Genesis records the history of many individual people who were called by God, but Exodus is a book on the corporate history of God’s people. When it speaks of God’s salvation, provision, revelation, and building, Exodus tells us of God’s saving His people, supplying His people with living water and heavenly manna, giving a revelation to His people, and building up His people into His dwelling place.
The church in its most basic definition is the ekklesia, a group of called-out ones; the church is a nation, a priesthood, a people peculiar to God and treasured by Him (1 Pet. 2). The church is the assembly called out by God.
Whenever God wants to move, He calls man; the Bible begins with God calling Adam in Genesis and ends with the Spirit and the Bride calling all those who are thirsty to come and drink (in Revelation). Our salvation is initiated by God through His calling, and we need to know the hope of our calling.
When God calls man, He has a purpose. When God called Moses, He had a purpose. We need to know the purpose of God’s calling. God’s calling of Moses was for the purpose of delivering the people of Israel out of the bondage and usurpation of Pharaoh and Egypt and bringing them into a good land flowing with milk and honey (see Exo. 3).
God’s purpose in calling Moses was great: the people of Israel were close to 2 million, and God wanted to get them out of Egypt, the strongest country in that age. Also, God wanted to get His people – all of them – all the way to the land of Canaan, which they were supposed to inherit, enjoy, and have God’s building in it.
Today we want to see how the nation of Egypt in Exodus typifies the kingdom of darkness in our experience, and how Pharaoh typifies Satan, the devil. The purpose of God’s calling is to bring us into the good land, a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey (a type of the all-inclusive Christ), but before we can get there, we need to be delivered out of the tyranny of Satan and the usurpation of the world.
God wants to Deliver us from the World, which is a Place of Bondage and Sorrow
In Exodus we see how the people of God suffered in Egypt: they were under the tyranny of Pharaoh and were made to serve with harshness under the Egyptians, who set taskmasters over them.
Because of their bondage, the people of Israel groaned, and God heard their groaning and took notice of them. God saw their affliction and their sorrow, and He came down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up to a land flowing with milk and honey.
Egypt was a place of bondage, which created groaning, sorrow, and oppression. God heard their groaning, knew their sorrow, and saw their oppression, and so He initiated a calling.
Today the world is not a pleasant place for us to live in: it is a place of bondage that creates groaning, sorrow, and oppression. Everybody in the world serves Satan (the “Pharaoh”), building his treasure cities. But God has heard the groaning of His people and He comes to call them out of the tyranny and usurpation of Satan and the world to go to Him and serve Him.
No matter how free people think they are, nobody is actually free; we either serve Satan or we serve God. We cannot serve “no one but myself”. As believers in Christ God saved us by regenerating us so that we may serve Him; He delivered us from under Satan’s usurpation and kingdom and transferred us into His kingdom that we may serve Him.
Egypt typifies the world in its livelihood and enjoyment ending in bondage. God wants to deliver us from the world so that we may serve Him, just as He delivered the people of Israel from Egypt so that they may serve Him.
There is no such thing as a special group of people among the Christians who are called to serve God; we all are God’s servants. Before we were saved we served sin, the creation (Rom. 1:25), our stomach, the law, or other gods (1 Thes. 1:9). But God saved us and rescued us from the world so that we may serve Him.
All believers in Christ as a community need to be delivered from Egypt and be separated unto God. The church is a community to be wholly separated unto God to serve Him.
As Christians we should not be afraid to be different from the world; we are in the world but we are not of the world. We should not adjust or contextualize the gospel to fit in with the world today. The gospel brings people out of their culture and environment so that they may serve God!
Lord Jesus, show us the purpose of Your calling. May we realize our need to be delivered from the world so that we may serve You. Lord, save us from serving Satan for his evil intent in the world. Save us from serving sin, the law, or other gods. May we all hear Your calling, Let My people go to serve Me in the wilderness! Lord, deliver Your people from the world! Release Your people from the usurpation and bondage in the world that they may serve You!
Caring for God’s Purpose in our Existence more than Caring for our Existence
Satan as the ruler of this world is typified by Pharaoh as the ruler of Egypt (Col. 1:13; 1 John 5:19b; John 12:31; Heb. 2:14-15; Rev. 12:9a). Today the whole world lies in the evil one, and he operates freely as all people in the world serve him.
The world is NOT a source of enjoyment but a place of tyranny. Everything that is in the world eventually brings us in bondage. The world is a system designed by Satan to keep God’s people away from God; he wants to have God’s people serve him so that they would not have time to serve God.
Every aspect of the world is a form of tyranny and usurpation of Satan. The more you want to serve God and meet with the saints, the more work Satan gives you to do. Our job can be a tyranny, draining us of energy and tiring us out. Shopping is necessary for our human existence, but shopping many times leads us in bondage; we shop not merely for our human existence but for more fashionable clothes, more fancy food, better and newer phone, bigger house, more expensive car, etc.
Satan keeps God’s chosen people – those destined for the fulfillment of God’s purpose – under his usurping hand in the world, giving them things to do as they serve him (Eph. 2:2; Luke 13:11-12).
Many believers say they don’t have time to pray and read the Bible, but they spend so much time on their mobile phone either playing games, using all kinds of apps, calling people, sending text messages, etc. We have a phone – which is very useful and necessary, but we are under the tyranny of Satan through the phone.
Satan uses the things needed for our existence to usurp us so that we would pursue gaining these things and improving these things and thus have no time for the Lord and His purpose.
God’s purpose for our human existence is that we would live Christ, express God, and build up the church as His habitation on earth. For our human existence, we need food, clothing, housing, transportation, and many other things; when these things take over our human existence and we are preoccupied with taking care of them, we are usurped by Satan and we have no time for the Lord.
We are not on earth to earn a human living and take care of our human existence; our existence on earth is not for the purpose of our existence. We need to live under the divine limitation, realizing that Satan tries to usurp our time and energy with the things needed for our human existence so that we may serve him and not serve God.
All the things necessary for our human existence need to be under the divine limitation, and we need to reject anything that exceeds our need or usurps our time with the Lord.
To exist is one thing, but to exist for the divine purpose is another thing (Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9). Our living and existence does not depend on what we can do and work in the world; they depend on God’s divine provision, and not from the supply in the world.
Yes, we need to work, cook, take care of the daily necessities, but these should not usurp us, wear us out, or drain us; rather, we should see that God is the source for all our necessities, receive all things from Him, not seek to have a future in the world, and live a life by faith. We need to exercise our faith to care for God’s purpose in our human existence more than caring for our human existence (Matt. 6:25, 31-33).
Lord Jesus, expose the world and how Satan usurps our time and energy through the necessities of life. Lord, save us from existing for the purpose of existing. Lord Jesus, we exist here for Your divine purpose: we are here to serve You, live Christ, and build up the church as the house of God. Lord, You are the source of our daily necessities. We receive all things from You and we live a life by faith in You. Lord, we don’t seek to have a future in the world; we want to serve You with everything we are and have.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 6, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 3 / msg 3, The Purpose of God’s Calling.
- Hymns on this topic:
# All this world now is rife with toil and pain, / In troubled times there’s nothing to sustain; / All is empty, on what can you rely? / All things reveal and testify / That you need Jesus! (Hymns #1024)
# Rescue me, Lord, from this dark world—it’s just display. / Shine in me, and show me, Lord, You are the way. / Nothing matches me but You. / Only Your life will do. (Song on being rescued from the world)
# Though the world may promise me more, / I’m just made to be filled with the Lord. / Nor it’s life worth living a day, / For the things that will soon pass away. / Doesn’t matter how rich or successful I’d be, / Or how many pleasures be offered to me. / There’s nothing that compares to my destiny— / To be thoroughly filled with the Lord. (Song on Living for God’s Purpose)
About aGodMan
All things necessary for our human existence need to be under a divine limitation. Anything that exceeds our need becomes worldly, “Egyptian,” something of Pharaoh, and it frustrates us from the economy of God’s purpose….Our living and our existence depend on the provision from the heavenly source, not on the supply from the world. For this we need the vision, and we need the exercise of our faith. Moses was a man of great faith to lead two million people out of Egypt into the wilderness, where there was no earthly supply for their human existence. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, p. 156)
Amen! Lord Jesus, “we exist here for Your divine purpose: we are here to serve You; live Christ; and build up the church as the house of God.”
Lord Jesus, we want to be those who live by grace through faith and serve You in newness of life; to build up the home You are longing for, a house, a dwelling place of God in spirit. Amen.
Lord Jesus, “we want to serve You with everything we are and have.”
Lord Jesus, we believe and love You Lord. Amen.