WEDNESDAY'S WORD - EXODUS - 08/06/19 - Sadell Bradley - New Life Covenant Cincinnati

"You know that Moses was spinning like crazy in Exodus 14-17 when the Jewish people wanted to go back and become a place again because tramping through the desert was a bit too hard." - Joe Klein - American Journalist    On Monday I heard the song "Deliver Me - This is My Exodus" by psalmist Donald Lawrence featuring soloist Leandria Johnson. The song discusses how God is able to heal the holes in our souls that exist because of painful events in our past. The soloist's lyric begins, "Lord, deliver me, 'cause all I seem to do is hurt me. God rescued me from myself...from my overthinking." Throughout Deliver Me, Lawrence speaks the Word of God over listeners toward healing, freedom and release. Then Johnson and the choir rise to a powerful repetitive declaration, "THIS IS MY EXODUS!" stating emphatically that they will no longer be bound or enslaved to the past. An EXODUS is defined as a mass departure of a people, in the Old Testament of the Jewish people's escape from bondage to their Egyptian captors. Exodus means 'out of the way.' So 'Deliver Me' personalizes this sentiment, 'My Exodus' is that I'm now deciding to get out of my own way - and I need God's help to do that. That's very powerful, and not just for Leandria Johnson who has endured many things in her life, but for us as well.       We generally see an EXODUS as breaking free from a shackled or bound existence. But it's also the fulfillment of a promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14. "Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions." When the fullness of time arrived, the LORD held true to His Word bringing immediate restoration to millions simultaneously. Luke tells the ultimate result of this deliverance in Acts 7:7 'But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,' God said, 'and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.'    The Children of Israel experienced the same circular, repetitive, struggle in the wilderness that the songwriter describes in 'Deliver Me'. Every time they wanted to do right, as the Apostle Paul said, "evil was present." (Rom. 7:21) For the Jews, it took a new generation and a few faithful leaders to purge out fully their inbred past bondage so that they could wage war for their future inheritance. When we sing a song or make a proclamation like, Deliver Me, This is My Exodus! we are invoking God's rescue, deciding to break free, believing what He's promised, anticipating restoration, committing to worship Him fully, and preparing to go to war for our inheritance.