Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
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 23:20–30
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.
“I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land."
CONSIDER THIS
We are learning a lot about salvation and deliverance on this journey through Exodus.
Salvation: The transfer of ownership from Pharaoh to God—from the identity of slaves to the identity of sons and daughters.
Deliverance: The realized experiential journey from slavery to freedom, which comes from the healing of our deepest identity through the transformation of our brokenness.
Salvation: The transactional transfer from the kingdom of darkness, death, and chaos to the kingdom of light, life, and new creation.
Deliverance: The transformational journey and process from darkness to light, from death to life, and from chaos to new creation.
Salvation: Lord, you took me out of Egypt.
Deliverance: Now take Egypt out of me.
The Israelites got out of Egypt's ownership overnight. It would take years before they were free of the impacts and effects of Egypt's oppression.
Today's text gives us some solid guidance on the transformational process of deliverance.
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says."
We do not deliver ourselves. It is not self-help or self-improvement or trying harder to be better. Jesus is our Deliverer. God decrees deliverance by his Word. We must then declare the decree of deliverance over our world by the Word through the Spirit.
"If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you."
Though salvation happens in an instant, deliverance takes time. Salvation is by grace through faith and requires only our receiving it. Deliverance is by grace through faith and requires our involved participation to see it through.
“I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way."
Deliverance is the transformational journey and experienced outcome of "working out one's salvation with fear and trembling "as God works in us "to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." It requires our participation. It is the Holy Spirit–empowered process whereby Jesus displaces our sin by his righteousness, our brokenness by his wholeness, and our emptiness by his fullness. It is the ongoing and often protracted battle of confronting and tearing down demonic strongholds of darkness, death, and chaos, the breaking of generational curses, the healing of brokenness, afflictions, addictions, and infirmities, and the driving out of everything that opposes the Word, will, and ways of God.
"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." (Phil. 2:12–13)
There is one more bit in today's text we must highlight.
"Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land."
Deliverance takes time and, as a result, requires patience and perseverance. We are being retrofitted for ever-increasing glory. There are seasons of intense battle and breakthrough followed by what feels like lengthy seasons of waiting and seeming regression at times. Everything will come against deliverance, especially discouragement. It is why we must keep this watchword ever before us:
"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called 'Today,' so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness." (Heb. 3:13)
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
We declare the word you have decreed now:
Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17–18).
And as you have decreed in your Word, we now declare:
"[Your] divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of [you] who called us by [your] own glory and goodness. Through these [you] have given us [your] very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."
[Empower us now to] "make every effort to add to [our] faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if [we] possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep [us] from being ineffective and unproductive in [our] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:3–8)
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good.
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!
THE JOURNAL PROMPTS
How is your understanding of the Lord's work for, in, and through you growing? How might you articulate the particular work of deliverance afoot in your life just now? What are the particular barriers you face and feel? How do you receive encouragement? Are you in a discipleship band yet?
