The Road from Bondage to Freedom

By Steven Mills

Exodus 14:9-16

The book of Exodus is the account of the journey of the people of God from Egypt to Canaan. Egypt is a type of bondage and Canaan represents freedom. God is interested in His people moving from bondage to freedom. There are several things we need to understand as we take the journey from bondage to freedom.

Forget the past

Philippians 3:13-14 says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  One of the main problems the children of Israel had in the wilderness was they were continually remembering the things back in Egypt. They had limited recall of the past as they only remembered the good food they had. For some reason they forgot the abuse, hard labor and slavery that was also back in Egypt.  It is very difficult to drive a car if we are always looking in the rear-view mirror. We do not drive looking in the mirror but looking out the windshield at the future. Christians who live their lives in the past are normally going nowhere for God. We must always be looking ahead at where God wants us to go and not constantly looking back at where we have been. Yes, from time to time we scan the mirror to make sure everything behind us is ok and there is no danger coming up to cause us harm. However, our focus must always be forward.

We read in Hebrews 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Plato said, "when you look into a raging river you never see the same river twice.”

Believe God for the Impossible

Luke tells us in Luke 1:37, For with God nothing shall be impossible.  In Jeremiah 32:27 we read, Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?  Always remember there is nothing impossible with God.

Israel was standing with a flooded Red Sea in front of them and the fast approaching army of Egypt behind them. It was an impossible situation but God said in Exodus 14:15, "Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward." God was simply looking for obedience and trust in Him. He was ready to do the impossible when His people obeyed His command.  We simply need to look at God's track record to understand He is a god of the impossible. Noah faced an impossible task but God did the impossible. The same was true with Daniel in the lion’s den, the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace, the virgin Mary, Jesus calming the sea and feeding the multitude. When God people obey His voice He is always there to do the impossible.

Go Looking for the Giants

Joshua 14:9-13 says, “And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God. And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance.”  Forty-five years earlier this same Caleb stood before the people and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it." After all those years he still believed the word of God.  Caleb was not shrinking back from the giants rather he was demanding Joshua give him his inheritance so he could finally go up and possess his land. 

The land has been given to us by God but we must go possess our land.  Most believers spend their prayer time telling God how big their problems are when they should be telling their problems how big their God is.