Tony Campolo tells the story of a town where all the residents are ducks. Every Sunday the ducks waddle out of their houses and waddle down Main Street to their church. They waddle into the sanctuary and squat in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes its place, and then the duck minister comes forward and opens the duck Bible.
He reads to them: “Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles. No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings. God has given you wings, and you can fly like birds!"
All the ducks shout, “Amen!” And then they all waddle home. (Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story, Word, 2000; www. PreachingToday.com)
That describes some believers I know. They say “amen” to the notion that they can fly, but continue to waddle around like they are tied to the ground. They’ve read in their Bibles that they can soar to great heights and overcome any obstacle, but they continue to wallow in the muddy puddles of bitterness, worry, and/or compulsive behaviors.
So how do you find freedom from such a debilitating mindset? How do you break free from the habits which keep you in bondage? How do you escape the kind of thoughts and feelings which have entrapped you for so long. Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 11, Exodus 11, where we see how God set his ancient people free after they had been slaves for 430 years in Egypt.
Exodus 11:1 The LORD said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely (ESV).
But they won’t go away empty-handed.
Exodus 11:2-3 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people (ESV).
God will take care of his people, providing them with everything they need while the Egyptians lose just about everything they have. With that assurance, Moses goes to Pharaoh one more time.
Exodus 11:4-7 So Moses said [to Pharaoh], “Thus says the LORD: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel’” (ESV).
Israel’s God will protect His people, but the Egyptian gods will be impotent to protect the Egyptians. The goddess Isis, wife and sister of Osiris, supposedly protected children, but this last plague will demonstrate her total incompetence. The Egyptians will see that the god they trusted to protect their children is a total fraud. Then…
Exodus 11:8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger (ESV).
Even though Pharaoh has stubbornly refused to let God’s people go, his own officials will beg them to leave!
Exodus 11:9-10 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land (ESV).
That’s so God could demonstrate His power over all the Egyptian gods who were nothing but worthless idols. So, if you want to be truly free…
PUT AWAY YOUR WORTHLESS IDOLS.
Turn from those things which replace the true God in your life. Reject the notion of trying to find security and significance in anything or anyone other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Egyptians trusted in their gods, and those gods failed to save them. And that’s what happens to people, who trust in anyone or anything else but the true God of the Bible. Those idols fail to save them. In fact, those idols can and will destroy them.
In his book, The Names of God, Ken Hemphill tells the story of a woman who made a frantic 911 call, bringing police to her home. She had only been able to communicate that she needed help and was being killed. When police arrived, they found a bloody knife beside her lifeless body on the kitchen floor. Blood was spattered across the room, yet police found not even a single cut or puncture wound on her body. Then they noticed a trail of blood leading into the next room and followed it. There, they found a large dying boa constrictor.
Apparently, the snake had been raised as a pet, but that day the snake wrapped itself around the woman as she was cooking in the kitchen. For whatever reason, she allowed the snake to wrap itself around her body; but when it began to squeeze its muscular body around her, she knew she was in danger. In a panic, she grabbed a knife and began to slash away at the snake. She managed to mortally wound it, but was herself killed in the process (Ken Hemphill, The Names of God, B&H Books, 2001, p. 111; www. PreachingToday.com).
That’s what happens when you make a pet out of an idol in your life. A first, it seems like harmless fun, but eventually it chokes the life right out of you.
Andy Crouch, in his book Playing God, writes about Steve Jobs, Apple's late cofounder and CEO. Crouch says, “He displayed incredible drive and creativity. However, like many people, Jobs struggled with idolatry. Surprisingly, his idol wasn't technology; it was food. Steve Jobs was obsessed with food in ways that dominated his life and relationships. As a teenager he experimented with strange diets. At one point he went for two weeks eating only apples. The various diets, often based on raw food, gave Jobs an exhilarating sense of control.
“Like all idols, his obsession worked at first. It was part of Jobs's larger project of attaining to superhuman control over his surroundings and other people—intimately linked with his perfectionism. Indeed, Jobs's idolatrous relationship to food may have cost him his life. In October 2003 a scan turned up islet cell cancer, a rare version of pancreatic cancer that is slow-growing and consequently almost always curable with prompt surgery. But Jobs's idol—food as a method of control—failed him.
“As his biographer Isaacson writes: ‘Jobs decided not to have surgery to remove the tumor, which was the only accepted medical approach.’ With a hint of regret, he told Isaacson years later, ‘I really didn't want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work.’ Specifically, he kept to a strict vegan diet, with large quantities of fresh carrot and fruit juices… For nine months, as his friends and family pleaded with him to have the surgery, Jobs refused.
“Not until July of the next year did he consent to remove part of his pancreas. During the surgery, doctors found that the cancer had spread. Jobs would never again be free of cancer, and just over eight years later he was dead at age fifty-six.
Andy Crouch commented, “He was in the terminal stage, not of cancer, but of idolatry, when the idol ceases to deliver but exacts its full demands for unwavering worship. When the public became aware that Jobs was increasingly gaunt, commentators suspected that Jobs's disease had come back with a vengeance. What few knew was that his wasted body was not just the result of cancer but also his own dependence on control through food (Andy Crouch, Playing God, Intervarsity Press, 2013; www. PreachingToday.com).
Please, if you want to be free, give up your own dependence on control whether it’s through food or money or anything else. Relinquish control and put away your worthless idols. Instead…
RELY ON THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB.
Depend on the blood of God’s lamb shed for you. Trust in His sacrifice on your behalf.
That’s what God told Israel to do. After 430 years of slavery in Egypt, God was finally going to set them free, but only after the blood of a lamb was shed.
Exodus 12:1-2 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you (ESV).
This was a new beginning for Israel! Even though it was the spring of the year, it was to become the first of the year for Israel.
Exodus 12:3-11 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover (ESV).
They are to eat roast lamb with their traveling clothes, because they will be forced to leave Egypt immediately. In fact, the Egyptians themselves will urge them to leave.
Exodus 12:12-13 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt (ESV).
The blood of the lamb will be their protection and their deliverance!
Dr. William Allen Dean, in his book entitled The Names of God, says that “in every eastern country blood at the door is always the symbol of a welcome. Very often a wedding is sealed simply by the slaying of a sacrifice and by putting the blood on the door or the doorsill while the groom carries his bride across that bloody doorsill into his home.” By doing that, he is welcoming her into his home, promising to care for her the rest of her life (Dr. William Allen Dean, The Names of God, p.34).
In the same way, blood on Israel’s doorways welcomed YHWH into their homes. God told them, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” I.e., God will cross over the threshold, come into that home where He is welcomed, and keep the death angel from doing any harm there. In fact, according to Exodus 11:7, he will not even allow a dog to growl. Literally, “not a dog will sharpen its tongue” against any of them.
God told Israel to trust in the blood of the lamb, and that’s what God tells you, as well. If you want My protection, God says, and if you want to be set free from your bondage, then trust in “the blood of the Lamb.”
According to the New Testament, that Lamb is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. In John 1, John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). 1 Corinthians 5:7 calls Christ, “Our Passover lamb.” And 1 Peter 1:19 says we are redeemed, we are set free, “with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
Jesus is God’s Passover Lamb. He shed His blood on the cross for your sins. And when you by faith apply that blood to the door of your heart, then God is welcomed there. When you trust in the blood Jesus shed for you on the cross, then the Deliverer, YHWH Himself, comes into your life and prevents the destroyer from doing any more harm.
Just a few years ago (2019), ABC News Australia ran a story about 3-year-old Zainab Mughal, who lives in Florida. At the time, she required frequent blood transfusions for cancer treatment.
Now, there are over 300 different blood types, and 90 per cent of the population is fairly easy to match to one of those types. But the challenge for the doctors treating Zainab was that her very rare blood type only occurs within Indian, Pakistani, or Iranian communities. At the time, researchers were only able to track down five donors around the world.
Adjunct Professor David Irving, with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, found the match for Zainab. The blood collected from the Australian donor was sent to Florida for use in Zainab's stem cell transplant operation.
Zainab still needed more blood for further treatments, so the search for donors did not stop at five. Professor Irving said, “We are certainly looking to diversify our blood donor pool so that we are ready for those patients like Zainab. Our red cell reference laboratory researchers are working hard to make sure that they get the best match for all of the patients who are in need of red blood cell transfusion” (Fran Kelly, “Global search finds fifth blood donor in Australia for three-year-old cancer patient in US,” ABC News Australia, 2-12-19; www.PreachingToday.com).
In a similar way, our terminal disease of sin requires an extremely unique blood donor, of which only one has been found. It’s the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s sinless Son, who gave His blood on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago. After that, He rose from the dead to offer a transfusion of His blood to any who put their trust in Him.
Please, if you haven’t done it already, trust Christ with your life. Depend on the blood He shed for you once and for all to set you free from the disease and bondage of sin. If you want to be truly free, put away your worthless idols, rely on the blood of the Lamb, and…
LEAVE YOUR BONDAGE.
Move away from your life of captivity. Get away from the place of slavery and the things that enslave you. That’s what the Israelites had to do.
Exodus 12:29-30 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead (ESV).
On 9/11/2001, 2,977 people lost their lives in a terrorist attack that profoundly impacted our nation. On October 7, 2023, 1,139 Israelis lost their lives when Hamas invaded Israel in another 9-11 type terrorist attack, bringing great anguish and pain. But imagine the anguish if every household in either of these countries lost a son. That’s what happened in Egypt. Every Egyptian household lost a favored son.
Exodus 12:31-32 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!” (ESV)
God humbled Pharaoh, who was worshipped as a god himself, to the point of begging Moses and Aaron to bless him. Finally, he came to fear Israel’s God and wanted YHWH’s blessing, not the curse of His plagues.
Exodus 12:33-37 The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children (ESV).
600,000 Israeli households were freed that day. When you add the wives and children, that means 2 to 3 million people!
Exodus 12:38-42 A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. It was a night of watching by the LORD, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; so this same night is a night of watching kept to the LORD by all the people of Israel throughout their generations (ESV).
After 430 years of being stuck in slavery, God set them free in an instant. God kept watch to bring them out of Egypt, but they still had to leave Egypt if they were to be truly free. Imagine the Israelite who said, “I’m not leaving; I like my life as a slave too much.” Even though he was free to go and even urged to go, he could never be free if he stayed in Egypt.
In the same way, if you want to be truly free, then you too must , leave your place of slavery. God has set you free through the blood of His Son, so stop living in bondage! Get up and get out of your prison.
You are free – free to love and not hate, free to give and not take, free to be good and not bad, so what is holding you back? Get up and get out of those old habits that once bound you. Then start living the life God wants you to live. God will help you as He helped Israel. He will “keep watch” to bring you out of bondage, as well. Just take that first step of faith and trust Him to do it for you.
When Heather Kopp arrived at rehab, she was a 40-something mom of two and a veteran of Christian publishing. She had never been in jail or on the streets, she’d simply let a nightly glass of wine turn into two, which turned into a bottle, which eventually led to additional mini bottles hidden and secretly chugged in the bathroom. Soon enough, every moment of her life revolved around her next chance to sneak away for a drink.
Karen now reflects on her sobriety, “(People) think I just resist temptation over and over because I’m a good person or because I have all this willpower. Can you imagine? How do you explain to people that it’s not anything like that?” Recovery is a living example of the miracle of grace. When addiction removes the illusion of self-sufficiency, the addict must reach a point of surrender from which to accept grace without conditions, and to have confidence that God really is in control, no matter what (Heather Kopp, Sober Mercies, How Love Caught up With a Christian Drunk, Jericho Books, 2014, in a review by Laura Leonard, “Divine Rehab,” CT magazine, May, 2013, p. 71; www. PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, whatever your bondage, please put away the illusion of self-sufficiency, and reach out for the grace of God. Take that first step towards letting God have full control of your life.
If you want to be truly free, put away your worthless idols, rely on the blood of the Lamb, and leave your bondage.
That’s the gospel, my friends – the Good News. It’s not just for the unbeliever. It’s for those of us who believe, even more so.
Eugene Peterson put it this way: The Gospel message says, “You don't live in a mechanistic world ruled by necessity; you don't live in a random world ruled by chance; you live in a world ruled by the God of Exodus and Easter. He will do things in you that neither you nor your friends would have supposed possible” (Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, William B. Eerdmans, 1992, p.175; www.PreachingToday.com)
So quit waddling in the mud and start flying!
