LifeLink Devotional

Friday, March 29, 2019

Yesterday Moses was left in a state of fear that he had caused more problems for the people of Israel than he could solve. He complained to God that things weren’t going well, and he even boldly told God, “you have not rescued your people at all.” But God wanted Moses and all the people to learn one inescapable truth – He alone gets all the glory for everything.

Just think, if Pharaoh had responded to the words of Moses at their first meeting, whom would the people have trusted as their deliverer? Moses, right? Of course, and they would have placed their faith in the wrong person. God made it very clear to Moses that He alone would be the Deliverer and that He alone would be worshiped, and He wanted all the people to understand that.

I said yesterday that this is a beautiful picture of our salvation. Let’s see how.

Exodus 6:6-8 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.’”

God alone is responsible to deliver us and He alone receives all the glory as our Deliverer. We, like the Israelites, were in slavery: slavery to our sin. It controlled every aspect of our existence and we were powerless to change our condition. We heard that there is the possibility of freedom, and we emotionally responded to that message because of the benefit that it would bring to us. We could be released from the slavery and enjoy the promised land of eternal life. Our hearts were convinced to place our hope in the benefit, and we think we are saved.

But the enemy still has us in his control because our faith has not yet been placed in the Deliverer but rather in the deliverance. Our status does not improve, and in fact gets more difficult as the enemy imposes heavier burdens to keep us in bondage. We must reach a point of hopelessness about our condition so that all of our faith is in God and not in our own ability (or someone else’s ability) to deliver us.

Discipleship Journal once ran an article that contains the story of a man named Carlos. In 1979, when the rebels were seeking to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, Carlos had been an activist that was being pursued by the government. At home was his mother, who every Monday got up at 4:00 AM to pray for several hours, and one of her requests was for the salvation of her son. One day Carlos was passing out rebel literature on a college campus when the army showed up to break up the demonstration. Fearing for his life, he quickly stuffed all the literature into his shirt. As the soldier frisked everyone, he thought for sure he was caught, but when they got to him they found nothing. The literature had literally disappeared.

On another occasion the soldiers trapped him and they began executing everyone that was captured. When the soldier held his rifle to Carlos’ head and pulled the trigger, it jammed, and his life was spared.

Years later, after coming to Christ, he proclaimed that God alone was able to deliver him, and that he was brought to a point of understanding his own hopelessness.

This is what God was doing to Israel, and this is what God needs to do in everyone who wants to be saved. We have nothing to offer God that can purchase our salvation. We have no ability to save ourselves by our actions. He has done it all, and to Him alone be all the glory. When we reach that point of faith where we trust the Deliverer and not the benefits of the deliverance, then God destroys the power of the oppressor and we are set free.

My friends, make sure that your faith is truly in the Deliverer – Jesus Christ. Faith in anything or anyone else will fail you.

Pastor John