Brought Out to Bring Us In

This morning I read Deuteronomy 6:20-23:  "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the LORD our God has commanded you?' ²¹ then you shall say to your son: 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; ²² and the LORD showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. ²³ Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers."  God gave the children of Israel the responsibility to teach their children of the living God who chose them as His people out of all the nations of the earth.  The living God revealed Himself to them, gave them His laws and guided them to walk righteously.  As they recalled their miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt in the past, they were to be loyal to God moving forward.

Verse 23 reveals God did not bring the children of Israel out from the iron furnace of Egypt so they could go their own way with the purpose to bring them into the land He promised to give them.  Whilst the Hebrews suffered in bondage, they cried out to the LORD for deliverance.  They knew it was terrible to be oppressed and afflicted; they understood the horror when Pharaoh commanded their male infants be thrown in the Nile.  They rejoiced to be delivered from what they knew to be evil, yet they did not believe God to enter the promised land God gave them!  God's judgment against the Hebrews was the generation 20 years old and above would perish over the course of 40 years in the wilderness, and then the following generation would be brought into Canaan.

The Hebrews knew slavery was awful, but what they did not comprehend was God intended to bring them out from bondage to idolatry they believed was good.  Over the course of hundreds of years of bondage in Egypt, the children of Israel began to worship images they believed benefitted them.  God desired to bring them out of spiritual idolatry and into the worship of the one true God, the LORD who proved His supremacy over all the idols of Egypt as it says in Numbers 33:4:  "For the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the LORD had killed among them. Also on their gods the LORD had executed judgments."  It proved easier to deliver the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt (though they did at times long to return) than free them from idolatry, for even after they took possession of the land Joshua rebuked them for continuing to carry the idols of their fathers in Joshua 24.

This principle of bringing people out from slavery to bring them in rings true concerning the Gospel.  Many of us were well-aware of the evils of sin that held us bound, and we are glad to be free of wickedness that was our ruin:  yet there are also things we can believe benefit us that God also wants to deliver us from.  God's desire is to free us of bondage to sin and self so we can enter into the abundant life Jesus promises us by His grace.  It is good for us to consider what God delivered us from and the new way of living and thinking He commands us to embrace in obedience to Jesus.  There are things that are not bad in themselves that do not edify us, and it is good for us to be increasingly reliant and dependant on the LORD to supply our needs as He guides us by faith.