Bondage

Hundreds of years before a certain Jewish baby would be born in a small town in Israel, and hundreds of years before that baby would die on a tree and be raised again to life, the chosen people of God were in bondage, enslaved by the Egyptians.

The ancient Israelites were forced into hard labor and were terribly oppressed. The book of Exodus chapter one, verses 12, 13, and 14 tell us that "...the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly." In all ways, the Israelites were completely helpless and without hope. They had been enslaved for hundreds of years, they had no hope of rescue, they had no hope of winning their freedom on their own. Their situation was bleak, they were in complete and total bondage.

Into this scene comes Moses. I certainly will not try to tell his whole entire story here, though I know of a good book that contains it if his story interests you, its called the Bible. Instead I would like to focus on Moses' purpose for coming into this rather dark and depressing scene. God had called Moses from the desert and told him to go back to Egypt. Through Moses, God displayed his power to the world and to the Egyptians. God rescued the Israelites from their plight. God broke the chains of their oppressor and defeated the Egyptians. The Israelites had no part in this what so ever except to watch and be amazed and the wonders they were beholding. They did not take part in the fight in any way, rather they were carried out of Egypt from their beaten down state by the very Hand of God. God had saved them from their state of bondage.

Hundreds of years after this event, the world is in a state of turmoil. Once again, the people of the world are in bondage, to the Romans. However, this time - as had been the case since Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden - the people were in a different type of bondage, a bondage to sin. They were once again helpless in their fight against their oppressor, being sin, death, and the devil. In no way did they ever have hope of defeating their oppressor. As Paul puts it in Romans 7 verse 14, they had been "sold as a slave to sin," much in the same way that the Israelites had been enslaved to the Egyptians.

Into this scene comes Jesus the Christ, the living Son of God, the Redeemer and breaker of the bonds of sin! Christ came into the world and through his perfect life that he lived, through his innocent suffering and death on the cross, and through his being raised to life and ascending to heaven, he defeated sin, death, and the devil! He brought hope to the hopeless and carried the people of the world out of bondage and into the grace of God. Romans 6 illustrates this better than I ever could.

Almost two thousand years later, the world is still tormented by sin and will continue to be until the final day when Christ shall come again. We know that we are freed from sin and from death and from the devil. We still know that sin lives in the world, and that we will one day die, and that the devil is still on the prowl. We also know that through the grace of God we are forgiven of our sins through Christ Jesus, and that although we shall indeed die, we shall also be raised from death when Christ comes again, and that although Satan still prowls, his is not the victory, rather Christ's is the victory!

How then shall we go on living this life as both sinner and saint, dead to sin yet made alive in Christ? Through Christ we know that we are empowered to fight sin our oppressor. What sin is oppressing us right now? What sorrow eats away at us? What darkness do we hide within ourselves? To what are you in bondage? Do you believe that Christ frees you from it? I pray that you and that I believe that Christ does, so that we may turn from our sin and follow the path of righteousness freed from bondage, until that day when He shall come again when we shall live with him forever and ever! Amen.