Let My People Go

"Until they became uncomfortable with what the enemy was doing, they stayed in their misery as slaves."

THERE COMES A MOMENT when we must fight, but we do so standing, armed with the power of God. There comes conflict we must push through, but we do so in order to end it, and it happens in peace of heart and mind with joy. There come times of endurance, times which require patience and fortitude, but God gives us all of these, and a vision of victory. His ultimate viewpoint of anything we face is to go through it in the strongest, most fruitful position we can and show just how great He is in the deliverance.

What kind of God would He be to place us in positions of pain? Where is His image of “so love” if He pushed us into suffering? We are not weak SO THAT He looks strong. He is strong and has given us His strength BECAUSE we are weak.

He proved this at Calvary. We do not need to prove it again. When we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we are cleansed from our weaknesses and endued with power from on high. The Holy Spirit, He who raised Christ from the dead, now lives in us, and will come upon us, so that we are made righteous and holy and filled with His boldness.

We come boldly before the throne because that is how He wishes us to be. Not arrogant or proud or boastful but in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. We come to Him with the right to be there, the right to speak up, the right to ask for our needs or the needs of another, but we come in a humble attitude, with a willing heart to listen to what He says. And believe it or not, sometimes all He wants to say is “I love you.” Sometimes, what He really wants to hear is our worship and praise.

God does not save us to prove His point. We are not badges hung on the mantle so He can say, “Look at what I did.” It’s not a dictatorship, and He’s pounding His chest. His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts than our thoughts, because His goal is to send the rain so that the seeds in our heart will grow and become fruitful. His goal was to send His Son so that the Seed could be planted. So that what kept the Seed from growing, what tormented the people He’d created, what caused them to be sick and diseased, and sinful, would never torment them again, would never, ever overpower them.

He sent His people into Egypt to rescue them from famine, not to cause them to outgrow it and make Pharoah mad. That is what happened, but He had prepared Moses, who should have died at birth but didn’t. Sound familiar? God makes the way of escape, and trust me on this, it will be with the entire enemy army drowning in the Sea, and all the spoils of Egypt in our grasp, with manna from heaven laid out before us, and an entire Promised Land guaranteed. It will be with rejoicing, not a sick person among us. His heart is to save and in saving to make sure nothing we need is forgotten.

“He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” (Psalms 105:37)

What of the conflict then? What of suffering?

The Israelites were made to pick straw and still make the same quota of bricks. The Egyptians deliberately made life hard for them. But when they cried out, God heard and set into motion a series of plagues which defied individual Egyptian gods. God did to Egypt what their gods were supposed to protect them from, and not a single Israelite, not one person, was injured or lost one single thing. Their crops and their cattle continued to thrive. They saw no locusts or frogs in their homes. Their firstborn children were protected from death by the blood of the lamb, a picture of Christ.

“And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.” (Exodus 8:22)

“And the LORD shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel.” (Exodus 9:4)

“Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.” (Exodus 9:26)

But until they became uncomfortable with what the enemy was doing, they stayed in their misery as slaves.

We have before us the cross of Calvary where the blood of the Lamb was slain. We have an empty tomb where our Savior was raised then crowned King of kings. We have the Word of God, which guarantees our victory, spelling out in its pages all we will ever need to prosper and walk in health. We have the Holy Spirit to guide us, to teach us, and help us, to pray for us to the Father, who adores His children. That was the plan.

Jesus came to earth in order to heal the brokenhearted, to preach good news to the poor, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. He was anointed with the power of Almighty God to do good and heal all who were oppressed of the devil.

Not oppressed of God. Moses told Pharoah to “Let my people go,” so that they could worship freely. God hardened Pharoah’s heart after they were freed in order to drown the entire enemy army in the Red Sea. He placed His Presence around His people as a cloud and fire to guide them and light them at night, then went behind them at the Sea’s parting to keep the enemy from knowing what was happening. Then, when the enemy decided to cross the Sea anyway, He removed the wheels of their chariots so that they were stuck, and Pharoah’s troops cried out, “Their God is saving them again!”

Were the enemy close to the Israelites when they stood at the seaside? Yes. But the Israelites safety was assured and their victory at hand as only Jehovah could do it. Look to His character. Reread John 3:16, and even if you can see the whites of the enemy’s eyes, refuse to blink and keep going forward. Because the God who could deliver some one million plus people from Egypt, in fact delivered the entire planet’s population in one spectacular moment when what looked like the ending was the greatest victory.

An eternal victory for any who will believe it.

“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;” (Hebrews 11:23-24)

“By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.” (Hebrews 11:29)

Photo by Nazym Jumadilova on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com