Deliverance Dilemmas
Pt. 2 - Deliverers
I. Introduction
The load had become too heavy. 430 years of harsh slavery has culminated in the desperate cry for deliverance. An old-time preacher by the name of Vance Havner may have said it best when he said, “The tragedy of our time is that the situation is desperate, but the saints are not.” And so I challenged you last week that we must once again allow desperation, not despair, not disappointment, not delinquency, not despondency but desperation rise up in our soul again so that we too cry out for freedom and change. Why is that important? In the account in Exodus we are told in chapter 2 that this cry of desperation catches God's attention. Their cry for help ascended to God. And He was moved to take action. I want us to become desperate because I have learned that the one cry that God always responds to is the cry for help! But it is this response that produces another dilemma that we must address. In order for us to find the freedom from self-sabotage, depression, financial chains, prejudice, gluttony anger or any other imprisoning force that we may face we must learn to deal with this dilemma. Of the dilemmas we will address this may be one of the two hardest to navigate. However, it is essential to put this one to rest if we are going to be free. It is the dilemma of deliverers.
The fact is in order for most people to be free they must be led to that freedom. Left to our own preferences and devices we will settle comfortably into slavery. We will make short forays into desperation when the pain of our slavery rises to the surface, but then apathy, distraction, unwillingness to pay the price or a boat load of other things will push us back into compliance and ultimately complacency. That is why in the Hebrews 10:24-25 we are told that we would need to . . . consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. The writer knew that on our own freedom is a fantasy. We must be spurred. We must be pushed. We must be drug out of despair. We must be kicked out of comfort!
So, let me state this clearly before we dive into the dilemma this created for the Children of Israel and now for us.
Deliverers are divinely appointed individuals who are unwilling to settle in anything less than the fullness of the promise God has for us. These individuals are willing to pay any price to get us to freedom.
So, back to the well-known story.
TEXT: Exodus 3:1-4, 7-10 (NIV)
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So, Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.
So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
Let me point out some things quickly. You will remember that Moses sees one of the Egyptians beating an Israelite slave and he intervenes and kills the Egyptian. However, the Israelites reject Moses because, although an Israelite, he grew up in the Pharaoh's palace. So, Moses unwanted by either side flees to the desert where he begins to shepherd the flocks of his future Father-In-Law's sheep. It is on the back side of this desert that God calls Moses to be the deliverer for the Children of Israel in what we know as the "burning bush" account.
Israel cries out to God for deliverance in chapter 2 and God speaks to Moses in chapter 3. Israel speaks to God; God speaks to Moses and it repeats over and over again. Here is the first dilemma that we face today.
1. God uses surrogates!
This account and every account that follows, including the coming of Christ in the Gospels, reveals to us that that God uses representatives. This created an issue because the dilemma the Israelites had was that they had a hard time identifying and recognizing their deliverer. So, when he shows up on the scene, they reject him.
The same thing happened when Jesus showed up. People reject God's representative.
We cry out to God for help. We want freedom but we also want God to speak directly to us. Give me a Word! What we fail to understand is that the truth is that most of time when we cry out to God He is already talking to our deliverer! We expect god to send a deliverer after we are trapped, but what we miss is that sometimes God positions a deliverer before we were trapped (Joseph). Psalms 105:16-17. He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food; and he sent a man before them—Joseph, sold as a slave.
Some of us are waiting for freedom to show up but freedom got here before you got trapped. You just haven't recognized that there is a deliverer in your life yet!
Our issue is that we have a hard time identifying our deliverer. So, when our Moses shows up on the scene, we reject him. How many of us have rejected deliverance because we didn't like the deliver that the deliverance showed up in?
Sister could it be that while you are crying out to God for freedom, He is speaking to your deliverer husband? Brother could it be that while you plead for help God is already giving your wife a word? Teens could it be while you are wrestling with depression and self-image that God has already given you a parent that knows the way out of those traps? Could it be church goer that while you are suffering in silence God has set someone right next to you that has traveled that same path and knows the way to freedom?
It is about revelation more than it is about release.
Maybe if our prayers would shift from deliverance to praying for our deliverer and for our ability to recognize that person, we would find that we would begin to see deliverance become a reality!
How many times does freedom, breakthrough, revolution show up in a package we can't digest? Could it be that our freedom will come packaged in a different color, different sound, different volume? Could it be that our freedom will come wrapped up in freckles? Could it be that our freedom may come wrapped up in wrinkles? How many rejected rescuers have left in our wake?
We better come to grips with the fact that God uses surrogates to set us free!
2. Deliverance is usually derailed by our preferences.
The Children of Israel, after enduring harsh bondage for 430 years, almost missed deliverance because of their druthers! They would druther not follow Moses! He was one of them, but he wasn't. He had another issue too that they didn't prefer. Moses stuttered. He wasn’t perfect but he was placed and present. Some us want perfect deliverers but God typically sends people who are flawed but favored. Placed and present.
This preference is a two-way street dilemma. Some of you don't prefer the deliverer God has sent you. However, on the other hand like Moses some of you are called to deliver the people in your house, your neighborhood, your workplace and on the row you are setting now but you would druther just to decline. You have allowed your preference for anonymity, peace, timidity to cause you to refuse to step up so you begin to make excuses as to why you can't be a deliverer! Your preference is keeping folks in prison!
Our preferences become our strongest prison!
I have learned that although you get to choose deliverance you normally do not get to choose how you are delivered!
We let our preferences get in the way of our freedom. We want to pick the soundtrack of our freedom. We want to pick the travel partners. We want to pick the path. We want to pick the pace. We want to pick whether we are the follower or the leader. Our desire for control keeps us constrained. You can either have freedom or control, but you can't have both! Choose.
Some of you are setting next to your deliverer right now but because they have issues or because they don't fit your preconceived ideas of what Moses should look like you dismiss relationship with them. You throw their advice away as if was them talking. You refuse to follow their lead when their lead could be the road map right out of years of bondage and suffering. Some of you are missing deliverance because you prefer for it to come a different way. You expect it to be packaged differently. Others are the deliverer that is refusing to step up. You are waiting on God to use someone else and He is waiting on you!
Listen this isn't about your preference. This is about pardon. This isn't about desire is about deliverance. It is time to agree with whatever method and whatever messenger God chooses to use if they will march you out of bondage into freedom! It is time to speak when spotlighted. It is time to lead when led. (SLIDES 15-16) You don't get to dictate deliverance . . . you get to participate in deliverance!
Give us insight, revelation, and let us lay down our preferences and participate in deliverance as a follower or as a leader!
