Freedom From The Oppression Of The Taskmasters

Freedom from the Oppression of the Taskmasters

Study Text: Exodus 1: 8-14

Introduction:

- There came a new king who had no covenant with Joseph. God brought him up out of the pit, put him right in second in command, right under Pharaoh.

- Pharaoh said, “Take my kingdom,” and so forth. But Pharaoh died. And when Pharaoh died, Joseph’s favour began to die.

- And the Bible said, “There arose another king that knew not Joseph.” Had no regard for the relationship that the king or Pharaoh had had with Joseph.

- And so he wasn’t willing to just let the Israelites live peacefully in the land as they had come during the time of famine and so forth. He wanted to oppress them.

- Just like Pharaoh somehow had strange suspicion that he’d better do something to hold these people back. The enemy has that same inclination to want to hold you back from your promise, from your position, from your calling, from fulfilling what God has placed on your life.

- And so what Satan has done, is he has appointed over you taskmasters to oppress you and to burden you so heavy that you cannot be about the business that you’ve been called to.

- What horrible taskmasters Satan has appointed over us and those we love to oppress us and to burden us and to push us down to the point of giving up.

- We shall discuss the topic under three subheadings:

1. Organization of the Taskmasters

2. Operation of the Taskmasters

3. Overcoming the Taskmasters

1. Organization of the Taskmasters

- Eph 6:12: For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

- The taskmasters are organized into four major categories based on their level of authority in the kingdom of darkness.

i. The Principalities

- These principalities are ruling devil spirits possessing executive authority or governmental rule in the world.

- As shown in the scripture, this ruling power usually involves a particular nation, people or race.

- There are evil angels ruling the kingdoms of the world that oppose the truth of God, and of which Satan is the chief prince or ruler, of both the world system and its organization of demons, as noted in Matthew 12:24, the devil is called "Beelzebub" meaning lord of the dwelling, in which these wicked spirits are subject to and operate under Satan's dominion. They, like their chief prince, direct, control, rule and carry out the present darkness of this world.

- The book of Daniel gives us an excellent example of how these unseen spiritual entities fight to increase and maintain their realms of influence and control in order to hinder God's purposes. In addition, as previously stated, these princes are named after the nations or rather their principalities in which they rule. Dan 10: 10 - 12

ii. Powers

- In keeping with the context of this verse, this would include all high-ranking, evil supernatural powers that receive instruction from and report to the principalities.

iii. Rulers of Darkness of this World

- These are agents of darkness that live naturally among us, and control every activities in the dark world.

- They include the witches, wizards, necromancer, magicians and occultic people.

iv. Spiritual Wickedness in Heavenly Places

- Since Satan is the prince of the power of the air, these wicked spirits, in high places, are often understood to be the collective organization of all of Satan's devil spirits.

- These malevolent spirits work evil and mischief and operate in our atmosphere.

- They run errands for other categories and they operate as close to the very air we breathe, and reach to realms beyond.

- All kinds of spiritual filth are propagated, in these realms, for the purpose of humanity's deception and subsequent destruction.

- Prior to becoming a Christian we too walked according to the prince of the power of the air. Eph 2:2-3

2. Operation of the Taskmasters

1. Through Thoughts and Imaginations

- Demons want as much influence over you as possible. One of the greatest footholds they have is being able to plant thoughts in your mind and then trick you into taking credit for them.

- They’ve been successfully doing this to you your whole life, and unless you’ve become very good at discerning, they’re still doing it to you now.

2. Through Demonic Dreams

- There are few important points we need to know about demonic dreams

a. When you have a negative or warfare dream, it signifies either what has taken place, what is taking place or what your enemies are planning against your life.

- All of these cases require that you pray against what was revealed to you in your dream.