Hear
Me
Micah 6:4 “For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”
1. Trouble and Affliction
2.
Suffering and Groaning
3. Prison Bondage
4.
Rejected Ruler
5. Salvation Deliverer
1. Trouble and Affliction
A person will not come to Jesus Christ unless they are in trouble.
Trouble in your life can change the direction of your life.
The direction of your life, and the direction of my life, needs to change. Amen!
Now, God is immortal, invisible, and eternal as it is shown to us in First Timothy chapter one, verse seventeen: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” [1 Timothy 1:17
There is something else.
God is not bound within the confines of time, whereas man’s life is very short.
Man is mortal.
We are bound by time. It is as the Spirit of God says it is … in the book of James chapter four, verse fourteen: “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” [James 4:14
Further, God knows our frame, he knows our limitations, and yet HE chooses to work within time … to intercede for our benefit.
Therefore, there are set times where God prepares us … through afflictions and troubles to draw us to HIM. We have this shown to us through David in Psalm 119 in verse 67: “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” [Psalm 119:67]
Now, it is time for the people of Israel to have their slats kicked out from under them and to push them out of the nest of comfort into troubles and afflictions. Why? So as to prepare them for what was coming.
We can see this verified through Stephen’s preaching by the Holy Ghost in the book of Acts chapter seven, verse seven: “But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,” [Acts 7:7]. Did you see that: “when the time”?
God operates with the confines of time to deal with us who are bound by time.
Now, we are ready to come down the page and read verses eighteen and nineteen: “Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.” [Acts 7: 18-19]
Trouble comes … and all comfort begins to go away.
2. Suffering and Groaning
When one begins … to suffer and to groan under a heavy and a grievous load, the wheels within the mind will often begin to turn.
When it is us, we will groan and we will cry out! [Job 24:12] “Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them.”
Now, something else happens. We become very amendable to hearing God, and for God to hear us. [Psalm 25:18] “Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.”
Next, we come to the point where our hearts feel the whole weight of our sin and cry out to God in our trouble. [Job 7:20] “I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?”
We are well on our way.
3. Prison Bondage
Are you ready for this? For God to deliver you out of something [a prison], you first need to be inside of something [a prison] that you believe is never ever going to let you out.
The people of Israel have arrived! They have now lost all the former comforts they use to enjoy.
Life in Egypt was made miserable to them [a prison]. Yea, their burdens [in both body and soul] were made very grievous to bear.
See how this thing is described for yourself in Exodus chapter one, verse fourteen: “And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.” [Exodus 1:14]
It is like this. Pharaoh had become a cruel taskmaster to Israel. Therefore, he is a type of the Devil. The people were now in a cruel bondage … in a house of bondage. [Exodus 13:3] God wanted to deliver them. He sent a “ruler” and a “deliverer” to them yet they had rejected him.
4. Rejected Ruler
Do we not also, tend to bite the very hand that feeds us? Do we not have this same propensity to hurt the one who has come to help us?
Now, God sent Moses to be both the ruler and deliverer of Israel. Look what they did to him according to verse thirty-five: “This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.” [Acts 7:35]
Moses had compassion on his own people, and was rejected of them.
In similitude, Jesus Christ had come to Israel to save them but was rejected of them.
Sad, but true!
Read with me in Mark chapter eight, verse thirty-one and see this for yourselves: “And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” [Mark 8:31]
5. Salvation Deliverer
God wanted to deliver them from prison from the house of bondage. Look at verses thirty-six and seven: “He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years. This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.” [Acts 7:36-37]
It is the same way today. God wants to deliver us. This is personal. He wants to deliver you, and I, from HELLS FIRE.
Can you understand that? God wants to deliver you out the prison of bondage … the bondage to the Devil, to death, and to sin.
This is why the RULER and the DELIVERER came into this world.
HE came into this world to put on flesh and blood [INCARNATION] that HE might destroy both DEATH and the DEVIL and free us from PRISON.
This is exactly what the word of God says in the book of Hebrews in chapter two, verses fourteen and fifteen this: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." [Hebrews 2:14-15]
God sees, and God comes to deliver. "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.” [Acts 7:34]
To sum up:
1. Troubles and afflictions come into our lives from God.
2. These troubles and afflictions come so that we may know sufferings and groan within.
3. All the sufferings and groaning is for the purpose of bringing us to the realization that we are in a prison.
4. This prison is called the house of bondage.
5. To escape the house of bondage we need to stop rejecting the Ruler and the Savior.
6. We need rather to receive the ONE WHO is the Savior and Deliverer – Jesus Christ.
7. Hear Me!
“He was in the world, and the world was
made by him, and the world knew him not. He came
unto his own, and his own received him not. But as
many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on
his name:” [John 1:10-12]