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Mankind's Choice: Freedom or Slavery?
Captivity begins with human choice, spirit and character. Discover how we can
be freed from spiritual slavery.
by Howard Davis
The struggle for freedom has long
been a popular theme in literature, songs and movies. Recently The Prince of Egypt,
an animated feature film, retold the story of Moses and how he led the Israelites
out of slavery in Egypt.
"But in this case as in so many others, the Book is better than the movie" quipped
one newspaper critic. While the movie has done well at the box office, it doesn't
compare with the depth and significance of the original story in the Bible.
While the story of Moses and the Israelites' exodus from enslavement in Egypt is
one of the most popular and well-known, by no means is it the only biblical
story about freedom from slavery. Strange as it may sound, an even greater saga of
freedom from slavery is being worked out even now!
But to understand the ongoing struggle against oppression described in the Bible,
and to understand how man will find the ultimate path to freedom from slavery, let's
first go back in time to the dramatic story of the Exodus.
A Drama for all Time
It's no wonder that even in Hollywood, biblical stories like Israel's exodus
from Egypt surface as popular themes. After all, freedom, oppression and choice are
some of the greatest human issues of all time.
Consider why the characters and causes of the real biblical Exodus drama are so attractive
to filmmakers.
As a stage setting, the Israelites dwelled in an Egyptian empire filled with gigantic
monuments so stupendous that they still inspire awe as the most magnificent building
efforts of the ancient world.
The first villain in the cast is an egomaniacal leader possessed with assurance that
he is as powerful as any god. This Egyptian pharaoh believes he has a divine right
to subjugate a race of men, women and children on whose backs he has built his empire.
With indifference to their pain, suffering and torment, the Israelites are treated
as beasts of burden, to be used and discarded. The pharaoh institutes a policy of
infanticide of male babies to further degrade the Israelites and in the process wipe
out a generation of Hebrews along with the identity of their race.
In the Bible account, the supernatural Creator God outlines Israel's pathway to freedom,
using Moses as their human leader. Through Moses, and a future Prophet like him (Deuteronomy 18:15,18), God further defined for all time the nature of divine mercy, love and
the ultimate judgment of slavery.
Confrontation Over Freedom
Out of the supernatural phenomenon of the burning bush God spoke: "I have surely
seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because
of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them
out of the hand of the Egyptians" (Exodus 3:7-8).
At this time in history the Egyptians, like most of the world of today, did not know
of the supernatural existence of the Eternal God of Israel. So God chose Moses and
his brother Aaron to represent Him. God said to Moses, "I will be with your mouth
and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall say" (Exodus 4:12)
Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: 'Let My people go,
that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness' " (Exodus 5:1).
Pharaoh's response exemplified the all-too-common attitude of those who acknowledge
no higher power than themselves: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to
let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go" (Exodus 5:2).
The Pharaoh's instinct was to assert his supposedly divine authority. His word alone
was law. No word, command, or law from the God of Israel would effect His course
of action. He felt himself answerable and accountable to no one.
The Captivity of Human Arrogance
Throughout history human leaders have shown a persistent arrogance that, at the
end of the day, puts the self ahead of the commandments of God and the welfare of
community.
As in the story of Israel's road to deliverance, the entire Bible narrative abounds
in accounts how the human spirit, obsessed with the ego's ultimate importance, often
justifies itself. It rebels when challenged by God and fellow men to change, repent,
or be humbled for the sake of the equality and dignity of their fellow human beings.
Humanity and its leaders reserve the ultimate right to forge human life and society
in their own terms. As the apostle Paul put it, "The carnal mind is enmity against
God and is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be" (Romans 8:7). Typically,
people rebel against God when He challenges them to acknowledge His ultimate authority
in governance.
Pharaoh's reaction, when told to allow the Israelites freedom to leave Egypt, was
to increase the oppression of Israel. He no longer would provide straw for the slaves
to make bricks. He commanded the Egyptian taskmasters, "Let more work be laid on
the men, that they may labor in it . . ." (Exodus 5:9).
"Also the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set
over them, were beaten . . ." (verse 14). The Israelites failed to meet
the increased demands of the Egyptian ruler. Only God could put an end to the nightmare
in which the Israelites found themselves.
A Battle Between God and gods
God powerfully intervened through 10 supernatural plagues to demonstrate His
divine will in condemnation of human oppression, captivity and slavery. God's interventions
were spectacularly depicted in Hollywood's special-effect wizardry in The Prince
of Egypt and its dramatic predecessor, The Ten Commandments, produced
a generation ago.
One by one, God demonstrated His power over the supposed gods of Egypt: The Nile
River, frogs, trees and plants, cattle, insects. Even the sun, symbol of the eternal
god-man Pharaoh, disappeared in a darkness so black it "may even be felt" (Exodus 10:21).
At times pharaoh appeared to begin to relent. After locusts devastated Egypt's crops
and greenery, he told Moses: "I have sinned against the Lord your God and against
you. Now therefore, please forgive my sin only this once and entreat the Lord your
God, that He may take away from me this death only" (verses 16-17).
But pharaoh's change of heart was not to last. His self-centered arrogance led him
to continued contempt for any power greater than the kingdom of Egypt.
In the final plague, God permanently separated and protected His people through the
blood of a sacrificial lamb on the doorways of every Israelite household. Israel
was passed over and saved from the death that struck Egypt's firstborn. This deliverance
depicted the ultimate solution to captivity, oppression, and slavery-the sacrifice
of "Christ, our Passover, (who) was sacrificed for us" (1Corinthians 5:7). Egypt
was not protected by the Passover blood. The future of Egypt's royal power, the firstborn
of Pharaoh, died for his father's arrogance and tyranny.
Out of Egypt, but Still in Slavery
God led Israel to and though the Red Sea, severing her from the slavery of Egypt
by destroying the army of Pharaoh (Exodus 14). Then the experience of Israel being
led by God for 40 years reveals the greatest obstacle to true human freedom.
Only a few weeks after leaving Egypt, Israel refused a relationship with God by rejecting
a divine way to freedom--obedience to God's covenant based on living the way of His
law of love.
Jesus' disciple John later was inspired to write: "For this is the love of God, that
we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (1John 5:3).
Simply put, when Israel rejected obedience to the law of love expressed in God's
commandments, "in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt" (Acts 7:39)
The tragic lesson of ancient Israel was an example of human nature's fundamental
problem. It is one of the most profound lessons of human history.
Though given physical freedom and protection by God, as a nation Israel never left
the lust, selfishness and spiritual blindness that had enslaved both them and their
captors in Egypt. Israel insisted on choosing their own gods and making their own
rules, a problem that plagues humankind to this day.
Israel enslaved itself because of rejecting God's way of life and rulership. In more
than 800 years of subsequent history, Israel chose to "worship the host of heaven"
in spite of God's warning that He would "carry (them) away beyond Babylon" if they
persisted (Acts 7:42-43).
By 587 B.C., through the Assyrians and Babylonians, both the House of Israel and
the House of Judah had been expelled by God from the Promised Land and taken into
captivity for rejecting the true way to freedom.
A Lesson for Our Time
Is the story of the Exodus relevant to our modern era? Believe it or not, our
century as been more barbaric than the days of Moses. Only 60 years ago, Adolf Hitler
was possessed of a satanic arrogance as brutal as Pharaoh's. He plunged the world
into the deadliest, most destructive war in history. He came frighteningly close
to accomplishing his intention of exterminating the Jewish peoples in Europe.
Our century's genocide of more than six million European Jews, and scores of millions
of Armenians, Slavs, Cambodians, Russians, Ugandans, Rwandans, Chinese and others,
has shown that human barbarity and brutality are thriving. They endure, every bit
as real as the biblical account of Israel's slavery portrayed in The Prince of
Egypt.
Today we pride ourselves on how advanced we are compared to the religion of the
Egyptians. We no longer worship such things as rivers, animals, insects, stars and
planets. Instead our "gods"--the things we worship and dedicate our lives to pursuing--are
materialism, selfish pleasures, love of money, sexual immorality and the like. These
can be as enslaving to the mind, culture and human potential as any ancient gods.
Christ, Moses and Spiritual Freedom
At the time of the release of the movie Prince of Egypt, interest in Moses
as ancient Israel's deliverer motivated a cover story in Time magazine to
ask "Who Was Moses?" While scholars may argue the details of their opinions, the
Bible is very clear about the authenticity and ultimate work of Moses for us today
and tomorrow.
Jesus Christ and Moses had the same teaching and perspective on the way of life commanded
by God. Ultimately that way is personified in the life of Jesus Christ Himself. He
offers to live within us (Galatians 2:20; John 14:23), empowering us to live according
to God's divine law which shows us the way to true freedom (John 8:31-32). This total
submission to God is the character--the nature--of Christ to which man is to be ultimately
converted and conformed.
While this change of thought and action was not accomplished under Moses, he nevertheless
was used by God to record His laws defining righteous human behavior for all time.
The apostle James, half-brother of Jesus Christ, spoke of the law of God, the Ten
Commandments given at Sinai, as "the perfect law of liberty" (James 1:25)--the way
of freedom. Paul adds that God's law "is holy, and the commandment holy and just
and good" (Romans 7:12).
But Paul also pointed out the fundamental problem of each unconverted human heart
when challenged by God's divine rule of living. "For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal, sold under sin" (Romans 7:14).
God's divine law is spiritual. But we, because of our enslavement to our human nature,
are not spiritual.
Humanity has never been able to obey fully God's divine way of freedom by itself
because our inherent sin and selfish nature has held us captive. Enslaved, humanity
has been doomed to death like the Egyptians. We have been ensnared and held captive
by the devil, "who deceives the whole world" (Revelation 12:9).
Our carnal human desires and motivations hold us captive as slaves to our lusts and
delusions like the ancient Egyptian overlords held the Israelites captives. "Do you
not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves
whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?"
(Romans 6:16).
The way out of the impasse--the inevitable bondage, oppression, and slavery of the
evil in human nature--is through the death and life of Jesus Christ. "Knowing this,
that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin" (Romans 6:6).
The Path to True Freedom
Christ explained that the way of life given to Israel under Moses is the way
all mankind should live. He told a young man who asked how he could enter eternal
life to "keep the commandments," and listed some of the Ten Commandments to make
clear what He meant (Matthew 19:18-19).
That way of life is made possible by the indwelling of Christ (Galatians 2:20), which
gives us freedom after repentance from sin and baptism. God's law is then "fulfilled
in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).
Triumph for the victims of oppression has been a major human aspiration throughout
human history. It is also a major theme of the bible. The Exodus is perhaps the most
celebrated national event in ancient history, changing the course of the world. The
story of ancient Israel is broadly relevant to the entire world because humans hate
oppression and suffering and eagerly desire to be free.
But the oppression, captivity, and slavery gripping the mind and behavior of humanity
does not have to grip you. Christ is calling His people out the embrace of a dangerous
and evil world. "Come out of her my people, my people, lest you share in her sins,
and lest you receive of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4).
As Moses led Israel out of Egypt, Christ our Passover will come one day as the deliverer
of all humanity, leading mankind to a spectacular utopia under the reign of the Kingdom
of God on earth. And, even now, He is delivering from the bondage of sin those who
respond to His call for true repentance.
This is the wonderful good news Jesus Christ brought.
". . . Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and
believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:14-15).
What will you do about it?
Recommended Reading
God earnestly desires all men and women to be free and to reach their ultimate
destiny. But how will that come about? And what is that destiny? Be sure to request
your free copies of the booklets What Is Your Destiny? and The Road to
Eternal Life. To discover how God will bring true freedom to the entire world,
please request The Gospel of the Kingdom. All are yours free for the asking when
you contact our office in your country, or the country nearest you, listed on page
2.
Sidebar: Captivity to Modern Curses
Our world's astounding technical and scientific progress, coupled with spreading
global prosperity over recent decades, masks enormous suffering in the world.
Today's mixture of burgeoning progress and explosive suffering is as deceptive to
humanity as it was to the ancient Egyptians.
But it isn't hidden to God. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever
a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh
reap corruption" (Galatians 6:7-8). Our modern world is not so far removed from ancient
Egypt, which awed the world at the time of the Exodus. However, although it maintained
an outwardly dazzling veneer, the inner society was corrupt and degenerate. Eventually
they felt the consequences when God virtually destroyed Egyptian society to free
His people from enslavement. Egypt finally reaped the fruits of their actions.
We humans are notoriously short-sighted. Just because we don't personally and immediately
feel the consequences of our actions, we somehow think we can do as we please without
suffering long-term ill effects (see Ecclesiastes 8:11). We don't realize how such
thinking leads us to be enslaved to untold suffering, misery and anguish.
Consider some examples of how human choices, decisions and actions hold us enslaved
to enormous suffering.
--Howard Davis
© 1999-2022 United Church of God, an International Association
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Keywords: Israel's exodus Israel, ancient freedom, true freedom, spiritual Exodus
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