The End of Egypt – The End of Ourselves

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Our Journey Into The Promised Land

Tags

bondage slavery, called out of Egypt, Exodus, Isaiah 19, Isaiah 31, offense to the Lord, pampered, the spirit of Egypt

I think most Christians understand that Egypt is more than just a nation. God uses “Egypt” to represent the flesh, the world, worldliness, bondage, slavery, evil, idol worship, compromise, and sinfulness. In the Bible “boat loads” of people went down to Egypt often times with disastrous results.

It is not so much with how people went into Egypt. The bigger story is how they came out of Egypt and the price they had to pay to get Egypt out of them. Egypt is always seen as a place of wanderings and warnings. Red flags should go up in every believer’s mind when God speaks of Egypt.

The Spirit of Egypt

Not only is Egypt more than a nation and symbolism, it is a spirit. It should be more importantly viewed as a “type of spirit that gets on us when we go down to Egypt.”

Listen to Isaiah describe Egypt and prophecy against it.

Isaiah 19:3-4,14: And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards. And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.

Isaiah 31:1: Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!

The Bible shows us that help can be found in Egypt but it rivals the help obtained from the Almighty God. Nothing good can come from Egypt, unless God ordains it.

God Can Use Egypt – Once It Is Out Of You!

While the Israelites were in Egypt, they were slaves! Even though they had food to eat and they had shelter… they worked hard to earn their living and survive. A Slave is still a slave!

Egypt is one of the obstacles and strongmen we have to overcome as believers. The trouble is this: many people like to be pampered. We pamper ourselves with Egypt rather than get it out of us.

Just like many parents pamper their children into failure, many believers pamper themselves into believing that Egypt is not an issue in their lives. The truth is God allows Egypt to exist so that believers struggle and fight to free themselves from its bondage. What makes a person grow spiritually is sometimes the very thing that hinders their growth. When there is an obstacle to face, they wake-up and start to fight for freedom and that results in spiritual growth.

If a person goes to a school where there are no examinations and no tests, the pupil just moves from one class to the other, year after year. This is called Social Promotion. Nothing jostles that student into action or hard work.

Many people would not have become anything in life, if they had not been kicked, battered, opposed, discouraged, etc. There are some people who would not have become prayer warriors today if they had not been put in a pot on a furnace by the enemy. How about you? What has caused the most growth in your life…good times or bad?

Research was carried out on the Cod fish some years ago. The scientists wanted to know how best to export the Cod fish without losing its flavour. They tried refrigeration, salting, drying, etc. It still lost its taste.

One day an old fisherman, advised that they should catch the fish live and put them in a tank with sea water and then introduce the catfish, which is their enemy and allow them to chase them. The old fisherman suggested the cod’s taste would be preserved. It worked because the enzymes, hormones and adrenaline kept pumping in the cod-fish.

Everybody who truly seeks the Lord will be called out of Egypt. God uses the Slavery of Egypt to drive us to Him. Remember The Father called His own Son out of Egypt. In order to get us moving toward our destiny and future, God allows Egypt to exist as a motivating factor.

The problem is not that Egypt exists. The real problem is that we just love the things of Egypt. When we fail to get Egypt out of us, she never leaves. We think, dream and worship her.

If Egypt is not a spirit upon us, then why do we dream about her when we know she is gone or supposed to be gone? God knows exactly how much Egypt means to us! He knows how much Egypt has possessed us!

The children of Israel finally left Egypt and watched Pharoah’s army drowned before their eyes. Surely Egypt was gone now! They even wrote a number one hit to commemorate the event. They soon discovered that even though Egypt was gone, the spirit of Egypt lived on within them.

QUESTION: Is God all about changing Egypt, or Hollywood, or Las Vegas? (or) Is God about calling people out of Egypt, Hollywood and Las Vegas and changing them first?

At some point after we have physically left Egypt we must come to the END of ourselves and our relationship with Egypt. It is only then that we can truly impact Egypt for good.

Unfortunately, this is usually an ugly place. It is a place where our flesh cries out with griping and grumbling and we see the ugliness of Egypt in us.

Everything about Egypt in us is an offense to the Lord. This is why we have to exit Egypt and Egypt has to exit us. This is what “the wilderness experience” does for us. (We will talk about this in a later blog.)

Have you allowed the Lord to get all of Egypt of you? The Lord calls His children to freedom.

A man once went to see a prophet and said, “Prophet, why do you bother? You have been prophesying for over fifteen years, and still things are the same. Why do you keep going?” The prophet replied, “Don’t you know? I’m not prophesying to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing me“

Blessings,

Pastor

Our Journey Into The Promised Land: Leaving Egypt

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Our Journey Into The Promised Land

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Tags

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, coming out of Egypt, deliverance, Exodus, Flying Fortress, lost at sea, Paul Harvey, seagull, startvation

Most of us can identify with the Children of Israel as they came out of the bondage of Egypt to inherit the Promised Land of God. We identify with their struggles, failures, attempts, and successes. In fact, we may identify with them too much. If we identify with them too much, it may well mean we are somewhere lost between bondage and deliverance! Just because we make the decision to leave Egypt, doesn’t mean Egypt is gone from within us. The Bible is forever talking about “coming out of Egypt.” The point is that once you finally are delivered (come out) from Egypt… you cannot easily forget it. It becomes your testimony of God’s miraculous deliverance. We will talk about the various meanings and holds Egypt can have on each of us in the next few days. But for now can you recount the providential ways God moved to secure your deliverance from Egypt?

Paul Harvey once shared the story of an old man who fed the sea gulls every Friday evening.

        “It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October, 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.

        Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean. For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark…ten feet long!

        But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred. In Captain Eddie’s own words, “Cherry,” that was the B- 17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, “read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off.”

         Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea-gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food…if I could catch it.”

Paul Harvey concludes:

       “And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea-gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know…that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset…on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast…you could see an old man walking…white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls…to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle…like manna in the wilderness.

This is story is not so much about leaving Egypt, but it is about not forgetting about God’s miraculous deliverance. Take a few moments today and thank the Lord for your deliverance.

Blessings,

Pastor