Warren W. Wiersbe - Be Delivered. Finding Freedom by Following God

BE DELIVERED

Published by David C. Cook

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David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

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All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.) Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission; NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved; NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; ASV are taken from The American Standard Version. (Public Domain); and TLB are taken from The Living Bible, 1971, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60189. Used by permission; and NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The author has added italics in Scripture quotations for emphasis.

LCCN 2010927434

ISBN 978-1-4347-6503-1

eISBN 978-1-4347-0244-9

1998 Warren W. Wiersbe

First edition of Be Delivered published by Victor Books in 1998 Warren W. Wiersbe, ISBN 978-1-56476-702-8

The Team: Karen Lee-Thorp, Amy Kiechlin, Sarah Schultz, Jack Campbell, and Karen Athen

Series Cover Design: John Hamilton Design

Cover Photo: iStockphoto

Second Edition 2010

Contents

The Big Idea: An Introduction to Be Delivered by Ken Baugh

A Word from the Author

1. Wanted: A Deliverer (Exodus 14)

2. War Is Declared (Exodus 5:18:19)

3. The Lord, Mighty in Battle (Exodus 8:2010:29)

4. One More Plague (Exodus 11:113:16)

5. Redeemed and Rejoicing (Exodus 13:1715:21)

6. The School of Life (Exodus 15:2216:36)

7. The Lord of Hosts Is with Us (Exodus 1718)

8. Hear the Voice of God (Exodus 19:120:21)

9. The Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:2224:8)

Interlude

10. The Place Where God DwellsPart I (Exodus 24:925:40;
27:2021; 30:1116; 31:111; 35:436:38; 37:124; 38:2131)

11. The Place Where God DwellsPart II (Exodus 26:137; 27:119;
30:110, 1721; 37:2529; 38:120)

12. The Holy Priesthood (Exodus 2829; 30:2233; 39)

13. A Broken Heart and a Shining Face (Exodus 3234; 40)

Afterword

Notes

The Big Idea

An Introduction to Be Delivered
by Ken Baugh

As a little boy, I was afraid all the time. I went to bed at night, lay on my side facing the door, and opened one eye every few seconds to make sure no boogeymen were coming to get me. Of course, as I grew up, my fears became a bit more sophisticated and moved from fictional boogeymen to a factual dinosaur: the Tyrannosaurus rex. I have a recurring nightmare where I can hear his bone-chilling roar, feel the ground shake as he walks, and see his razor-sharp teeth. I have no idea where this fear came from. And Im sure you can imagine that when the movie Jurassic Park came out in theaters featuring a big, ugly Tyrannosaurus, it freaked me outbut I watched it and loved it.

Today, fear is still very much a part of my life, but not fear of boogeymen or dinosaurs. Instead, Im afraid of What if. What if I lose my job and become poor and homeless? What if my wifes cancer returns and takes her life? What if one of my girls is in a car accident and is paralyzed or worse yet, killed? The list goes on and on. But when I stop to think about the fact that I am a child of almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the all-powerful sovereign God of the universe, who is watching over me and who is with me every day, my fear of What if is replaced by a solid confidence in the Lord.

But somehow my confidence in the Lord leaks and is replaced by fear once again. Do you have this problem too? If so, what is the solution? How do we keep our bucket of confidence in the Lord full so that fear has no room in our lives? How do we stop the leak?

The solution, I find, is to remember that God is faithful to deliver His people out of what enslaves and endangers them, and this is the Big Idea that runs throughout the book of Exodus. When I remember the many examples of Gods faithfulness in delivering His people, my fear of What if is replaced by confidence in the Lord. Let me show you how this works by using some examples from Exodus.

Exodus contains story after story of Gods faithfulness that temporarily moves His people to confidence. But that confidence quickly leaks out onto the desert sands of the Sinai. For example, in chapters 1 through 13 we find the Israelites enslaved by harsh taskmasters in Egypt who 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 (Ex. 1:14 NIV ). And the Israelites were under this oppression for four hundred years! But God had not forgotten His people nor His promise to Abraham (Gen. 15:1216). God chose a man named Moses to deliver His people. God went to Moses and told him the most amazing thing:

I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. (Ex. 3:78, 10 NIV )

Notice that God saw their misery; He heard their crying, was concerned about their suffering, and promised not only to deliver them from their oppression but also to deliver them to the Promised Land under Moses leadership. Dont miss the promise here: God promised to get His people to a beautiful, fertile land that flowed with milk and honey. The Israelites had nothing to fear, because no matter what happened to them along the way, it could not hinder Gods ability to fulfill His promise.

And so, after a dramatic ordeal, the Egyptians relented and allowed the Israelites to leave. The Egyptians gave them vast amounts of gold, silver, and clothing (Ex. 12:3536), as God had promised Abraham. And as they left Egypt, they left full of confidence in the Lord. They were excited about their future and didnt have a care in the world until the first test of their faith: the Red Sea.

When you read this episode in Exodus, you will want to ask yourself this question: What happened to all their confidence in the Lord? Where did it go? It leaked out and was replaced with fear. By grace, that didnt stop God from delivering them yet again as they walked through the Red Sea on dry ground and watched their Egyptian pursuers drown when God closed the sea over them. Once again, they rejoiced in Gods deliverance as they sang to the Lord, and their bucket was full of confidence. But this renewed confidence didnt last long.