Freedom Through Revelation [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright. Instructions from God are not binding, they are liberating.

The revelation from God is the secret of all freedom. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Unleashed, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. You can find out more about it and even receive a copy of your very own for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer at pastorallen.org. Find out more about it and make your request or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Again, our website, pastorallen.org. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Instructions from God are not binding, they are liberating. A revelation from God is the secret of all freedom. We're in a new series called Unleashed, and we're talking about what freedom really is, according to the biblical picture of it.

Only the trained dog can go unleashed. Only the submitted life is really free. And we turn to one of the most pivotal stories in the history of Israel and the picture, the primary picture of our salvation as it is shadowed in the old covenant. We're in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, at chapter 12.

Exodus, chapter 12, verse 3, for the story of the Passover. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons. According to what each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month. Then, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. And they shall eat the flesh that night, roast it on the fire. With unleavened bread and bitter herbs, they shall eat it.

Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roast it, its head with its leg and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn. In this same manner, you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." So, what is it with men and instructions? I admit it.

It's tough. We sometimes don't read the instructions or take the instructions very well. Jean Robertson's a Christian comedian, very funny lady, and she has a skit she called, Don't Send a Man to the Grocery Store. And she tells a pretty hilarious story about her husband, who is otherwise quite smart, has a master's degree and a PhD. But she asked him if he would run to the grocery store and pick up a few ingredients because she was making a 7-Up pound cake to take to a sick person in the church.

She was kind of famous for her pound cakes, and she needed a few ingredients, and she really wanted to take this person a cake as a sign of their care. And he said that he didn't really have time. He had to go play badminton. And so, she said, well, could you just please do this? And he said, I'll tell you, I'll do it on one trip as long as I can be guaranteed that I can go through the express lane in the checkout at the grocery store.

Maybe I can get back in time, still make my badminton. She said, okay, I'll give you a very small list. And she wrote a very small list for him very carefully, sent him off to the grocery store. She was surprised he was gone for a very long time.

What is taking so long? And then when he showed up, he was obviously flustered and frustrated, and he started bringing bag after bag of groceries for this small list that she had sent. He went back to the car to get more groceries. She looked down the first bag, and there was a pound of butter.

Well, that was fine. She needed that. The second bag, she looked, and there were two large bottles of vanilla. She only needed a teaspoon and a half, and now she's got two big bottles. And she looked in the next bag, and there were three dozen eggs. She only needed a few eggs. Now she's got three dozen eggs.

What is going on? He keeps going back to the car, getting more bags of groceries. Maybe they were just on special. She looked into the fourth bag, and there and there were four three-pound jugs, you know, containers of shortening. And she realized, now I've got two huge bottles of vanilla, and three dozen eggs, and 12 pounds of lard to make a cake for a friend. And she looked in the fifth bag, and there in the fifth bag were some groceries, but she saw also the list that she had written out for him to take. And she pulled up and looked at it, and all of a sudden it made sense. In her care to make sure the list was a short list, she said the first time ever she had numbered the list. Yeah, so number one was pound of butter. Well, that worked out fine. Number two, what was number two?

No, no, what was it? Vanilla. Number two said vanilla flavoring. So we got two bottle of vanilla flavoring. She had two bottles of that. Number three was dozen eggs, and number four was three-pound container of shortening.

You get the idea. So she started looking at, you know, what was next on the list. Number five, and she looked down there, and sure enough, she said, I know what's getting ready to come out of the car now, because number five was a five-pound bag of sugar. Oh, here he came in with 25 pounds of sugar. Number six was a five-pound bag of flour.

Go back to the car. He comes back in with 30 pounds of flour. She's got two large bottles of vanilla, three dozen eggs, 12 pounds of lard, 25 pounds of sugar, and 30 pounds of flour with which to make everything, and she was just dreading when she got to number seven, because she knew what was going to happen. It was seven up, but she didn't tell him to get a two-liter bottle, because you know, you're just going to use a little bit of it, a little recipe, and you take the cap off, and it starts losing its fizz.

She kind of wasted the bottle, so she said, might as well just get one of those six-packs that hangs down from the plastic, you know, with the six individual seven-ups, and so she just started clearing out room on the floor, and sure enough, here he came in with 42 bottles of seven up. What is it with men and instructions? I just have to admit, there's a little part of me that's like my wife, who I love dearly, and I want to be helpful, but when she gives me some instructions, I don't know what it is. I hear the first part where she says, could you help me with something? I say, yes, dear, and she said, here's what I need you to do, and I hear that part clearly, but the rest of it just sounds like the teacher on the Charlie Brown videos.

Some of you know my wife had a hip replacement surgery, last month. I've been trying to be helpful, and one of the things that I, you know, early on, I needed to be helpful on was to help washing some clothes, which is not my specialty at all, and so I said, yeah, I'll be glad to help, and she said, well, here's what I need you to do. She said, you're going to carry everything downstairs out of the hamper, separate the darts and the lights, said, and you'll find on the washing machine that there's going to be two large knobs and one knob. First thing you would do is make sure that it's set on cold, cold for the first load we're going to do, because we're going to do first cold, cold, and said, make sure it doesn't say hot, warm, or warm cold, or warm slash cold, or hot slash cold, just cold, cold, and then another big dial on there, and it says also that that should be on medium. Don't make it on a small load, don't make it on a heavy load, but just an ordinary load, and you turn those two dials, and then also there's another one, I don't like to wash this on delicate, and there's another one, you push this button for delicate, and then there's a lower drawer on the left-hand side, and there are two boxes down there. One's orange, one's green, and the orange one, there are white little capsules, and the green one, they're kind of orange and green, and then you take one of the white ones for this particular one, put it down this drawer here on the left, close it back up, and then just push that thing, and make sure the thing is closed up good. And so, she gave me all the instructions, but this is what I heard was, here's what I need you to do.

Go down there, two large dials, warm, cold drawer, and that's all I got out of that. So, I go to the store, I'm coming, I said, what? But the thing about it is that, you know, I mean, why is it we resist instructions? And as it boils down to this, I think, as I was speaking, I'm not speaking for all men, I'm speaking for myself, is that it seems like too often the instructions conflict with our plans for that particular time frame of our lives. So, if my wife said, could you help me? And I said, yes, dear, and she said, I need you to trim some of the bushes outside.

But I had planned to play golf during that time. Then her instructions are in conflict with my idea of freedom. And so, I think that what we assume is that if somebody gives you some instructions of something you need to do, it's going to be a detriment to your freedom. Maybe that's the way it is in this world. But what happens, I think, is that then we project that idea onto God. We tend to think that if God gives us some instructions, He's going to take something away from us.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. This is what the Lord says, I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.

The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album, Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. We tend to think that if God gives us some instructions, He's going to take something away from us. That the instructions of God are somehow going to be a diminishing of our freedom. And what I want to show you today is exactly the opposite. I want to show you today that God, when He speaks to you and gives you instructions about something, it's not because God needs something.

It's because you need something. And if God were to give you a word, it would be freedom itself. And to understand this, I can't think of any better place in Scripture than to go back to the timeless story of the Passover. 3,500 years ago, in the midst of the tyranny of an evil Pharaoh, enslavement of the people of God, where God delivers them in this remarkable way. And He gives the people of God a revelation about what they are to do at Passover.

And the ones who have the revelation, although it may look like all these instructions are so binding, are the ones that are free. The story begins with Joseph, who is sold into slavery, carried off to Egypt. And while there, a series of remarkable events take place. He is incarcerated.

He is forgotten, seemingly. And then, by the grace of God, he is promoted to be Prime Minister of Egypt. He is reconciled with his family, and they begin to dwell in Egyptian lands. And God just blesses his people, blesses the Hebrew people.

And they just grow very numerous, and they're prosperous. It's very clear the hand of the Lord is on them. And what happens is they became so many thousands of them, so numerous, and it seemed evident that they were very special people, that the Pharaoh who had come into power, who didn't know Joseph, and didn't remember any of that legacy, he became very fearful that this Hebrew people might rise up and revolt. And so he decided to put them into slavery, and oppress them.

Fear that led to oppression. You know, one of the things you need to understand about the story of the Passover, because it can offend our modern sensibilities to think of a God who would do something like this, would bring judgment against Egypt through the death of firstborn children in the homes. And it seems like, what kind of God would that be?

But that's not really the way your thoughts should go first to understand this story. Your thoughts should go, what kind of tyrant enslaves thousands and thousands and thousands of people? This is an evil, evil, evil Pharaoh.

I mean, you need to think Saddam Hussein, Hitler. You need to be thinking like that, and realize that God absolutely hates oppression. He hates slavery. He hates injustice. This is the genesis of this story is that God is a just God. Yeah, He's merciful.

He's loving. We're going to see that in this story. But that's where this begins. And what happened is the people, after hundreds of years of slavery, they cry out to God. And I just love the way this is described in Exodus, in Chapter 2 in Exodus, where they call out to the God who had made promises to them, and they just call out to them.

Here's Exodus 2, 23. During those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and cried out for help. A cry for rescue for slavery came up to God.

You know, I mean, thankfully, most of us in our culture, we don't ever, ever, ever and never will experience such levels of oppression. But perhaps you've experienced it spiritually, where if you are in the intensity of the spiritual battle, and your soul is just overwhelmed, maybe some of you know what it's like when you can't do much other than just call out to Jesus. You just cry out, Jesus, God, here I am.

What do I do? I need you. Sometimes it's just help.

It's just help. It is the groan of travail for those who are heavily burdened. And what the text says is so beautiful in Exodus 2. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.

There are four strong verbs here in Hebrew. God heard, God remembered, God saw, God knew. He heard their cry. Understand this about God. He hears your cry.

He's a God who, like any loving parent, the child cries out, God hears it. And the text says He remembered. He says He remembered. And what did He remember?

What does God remember when His people cry out in pain? He remembered not whether the Israelites were good people or not. He didn't remember their own legacy of righteousness or unrighteousness. He didn't remember that.

What did He remember? He remembered His covenant with Abraham. He remembered that He promised Abraham that Abraham would be blessed to be a blessing. When you cry out to God in your pain, what happens inside of God is He remembers His covenant, because He's a covenant God. He hears a cry from one of His children, and what He hears is a reminder of the covenant that was made on your behalf, a covenant between a father and a son, the covenant that was a new covenant that was made in Jesus Christ. So when you call out to God, He doesn't remember what you've done. He remembers what Jesus has done on your behalf.

And God saw. He is Jehovah Jireh. He is the God who sees. That is a remarkable thing about God is that because He is not confined by time, He's not on this timeline that we're on. He's outside of it. He's transcendent, which means mystically, mysteriously, God's in your past and in your present and in your future.

He's outside of time. It is a wonderful news, because what it means is that He can be in your past where that seems inconceivable to us, but not to Him, not to Him, so He can heal what you thought could never be healed. He's in your present, which means His mercy is new every morning. With every breath, He's there. And listen, God's already in your future. He sees what's coming. That's what it means to have Jehovah Jireh.

He is a God who had already been in the future and left a ram in the thicket when Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac. God was already there providing. That's what provision means. It means to see ahead of time. Provision.

Provideo. God's in your future. God heard the cry, remembered the covenant, and saw everything that He needed to see.

And then the text just says, and God knew. God knows. What does He know? Everything. Everything about you. Everything about you.

Every hair on your head. Every longing that you have. Every disappointment that you've faced.

Every hope. Every sin, past, present, or future. He knows everything and loves you. They cried out to God. He heard. He remembered. He saw. He knew.

And He laid forth a plan. And the plan, if you didn't have eyes to look backwards and see what He did, and then to see how all of the Passover story points ultimately to our story in Jesus. If you didn't know any of that, you just think it was strange. Imagine you were an Egyptian, an ordinary Egyptian 3,500 years ago, and you saw some of the events that had been taking place. And let's imagine it is the 14th day of Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew calendar, and you have been in Egypt. If you have been in recent weeks and months, you would have known that very strange things have been taking place. In fact, maybe you didn't see it with your own eyes, but you had heard of it, that the Nile, the source of so much life, which was virtually worshiped in Egypt. The Nile had turned into some contaminated form and become red like blood.

Some had said it even was blood. Alan Wright. In the conclusion of today's teaching will come on our next broadcast.

A teaching, by the way, from the series Unleashed is titled Freedom Through Revelation. And I encourage you to stay with us. Alan is back in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. This is what the Lord says. I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.

The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Pastor Alan, as we're listening here and placing a bookmark for our next broadcast, Freedom Through Revelation, what's your takeaway today? Just as the people of God were safe, they were saved because of a simple revelation that if they would take the blood of an innocent lamb, put it over the doorposts of their home during Passover, then they would be spared from the destroyer. So really what saved them was a revelation. And what we're going to continue to see is that this is what God means when He says the truth will set you free. And a culture that thinks freedom is having all the choices and doing everything that you want to, the Bible has a completely different message. God wants you to be free, free indeed. But that freedom comes not by many different versions of reality, but by the truth. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.