LET MY PEOPLE G0!
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14).
"Wherefore come out from
among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and
will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:17, 18).
“And
the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before
Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, LET MY PEOPLE GO, THAT THEY MAY SERVE ME IN
THE WILDERNESS.” (Exodus 7:16).
In
His Word, God has provided us with types and shadows: historical accounts that
also reveal deeper spiritual truths concerning the Kingdom of God. These accounts illustrate and reinforce the
basic principles of the Kingdom of God and point us toward our King and Savior,
Jesus Christ. What the Bible teaches
about our separation from the world is one of those principles. Its’ truth is fundamental to our walk with
God, but too many Christians today have cast it aside. The “gospel of inclusion” has replaced it
instead. That doctrine demands that we
accept everything and everybody regardless of how offensive it, or they, may
be. It is so successfully replacing the
truth with lies that wrong now seems right and right seems wrong among the
churches of God. Many evangelical
Christians today have become unclear about what their proper worldview should
be.
We
find in the Bible a clear and perfect roadmap for us to follow to fulfill the
Father’s design for our lives. God’s
ways are the old ways which the LORD established from the foundation of the
world, but believers are discarding them as irrelevant and outdated. They have never ceased to be true and
effective, however, for those who choose to follow them. What God spoke by the Prophet Jeremiah still
rings true today: “Thus saith the LORD,
Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask
for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find
rest for your souls. But they said, We
will not walk therein.” (Jeremiah 6:16). God laid the foundation of truth in the
beginning, and nothing can alter it! As Solomon
wrote, “The thing that hath been, it is
that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Modern
society may believe that it is evolving into a better version of itself because
of its enlightened ideas and philosophies, and that it is more sensitive today
and able to apply fresh solutions to 21st century problems. God’s Word, however, remains a clear and
steady beacon which remains unalterable - yesterday, today, and forever. Folks say that traditional beliefs are
old-fashioned and archaic and they have cast them aside for newer
approaches. They are not willing to
apply the whole council of God to the various issues of life, and yet
they still expect positive outcomes for their choices. This is like having a doctor prescribe an
antibiotic for an infection, but then only taking half the prescription because
we start to feel better. Afterwards we
complain when we have a more severe relapse of the same condition. We only want to apply half the truth to our
lives, or follow the Lord half the way, and still expect to be victorious,
productive, and effective Christians. The
remedy is simple: God says, “Let My
people go!”
Exodus,
the second book of the Bible, recounts the story of the Israelite’s bondage in
Egypt and their subsequent deliverance under the leadership of Moses. This story very clearly illustrates the
principle of separation as it relates to the Kingdom of Heaven. It also portrays the enmity between the
kingdom(s) of this world represented by Egypt, with Pharaoh as its god/king,
and the Kingdom of God represented by the Promised Land, with Moses as its
savior. Here is a quick synopsis of their
history.
During
Moses’ time, God wanted to lead Israel out
of Egypt, but hundreds of years earlier it was God who led His people into Egypt in the first place. God used man by the name of Joseph, who was
one of the twelve sons of the Jewish Patriarch Jacob, to preserve Israel and
the rest of the world from a great world-wide famine which occurred during his
time. God gave the Pharaoh of Egypt
dreams which warned him of the coming famine, but he didn’t know what the
dreams meant. Joseph, however, had a
spiritual gift to interpret those dreams.
At Joseph’s direction, they prepared ahead for the famine by stockpiling
grain in Egypt for 7 years. When
Joseph’s family ran out of food, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain and became
reunited with Joseph and moved there permanently to the region known as Goshen.
Just
as God so loved the world that He sent His Son to sacrifice Himself to save
them, God loved His people so much that He sent Joseph to be a living sacrifice
and make a way to preserve their
lives. God didn’t intend for Israel to
remain in Egypt indefinitely, however.
As beautiful as the land of Goshen was, it was not the land “flowing with milk and honey” that God
had promised to Abraham and his heirs.
God understood that, as necessary as Egypt was in the grand scheme of
things, that nation would eventually resent the freedom that His people enjoyed
and would seek to enslave and destroy them in the end. This is why God chose Moses to lead His
people out of Egypt and to the Promised Land.
Egypt
was a blessing for Israel in the beginning.
The Pharaoh, who was supportive of Joseph, took care of Joseph’s family
also. He gave them the best land to
settle in and provided for them in every way.
Years later, when a new Pharaoh began to rule Egypt who did not know
Joseph or appreciate what he had done for the nation, things began to change
dramatically for the worse. The new
Pharaoh was jealous of Israel’s prosperity and afraid of their rapid
growth. He began to enslave them and
force them to work on his building projects.
Pharaoh later commanded his soldiers to slaughter Israel’s male babies
to weaken them as a people and to curb their growth.
There
is an obvious parallel between Egypt on the one hand, and the world system that
we are all a part of on the other. Just
like the Jews in Egypt, we all start our journey as citizens of this world and
of its’ kingdoms. It is a pleasant place
at first. There are opportunities and
amusements galore to occupy our time, our senses, and our resources. When we come to know and accept the Lord into
our lives, though, something changes.
The world is not as kind toward us as it used to be. The more we seek to serve the Lord, the more
threatened the world seems to be by our lives and by the witness of our faith. Just as Pharaoh was the god of Egypt and
hated all that the Jews represented, Satan as the god of this world, despises
the children of the true God, and wishes to destroy them or place them in
bondage (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4). The
world is Satan’s dominion for right now, and he is not about to tolerate anyone
resisting his authority. Like a hungry
lion, he is constantly walking up and down on the earth seeking someone to
devour. He lies, steals, kills, and
destroys. He is also content to place his
victims in such bondage to the world that they don’t have time to think about
serving their God.
There
is a price that we must pay for our
friendship with the world. There are
taskmasters to serve and cruel bondage to bear.
We must never be content with serving the kingdoms of this world when
God has promised us a Kingdom flowing with all good things. The Promised Land was an invisible place to
the Israelites. None of them that were
alive at that time had ever seen it.
Similarly, the Kingdom of God is invisible to us today, but we know it
is real because we believe what God has promised us. Like the Israelites, the bondage of this world
and its kingdoms is what often causes us to cry out to God in the first place,
and to recognize our need for a Savior.
The Holy Spirit allows us to see that the things that occupy our time
and resources are the things that Satan uses to enslave us. They make it difficult – and even impossible
– for us to serve God as He has called us to do. The Apostle John wrote, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him. For all that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust
thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” (1 John
2:15-17).
This
is when God’s people realize that they need a savior. They cannot deliver themselves from their
chains and servitude. They need someone
who is sent of God, one to whom God has given the authority to say to Satan, “Let My people go!”
Moses
himself was born during the time when Pharaoh’s persecution of the Hebrews was
at its worst. In fact, he was born after
the command had gone out to destroy all the male Jewish babies. His parents managed to hide him from the
Egyptian soldiers for a time but eventually had to commit him to God by setting
him adrift in the river Nile. It was
there that Pharaoh’s daughter discovered him and chose to raise him as her
own. In Pharaoh’s daughter’s household,
Moses was surrounded by wealth and privilege and received every benefit and
luxury. For all that, when he grew
older, his sense of justice and love for his people prevailed and forced him to
leave all that privilege behind. We are
told, “By faith Moses, when he was come
to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with
the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of
the reward. By faith he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him Who is
invisible.” (Hebrews 11:24-27).
There had to be a clear separation between Moses and Egypt for him to be
an effective savior to his people. Any
conflict of interest or secret desire for the “riches of Egypt” would have
compromised the mission God had for him.
It’s astounding that at 40 years old, God set Moses aside, sending him
into the desert in order to refine his character over the next 40 years. It wasn’t
until Moses was 80 years old that he was fit for the purpose that God had
planned for him! By then, God had dealt
with his pride, ambition, and self-dependence and brought him to a place where
he was ready to do as God directed him.
For
about 1500 years after their Exodus, God would remind Israel about their
deliverance from Egypt. They were to
teach their children about it and celebrate it with a festival every year so
that they would understand its importance and meditate on the principles that
God intended for them to learn by it.
Separation from the world was one of the key lessons that God wanted
Israel to learn and understand. He
intended for them to be separate from unbelievers because He knew that their
goals and ambitions were different from those who did not know Him or honor
Him. It would be like mixing oil with
water or light with darkness: they could never be in harmony. For this same reason, God wants us to
comprehend that the Exodus story is about more than just Israel and Egypt: it’s
about Christians and the world - about the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdoms
of this world. It illustrates the
concept of separation to believers today.
God redeemed Israel by the blood of the Passover lamb, but they still
needed to leave Egypt to serve God.
Many Christians today are content with having been saved by the blood,
but have no intention, and see no need, to separate themselves from the things
of the world. Remember just Lot? That good man was caught up in the affairs of
Sodom and unable to save his wife and some family members from the overthrow of
that wicked city. The Apostle Paul
declares the necessity of separation between believers and the world when he
writes, “Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers: for what
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath
light with darkness? And what
concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an
infidel? And what agreement hath the
temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath
said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they
shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the
Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a
Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
(2 Corinthians 6:14-18). And James is
very outspoken on the subject when he states, “...know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4). For those folks who are entangled with the
things of this world, this can seem like a tall order, but God has provided a
way for us to be delivered!
The
word Exodus means, "a going
out," and that's exactly what God has intended for His people from the
very beginning. It isn’t enough that a man
saved, he must also be delivered in order to be an
effective witness for God. God wants man
to separate himself, or be set apart, for Himself alone: free from the
distractions of the world which are ever working to bring him into
bondage. This freedom requires a
deliberate choice on man’s part to “go
out” and disentangle himself from that bondage. The Israelites could never “enter in” to the Promised Land until
they had “gone out” of Egypt. Neither can a Christian enter in to the
promises and blessings of God if they are not willing to separate themselves
from those things in their lives that hinder and grieve the Holy Spirit.
The
reason that it is so critical for man to “come
out” of this world is that Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air
(Ephesians 2:1-3), has irreversibly compromised it. He is called the god of this world (2
Corinthians 4:4) because he has managed through his lies and deceptions to
blind the hearts of those who do not believe the Gospel. The kingdoms of this world are under his
control and will remain so until God brings them to judgment. Satan has brought great evil and death on humanity,
but God will one day fulfill the words of Revelation 11 that say, “The
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ;
and He shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15). Jesus said that we are currently not of this world even though we must
remain in the world for a time
(John 17:14, 16).
The
path of deliverance from the world for us lies in the words of Paul. He said, “I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1, 2). As Christians, we must realize that Christ’s
willing sacrifice of His body and blood for the atonement of our sins demands a
“reasonable service” on our
part. That reasonable service is that we
present ourselves – our bodies, minds, hearts and service – as a living
sacrifice to God. How is it that we can
continue to walk in the same paths of darkness that led us into sin and bondage
after we have been washed and cleansed by so great a sacrifice? Instead, Paul beseeches us not to conform
ourselves again to the world and its ways, but rather to be transformed by the renewing of our minds
by the Word of God. Conformity is an
effort to change ourselves from the outside in while transformation is being changed
from the inside out. To conform is a
caterpillar acting like a
butterfly. To transform is the
caterpillar actually becoming a
butterfly! The world can only urge us to
conform to a standard of morality that it has presented to us and one that
changes with every new notion. The Lord
offers us the opportunity to become a new person altogether – one who has been
changed into His likeness! A new
creation!
Water
baptism is the vehicle that God uses to deliver us from the world and from our
old, carnal nature that desires the things of the world above the things of
God. When we are immersed in the waters
of baptism, we are buried with Christ in death and crucified with Him. When we are raised from those same waters we
are raised with Christ from the dead. By
faith, sin no longer has dominion over us!
The Israelites had to experience such a death and resurrection when they
crossed the Red Sea on their way out of Egypt.
We, like them, have been planted together in the likeness of His death
so that we can also rise in the likeness of His resurrection. As the Apostle Paul said, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may
abound? God forbid. How shall we,
that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into His death? Therefore we
are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life. For if we have been
planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”
(Romans 6:2-6).
Separation
isn’t always about forsaking the things that are grossly evil or harmful to us
and to others. It is more often about
seemingly innocent things that nevertheless capture our heart and allure us
back into bondage. There was nothing
wrong with the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that the
Israelites had in Egypt (Exodus 11:5, 6), but when they allowed the memories of
those things to cause them to despise the heavenly Manna that God had given
them, that was another matter. Without
God’s intervention such lusts would have led them back into Egypt. God permits us to use this world to an
extent, but we must take heed that we do not misuse it by letting our hearts be
defiled by its lusts. “ …and those who use this world as not
misusing it. For the form of this world
is passing away.” (1 Corinthians 7:31 NKJV).
The
idea of separation goes even further back.
God called Abraham to leave his kindred and come out of the country in
which he was born and raised. God told him
to move to a place which He would show him, and, in return, He would bless Abraham
and make a great nation of his descendants.
"And I will bless them that
bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
(Genesis 12:3).
God
called Abraham to sojourn as an alien in the Land of Promise. He became a pilgrim, and a stranger in a
strange land; but God had promised that all of that land would be Abraham's one
day, saying, "Lift up now thine eyes,
and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward,
and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to
thy seed forever." (Genesis 13:14, 15). In due time, God promise fulfilled His
promise to Abraham when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and to
the Promised Land.
Moses'
name means "drawn out," and
this became true of his life for more reasons than just the fact that he had
been drawn out of the Nile as a babe.
When he came of age, he chose to abandon the riches and pleasures of
Egypt and suffer affliction with his people instead. In due time, God called him to leave Egypt
altogether, sending him before Pharaoh to proclaim this message, "Thus saith the LORD,
Let my people go, that they may serve me."
(Exodus 8:1). Notice that Israel’s service to God was
contingent on their going out of Egypt!
God was not
interested in forcing Pharaoh into reforming the laws of Egypt to make life
easier for His people, the Israelites.
He didn't care about better wages, nicer living conditions, or a welfare
system that would take care of the elderly and underprivileged. He simply wanted His people to be free once
and for all from the tyranny of Egypt. If
the Israelites were entangled in Egypt, they would not be able to serve God as
He wished. The time would come when God
would lead His people into a new land where He would establish laws based on righteousness and true holiness. The poor would be cared for and the weak and
elderly would be attended to. What God ultimately
intended was that His people learn that love is the fulfillment of every law,
but that could not happen until Jesus came and changed men’s hearts.
Many of God's
children are in bondage today. They have
allowed themselves to become slaves to sin, to wealth, to work, and to
pleasure. They have allowed the serpent
to deceive them into making the same tragic mistake that Adam made - choosing
death over life. God just wants us to be
free. Like His call to Abraham, He is
calling us to separate ourselves from the attachments that are dear to the
flesh but devastating to the spiritual man.
He asks us to hate father, mother, wife,
children, brothers, sisters, and,
most importantly, our own life. (Luke 14:26). That is, to reject their influence over us
when it would lead us in a direction, no matter how well-intentioned, away from
the Lord's leading.
Self is our greatest enemy when it comes to being
a separated people for our God. God has
remedied this dilemma by the cross of Christ.
By His cross "the world is crucified unto me, and I unto
the world." (Galatians 6:14).
As the Apostle Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I
live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for
me." (Galatians 2:20)
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