard.

Jesus says in John 10, verse 28, My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone, no one, shall snatch them out of my hand. God has called you. He's giving you freedom. He's giving you victory over sin and over slavery. Only you can give in and give up. Only you can do that. Satan can't make you do it. Only you can do it.

So let us all be faithful. Let us all be faithful. Let's strengthen ourselves, strengthen our resolve. We'll never give in. We'll never give up. And no one, nothing, will ever snatch us out of Jesus' hand. We have a Savior who's powerful enough to rescue us, to deliver us in miraculous ways. Romans chapter 7. Let's just go there briefly. Romans chapter 7 verse 23. Romans 7. And this is the Apostle Paul. And this is one of those scriptures that I'm certainly glad were written. And maybe you have felt the same way at times because it shows our humanity, it shows our weakness, shows our flesh, our frailties.

But it also shows we have great victory in our Savior Jesus Christ. Romans 7 verse 23. He says, But I see another law in my members. And I skipped over a lot of this. This is where it says, The things that I don't want to do, I do.

The things that I should do, I'm not doing. O wretched man that I am, who's going to deliver me from this body of death? We'll get to that. Verse 23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? So he asks a question and he answers it. I thank God it's through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.

You know, we'll still have to struggle. Paul says, fight the good fight. You'll still have to struggle. We're all in this together. We all have to fight the good fight. We all have to struggle, but we must never give up. And then the last question, and what were the children of Israel to do upon being let go from Egypt? What were they to do? I covered this to some degree. They were to go and serve God, right? That's what they were supposed to do.

They were to keep on going, keep on moving. And one final scripture in Romans chapter 6, and we're very close to that. Romans chapter 6 verse 16. Paul says, do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death. So that's when we're following Satan.

We're sinning. We're following his lead. That's what he's all about. Whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness, because we're following God. And we're doing what God says we should do. We're keeping his commandments. Verse 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, talking about in the past, you were once slaves of sin, but God brought you out of that bondage. Yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. You've been delivered to this form of doctrine. It's right here. It's God's Word. This is what we need to live by. All right, so to which you were delivered, God miraculously opened your mind so you can understand what's in here. This does not have to be a cryptic book for you. This book makes sense. It all makes sense, from Genesis to Revelation, and that's why you need to keep studying it. If it doesn't make sense, it's because you haven't studied it enough. Study it some more. It'll make greater sense.

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, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 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 in the past and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, because if you sin, you're going to keep sinning. You have to stop it. You know, the more you sin, the more you sin.

Ever notice that? The more you sin, the more you sin.

So, 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, because God says, I am holy, I am holy, therefore you become holy, because you're his children. You're his people. You're to be just like him. Be you holy, even as I am holy, is what God says to us. For when you were slaves of sin, verse 20, you were free in regard to righteousness. You were not a righteous person. You were following sin. You were in Egypt. Verse 21, What fruit did you have then in the things in which you are now ashamed? The wages of sin is death. There are curses for disobedience. Be sure your sins will find you out. We can't hide from our sins. They will have an impact. Now, God's merciful, and thankfully that's the case, but sin will have an impact in your life, and the end of those things is ultimately death.

Eternal death. Not just temporary death, but eternal death. Verse 22, But now, having been set free from sin, because you've come out of Egypt, you're no longer there, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end is not death.

It's eternal life. It's everlasting life, for the wages of sin is death. But notice, it is the gift of God. You can't earn it. It's a gift. We don't deserve it. It's a gift.

And how grateful we should be for that gift. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So now we have gone from being slaves of sin to slaves of God. God is our Master. Christ is our Master. Thank God that God has called us at this time. Mr. McNeely gave a sermon about being worthy to keep the Passover. Well, we all know that in one sense, we're not worthy.

But in another sense, as long as we have accepted Christ as our Savior, and we've repented of our sins, and we're in a state of repentance, and God sees that as He looks at our heart, then we're covered. Our sins are covered. The blood of Christ has covered those sins. So are you worthy to keep the Passover? You're worthy because God has deemed you worthy because you're His children, and you love Him, and He loves you. And there's victory in our Savior Jesus Christ. So let's go forward in faith. In faith believing, we ought to rejoice that we're now slaves of God. No longer slaves of sin, because by being a slave of God, we are truly set free. For the truth of God will set us free. So God has surely made the prevailing battle cry of the Exodus come true. God has indeed let my people go. And we are to keep going forward toward the Promised Land, toward God's Kingdom.