A Call Out of Inward Egypt

I asked you last time how well you knew the gospel of Jesus Christ, and tried to show you from various Scriptures that the gospel is not words. It can be described by words, or by good news, but it cannot be experienced as words. Hearing the words, believing the words, singing the words, or preaching the words isn’t knowing the gospel. Because, as Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God.” The words of the gospel describe the “effectual working” of the power of God in the hearts of those who believe. And this power is what all of us must experience in order to really know the gospel. 

Imagine a person came to visit a prisoner who was locked up in a horrible underground dungeon and told him, “I have good news for you, the king has set you free. You no longer have to remain here. Now follow me, and I will show you the way out of this disgusting place.” This is good news. These are exciting words, and the prisoner begins to rejoice and celebrate his freedom. However, if the prisoner did not follow the man out of the dungeon—if he stayed in the same place, proclaiming his freedom and singing songs about the goodness of the king—this would not amount to any real change in his condition. He still doesn’t know freedom. 

This is (sadly) more or less what the greatest number of Christians do. Let’s change the analogy. A generation of Israelites was born in Egypt. They lived in a hopeless state of slavery and oppression, governed by the power of Pharaoh, who had no intention of ever letting them go. The Lord visited them in Egypt. He manifested His power and judgment in Egypt against the cruel oppressors of Israel. He openly declared His intention to make a way for His people to leave that land, and to lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey. More than that, he gave them a Passover Lamb as the price for their redemption, and then opened the Red Sea so that all could follow Him across the wilderness into the Promised Land. 

Now what if a large group of Israelites who had lived in Egypt their entire lives, heard the words of Moses, experienced something of the power, the plagues, and miracles of God, but then, instead of actually leaving Egypt, they just began to form churches and small study groups that talked and sang about God’s power and the beauties of the Promised Land. They gathered together weekly, appointed leaders, performed ceremonies, talked about what they saw, and what they felt when God visited Egypt. They also began to teach Moses’s words, and interpret them according to their own understandings and experiences, often reciting the stories of God’s plagues or His judgments against Pharaoh.

This sounds ridiculous, but I’m trying to suggest to you that this is precisely what most of us do. And I will confess to you that this is exactly what I did. The Lord has had to show me these things about my own heart. He has had to show me that I was reading, studying, singing, celebrating, and even seeing from a distance some of the realities of the Promised Land, but that I had barely taken any real steps out of Egypt. 

Now, you could most certainly say that Moses came to Egypt and declared the good news of the gospel. He declared that God was defeating Pharaoh, bringing judgment on the powers of darkness, giving His Passover Lamb as a price for their redemption, opening the Red Sea as a way for Israel to cross into the wilderness and towards the Promised Land. This is all good news! These are great and true words! But I ask you, according to the story that you have read in your Bible, how many of these people really experienced God’s salvation?

What is Egypt? I mean, what does Egypt represent? Egypt doesn’t represent a physical place, or even a spiritual place. Egypt doesn’t represent bad habits, or wrong doctrines, or a state of unbelief in God. No. Egypt is the condition of the natural man, the fallen fleshly man, the SLUG that we described last time. Egypt is WHAT man has become. It is the first birth, the fleshly birth, that has lost the image and likeness of God, fallen into a slavery to self-love and self-pleasure, and lives for the desires of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life, under the dominion of spiritual Pharaoh.

Now the good news is that there is a WAY (a “new and living way”) to come OUT of this condition, to experience a true liberty from this condition, to actually change our condition and become something different. The good news is that God has provided a power (the life of Christ) that will work in us like a mustard seed, spreading and filling the wild garden of our hearts, or like leaven, filling and changing three measures of meal. The gospel is that POWER has been given as our guide out of Egypt, a power that can change us from a slug into a man, make us a new creation, crucify us to sin, to the flesh, and to the world. But to simply CALL us something different because we have believed the words of the gospel, this would be a great mistake! 

[And let me just make a parenthetical comment here, so as to avoid a common objection. Salvation is indeed by faith and not by works, but true faith is FAR more than just believing the words of the gospel. True faith is a living thing, a gift from above that “purifies the heart” (Acts 15:9) and is “held in a pure conscience.” (1 Tim 3:9) Salvation is indeed by faith, but real faith “sees Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27), and follows in the footsteps of Abraham. Those who know real faith live by faith, walk in faith, grow strong in faith, and “receive the end of their faith, the salvation of their souls.” (1 Pet 1:9) I don’t think I have time to talk much about faith in these meetings, but I wanted to just mention this because I just said it would be a great mistake to simply CALL us something different because we have believed the words of the gospel.]

You see, there is a great deception in the church today that the gospel is God’s ability to CALL us something that we are not, rather than MAKE us something entirely different than what we are. We think about salvation as an instantaneous, automatic thing, like an external transaction, or a change in legal status or some sort of invisible “position”. Five minutes ago I wasn’t saved, but now that I said the sinner’s prayer, now I am saved. But I must ask you, saved from what? You say, “I’m saved from having to go to hell in the future.” Well, I’ll leave that alone for now, and just ask you this: Are you saved from your pride? Are you saved from your lusts? Are you saved from your old man, your bondage to sin, your love of the world, your overwhelming insecurities, your selfishness, your lack of real love, your carnal mind, your plaguing unbelief, your foolish jesting, your manipulative words, your spiritual blindness, your emptiness and discontent, your anger and irritation? Are you saved from living in this world as a creature of this world? Are you saved from earthly passions, earthly desires, earthly treasures, earthly goals? In other words, Are you still a slug?

I in no way am questioning whether you have truly felt the love of God, the awakening power of God, the call of God out of Egypt’s darkness. I have no doubt that you have. God most certainly did visit Egypt, He appeared to them, awakened them, called them, and set before them an open door. But He didn’t appear in Egypt in order to remain there, nor to establish His church there. No. He appeared in Egypt to manifest His power, His presence, and His judgments against that CONDITION of slavery and death, and to call a people out from it. In the same way, He appears to us in our fallen condition, touches us, calls us, lets us feel something of His mercy and His judgments, but all with the purpose of calling us OUT of that condition, changing that condition, transforming us by His power into something entirely different. Not in an invisible, indiscernible way… where we say we have a new “position” with God, but our hearts remain the same. No, the change from a slug to a man is an experience just as real and discernible as the change from a man to a slug.

I say again, the gospel isn’t words, the gospel is power. And the power of the gospel isn’t a power to call us something that we are not. These are great misunderstandings (or deceptions) in the church today. So many among us have seen something of His appearing, heard His call, and yet have not experienced the power of God that creates all things new in Christ Jesus. So many talk, and preach, and sing about the blessings of a heavenly land, but have not even begun to leave behind the land of Egypt—I mean, to leave behind the fleshly life, the first birth, the natural man. They know nothing of the daily cross that crucifies the world to us, and us to the world. They haven’t left behind that dark, dead, enslaved and contrary nature, and yet they consider themselves safe and secure just because they have felt the kindness of the Lord visiting them in Egypt and calling them out. 

No doubt the Lord has done this in some measure in the hearts of every one of you. He has appeared to you in one way or another. He has manifested Himself to you. Sometimes this begins as a deep conviction for sin and evil. Sometimes it is a sort of spiritual sight and certainty regarding spiritual things. Sometimes the Bible suddenly comes alive, and the words pierce our hearts in a way we have never experienced. These are real experiences. They are good, and they are necessary, but they are often the manifestations of God to a people who are still living in Egypt; I mean in the flesh, in the first birth, in the fallen nature, in the vanity of their own thoughts, in the carnal mind that is enmity with God. They are the manifestations of God in mercy and judgment to call us OUT from what we are, and from where we are. 

But when we feel these things and don’t actually follow Him out; when we are visited and convinced but still remain in Egypt, this becomes an enormous problem. Perhaps we could go as far as to say that this then becomes the root of ALL of the problems in the church today. Why? Because flesh (or the first birth) continues to occupy the throne, even though minds may have been convinced, and bodies may have been touched by God. Beliefs have changed, but their nature hasn’t. They say they have left Egypt, but Egypt still reigns in their hearts and thoughts. Egyptian appetites, desires, perspectives, and treasures continue to govern their steps. They cling to their fleshy ideas about God—about who He is, what He wants, what it means to follow and serve Him. They have perhaps felt real convictions, real awakenings, and callings out of Egypt, but they continue to meet together in the wrong man, in the wrong land, talking, singing, and arguing about a kingdom they have not experienced. 

And so, my question to you is whether you have left that kingdom or that condition behind. Or as I stated previously, whether you know the “effectual working” or the “power of the gospel” to restore you to what man once was. Has the gospel changed your heart, cleansed your soul, given you a new Spirit with new desires, new understanding, a new will, with heavenly love, goodness, and wisdom, restoring God’s image and likeness in you to what they were in the beginning? I have no idea, and no desire to argue with anyone about whether or not they will be saved from hell when their body dies. But I will say this, that God is desiring to save you RIGHT NOW from everything in you and of you that is contrary to His nature and purpose. In fact, I want to tell you very plainly that salvation is not a future event, but rather a very present and active power. It is the power of the life of Jesus Christ that is to work NOW in the heart of man to “destroy the works of the devil”, to “perfect holiness in the fear of God” to “sanctify you entirely in body, soul, and spirit,” to “conform you to the image of the Son” to “transform you in the the same image from glory to glory,” etc. You know that all of these things are declared in Scripture, and that the apostles were of course not writing these words to people who had already left this world, but to people who were still in the body. 

And let me ask you this question: Why are you so sure that God will save you in the future, if you are refusing to let Him save you from your sin and pride and lust, right now? I mean, why should you expect God to save you in the next life, if you are not letting Him save you in this one? 

And while I am on this subject, I want to ask you to pause for a moment and just consider with me the fact that THIS ONE THING is the reason why you were created and given an immortal soul. This is the only reason why you have been given time and place in a body of flesh. Of course you know that you are not a body that has a soul. No, you are a soul, a spiritual being, that for a very short time has an outward, biological body of flesh and blood. As Paul tells us, this corruptible body of flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, but your body does afford you TIME AND PLACE to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Phil 2:12-13)

The greatest thing that you can do with time is “redeem the time, because the days are evil.” (Gal 5:16) Time isn’t yours, to do with it whatever you like. It was not given for you to waste it on the passing pleasures of the outward man. What a terrible waste of precious time, to spend it trying to tickle the sinful pleasures of a fleshly tent that is soon to be buried 6 feet under the ground! What a terrible tragedy to squander such a precious gift, and be left like the virgins who slept with no oil in their lamps, or like the man with one talent who said, “‘Lord, I went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.’”

Paul tells us why we were given time and place. Acts 17:26-27 “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.” We were given time and place to seek and grope after and find the Lord. That is what time is for. That is why you are here. And if you do this, if you sincerely, humbly live like this, you will begin to find—NOT just true words, NOT a new position or status, NOT just a new set of doctrines and beliefs—but a LIGHT that shows you what you are, and a POWER that seeks to save you from it.