God has a destiny for every truly born-again Christian that involves fulfilling the purpose and promise of your life.
Dr. Tony Evans says moving from a bad yesterday to a bright tomorrow doesn't usually happen overnight. In order to move from deliverance and in order to arrive at destiny you must go through development. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Until someone invents a time machine we can't live anywhere but the present. But that doesn't stop a lot of Christians from being trapped in the past.
Let's revisit a message Dr. Evans presented as he explained how to find freedom from yesterday. God had set his people free or he had delivered them from Egypt. Israel was enslaved with Egypt in Egypt for 430 years. They were in the slavery or the bondage of Egypt and they cried to be free and God delivered them. He did not only deliver them from Egypt, from their past, he delivered them to their destiny. So there was deliverance from in order that there might be destiny too. That is from Egypt to Canaan, the place of promise. In order to get from deliverance Egypt to destiny Canaan they had to go through a process of development wilderness. Deliverance Egypt, development wilderness, destiny Canaan.
What is true of their progression is true of the progression of every Christian today. When you were saved you were delivered from the realm of darkness. You were delivered from the authority of Satan. You were delivered from the power of sin in order that you might have a destiny to fulfilling God's purpose and promise for your life.
God has a destiny for every truly born-again Christian that involves fulfilling the purpose and promise of your life. In order to move from deliverance and in order to arrive at destiny you must go through development. That development is called the wilderness. The wilderness is when God takes you through things in order to reveal to you He is God. You can only discover that God is God when you're going through wilderness situations. Those are the trials, the testings, and the temptations in which you have to depend on God because your own resources are not enough.
You can't make it on your own. The wilderness is dry. The wilderness is barren.
The wilderness has no life. So if you're gonna eat and drink in the wilderness, God has got to rain down manna from on high and bring water out of rocks because that's what He did in the wilderness. The purpose of the wilderness is for God to show you He's God.
So there is deliverance in order to reach destiny through a process of development. Now the reason why the wilderness is very necessary is to help you to forget Egypt. You see, God knew that they had been in Egypt a long time. God doesn't want Egypt in Canaan. Canaan is a whole different location with a whole different plan and a whole different purpose. He didn't want them dragging Egypt to Canaan, so He brought them through the wilderness.
In fact, the first thing He told them to do in Exodus chapter 19, He says, when I deliver you, wash your clothes. Get the smell of Egypt off you. I don't want you taking Egypt with you, and so I am going to disconnect you from your past. And I want you to discover me in your present so that you will trust me in your destiny. Well, they are on the verge of entering the Promised Land in Numbers chapter 14.
They're on the precipice of their tomorrow. God tells them to go spy out the land, to go look at the land that He has promised them their future. Go take a look at the land. Spy out the land. They sent their 12 spies in to spy out the land. The spies come back in chapter 13, and they say in verse 27, it's a good land, and it flows with milk and honey, and here is the fruit. They brought back the fruit that was enormous fruit to show how productive—milk and honey means productive—how productive their future was, how productive the land is. But then they said, verse 28, nevertheless.
Now here's productive, but we have a problem. The place is strong. The cities are fortified. The Anak are there, verse 29. The Amalek is there in the Negev. The Hittites are there. The Jebusites are there. The Amorites are in the hill country.
The Canaanites are living by the sea of joy. In other words, it's nice, but it's too many problems. It's too many problems. In order for us to take our future, it's gonna be too rough, because there are problems out there. The reason God takes you through the wilderness is to cut you off from your past in order that you might discover how great God is so when you see the problems in your future, you won't run from your future because you've seen God in the wilderness having disconnected from your yesterday. See, many of us can't get tomorrow because we're still carrying the baggage of yesterday. We're still so tied up to how we were messed up or jacked up or messed over in our yesterday. We can't take the step to tomorrow because we can't even get through today, and it's hard to get to tomorrow if you can't even make it today.
See, a lot of us wish today went in and wish we could get to tomorrow, but if you didn't do anything about what you brought in today from yesterday, you're dragging that bad boy into tomorrow, and then tomorrow you'll be wanting the next day to be better. So they said there are problems. So obviously, he's not talking about heaven, because when you go to heaven, there are no problems.
There are no Hittites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites. When you get to heaven, you study war no more. There are no problems in heaven. He's talking about your destiny in history, and that's why you could you need a sermon on responsibility, because when God gives you things, he does not give you things without the responsibility to act on taking care of the business that he gave you. So these folks are right at the precipice of their future. They hear that there are going to be problems moving forward.
There's blessing, but you got to overcome some problems moving forward to the destiny God has for you when they hear this. In fact, let me tell you what they said. Verse 33, the Nephilim were there, and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight. It's bad when you make your own self a grasshopper. The folk didn't call them grasshoppers. We called ourselves grasshoppers when we saw how big they were, and when we called ourselves grasshoppers, guess what they called us? And so we were in their sight, because if you call yourself a grasshopper, what you think other folk gonna call you?
They gonna make you as much of a grasshopper you said you were. So you go around talking about I'm a nobody. Yep, we agree. I'm never gonna be nothing. I heard that. I'm nothing but a failure. You're right.
Show you right. So what they did was they shrunk in the midst of the challenge, and look at what they said. When they heard about the challenges of their future, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said, whether we had died in Egypt or we had died in this wilderness, why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones that have become plunder, would it not have been better for us to return to Egypt? So they said to one another, let us appoint a leader and let us return to Egypt.
They wanted to go back to yesterday. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They had left Egypt, but Egypt had not left them.
They still had Egypt on their minds. And what does that tell us? That tells us you can be delivered and still be a slave.
You can be set free, but still have yesterday running your mind. You don't have to turn them into Exodus chapter 13 verse 17, it says, when God led them out of Egypt, he bypassed the land of the Philistines, lest when they saw the Philistines, they would change their mind. And see, folk that you hang around who haven't changed their mindset, they don't just decrease their value.
If they in your vicinity, they decrease your value. Because see, the mindset hadn't changed. See, God not only wanted to deliver them from the location of Egypt, he wanted to deliver them from the mentality of Egypt. But Egypt is still on their mind. They still thinking about Egypt. Now let me tell you what they were thinking about Egypt. Back in chapter 11, he says this, chapter 11 verse 5, we remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt.
The cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now appetite is gone and there is nothing at all to look at except this manna. So guess what they were saying? We would prefer fish, onions, melons, and garlic in slavery than milk and honey in freedom.
The problem is there was going to be challenges to experiencing freedom, and they would choose slavery. They stood on the precipice of a glorious tomorrow, a glorious future, but because there was going to be a challenge moving forward, they say let's go back, let's go back to yesterday. Dr. Evans went on to clarify the difference between freedom and deliverance, and we'll hear all about that when we return with more of this message from his classic series, Freedom Through Forgiveness. It's a look at the connection between release and release when we experience the mercy of God and pass it along to others, and we'd like to pass along a copy of this six lesson collection to you as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help support the alternative broadcast. Along with it will include the companion book, Thirty Days to Victory Through Forgiveness. It explains how in a single month you can learn to let go of the pain that others have caused you or that you've caused yourself. Two resources, both designed to help you break the cycle of old hurts that keep causing new hurts, both yours with our thanks for your contribution. This offer is only available for a few more days, so visit us right away at tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 for details before time runs out.
I'll have our contact information again for you after the second part of today's lesson. Here's what you need to understand. Deliverance provides you the opportunity for freedom. It is not in itself freedom. When you accepted Jesus Christ, you were delivered, but you may have been delivered but still not free. For example, in 1st Corinthians chapter 8, there were these Gentiles that had gotten saved from paganism. When they got saved from paganism, they were not free to eat the meat offered to idols because that reminded them of their past connection with paganism. Paul says, well, I don't want you to violate your conscience if you're not free to eat the meat. I just want you to know you are free to eat it because that meat no longer belongs to a false god. But because you still got the mindset that it belongs to a false god and you brought that into your new condition as a Christian, you are now limiting the kind of meat you can eat because you brought in the thinking of the pre-Christian days. And as long as you carry forward that thinking, you won't be free to enjoy all the Christian life has to offer. That's why the Bible says you got to renew your mind.
You got to get the right information so that you can now live the right kind of life in this new place I'm bringing you to. The Bible says clearly it was for freedom we've been set free. That is, free to experience becoming all we were created and then redeemed to be. Let me tell you something now. Whenever your past—I don't want you to miss this— whenever your yesterday looks better than your tomorrow, then that means you're still a slave.
See, freedom has to do with a framework not only of where you are but how you're thinking about where you are. Please notice something. If you read the report, the majority report in chapter 13 verses 25 to 33, you will not find something there.
No mention of God in the equation. They talk about how big the problem is. They talk about how difficult the challenge is.
They talk about how problematic moving forward is gonna be. They talk about how awesome the enemy was. They are describing evil to the T, and they never bring up God. Because once you bring up God, it changes the equation. See, once you bring God into the equation, now we got to redefine who the grasshoppers are. See, if all you're looking at is the problem, you become the grasshopper. But the moment God enters into the equation, your problem becomes the grasshopper.
See, it depends on where God is in the equation. When Israel saw Goliath, it says, they saw how tall he was, and they ran. When David saw Goliath, he said, who is this uncircumcised Philistine who would dare challenge the armies of the living God? And then he looked at Goliath and said, I come to you in the name of the Lord. He says, this is not my battle.
This battle is the Lord's battle, and I come to you in the name of the God. He can move forward because God was part of the equation. How did God become part of the equation? God became part of the equation because he said, one day I was out there in the wilderness, and this lion came upon my sheep, and God enabled me to take care of this lion. And another time, this bear came and was coming after my sheep, and God helped me to take care of this bear. And the same God who helped me take care of the bear and who helped take care of the lion is gonna help me to take care of you.
But you see, if you haven't discovered God in the wilderness, if you haven't learned what he can do when you've run out of food and he provides it out of nowhere, if you haven't learned what he can do when you didn't know how you were gonna pay your bills and he still got you living in that same house, if you've never discovered what God can do when you didn't see any way out of your job situation and he gave you another one, if you've never seen what God could do when your back was against the wall and there was no way out and he made a way out of no way, then when it comes across the Promised Land, you're not gonna be ready to move. You're gonna want to go back to Egypt. Don't you let yesterday keep you from tomorrow. I don't care how bad it is and I don't care how long you've been there.
I don't care how bad your daddy was, how bad your mama was, how bad your friends were, how poor you were growing up. I mean, all that's real. I'm not asking you to deny that.
I'm saying don't let it chain you. They had mentally left Egypt. Look at what God says to them. Look at what God says to them about his complaint. Verse 22, surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I performed, chapter 14 verse 22, that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet they have put me to the test these ten times and have not listened to my voice. He says I showed them what I could do. I let them see. I let them see me do ten plagues. They got frogs coming up nowhere covering the land. I turned the water into blood.
You know, all the firstborn of the Egyptians died. They saw me open up the Red Sea. They saw me rain down manna, corn flakes from above. They saw me bring water out the rock.
How come I did all that stuff? Ten times they saw me strut my stuff in Egypt, and now they're questioning me. Now they're wondering, did I bring them this far to leave them? And then they want to go back to yesterday, the good old days, just because they had some fish. And they were destroying their future because they were too in love with yesterday. Hebrews 4 says their problem was they failed to mix the Word of God with faith. They heard the Word. They heard my voice, but they didn't mix it with faith, which means hearing the Bible isn't enough.
Coming to church isn't enough. It's got to get a mixture going with faith. If you want cement to become concrete, you got to mix it with sand and water. See, if you want cement to become concrete, you got to mix it with sand and water.
If you don't mix it with sand and water, you won't get anything concrete. You can hear the Bible all you want, but if you don't mix it with faith, it won't become concrete in your experience. It won't become solid in your experience, and mixing it by faith isn't a feeling. Mixing it by faith is stepping out on it. It is acting on it. That's why it's called walking by faith.
You've got to act on the Word until you act on the Word. It'll be spiritual theory. It won't be a concrete experience. It'll never become concrete for you. It'll make you feel good.
It'll give you an emotional high, but it won't last long because it was never concrete. It didn't get mixed with an action called faith. So that's why when you hear the Word of God, the question is, what action am I gonna take?
See, because without the action, it dies in the wilderness. You can hear about God getting you out of debt all you want to, but if there's not the action of the tithe, if all you do is amen, but there's no action of the tithe, then you can't expect God to do something because there was no action. That was just an amen. That was just a nice sermon.
That's all it was. It was the voice of God unattached to faith. Faith demands an action, not just a thought.
So what happened when they wanted to go back to yesterday? Now, there is something you ought to remember from yesterday, and that is the faithfulness of God. See, that's the one thing you want to remember. In Egypt, ten times, He blew my mind. In the wilderness, He blew my mind.
You want to remember that. But even that—watch this now—you don't want to go back to, because you want to see what new thing God is gonna do. See, you don't want your testimonies just to be about what God did in the day. You don't want your testimony, well, when I was 10, this is what God did for me. That's good, and I'm glad He did something for you when you were 10, but now you're 50. What is God doing for the 50-year-old or the 51-year-old or the 60-year-old? Because His mercies are new every day, so don't just tell me what He did for you when you were a teenager. That was good when you were a teenager, because that was back then, but He's delivering you to another future now. He wants you to cross another Jordan. He wants you to have a new experience.
He wants you to have a fresh testimony. Yeah, what God did when we just had 100 people, that was great. The way He gave us this building and had a man I never saw before write out a check for $200,000, that was great in 1980, and I blessed the Lord for 1980. Last time I checked, we in the 21st century.
That was 20th century goodness, and that was great when I was in the 20th century, but I'm in the 21st century now. I'm coming to a whole new year. I want Him to do something new.
I want fresh wind and fresh fire. I want to see what He can do today. I want to see His power today. I want to see His miracles today.
I want to see His power and blessings today. I don't want to go back to 1980. That was great when we were back then.
That was great then. It's a new day. You want to move to a glorious future, but He's going to take you through the wilderness. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about the importance of pressing forward in order to find freedom from yesterday. To do that, we each need to receive God's ultimate favor, His free gift of salvation. If you're at all uncertain about your eternal destiny, visit tonyevans.org and click the link at the top of the home page that simply says Jesus. There's a short video message for you there and some free resources to help you find a promising tomorrow.
Don't put it off. Visit tonyevans.org right away. And while you're there, you can also make arrangements to receive a copy of today's lesson to review on your own or to pass along to someone you care about. Just get in touch with us for details on the message titled Freedom from Yesterday. Better yet, you can get it as a part of the six lesson collection called Freedom Through Forgiveness, which includes some bonus material we won't have time to present on the air. As I mentioned earlier, you can get this audio collection on CD or digital download along with the companion book, 30 Days to Victory Through Forgiveness. It's all yours with our thanks when you make a contribution to help keep the alternative broadcast coming to this station. Looking back can help us remember where we came from, but if we don't turn our eyes forward, we'll never be able to move ahead with the purpose and direction God desires for us. Be sure to join us tomorrow as we take an important look at moving into our future with confidence.
