Masters and Slaves: Why It Is No Easy Walk To Freedom – Part One

 “Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?” Ex 14:12.

“Why came we forth out of Egypt?” Nu 11:20

In the narratives of the Master and Slave genre the Exodus of the Bible is the most grand and epochal in the history of man’s redemption. Yet that offer when it has come, it has not always been taken up willingly by the “slaves” themselves, but it has come through feats and jerks, through blandishments and outright persuasion. Finally it has come through tears and through death.

Men have even come up with cynical proverbs to justify why they should remain in servitude. “Zimwi likujualo halikuli ukakwisha.” Roughly translated it says “It is better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” Thus much later the children of Israel in the wilderness began to miss Pharaoh, as if they would say: Though he had doubled their tasks and killed their children, at least they knew him. They knew his Egypt. They had known it for 430 years. But as for this new thing Moses had brought up to kill them in the wilderness, they did not know it. They did not know how it would end.

It is no wonder Moses was reluctant to take the offer of leading that group. He clearly foresaw the questions those people would bombard him with, and he became afraid. Then he recalled that these same people had been hostile to him, in that earlier incident in Egypt, when he had only felt pity at them, and had killed an Egyptian who was harassing them, in his effort to try to alleviate their misery. But what did they do?  They had threatened to give him away. And now God was asking him to go and lead these same people out of Egypt!

The prospect of leading people and not sheep can be daunting to anyone, let alone Moses.  Keeping sheep seemed the easier way out. God was daring him to try something bigger. Search your own conscience, and decide if there isn’t something bigger that you can do than “keep sheep.” God was offering Moses something bigger, a huge task, but like all of us, Moses was reluctant to take it up.

Who is a Slave, Who is a Master?

A slave is somebody dominated by another, literary owned or controlled by another. That another is the master. Sin, as master, enslaves. Hence Christians are warned not to let it have dominion over them. Christ declaimed “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34).

Instead, a born-again Christian becomes a servant or slave to a positive Master, which is Christ. That which now has control over us is Christ and the Holy Spirit, which both sanctifies us, teaches us, and leads us. We are therefore glad to be called slaves to these positive controlling forces, than the negative ones concerning sin and its shame. It is not in vain that Paul says “We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Co 4:10).  Christ, and not sin, now has dominion over our lives. “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” (Rom 6:18).

A master leads and others follow. The master is the boss. Thus Christians follow Christ. When sin is the master then its victims follow it. They pay obeisance to it. They obey it and respect it. The sin is their boss. But if one can overturn it, renounce it, then it is said one has mastered it. Unfortunately humanly speaking we are not capable of overturning sin by our own strength except through the grace of Jesus Christ. We are sinful by nature, and therefore more willing to do evil than good. That is why Christ came. To set us the captives free. Search your conscience. Do you need help?  Do you need to learn the truth about your present circumstances? Will you accept the offer of freedom or will you fight it?

Accepting that is itself a mountain. Admitting that you are a slave is a tall order. Satan will work overtime to convince you that you are not, that God wants to take away your freedom. Satan hides the truth from you, blinds you. God offers you the truth. Without mincing words. That it might set you free, and “ye [may] be free indeed” (John 8:32-36). Satan’s  freedom is slavery in disguise. First he hides the hideousness of your sin by giving it colorful names. Like gay for homosexuality. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isa 5:20-21).

Satan’s freedom degrades one. It lowers one. Makes one dirty. One wallows in own vomit. The bed is transformed into a scatological slimepit. That is Satan’s freedom. Dirty. Smells bad. Are you ready to accept that hard bare knuckled truth and light which Christ is shining in your soul? Can you smell the putrescence in those sins? (All sins smell bad before God, all sins without distinction. The opposite are Righteous acts, called sweet savours before God). Will you accept His free offer of true freedom or will you fight it to death like the children of Israel did? Incidentally that is Satan’s chief goal. To bring you so low to the ground level, that then he can easily kick you into the hole and bury you. Next he will move on to his next victim, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pe 5:8). Forget about words like bigot. Those are tools of Satan’s distractions. The scales he pumps into our eyes.

This is the truth and the freedom which Christ is offering. It is truth and just because it is truth, it hurts. Sometimes it takes a hammer and fire to pierce through that welding. To separate one from that sin and death. Hence Jude wrote, “And others save with fire, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”

For a patient sometimes to heal, one has to take a very bitter medicine. Only Christ can give you that desire and strength to take that medicine. Ask him. “And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Again it is written, “he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness” (Ps 107:9). Can you feel that longing or desire to be completely set free? May God grant you the grace to feel so!

Let My People Go!

  “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go…” (Ex 5:1).

The children of Israel were in trouble. The new Pharaoh who came after Joseph’s death was a monster. He saw that the children of Israel were increasing in the land, and that worried him. Therefore he devised what might as well be the very first beginning of the holocaust against the Jews. First he did “set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.” Next, “they made their lives bitter with hard bondage.” Next he “charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river…”

It was at this time that the cry of the children of Israel reached God. And He heard. And He came down to deliver them. And then trouble began. Hardly had they crossed the Red Sea than they began to fight: “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?” (Ex 14:11). Such was the lot of Israel in Egypt. 430 years of doing tasks they did not like, superintended by taskmasters they did not love, in a country which wasn’t their home. Yet when the call for freedom came they were reluctant to take it. They fought it to death. You are in bondage. Your cry for help has come up before God. He has heard you. He has come down to deliver you. Are you ready to go? 

The Reasons People Give

Many reasons attend to this. Like bread. Others are fears of the unknown. Others are afraid of grasshoppers and huge men. “The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Nu 13:32-33).

Others are afraid they may never get another job if they quit this one, though it is sheer drudgery. Superstitions and irrational fears superimpose themselves on it. A pay slip can become an object of slavery, refusing to let go.

Onions and Garlic 

In short God had come down to offer His people freedom, in answer to their own cry. But when finally the bit where the rubber meets the tarmac came, they were reluctant to engage the gear, and let the car go. It began with Moses, as the reluctant driver. Next the captives themselves. When they got on the back of that van, it was to begin one hell of a ride for both Moses and his passengers. At every stage his passengers cried that it had been better if they had not taken this ride.  They fought the old man until the van overturned. Moses died. And all the passengers who had left Egypt alive died too. Except Joshua and Caleb.

Perhaps people can be addicted to oppression? Culture and tribalism can make a peoples’ vision very short indeed. It is slavery. Refusal to expand one’s world-view. The Israelites were adamant. They refused to see beyond Egypt. They forgot that God was there with them, that He “went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night” (Ex 13:21). They forgot their own cry, forgot their former tasks and their former taskmasters. They forgot God’s miracles and promises.

Instead they became weighted down by such minor things as food. “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes” (Nu 11:5-6).

Some people fail to see far. They see only onions and garlic. These became matters of life and death to the children of Israel. Their vision became scandalously short. They refused to see the larger picture of their own salvation. Their logic became inverted. Now Moses (and God by extension) became their cruel master, not Pharaoh. God became not their solution but their problem. They forgot and began their malevolent tantrums. “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him” (Ex 32:1). What they were saying in effect was this: “for as for this God that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”

People suffer bondage. Then they cry “Where is God?” Yet He was constantly there with them. The people saw this and believed. But their belief lasted only until the time of the next meal. Pharaoh now seemed like he had been their erstwhile savior. The end was that the majority died in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Not for want of freedom but for want of onions and garlic.

You recognize you are in bondage. You have asked God for help. Help has come. Search your conscience. What more are you missing? May God grant you His grace. May it aid you in your search for Him. May you, one day, stand high on His Mountain and shout to the whole world below that, “Free at last! Thank God I am free at last!”  In Jesus Mighty Name! Amen!