Communion With the Christ:: Baptism Into Freedom

The People of Israel endured hardship in the slave pits of Egypt, there in the captivity of Egyptian slavery they had had been toiling away in bitter fruitlessness.

Israel was enslaved in a idolatrous nation which oppressed the people. In Egypt, there were many "gods" that dominated the spiritual life of that land. Here with idolatry is were the oppression of any people begins. God himself moved against the "gods" that the Egyptian people worshiped and served.

Idolatry Is Bondage

One of the lessons that the Scripture speak to us about, is that, where there is Idolatry oppression and slavery will soon follow. Israel was in bondage due to the idolatry of Egypt. Where there is Idolatry there will be a loss of freedom. An Idolatrous nation will be a tyrannical nation.

Exodus 1:14, tells us, that the life of slavery which Israel lived under was bitter. The people of Israel's bondage were filled of difficulties, they had no self-determination, nothing about slavery is desirable. Others decide your life, what you will do, where you will live, your resources are not your own, you reap while other consume, you build what others possess. There is nothing to call your own.

One of the lessons we find in the Scriptures is that where there is idolatry, there will follow a loss of freedom.

Throughout human history you will find that there were very few, if any, benevolent idolatrous societies. Tyranny follows idolatry and oppression will be imposed and slavery results. Idolatrous societies diminish the value of the human life of the many, while exulting the few with a cultural fascination with, and fixated on personalities and materiel gain.

A nation will lose its national freedom when it first loses its spiritual freedom.

Destroying the "gods"

The people of Israel were slaves due to the idolatry of the land of Egypt, the very things that Egypt worshiped. And in this state of slavery imposed upon Israel the relationship that the Patriarchs had with the Great God began to be a rather distant memory in the minds of some of the Israelites.

But the Lord God was not done with the people of Israel and God remembered his word to the Patriarchs. God intervenes in the life of Israel to set them free. The Lord saw the affliction of his People.

"And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;"Ex:3:7

"And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good land and a large, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come to me: and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them"Ex:3:8-9

The Lord God did this by destroying the "gods' of Egypt the very objects which they worshiped. God demonstrates that he the Lord, and he alone, is God and there is no other.

God brings plagues upon them showing his supremacy over the objects of Egypt's worship.

After God calls and reveals himself to Moses, he then sent him to Pharaoh. God moves his hand through Moses and begins to strike down the "gods" of Egypt with the Nile River, which the people venerated as a "god", but, for the land it was much more than just a sources of water that fed their agricultural needs , it was the main support of the whole Egyptian economic system.

God is God, not a body of water. God made the Nile or any other objects which have received the misplaced worship of humanity.

Humanity has a proclivity of worshiping creation rather than the Creator. Rom: 1:25 Humanity also will worship its own desires and anything that entices or mesmerize them. Col: 3:5 This idolatry of the creation and of the desires of the carnal nature enslave those who worship them.

Exodus chapters 7 to 12 details the plagues that God sent, showing that He is God, which resulted in freeing of the people of Israel.

Israel Baptized

God led Israel to the Red Sea but Pharaoh pursued and would enslave them again. There at the Red Sea Pharaoh and power of Egypt's army is destroyed. Israel is now free.

This parting of Sea is more than just a divine military tactic on God's part it is a salvation act of God to declare what is now and eternally true, that the Lord is God and he brings freedom. Israel, and all humanity, were intended to be free in the Lord. Where idolatry brings tyranny, the true God brings Freedom. Israel was now baptized into this true freedom from slavery in Egypt if they will but live it.

For Us

The Apostle St. Paul wrote to Christians in his day and to all throughout the ages about this baptism of Israel and what it speaks to us all about.

"Moreover, brothers, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;And were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea;" 1 Cor:10:1-2

God was Israel's Freedom, he would care for their needs and look after them, they could know true freedom, yet some preferred the tyranny of idolatry.

"And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (3-4)

"But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness." (5)

The ones that were overthrown in the wilderness, had fallen to the idolatry which was still within their hearts. They came out of a idolatrous tyrannical nation which had enslaved them, yet, they were still in the idolatry of their own wants and desires. They could not, would not be free. These ones were still every bit in bondage as they had been on the other side of the baptism waters of the Red Sea. The idols of their wants and carnal nature still stood before them and here they worshiped even as the great God oversaw their lives.

They had been given true freedom, yet the idols still ruled them in cruel tyranny.

The Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, tells us, that what we read in the Scripture was and is for us as examples, not just history of an ancient people but a wittiness and instruction for Christians in all ages.

"Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be you idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur you, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.

"Now all these things happened to them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come.Why let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Why, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. " 1Cor: 10:6-14

They Were Not Free

The issue was, and in some cases is, that those ones bowed before idols. They were not truly free in truth they would rather serve as slaves to idols then serve the living God in freedom. St. Paul encourages all of us to be careful that we are not enslaved to an idol of some sort, and to resist the temptation to fashion an idol of our own or someone else making.

Those Israelites in the wilderness were not free but rather enslaved by their own desires and carnality their actions only revealed what was true of them.

Freedom in Christ

We are called to true freedom, a freedom which can only come through our Lord Jesus Christ. When we accept the truth that he is the Lord we can then experience freedom. Jesus transforms us, we are set free from idols whatever form they may take. We are baptized into true freedom.

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free"Jhn:8:32

We are free. Through Jesus from the power of sin, from death, even the cruel idol of religiosity is brought down. However, St. Paul instructs us not to make freedom a license to sin, to bow but even for a moment to the idol of our own making or desires. There is a vast difference between Freedom and License. And it requires maturity in our Lord to recognize that difference.

"Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God" 1Pet:2:16

St. Paul tells Christian's not to return to the slavery from which we have been freed from. We should not bow to the idols of any making.

" It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Gal: 5:1

"For, brothers, you have been called to freedom; only use not freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another."Gal:5:13

The Spirit of Freedom

When our lives are led by the Lord God through the Holy Spirit, we will be free and live free, not enslaved by anything, but live in true freedom. This freedom of a transformed life which comes only when we are submerged deep within the waters of the Holy Spirit, we are baptized into our Lord Jesus and we walk free as servants of God, not driven by wants, ideas, personalities, riches, titles, fame or lands, theologies or even our own sensibilities or preferences nor the carnal nature. We are free in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is the true Spirit of Freedom, this is why a nation whose people are not being led by the Spirit of God fall into idolatry then tyranny, the Holy Spirit is the safe guard of true freedom individually and nationally. Idolatry brings Tyranny.

Biblical Christianity preserves Freedom individual and collective, personal and national.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom".2Cor:3:17

When a nation is no longer led by the Holy Spirit it will fall into tyranny and will be enslaved. This enslavement only shows what is true of an enslaved people.

Proclaim Freedom

Jesus has come that we might have true freedom.

"He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Lk: 4:16-19

God has called us to be Baptized into freedom which is found only in his Holy Son Jesus Christ, of whom the Holy Spirit will always speak of to each and all, that we might be baptized into True freedom.

Benediction: May we each and all ever live in the true freedom into which we all have been baptized, today, tomorrow and forevermore. Amen