Episode Transcript
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 14:5–9
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.
CONSIDER THIS
Pharaoh had one priority: Building his kingdom.
The God of Israel also had one priority: Building his kingdom.
Pharaoh was looking for slaves.
God wanted sons and daughters.
This is the perennial battle. Every soul hangs in the balance: Slave or son/daughter. Will we succumb to the slavery of building the kingdoms of this world, or will we become sons and daughters and inherit the now-and-still-coming kingdom of God?
Pharaoh represents to us the powers of darkness, and darkness will not release its slaves without a fierce battle. The text is careful to tell us Pharaoh sent six hundred of the best chariots along with all the other chariots of Egypt. He sent the entire army with many officers, troops, horses, and riders. Finally, Pharaoh rode into battle himself in his own chariot. This is an extraordinary response and extremely lethal. This is the power of darkness.
There is a larger principle at work here. It is the principle of the principalities of darkness: the kingdom and principalities of darkness will not readily or, willingly or easily release their prisoners. Human effort is of no avail. It requires the delivering power of God Almighty. The power of darkness is extremely powerful, far more powerful than mere mortals. However, compared to the power of God, the power of darkness is no power at all.
Divine deliverance is a complex process, and it can take a protracted period of time. The main reason for this is the preference of God to deploy human agents in the process of divine deliverance. Look at the long-game strategy of deliverance in this instance. It began in the midst of a period of intense darkness in Egypt—the lawful murder of all the Israelite baby boys in the country. God began with a pair of courageous parents who made a way for their baby boy to escape death. God used the household of Pharaoh to save this child who would grow up to become Pharaoh’s nemesis. This son would grow up witnessing the cruelty of Pharaoh as an oppressor of God’s people. Moses grew up with the power paradigm of Pharaoh, leading him to commit murder to defeat a murderer. Moses needed deliverance. At age forty, God took Moses out of Egypt, and over the next forty years, he took Egypt out of Moses. Are you watching the timeline here? It took eighty years for this plan to come to launch.
After launch and the unforeseen bricks-without-straw program, Moses had a near mutiny on his hands. It took many meetings with repeated requests, and ten catastrophic plagues to bring Pharaoh to his knees. This whole matter of divine deliverance was extremely complex, profoundly chaotic, and maddeningly unpredictable at every juncture. Despite all of this, God was in complete control every step of the way.
As we observed, after all this protracted preparation, God delivered the Israelites from Egypt in one night, and yet the deliverance was hardly over. Though Pharaoh was brought to his knees, he quickly got back up. It must have seemed to everyone on the field he would have things back in hand overnight. God had other plans.
I labor to make this point for two reasons. First, we need to read far more deeply into these ancient stories of our faith because they hold deep wisdom and insight. Second, we need to understand the sophisticated complexities of the kingdom of darkness in our own time in our own lives, families, churches, and communities. We must come to grips with our utter inability and incompetence to combat it on our own with our own resources. Chiefly, we must come to a far deeper awareness and acuity with the incredible, unstoppable power of God over darkness for us who believe. We are living in an age where we desperately need divine deliverance from the deep infestation of compounded darkness in every aspect of the world around us. Our young are especially vulnerable and victimized. It will take a great awakening. Hence, we sow—even as we anticipate the culmination of all deliverance—signaled by a trumpet blast and the resounding voices coming from the heavens. They are shouting:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
We receive your deliverance as well as your patience and fortitude, which may be required of us to appropriate your work in us. We pray today the prayer you gave Paul to pray for us:
I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which you have called me, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your holy people and your incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength you exerted when you raised Christ from the dead and seated him at your right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come (adapted from Ephesians 1:18–21).
Teach us and train us in your ways of deliverance. We confess our relative ignorance, and we repent from our apathy. And ever remind us that you who are in us are greater than our enemy who is in the world.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
