Slaves, Part 1

Well, as we look at where we are on the calendar and earlier—I think it was earlier this week—we looked out and saw a full moon. Maybe it was like last week. The days all run into one another anymore. But you saw a full moon, and I know every time I see a full moon, I start thinking, well, how many months is it until the next fifteenth of the month holy day that we have? And so from that day, where it's two months until the beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread, and of course the Passover is the day before that. And as you're reading through and preparing for the Passover, as we all should be doing, as we grow closer and closer to that, you've probably been reading some of the scriptures in the Bible that pertain to that time. It's good for us to do those annual reminders of what goes on. And you know, as I do, that every time you read through those passages in the Old Testament and the New Testament, you learn something new. God always brings something to our mind of what we are—the season that we're in and things that we can learn from it. And as I've been doing that, there has been something that has been on my mind, and it came to fore last week through a comment that was made to me that I want to talk about today. But before I talk about that, I want to tell you that when I say the word, some may be—I don't know if the word offended is right, but you might be taken aback and think, you know, I don't really want to hear about that. Because it's a word that isn't. It isn't a popular word in American culture, and it's something that when we hear it, we often recoil and think that was awful. That's an awful thing. It should have never happened. But as you read through the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, you find this concept is there front and center.

And we learn a lot from it as we open our eyes and as we look at it and let God teach us what he wants to teach us through an institution that does have a bad reputation here in the 21st century and in the 20th century, and even dating back into the 16th century when the Bible was translated into the English language. But there is something we can learn from it, and I want to talk about that today. That word I'm talking about is slavery. Slavery.

As you read through, as I say that word, there's thoughts that come into your mind, connotations that come up, and probably some things in the Bible that you think, okay, slavery is a topic for this time of year because it is very real. It's something that happened to God's people back at the time, and he led them out of slavery. And that's very real in the New Testament time, too. Just not too long ago, we talked about Philemon, and he owned a slave named Onesimus, who, you know, the logical conclusion is, of many commentaries, is that Onesimus was a runaway slave. Philemon, though, was a good member of the church, apparently. The church met at his house, and Paul never condemned him for owning a slave. It was something that just happened in that day and age, and there was a different outlook, if you will, on slavery back then than we may have today. Now, before I go any further in it, I want to issue a disclaimer here to anyone who may be listening. You know, this sermon is not to condone slavery in any sense of the word or any way. If anyone goes out of here and is saying, the Bible condones slavery, I condone slavery, the church condones slavery, we absolutely do not. What happened here in America is an awful thing. It deserves the reputation it is. The fact that there is no slavery is of God. In fact, if you look at the Bible, Israel found itself in slavery. God allowed them to be in slavery, but God led them out of slavery. It was not the intention for God for men to ever be slaves to each other, but that was something that man brought upon himself as one tried to lord it over another and tried to have dominion over everyone. God allowed it to happen. This is in no way an endorsement of slavery, but it is there in the Bible. We can close our eyes to it. As we'll see, the translators kind of close their eyes to it as well because they just hesitated to ever use the word slave even though the word slave is very clear and very evident in the Hebrew language and in the Greek language. It's just translated as something else because they wanted to soften the blow because of what the reputation of slavery had. Let's go back first to Luke 4 because I want to set it straight that Jesus Christ, God the Father, slavery under the hand of man is not what God had intended. As Israel found itself in that situation in the Old Testament, it was God who brought them out. But Jesus Christ, when He was on earth and when He began His ministry, in Luke 4, we read this a couple weeks ago, but it bears reading again. The first thing, the first kind of, I guess, if you will, scriptural passage that Jesus Christ, well, in the Great Temptation, He references the Scriptures. But in Luke 4, we have the first time that He's handed a Bible in Luke's account. And He turns to Isaiah 61 and He reads these verses to the people that are listening there that day, Luke 4, verse 18.

Jesus Christ came to free mankind from the bondages and the slavery that man puts upon himself and the other kind of spiritual slavery that we will talk about, the very real slavery that all of us found ourselves in for all of our lives until God opened our eyes and gave us the power to come out of that bondage. There's a lot in the Bible about this, and next week, this is going to be a two-part sermon. When I come back in two weeks, we'll talk about the rest of it and look at the spiritual lessons that we can learn as are there in the New Testament from slavery. But today, I want to spend some time in the Old Testament because there's a lot to learn from that as well. Israel certainly was in slavery. It was the signature event of the Old Testament that God delivered Israel from Egypt. The signature event. He took His people out of slavery and gave them freedom and gave them hope, a promised land, led them out. And you know, we talk about every year at the Passover time in Days of Unleavened Bread, we talk about the similarity to us. And the analogy to us and what we were bound under and how God has released us. But there are...we're all aware of the things in the Old Testament, but we'll look through them and see what lessons we can learn. But I want to draw your attention to where how many times slave and slavery is mentioned in the New Testament as well. Turn with me, if you will, over to Titus.

Titus 1.

And whatever translation you have in your lap there, the King James Version, the New King James Version, the typical ones that we will use during services, as they seem to be the closest to the original language, I'll read Titus 1, verse 1 from the New Living Translation, one of the newer translations that has gone back to the Greek words as we talk about the New Testament and translated it more correctly with the words that are there. Titus 1, verse 1. This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. A slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, your Bible says a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

But the Greek word that is their bondservant, and often translated as servant, is the Greek word doulos, D-O-U-L-O-S. Now, a few years ago, we were in the feast in Greece, and Mr. Ashley, Scott Ashley, gave a sermon on doulos. And it's been in the back of my mind for some time, and I had never taken the time to go back and study it again. But I have, in looking at slavery in this time of the year, we are. And remembering his comment that there is something we can learn from doulos and where it is in the New Testament. So, if you look at here, Paul. We know Paul. He calls himself a slave, a slave of God. You know, servant is a good thing to be, and service is certainly a part of being a slave. No one can deny that. But slave has a whole different connotation. And when we read that, we see something about what Paul was thinking about in his life. Let's go over to 2 Peter. 2 Peter, another apostle. As he opened his epistle to who he was writing to, or in 2 Peter. You read it from your translation. I'll read it from the New Living Translation. This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. Same words. Different apostles. Same words. Same idea of who they were, what they were in life, what their calling was, and their attitude toward that calling.

If we go another few books forward, look at the book of James. Right after the book of Hebrews. James, a brother of Jesus Christ. Half-brother, if you will. James 1, verse 1. You read there, in yours, the New Living Translation, and others, not just a New Living Translation. There's a number of the recent ones that translate the word, doulos, and exactly what it means. In James 1, verse 1, it says this letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the 12 tribes, believers scattered abroad. Slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To his own half-brother. A slave to them. You'll find the same thing in Jude, another brother of Jesus Christ. You can be marking that down. You'll see the same words there, and where you read the word servant or bondservant in that verse, it is the word doulos, appropriately translated, slave. The fact is that wherever the word doulos is in the Greek, the original Greek of the New Testament, the translators chose to use the word servant or bondservant because it had less of a connotation. They thought it would be less offensive to people. It was a time where slavery was an issue, as it is today. They thought the people would be less offended and it would make the Bible more approachable if they weren't using the word slave whenever the word slave was there in the original Greek. But as you read through things and look at the things, everywhere in Greek literature where doulos is used, in the writings of Josephus, in the writings of Herodotus, in the writings of the ancient Greek writers, wherever they used the word doulos, it has been translated slave. Only in the Bible does it say, only in the Bible is something other than slave used when the Greek word is doulos there. And as I said, there is a reason for that. But let me give you a reason from the translators of the English Standard Version, which does use slave from time to time, not all the times when they run across the word doulos, but they explain why. And it's the same reason that people translating the King James Version didn't use the word doulos as well, because they were having the issue back in the 1600s and 1500s about slavery as well. In fact, some people say it's because of the Bible, and as it became more and more widely known, that slavery was eventually abolished, because they realized in reading the Bible, God didn't condone slavery at all. It was something that man put upon man, not something that God put upon man. And so they didn't want the Bible to reflect it as well. Here's from the translators of the English Standard Version. They say a particular difficulty is presented when words in Biblical Hebrew and Greek refer to ancient practices and institutions that do not correspond directly to those in the modern world. Such is the case in the translation of e-bed, the Hebrew word that means slave, and the Greek word doulos, which means slave, which are often rendered slave. The word slave currently carries associations with the often brutal and dehumanizing institution of slavery, particularly in 19th century America. For this reason, the ESV translation of the words e-bed and doulos has been undertaken with particular attention to their meaning in each specific context, using servant, slave, or bondservant, as we saw fit the case. They didn't want to use slave every single place because it renders something a little different, but something that God used because He wanted us to learn something about ourselves. The fact is we just cannot get away from the fact that there are spiritual lessons that we can learn from slavery in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

The Bible might want to be away from it, but it is the fact that it is something real. Let's go back to Philemon. I referenced Philemon here a minute ago. We talked about Philemon, but here's a place where the Bible does use and translate doulos as slave. They had no choice but to do it. And even the New King James—I didn't look up to see what the King James version has— but in Philemon—there's only one chapter in Philemon—in verse 15, you remember that Onesimus was the slave and Philemon was the owner. Again, he was in the church, a member in good standing. Paul didn't condemn him for owning a slave. It was just the way life was back then. Just like life is today, it was just the type of thing that was just life back then that there were slaves.

By some estimates, 25% of the people that lived in Rome at the time that Jesus Christ was alive were slaves. 25%. It was just a way of life. And slavery then was a little different than slavery we think of today. And just like when we talked about grace and the word carise, and how today we have to kind of refresh our minds of what did the Bible mean when it said carise? What did the people—when they heard carise back there at the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles—what did they mean?

So we can get an understanding of what grace means today because it has a totally different connotation today as it's been watered down. So we have to do that with slave because today slave has not a good connotation at all. But back then, when Paul and Peter and James and Jude and even Christ himself used the word slave, no one got upset. No one got excited. It was just a part of life that they all fully understand. But let's look at Philemon here, verse 15. Paul, as he's saying, as he's talking to Philemon and writing to him here, he goes, you know, things happen in life, and perhaps Onesimus found his way into my life as a test for you.

He writes that here in 15. Perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever. No longer as a slave—it says in the New King James Version, that's doulos—here they knew this man was a slave, can't get around it. No longer as a doulos, but more than a doulos, more than a slave. There it would have been inappropriate to use the word servant, because a servant is something different than a slave.

He's a beloved brother, Paul says, especially to me, but how much more do you, both in the flesh and in the Lord? So there he makes the distinction, or the Bible uses—they know here we've got to use the word that was specifically translated that. Christ himself, in his words, kind of draws the distinction as well.

Let's go back to Matthew 20. It's a well-known set of scriptures here. Jesus Christ, again, when he's saying these words, he's pointing out to the disciples that the Gentiles have one way of looking at rulers. But that's not the way I look at rulers. That's not the way rulers will be in the kingdom of God. And here in verse 25, the King James Version is a little different than the New King James Version.

I'm going to read from the New King James, because even in the New King James, they began to see these Greek words, when they went back to the original, needed to be translated, and in this case, the right way in order for it to make any sense at all. Matthew 20, verse 25. Jesus called them to himself and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.

I think the old King James says, let him be your minister. Now, that word servant really means servant. It's the Greek word diakonos, D-I-A-K-A-N-O-S. We get the word deacon from diakonos. What do deacons do? They serve. We have deacons in the church. They serve in the physical needs of the church. They're looking for the opportunities, and often they are the ones who will serve in that way. When you see the word minister, often, it doesn't talk about minister as in ordained minister, elder.

It's talking about serving. So there is a word servant that could have been used in the Bible. When God wanted to use the word servant, he did. When he wanted to use the word slave, he did. It wasn't any accident. It wasn't like, whoops, didn't think that one through. There are no accidents in the Bible. There are no misused words. Whoops, I wish I would have thought about that a little more clearly, as mankind wants to do. The words that God uses are the words he intends to be there.

So it says, whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant in the way that we would think of the word servant. God is, or Christ is drawing distinction here between how the Gentile rulers are and what he looks at his rulers to be.

Verse 27 says, whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. Slave. Doulos, it says in the New King James. I think in the Old King James, again, they were very leery of that word slave. So they say servant there, but it is the Greek word, doulos. And Christ says, if anyone wants to be your ruler, let him become your servant. If anyone wants to serve you, but if anyone wants to be first, let him become your slave. Well, that causes pause, doesn't it? If we just stop and think about that for a moment, if you want to be first, let him be your slave. And then he goes on and says, just as the Son of Man didn't come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

We can take it a step further. Let's look at the book of Philippians. Philippians 2 and verse 5, another familiar set of verses. We read these verses and we probably contemplate what they mean. But in verse 5, it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of God, didn't consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. The Greek word translated bondservant there is doulos. Some of the more modern translations will translate that appropriately. Made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a slave and coming in the likeness of men.

Food for thought as we contemplate what Jesus Christ said about himself. And letting the mind that was in him be in us as God directs and as the Holy Spirit permeates our minds and our hearts, renews our minds and hearts, transforms us into who he wants us to be.

Back in Romans 6 and verse 16, we see here in some chapters, Romans 6, 7, 8, when we prepare for Passover, we may go back to these chapters and see that. And here in chapter 6 and verse 16, I'm not going to read all the way through verse 23. We're going to come back to that next week when we talk. Let me read a few of the verses to see how this word, doulos, and slave is important in our lives and something we need to be thinking about as we seek to please God. Verse 16, do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? That's the New King James. I don't know if it says slaves in the Old King James. I didn't look that one up. But there they have it appropriately. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. You are either sin's slave or you are either obedience's slave. One leads in one direction, the other leads in the opposite direction. Verse 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine in which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Slaves of righteousness. And then Paul, in verse 19, says, I'm speaking in human terms here, I want you to understand because to the people of that day, when they heard the word slave, they knew. They had a different idea of what a slave was than we do today. They didn't automatically think of the inhumane, brutal treatment that slaves had, but they thought of life that was all around them, with the 25% of citizens that were walking around them that were slaves, that they didn't see beaten up and marred and killed just because the master got beaten or angry at them. Not saying that that didn't happen, because indeed, sometimes when you watch movies, you see the brutal treatment of slaves, and oftentimes those were slaves who were criminals, and they were literally worked to death. They were literally worked to death because in the ancient age, they kind of looked at human beings as a natural resource. Why kill them? If you can get some work out of them, right? So, you know, often when you see movies and slaves under whip, and being beaten, they were being used as tools. They were a resource. And if you work them to death, in the minds of people back then, they deserve death anyway, but may as well get the use out of them. So anyway, we can go on, but we'll do that more next week. But you see, even for us, the concept of slave, and having our mind straight on what slaves mean, what does it mean when Paul said he was a slave of God? What does it mean? Do we say a slave of God? And I will ask you, you know, as we go through this, not to come up with an opinion and just stick with it, right? Contemplate this for the next couple weeks. Contemplate what is said. Contemplate some of the scriptures that we've read in the New Testament. We'll come back to a couple more later, but we're going to spend most of the rest of the time in the Old Testament because it's instructional of what the people of God went through back in that time as well. And as you see the progression in the family of the people of God and the various states that they found themselves in. So let's go back to the Old Testament. You can be turning back to Exodus 21, but let me read from you as we go back there and survey the Bible from this aspect, from a website called Biblesstudytools.org.

Biblesstudytools.org has much to say about slavery and the concept of it, especially as it relates to the Old Testament, but the New Testament as well, and it's very well documented. I mean, they have all their bibliography there, some of the books of which are quoted in other places, and this is what they say about slavery in the Old Testament and what it meant, and slavery really in the New Testament as well. Quoting from them, they say, slavery is the state of being subjected to involuntary servitude. It usually included being legally owned as property by another person. Slavery in the biblical world was complex and normally very different than slavery of the 18th and 19th centuries of today, or the 18th and 19th century Western world. The historical and legal antecedents to slavery in the Old Testament are derived from the nations of the Fertile Crescent ranging from Babylon to Egypt. What he's saying is, slavery didn't originate with God, slavery originated with man. And he goes on and explains that. He talks about how society was set up back then. He says the society of the ancient Near Eastern world had three major categories, free, semi-free, and slave. All social structures were defined within these three categories. So if we were alive a few thousand, two, three, four thousand years ago, we would either be free, semi-free, or slave. That was just the way society was set up. That was the norm. No one thought anything about it. That was just life. He goes on to say, pictorial impressions of war captives, suggesting slavery... Oh, pictorial impressions of war captives suggest that slavery has survived from the 4th millennium BC.

The specific literary evidence, however, is contained in the number of law codes that have survived from Babylon and Assyria. Now, not too long ago, we talked about Babylon and Assyria, those kingdoms, right? Where did Babylon and Assyria? Who were the initiator of those kingdoms? It was Nimrod, as we read, the mighty one who wanted to be the leader of the earth. And he says here, slavery is there in the number of law codes that have survived from Babylonia and Assyria. These documents provide information concerning slavery in the ancient Near East that conditioned the culture in which Israel's ideologies developed. So ancient Israel, just like us, they were a nation. God brought them out. But they looked at the world around them. They knew what was going on. And all these other nations had slaves. It was just part of life. So slavery was going to touch Israel as well, just like we live in a world, and the things of the world condition us. We have to learn to choose what is right and look and see what is right and what is wrong. But we're conditioned by the world we live in. One of the ways we're conditioned is slavery is really, really, really bad. And we have reason to believe that, right? And we have no reason to condone it other than we can learn from it in the pages of the Bible. But we're all conditioned, and God realizes that, by the world that we live in, because not all the world is God's world, as we know. When Adam and Eve sinned, he gave them the right to follow the one that they wanted to follow. The website goes on and says, The Old Testament record of Israel's origin and development demonstrates that they functioned within the cultural milieu of their own time.

God's self-disclosure and direction to his elect nation often accommodated existing cultural aspects. It's the same way as it is today, right? We've talked about Romans 13. Romans 13 tells you, if you live in a land, be good citizens.

Obey the laws of the land. You know, we talked about being good citizens. And that's what God is saying. In Israel, you know, that was the law of the world. Do it as long as it doesn't contradict God's law. We say, follow the laws of the land. Obey them. But if it comes of choice, and you have to choose between God's way and the world's way, then that's when you make a distinction. While such accommodation reflects God's way of dealing with his creation, it does not necessarily imply his ideal will.

Slavery is accepted in the Old Testament as part of the world in which Israel functioned. It is not abolished, but regulated. So let's look at some of the verses about slavery and the effect it had on God's people back then. You're in Exodus 21. You'll remember that in Exodus 20, God thunders from Mount Sinai his Ten Commandments his way of life to the Israelites. As you read through the chapter, the rest of it, Israel is absolutely and appropriately in awe by God.

They are in fear of him. And as God talks about them, he reminds them to stay afar off. But then he, at the end of chapter 20, reminds them, don't have any other gods before me. Repeat that command to them. And as we move into chapter 21, then we have the judgments. Now these are judgments for Israel. These aren't the law of God written with his own finger. These are judgments to govern Israel's life in that time.

They have principles that apply to us, some that we can readily see, others that we can't readily see. Chapter 2, the very first one, the very first judgment that God talks about for ancient Israel, is one that doesn't apply to us today. But it did apply in ancient Israel. Chapter 21, verse 2, if you buy a Hebrew servant. Well, servant there is the Hebrew word, eved. It means slave.

We don't buy servants, right? Back then they didn't buy servants. Servants would be, but you bought a slave. And God said, hey, I know you live in a world where slavery is the norm. If you buy a slave, well, we can't buy a slave today, but this is something for them back then.

But it shows the mindset back then. To them, it was just a way of life. People might sell themselves into slavery. Why might they do that? If they find themselves in an untenable situation, they can't provide for themselves. They can't provide if they have a family. And they want someone else to be their master. Masters, if they sold themselves to them, masters had the responsibility of providing the necessities of life. They provided housing. They provided clothing. They provided food.

So when you became a slave, you were there, and they were responsible for providing that for you. You had a responsibility to work, and the reason that an owner would buy a slave is because you had something that he needed. Maybe it was manual labor. Maybe it was a skill that would help his household operate. In Rome, it wasn't just unskilled laborers who were slaves.

There were tutors, teachers, blacksmiths, accountants, bookkeepers, whatever they called them back then. There were people of high skills because there were landowners who needed those skills to help their area function. They were necessary to them, and they were willing to pay, and the people were willing to offer that in exchange for what the master would provide for them.

So God says, if you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh year, he shall go out free and pay nothing. So God provides, okay, this is going to happen, but you know what? It's not a lifelong experience for them. Keep them there for six years, but in the seventh year, they don't have to buy their freedom.

You let them go if they want to go. There is a way out of slavery where there is concern, and the ways of the world, there often isn't, even though in Rome you could buy your freedom, and you would have to save up your money and things like that. And if you had a good master, oftentimes they did. As a reward for good service, allow them to go free and buy their way out of it. But God says, you don't pay anything. After he serves you for six years, you let him go.

And then he gives some situations here in verse 3, 4, and 5. He says, if he comes in by himself, he'll go out by himself. If he comes in married, his wife will go out with him. If his master, it's interesting, slaves have masters, and often in the New Testament we read of master, master in a spiritual sense.

If his master has given him a wife and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and the children shall be the masters, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant or the slave, if the evid plainly says, I love my master, my wife and my children, I will not go out free. He had the option because sometimes slaves really liked their masters. If you had a good master, life was pretty good. You went to work, you had everything provided, it was a nice environment.

They treated you well. You were an important part of the everyday life. It wasn't like some of the things that we see on TV. Now, that's not saying every single master was good, but if the master was good and you say, you know what, I like being here. I like what I do. God said you had the opportunity to do that, and you can choose to voluntarily put yourself into slavery for the rest of your life. But he didn't condemn it here. He didn't say absolutely never, because in society at that time, it was something that just happened. And it wasn't an awful thing, for some people it was, certainly, but others it wasn't. But they saw things a little differently than we do. Now, if you go down to verse 7, it says, if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, now that word slave there is a different word than evid, right? This is a female slave, and I didn't write down what the number was, but it specifically means handmaiden. If a man sells his daughter to be a handmaiden. Now, we're familiar with handmaiden in the Bible, right? I mean Sarah had a handmaiden, Leah and Rachel had handmaiden, right? If a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as a male slave, and there they appropriately render evid in the proper term. She shall not go out as a male slave do. Their purpose in the household is not to go out and work in the fields, it will be back to blacksmiths. They're going to be the people that work in the house with the lady of the house. And then it makes provisions. If somehow they don't like the handmaiden, they can't just kill her, they can't just harm her or make her life miserable, but there's ways for her to leave, and the master has the responsibility for getting her into a situation. Okay? Let's go down to verse 20, because I don't want to belabor this too long. You can read through this. In verse 20, you see that God even sets up here judgments for people who would mistreat their slaves. If a man, verse 20, beats his male or female servant, that's the word slave, evid, with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. So he couldn't just get away with it, couldn't just kill him and say, hey, you know, it's just a piece of property and whatever. There was going to be some kind of consequences for what he would do. In verse 26, even if he mistreated him so that the servant or the slave was left without some aspect of his being, verse 26, if a man strikes the eye of his male or female, and let's say it the way it is, slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. If he does that, set him free. And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth.

And so we see that in Israel, God made provisions for it. He didn't condone it, didn't condemn it. It was something the way society functioned that day, and often it was someone who voluntarily put himself in. You don't see among the Israelites forced slavery. We could discuss that a little bit if people got into debt and things like that.

But it was something that God always provides for a way out of the slavery. A way out of the slavery. Well, let's talk a little about those three categories. That website said the whole world was defined by three types of people. They were either free, they were either semi-free, or they were slaves. One of the three, that's what they were.

Totally different than what we have today. But if the world were to go on forever in a thousand or two or three thousand years from now, people are looking at our society. They might say, look how they were set up. They had employees, they had employers, they had this, they had that, whatever. What kind of society was that?

But back in that, that's just the way it was. You were free, you were semi-free, or slave. The first one we can talk about is we look at God's people, because we know that God worked through a family in the Old Testament. The lineage began back at the time of Seth and goes right on through the time of Jesus Christ, as you read through the lineages in Matthew and the genealogies.

But in that family, post-flood, Abraham is the one who God is working through. And Abraham, God promised him that, you know what, if you will do what I say, I will make you, as your descendants, as the stars of heaven, the sands of the sea. And Abraham, as you recall, had no children. It wasn't until he was 100 years old before he had that child of promise that God gave him. Through all those years, he had to believe and he had faith. But Abraham, as you recall, did everything that God asked. Once he knew who God was, once he understood God, and God opened his mind, whether Josephus is accurate when he says back in the Babylon, you know, in Chaldea, where Abraham was, when he began to study the stars, and he realized there has to be a God, there can't be all these little gods that are coordinating this.

God opened his mind, and Abraham did everything exactly the way that God told him to do. If he told him, get out from here and go over there, Abraham did it. He didn't quibble. He didn't say, why? He didn't say, well, can't they do what you want me to do? He is here, as well as anywhere else. He just did it. And as God led him through his various aspects of life and the trials that he encountered, Abraham never lost faith in God.

Even to the point where God said, take your son, your only son Isaac, that son of promise that I said from him would be all your descendants, and you will become a great nation, and in you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Take that son and sacrifice him. Even when God said that, Abraham just did it. He believed God that much. He had faith in God that much.

He wasn't going to doubt him. He knew whatever God's will was, it was going to be what he was going to follow. Now, you look at Abraham's life. God made Abraham a wealthy man. You know, it says that in the Bible. He had herds and he had flocks.

He was a wealthy man and he was known by the kings of the earth at that time in the area that he lived. You know one thing about Abraham. He never lived behind walls. He never lived behind a fortress. As he wandered from one place to another when God would lead him, they were kind of nomads. They took their flocks, they took their herds, and they moved from place to place, and they lived in the presence of cities, and cities like Sodom and Gomorrah that they could see in the distant cities that had fortresses around them.

And you would think that Abraham would be a sitting duck for some of those. You know, look at this man, Abraham. If we go and attack him, look at the wealth he has. We can make that part of him. It never happened. Abraham was beholden to no man. Only God. Only God. There was no one between Abraham and God. And that was the way that God had designed it. And God blessed Abraham for his obedience. God protected Abraham. God enriched Abraham.

And he lived in peace all his life, even at a time when Lot lost some of his things. And Abraham had to go out and go back to those kings that took off with the belongings of Sodom and things. He went out, he mustered his army and brought it back to them. God blessed him and all of that.

Abraham was a free man. In that society, he was a free man. He wasn't a semi-free or a slave. He was a slave to God, if you will. If we look at the spiritual thing, he believed God. And he did things exactly the way that God said. The message to us today, if we are children of God and if we are living as we do things exactly the way God said. If he said, do this, do it. If he said, this is the way to worship me, do it. If he said, this is the way that you grow and develop and become who I want you to become, do it. Don't think you've got a better idea. Don't think it's okay to walk outside the norm. Do what God said. Abraham set us the example. And God blessed him. Abraham was a free man. And you can write down Genesis 26.5. I think it's also in chapter 18 where God says, Abraham did my statutes. He did my judgments. He kept my commandments. And he says to Isaac, who was the heir, Isaac, I knew Abraham that he would command his family after him. I know he will teach his family my ways. And indeed, Abraham did. Abraham, a free man, had Isaac, who was also a free man. Now, there were times that Abraham and Isaac came up against the kings of the earth. And there were times that they were a little bit afraid and said, you know, my wife is my sister and things like that. But God washed over them at that time. But they never came under the control of those men. Isaac was a free man, too. He lived there with his sons. He lived there with his wife. He was a rich man as well, the wealth. And he followed God. Implicitly, he was well trained by Abraham. And in that culture, in that day, we classify those two people as the beginning of the family of God, if you will.

Because God says in you, all nations will be blessed, they were free men. But as time went on, and they had children, and Isaac had children, something happened in that next generation. It wasn't the same faith. It wasn't the same adherence to God's law that Abraham and Isaac had. The next generation, the grandsons of Abraham, were a little different.

Esau and Jacob, they had ideas of their own. Esau, we get a little glimpse into him. He was willing to sell his birthright. It just wasn't that important to him. You know what? Fine. Have my birthright. I'm hungry. I'll just take this bowl of soup. And that's enough. He didn't pay attention to the things of life and what was really important and was willing to trade it on a spur of the moment.

It just didn't mean that much to him. No, no. He wasn't paying attention to the laws of God because it specifically says that Isaac and Rebecca were a little upset when he took a wife of the Canaanites. And they had taught him, you know what? Marry someone of the same faith. Marry someone of the same family. It's going to be well with you if you do that. Problems if you don't. And sure enough, Esau had some problems, but he wasn't cut of the same cloth, if you will, that Abraham and Isaac were. Neither was Jacob, for that matter, right?

Because Jacob, he conspired with his mom. And it's like, you know what? This birthright and this blessing really belongs to Esau. But I want it. Esau might not see the value in it, but I do. And so he set it up. Here comes Esau. Back from a hunting trip. I'm hungry. Hey, you know what?

Not just here's the bowl of soup to feed you, but I'll give you this if you give me that. Esau fell right into his hands, and then tricked, in cooperation with his mother, tricked Isaac into getting the blessing and stealing it from Esau.

Certainly not the way of God. That isn't the way God would have done things, but it was the way God allowed things to happen. And indeed, Jacob learned from his trouble, but all of a sudden we have a family that is no longer the family that is sort of... We've got a family here that's got some problems. And so Isaac and Rebekah find themselves in a situation... And we can't be turning over. Let's go back to Genesis.

Genesis 28. We'll look at a few scriptures here. They find themselves with Esau really, really mad, right? That he lost the blessing and making comments like, I'm going to kill Jacob. I'll wait until my dad is dead, but you wait until he's dead, and I'm going to take care of him. Now Isaac and Rebekah might have thought... I'll put some thoughts into their heads. Maybe they thought, You know what?

Esau is really angry. He could do this. What happens if what happens to our two sons is the same thing that happened to Cain and Abel? What if Esau would really kill Jacob? So he needs to go. He needs to go. And in chapter 28, in verse 2, Isaac, after he learns everything that Jacob has done, he still blesses him.

He calls him over and he says in verse 2, Jacob, arise. Go to Padenarim, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father. Take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. This is who you marry. Keep the faith. He may be saying here and that.

But you have to leave. And here in this family, Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, all were there, all were together. But now because sin entered the family, now we have someone having to leave. For the first time in this family from whom God would grow a nation and still recognize them today, we have someone leaving.

And Jacob had to leave. Jacob had to leave and he went, as he was instructed, to his uncle's house. And over in chapter 29, as he's arriving there in that area, he runs into Rachel. He inquires of the people, is Laban still here? Is he well? He runs into Rachel. Rachel's all excited of the fact. He goes home and tells his dad. And in verse 13, in chapter 29, we see Laban coming out to meet Jacob.

It came to pass when Laban heard the report about Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to meet him. And he embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. So Jacob told Laban all these things, everything that had happened to him, how he was going to be there, how he came to know him and everything. And Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. And Jacob stayed with him for a month. In a guest setting. Just like if you and I went someplace and said, No, come on, stay with me, whatever.

And he needed a place to stay. He stayed there for a month. But he wasn't just like, you know, sleeping until noon every day and taking it easy. Apparently he was working when he was there. He was a guest who was going to earn his keep, if you will.

But without any wages, just because that was who he was. In verse 15, Laban says to Jacob, Because you are my relative, should you serve me for nothing? Tell me, and serve there is the legitimate word serve, tell me what should your wages be? And you know the story from there. Jacob says, You know what? I really like your daughter Rachel. I'll work for you for seven years for Rachel. I'll bind myself to you for seven years. Give me her.

And so Jacob becomes semi-free, if you will. He's a servant. He's not a slave. Laban didn't own him. Jacob was free to go where he wanted. He could have left after a month. He could have said, I don't want to be here anymore. I'm out of here. But he was semi-free because he tied himself to Laban and said, I'll commit to you for seven years. You give me your daughter Rachel. And then the tables are turned on Jacob, and he gets Leah instead of Rachel. And he says, I'll work another seven years for Rachel. So he further voluntarily puts himself in servitude to Laban for that time. But as he's there, Jacob, we see, becomes a different man than he was when he left Isaac's house.

As he's there, and with the encounters that he had on his way to Laban's house, we see that God's way becomes important to him, and he lives according to what he was raised with. He becomes someone different than the man or the young man that we see back at the time that tricked his brother out of the birthright and out of the blessing. And he begins to obey God, and as he's there, Laban is blessed. And Laban recognizes it, as you recall, and the Bible says, basically, I know. I know what's happening here. Jacob's working for me. The God of his Father is working for him, and because of his being here, and because of the way he handles himself, I'm being blessed.

He kind of fulfills, in a little bit of way, the way God said, in you all nations of the earth shall be blessed, and it is with us. As we do the things and live the way God wants, the people we work for will be blessed. And it's not wrong to ask God to be blessed, but to do the things that would help them be blessed as we pay attention to the way we work. Apparently Jacob did that, and Laban became very wealthy. But Laban was a servant. As he looked around, he goes, look what I've done, yet I have nothing. I've been working for you all these years, and I have nothing. And God sees this as well, and God tells Laban, or not Laban, and Jacob, you know it's time to go. You know, in the chapters 29 and 30, we read about the speckled goats and how God enriches Jacob, because he's a servant.

He's a semi-free servant, not a slave, because if he was a slave, everything he did in order to the benefit of his master, right? If you own something, you are the one who has all the prophets. But that wasn't the case with Laban and Jacob. So God sees to it that Jacob is enriched so that he can leave that state that he's in. So let's look at chapter 31, verse 11.

Jacob has been there for some years now. God has worked with him. It says, The angel of God spoke to Jacob in a dream, saying, Jacob, Jacob responded, Here I am. And the angel of God spoke and said, Lift your eyes now and see.

All the rams which sleep on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and grace-botted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. He's not handling you right. I am the God of Bethel, where you anoint to the pillar and where you made a vow to me.

Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family. Now, if Jacob had been a slave, God wouldn't have said that. But Jacob was free to leave. Jacob didn't have to stay. There is a difference between a servant and a slave, and that's part of the problem when we read the word servant in the New Testament. And servant, sometimes in the Old Testament, that we can confuse. Servants can leave. Slaves cannot. Servants are not the property of the one that they work for and serve, but slaves are. They are owned, bought and paid for by that master. And they owe their life to him. And so Jacob leaves.

And as we read down through the chapter, we see Laban, of course, isn't happy. I mean, here it is, his livelihood. He's watched what's going on. And here's Laban, or Jacob, leaving. And Jacob, you know, maybe didn't handle it the right way. He didn't tell his father-in-law, you know what? Tomorrow morning we're packing it up. Me, the wives, the kids, we're on our way out. He just leaves in the middle of the night, doesn't say goodbye or anything. Now, any of us would be a little upset, right?

So Jacob didn't maybe take this, didn't handle this in the way that he should have. Probably with good reason. He probably was a little bit fearful of what Laban would do. And Laban did have some thoughts in his mind, because here in verse 24, when it comes to Laban's attention that Jacob and all his grandchildren and all of Jacob's flocks and all of his wives have disappeared, says, God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night and said to him, Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad. Basically, you let him go. Don't you chide him.

You don't have the right to keep him here. He's not a slave. He's semi-free. He was indentured to you, but he has paid and he has honored the commitment that he made to you. He is free to go. And so Laban comes across Jacob, and he's upset, but he never says you can't go. Because he could go. Because that was the state that he was in.

Now he was going to be a free man because, and even in the state of being semi-free, he obeyed God all those years. God took him out of that, and he would become a free man from that time forward. Well, the next generation didn't fare much better. Jacob had 12 sons, and those sons, as we read through them, they conspired some things that even would put Jacob and Esau to shame. They didn't like the first son of Rachel and Jacob.

They didn't like Joseph. They hated him. Didn't like the dreams he had. Didn't like the things that he said. Didn't like the way they said he spied on them in the field and brought back all these tales to Dad. And they wanted him gone. And so with Joseph, we find that they sell him. They literally sell him into slavery. Not a semi-free state. They wanted him gone. Let's look at chapter 37.

Their first idea was, kill him, right? We're going to throw him in this pit. Let's just kill him. Let's just kill him and tell Dad he's gone. But, man, why would we kill him? We could sell him. We could make some money off of him. He's a good resource, right? He's a good resource. Why kill him? That's a waste of time. Let's sell him to the Midianite traders.

Chapter 37, verse 26. So Judah said to his brothers, what profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him. For he is our brother and our flesh, and his brothers listened. Yeah, that's a good idea. We can kill two birds with one stone. We can get rid of him and get some money. And leave Joseph alive.

The Midianite traders passed by, so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver, and they took Joseph to Egypt. Joseph is clearly a slave. No way around it. He's not a free man anymore. He's not a semi-free man. He is a slave in every sense of the word. A position he never saw himself in, and I'm sure never entered his mind, that one day he could be the favorite son, and the next day, literally, a slave.

A slave in Egypt, sold for twenty shekels of silver. And there at the end of chapter 36, it says, the Midianites sold him to Potiphar. Sold him to Potiphar, who is an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard. And then you have chapter 38, that's an inset chapter, and then as we come to chapter 39, we find Joseph in a situation that is not something he may have ever been prepared for.

He's been sold. He doesn't have any freedom. He's there in Egypt, and he has no choice but to stay there. That is where he needed to be. Or that's where God wanted him to be. That's where he had to be. No choice. Well, he had a choice, right? He could have run away, but what would have happened to him if he ran away?

Probably a certain death. If you're a runaway slave, I'm sure you weren't treated well in ancient Egypt. You would die. So you have a choice. I'm a slave. I'm owned by Potiphar. Do I run away and die? Or do I sit here and embrace the situation? Joseph embraced the situation.

Joseph was a smart young man. Joseph had God with him. Joseph had been well trained by Jacob in the ways of God. And when he found himself in this situation as a young man, he didn't panic. He didn't get mad. He didn't turn against God and blame him, curse him, and say, This isn't anything that I ever saw coming. I didn't do anything to deserve this, and therefore I'm not going to do anything. I didn't lose faith at all.

And if anything, in that situation, his faith increased. And in that state of being a slave, Joseph became a different person. Joseph, we see, sort of put into practice everything that he had been taught. He was a really good slave. Everything that Potiphar told him, he did. And we can see that as you read through the verses because Potiphar was enamored with Joseph. Everything he touches turns to gold, if I can paraphrase in that way.

Look at what's happening to me under this young man's hand. And so he got promoted, and he promoted and promoted. And he wasn't just a men pleaser. He was literally doing it with his heart. As he worked for Potiphar, and he was there, and he knew I'm there to enrich and make Potiphar a wealthy man and to do right by him. I have his best interests at heart. He listened to what Potiphar wanted.

He didn't just do the things that Potiphar said to do. He did more than was expected, and he kept doing and doing and doing. And Potiphar continued to promote him until he became head of the household. So much so that Potiphar didn't even know what he had. He completely trusted Joseph. It's a beautiful story. Joseph had a good master. Potiphar was a good master to work for.

He recognized what he had done for him. He provided everything Joseph needed and more. But then one day, the fly in the ointment was Potiphar's wife. She comes in. She takes a fancy to Joseph. Now, she may have thought in her mind, we own this young man.

He's our property. And, hey, Joseph, as my property, this is what I want you to do. Joseph, who had been in the habit of obeying the laws of the land, obeying what Potiphar had said, at this point, what did he do? No. No. In chapter 39 and verse 9, he says, when he's faced with this with Potiphar's wife, who probably in her mind thought, I've got the right to command this of you. And Joseph said, no. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Now, when Joseph said those words, he probably had no idea really what was going to happen, but he probably thought, I can get myself in trouble for this, because I am disregarding my owner's wife here.

And sure enough, she accused him. Potiphar threw him in prison, and Joseph started all over again. He did the same thing. Even when he was in prison, he worked hard and he did everything the way that he should. He ended up being second command in Egypt by just following God and trusting in him, even in the worst of situations that we can't even imagine being in. But let's pause there for a moment and look at Joseph, because he was a slave. He wasn't free to go anywhere. He was an owned person, but look what he did. Look what he did, and look how God brought him out from that situation and look at him even deliver his people, because Israel was delivered from the famine because of what God had worked through Joseph and his total commitment to God.

Over in Colossians 3. Colossians 3, verse 22. You see the word bondservants. That's the Greek word doulos. In your translation, some of them will say slaves, because when this was written to the people back in that age, they knew slaves. Okay? Slaves? Good part of our population. Slaves? Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. That's exactly what Joseph did.

He didn't have Colossians 3.22 to turn to. He just did it. He did it. As God led him to do it, he just did what Colossians 3.22 said. He wasn't just sitting there, you know, being superficial to Potiphar. Potiphar could say, this kid is genuine in what he's doing, and he has my best interest at heart. Verse 23, whatever you do, even as a slave, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.

Joseph did that. There's a lesson for us. A lesson for us in that. Talk more about that. Let's go back to Luke. Luke 17. There's another, I guess, parable, if you will, that Jesus Christ in his own words said, that Joseph perfectly fulfilled. The same thing God is looking for from you and I, that he was looking for for Peter, Paul, James, and Jude, who called themselves slaves of God. Luke 17, verse 7 says, in which of you, Christ speaking, which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat?

Now, the word servant in verse 7 is doulos. It's doulos. Now, if you think about it for a moment, servant doesn't make sense there, because if I have a servant, and I have hired someone to do something for me, and I'm going to sit down and eat, and he's put in a good day's work, and whatever, I may well say, well, come in and sit down and have a bite with us and have a drink with us.

That would be the courteous thing to do, right, if you have a servant. But if you have a slave, if you owe him, own him, and that's his duty, you might not say that. So when we look at verse 7 and put the real word in there, in which of you having a slave plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he's come in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat? But will he not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you can eat and drink?

Well, in that context, here's Jesus Christ saying, this is what you would say to your slave. You wouldn't say that to your servant. Some of you came and worked for me. I wouldn't say, oh, you know what, thank you, fix my dinner, pour my drink, and when you're done with that, then you know what, you can sit down and have something too. If we were living in a Roman society where slavery was commonplace, that would just be expected. That was just kind of their job. That was just who they were. And Christ didn't apologize for it. He didn't say, this is an awful thing for you to say. He said, which of you are going to do this?

But he will not, in verse 9, he says, doesn't he thank that servant, which should be doulos, doesn't he thank that doulos because he did that? Think not? It's his job. So likewise you. Likewise you. Who the Bible says, maybe think about yourself as a doulos. Think about yourself in that way. Take some time and contemplate it. Think about some things. So likewise you, when you've done all these things, which you are commanded, say, we are unprofitable doulos.

If all we do is what God said, if we don't put our heart into it, if we don't give God more than we're looking, if we don't give him heart, mind and soul, if all we do is only what he says and no more, I've complied with the letter of the law and that's all I'm doing. I'm not stretching. I'm not going to go above and beyond.

You know what? God says, you're an unprofitable slave. You're an unprofitable doulos. When people owned slaves, they expected things from them, and a good slave gave more to his master because he was interested in pleasing that master.

We are unprofitable slaves. We have done what was our duty to do. Joseph didn't have those verses to read. Joseph was profitable to his master. The same attitude that you and I should have as slaves to the master that we have.

Well, Joseph says he had a really good master. He had a really good master in more ways than one, right? He learned, and we can learn some spiritual lessons from Joseph, and he learned some spiritual lessons as he went through what he did. But he's a good physical master, at least for a while. He always had a good spiritual master who was watching over him as he followed him implicitly.

For Joseph, we would say it's unfortunate some of the things that happened to him, but slavery wasn't the awful, awful thing. Look at what he learned, and look at the example that he set for us.

But he wasn't the only descendant of Abraham that found himself as a slave in Egypt.

There was a whole group of people that were going to come into Egypt and be slaves. And as we move closer to Passover, and as we think about those slaves in Egypt, we remember, as you read through Exodus 1, exactly what Pharaoh did to them.

As the Israelites grew, and a new master came in, a new Pharaoh came in, he didn't remember Joseph. He forgot what Joseph had done and how Joseph had saved Egypt from ruin during the time of that famine.

And he became concerned by the number of Israelites that were there, and he became worried, as you read in verses 6, 7, 8, in chapter 1.

And he was worried even that those Israelites might team up with the tribes that were outside of Egypt, as you read the commentaries, that if they decided to ally with some of these tribes who would look to overthrow Egypt, we could have a real problem on our hands.

So Pharaoh, looking at it from a physical standpoint, says, wow, if all these people who are so numerous decided to work against us, we'd find ourselves out of a country.

And so he somehow was able to put Israel, Abraham's descendants, the whole family, under bondage.

And it was a cruel bondage. He was not a good master. He's not the type of master, if you were a slave, you wanted to find yourself over as you under.

If you read through Exodus 1, he worked those people with rigor. He did everything to them. He made their lives miserable.

They didn't have any love for the Israelites. Their entire mission was to hold them down and to keep them down and oppressed, and not to have them ever rise to be anything in that nation.

Now, as we talk about in Passover or whatever, you know, Pharaoh can be seen as a type of Satan.

He was 100% against God's people, even to the fact that he would kill those babies.

You know what? They keep growing. They keep multiplying. Midwives kill those Hebrew boys. We don't need any more of them around there.

And we see a lesson in that as well, because as we see Satan and how he works, he does the same things today.

Paul says we shouldn't be ignorant of Satan's devices. And as people get baptized, I remind them, you know what Satan did back to God's people back then in ancient Egypt?

He will do today if he can. When you become a new child of God, he will find some way to try to kill you.

He will do something to try to take you out of the church. He will try to do something to get you to give up the calling you have and the commitment you've made. It may be through trial. It may be through sickness. It may be through some kind of upset. He will do something. Be aware.

And don't let Satan kill the newborn children like he wanted to do back then.

Look to God, have faith in him, and through it all, like the Israelites did, keep your faith in him.

Actually, the Israelites didn't do so well in that area, but they found themselves in an untenable situation. They had no way out. Absolutely no way out. They were owned by Egyptians. They kept them down. They were not free to go. They had no hope, no future.

But God, as he watched Israel, he saw their oppression. He saw where they're groaning. He heard their groaning. He heard their cries.

And he came to Moses and he said, I'm going to deliver this people. I'm going to free them.

Only God can free us from the bondages and the slavery that we're in.

It's the lesson that we're in. Israel had no power, no might to do it on their own. Only God could do it.

If they had tried to do it on themselves, they would have failed miserably.

If we try to do it on our own, in our own way, we will fail miserably.

It's only when we yield to God that we will ever be delivered from the bondage, whatever that slavery is, that keeps us held down and keeping us from being what God wants us to be.

If we try it our own way, we will fail.

The lesson of Israel is, let God do it.

And the lesson to us is, let God do it.

Yield to him, own up to the situation you're in, and let him lead you out.

And God did. And God did.

So let me end there. We'll take it up again here in a couple weeks.

But let's recap here before I end.

Just recap where we are today, and what we've learned so far.

You know, we saw what Paul, Peter, James, Jude, even Jesus Christ said.

I mean, we're slaves. What did they mean by that?

And I would ask that you would contemplate over the next few weeks, what does God mean? What do we need to know about this? What does he mean by being a slave of God?

What might we need to do as we examine ourselves and prepare for Passover and the rest of our lives?

Slaves are totally under the control of one owner.

They are servants, but they are owned by that individual.

They're not free to leave. They have a choice to leave, but often the choice to leave ends in death.

They are there to please the Master.

The lessons of the good slaves, they're there to please their Master.

And the ones who please their Master, blessings are newer to them.

They were dependent as a slave on the Master to provide all the physical necessities of life.

They were there simply to please the Master, to obey Him, to follow Him, to give their lives to Him in service.

You know, we might remember that God doesn't condone slavery, but He does use it.

He does use it as a teaching tool for us, because in the New Testament, over and over again, He cautions us, or He reminds us that we are doulos'.

So think about those things for the next couple weeks, and we'll take this up again at that time.