The Passover was a means of deliverance through judgment. These are the journeys of the children of Israel, when they went forth out of the land of Egypt by their hosts under the hand of Moses and Aaron. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord: and these are their journeys according to their goings out. And they journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month (the Passover was the fourteenth day); on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians, while the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had smitten among them: upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments. Numbers 33:1–4.
And the Lord spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places: and ye shall take possession of the land, and dwell therein: for unto you have I given the land to possess it.
And ye shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less inheritance: wheresoever the lot falleth to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers shall ye inherit. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as pricks in your eyes, and as thorns in your sides, and they shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. And it shall come to pass, that, as I thought to do unto them, so will I do unto you. Numbers 33:50–56.
The Lord means business. He is no respecter of persons. He will not judge the world for its iniquities and then let you go scot-free if you do not walk in His will. He will not show that kind of partiality. But if you make the Most High your habitation, you will dwell in the secret place of the Most High (Psalm 91:1).
The ninety-first Psalm promises: A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the reward of the wicked. For … thou hast made the Most High thy habitation. Psalm 91:7–9.
In the midst of judgment God intends to deliver His people. In I Thessalonians 5:5 Paul tells us we are not of the night, but of the day. We are not children under judgment, but children to be delivered by the hand of God.
Two things are taking place in the earth: God is rapidly bringing the world into the greatest pattern of judgment it has ever seen, and very soon the remnant will come into the greatest period of deliverance the Lord has ever given. Even the Passover deliverance will look like a minor miracle compared to what God will do for us. Some of the greatest things the world will ever see will be done in our generation. There were two classes in Egypt: the delivered and the destroyed. There will be two classes today also.
Let me paint a picture for you of what it was really like in Egypt the night of the Passover. Imagine the slaves, at the midnight hour in their little hovels, eating the lamb that had been roasted in the fire like barbecued meat. Later they were to eat it with bitter herbs in remembrance of their bitter lot in Egypt. The outside of their little huts is streaked with blood.
Suddenly you hear an eerie cry and a wail. Like a siren far off in the night it begins. Lights are on everywhere. Mothers are hysterical as they hold their slain little boys in their arms. The fathers look on their first-born sons, lifeless and still. The crying continues. The command had been given to the Israelites, “Go not out all the night” (Exodus 12:22). They were to stay in their houses because God knew that in that first reaction of hysteria many things could happen.
Finally the dawn comes. The Egyptians begin to stir. Frantically they are urging, “Leave us. We’re all dead men.” The children of Israel are standing hovering about their little fires. Only the bones of the lamb remain. Their loins are girded and a staff is in their hand. Contrary to their custom, they are wearing their sandals inside the house. They stand ready to make haste, not really understanding what they are doing, but obeying the command of the Lord, “Get ready, you’re going.” Then the call comes. Was it the blowing of the rams’ horns that summoned the tribes? They pour out of their houses. The little children run to round up the flocks, and everyone moves toward the road. Can you hear the bleating of the sheep, the noise of the cattle, the crying of the babies?
The sun begins to come up as they face the east and begin their journey. They walk along from the city of Rameses toward the Red Sea, toward the wilderness. As they look back they see the mourning Egyptians, out burying their little sons, still urging them on, “Get out of our sight. Out of our sight!”
Four hundred and thirty years the Israelites had been in Egypt as a people. Their generation had seen nothing else. For all practical purposes they were Egyptians, raised in Egyptian culture. But God had spoken to their forefather, Abraham, and told him they would be in Egypt for four hundred years and then God would deliver them. (Genesis 15:13, 14). They talked like Egyptians; they looked like Egyptians; they ate like Egyptians. But in obedience they had partaken of a lamb and put its blood over the doorpost. God had sent judgment, but they had escaped it because they believed God. The first-born of the Egyptians had been slain.
Suddenly someone makes haste to bring a carved urn containing the bones of Joseph. Joseph had seen the day that would come, and he had said, “Take my bones back with you to the land God has promised” (Exodus 13:19).
As they journey out, looking toward the rising sun, something strange happens. A beautiful cloud appears overhead, looking like a big beautiful pillar going up to heaven. It moves slowly, so they can keep up with it if they continue walking. They talk about it, for never before had they seen such a cloud. What a beautiful air-conditioning system. About the time it seems to be getting hot, the cloud provides shade from the sun. The sun did not smite them by day nor the moon by night (Psalm 121:6).
In the course of their marching they come to the Red Sea. The Word says God did not lead them by way of the Philistines, because they would have lost heart. They were not ready to fight. In the same way, God does not lead some of you into warfare right away. When you come into a walk with God, you say, “It’s the best thing I ever saw. It’s so marvelous. I never felt so wonderful.” God is not leading you by the way of the Philistines, because you are not yet ready to fight.
Finally they come to the Red Sea and stop there. Then begins a little murmur of apprehension, “Mmm, mountains on two sides and the sea in front of us.” We hear the remark, “Someone must have miscalculated and misread his road map. This isn’t the way. We can’t all swim. We can’t climb those mountains.” Then someone touches him on the shoulder and says, “Look behind you. We should have stayed in Egypt.” Another says, “That cloud of dust coming up in the distance has a strange look to it.” One little boy with good sharp eyes shouts, “Oh, oh, it’s the chariots of Pharaoh! I wonder if Moses knows about this?” And they all begin to cry. Moses cries to the Lord, and God says, “Oh, that’s all right. This has all been calculated. We had to put you here to make you the bait that will entice Pharaoh.”
Meanwhile Pharaoh has been thinking, “Those ten plagues made a pretty good show, and that truly was a death game; but it’s also true that the taxes next year will be terrible if we’ve lost all that free labor.” Economics dictated that they pursue after the Israelites.
It has been estimated that 600,000 men of war left Egypt in the Exodus. That means we can assume there were probably also 600,000 women and at least 1,800,000 children. Three million people—that is a lot of free labor.
So now the Egyptians are coming after them, trying to head them off. God says, “I planned it this way.” At the last minute God tells Moses, “Wherefore criest thou unto Me? Speak to the people of the Lord that they go forward. Stretch out your rod over the sea” (Exodus 14:15, 16). And they begin to march into another marvelous deliverance. In the wake of the Passover comes another great deliverance. This, too, was deliverance in the midst of judgment.
The Bible says that the Lord sent a wind and made the waters stand up. That took a bit of doing. Anyone can make water stand up—if he gets it cold enough. An iceberg is water standing straight up in the air. But this water was not that cold; it was not freezing. It says that they passed through on dry land between walls of water (Exodus 14:29).
They keep walking until finally all have reached the other side. They cannot see Pharaoh and his army very well because the cloud has moved back behind them, between them and Pharaoh. Suddenly the waters come together with a slap and a roar! They hear the horses shriek and the men scream. When the cloud moves away, there is nothing to be seen but debris. From that hour, Egypt, the ancient glorious country, was broken for all time. She was never to rise again. When God does a thing, He does it well.
When the Egyptians got feisty a few years ago, it took only a handful of Israelites to chase them back. Now the Egyptians are trying to get another good-sized country to help them. They want an even fight with those Israelites! There is no sense going in to fight if you do not have a chance. But their defeat really began back there at the Red Sea.
After their deliverance, the people rejoiced. Miriam got out her tambourine and danced, while Moses sang. It was not a Hebrew chant or a wail; it had a solid beat. …I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: this is my God, and I will praise him; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war: The Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea; and his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them: they went down into the depths like a stone. Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power, thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency thou overthrowest them that rise up against thee: thou sendest forth thy wrath, it consumeth them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up, the floods stood upright as a heap; the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea.
The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou in thy lovingkindness hast led the people that thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation. Exodus 15:1–13.
We are facing the same situation now. Satan’s Egypt will not let us go; Satan’s Babylon will not let God’s people go, until God judges. The perfect deliverance, the complete deliverance, does not come until judgment comes in the earth. This is always a principle. God is not going to lead you along, happy-go-lucky, and then somewhere along the line suddenly start to judge. You are continually being oppressed by the economic system. You are continually being oppressed by the establishment. The people of God are constantly harassed and persecuted, and there will be no release until God brings the hour of judgment.
There will be many deliverances for the people, and simultaneously a lot of judgments have begun to spring up. As you count them you see in retrospect that what God has spoken in the past few years will begin to have its real enactment and fulfillment from this day on.
The day after the Passover the Israelites were watching the Egyptians bury their dead. A day or two later they were watching as the corpses of one of the mighty armies of the world sank like rocks to the bottom of the Red Sea. God was ridding the world of the oppression of Egypt.
Can you believe God for your deliverance? Can you believe God that it is going to happen? Many things happen when God starts to move. I submit my heart to the judgment of the Lord and say, “God deal with everything in my life.” It is with my consent and my yielding to His hand that I say, “Lord, let it happen.” And it is with that same sincerity that I say, “Lord, judge everything that stands in the way of Your will in my life. If it is within me, deal with it. If it is a satanic conspiracy against me, deal with it. Whether it be human or devil, deal with it, and loose me to do Thy will.”
There can be no passing the buck. You cannot blame everyone else saying, “Lord, deal with them. Deal with my unsaved relatives because they harass me. Deal with my boss because he harasses me.” What about your reaction? What about your wrong spirit? Do not pray for God to deal with anything else until you are sure He has dealt with the wrong things within your life. “Lord deal with the things within my own heart first. And when You have dealt with the things in my spirit that stand in the way, and they are all out of the way, then deal with the things that are without me.” Believe to be delivered from foes within, delivered from foes without.
The children of Israel had not gone very far before they began to murmur. God delivered them out of Egypt, but He could not get Egypt out of them, and ultimately they died. Let us not have that kind of deliverance. We want to be delivered from all of the Egypt that is in our spirit. Then let God deliver us from those shackels and bondages that we are unable to break otherwise, the circumstances that harass us and keep us from the perfect expression of the will of God.
The perfect picture of judgment is not one of vindictiveness, where we say, “Oh Lord, they’re persecuting me and harassing me at work and I lose my temper. God deal with them. Strike them all dead.” No, no. “Lord, strike dead the rebellion in my heart, that wrong spirit within me.” God may give you a word that the defeat of the enemy at work will come about by your praying for him and ministering to him. You may lose your enemies because they become your brothers. But if not, God will deal with them, and they will not be anyone’s enemies or brothers. He will remove them from the picture completely.