THE FREEDOM RECIPE (Exodus 3.1-8; 19.16-19)

As we are about to celebrate America's 250th birthday, we pause our study of Daniel for a short series I have entitled "The Rebirth of Freedom." These messages are drawn from Os Guinness's book entitled The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai's Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom. Guinness notes that the book of Exodus gives us seven timeless principles for gaining and keeping our freedom. This message covers the first two principles.

Transcript

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Hi, this is Jeff Stevenson, and you're listening to the Upwards podcast. Recently, we've been doing a lot of study out of the book of Daniel, and I still have two or three messages from that that I want to share with you. But I want to interrupt that series because we are at a crucial moment, and I want to be timely in delivering the content that I have in mind for that. We're looking at America's 250th birthday, and recently I have been doing some reading from and discussion with others on a book by Oz Guinness called The Magna Carta of Humanity. And Dr. Guinness is a British citizen who is very fond of the American freedom experiment, and he's very adept and insightful at looking at things in our country and where we are and where we where we could be. And so I want to share some things in the next few sessions with you related to that. And I simply am looking at this as the rebirth of freedom. And despite all of America's problems, we still are privileged to live in the freest, most prosperous, and most powerful nation the world has ever seen. I do not believe this just happened. It was planned. It has been ordained by God and blessed by God. And our forefathers purposely put in place principles, most of them learned from oppression and cruel failures of earlier times, but these principles were put in place to steer this country into what we are today. Make no mistake about it. The psalmist says in Psalm 33, 12, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. Proverbs 14 says that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. I don't think I have to tell you that recent generations have seriously begun to question the principles America is founded on. And many of us today are deeply ashamed of our heritage. We are as divided as we were before the Civil War. And why is this the case? I think what I want to do with these messages over the next couple of weeks, several weeks, is to help us draw a line between Scripture and where we are as a country. I do not believe that just because I love America means that America is my idol. Any more than I could say that just because I love my wife or my children, that they are my idols. Now they could be, but they don't have to be. I make no apologies for loving America. And I believe that America is based upon some spiritual principles from Scripture that we have largely forgotten. Fact of the matter is that modern history has seen five major revolutions. The English Revolution in 1642, the American Revolution, 1776, the French Revolution, 1789, the Russian Revolution, 1917, and the Chinese Revolution in 1949. These are modern history's five major revolutions. The last three of these revolutions, the French, Russian, and Chinese, were atheistically driven. In other words, these revolutions did not want freedom to pursue God. They were seeking freedom from God. Now the American Revolution, on the other hand, assumes that freedom comes from God, and it is a freedom to pursue God. That's what we're based on. It is not freedom from religion, but freedom of religion. The French Revolution, by contrast, just thirteen years later, says that freedom assumes I am God or we are God. And the French Revolution tried to free itself from God. A little more on that later, but simply to say now, at this point, that for them freedom is God. Freedom is the new religion in the French view. And the other atheistic revolutions, the Russian and Chinese that came later, are both rooted in the French Enlightenment and they're modeled after the principles of the French Revolution. Now, the French Revolution did not lead to totalitarian regimes as the Russian and Chinese did. But the Russian and Chinese Revolution simply carried out the French Revolution's principles to its logical end. And they did experience totalitarian regimes. Now, in fairness, what the French wanted were three things liberty, fraternity, and equality. These are not bad, they're noble. But the question is, how do we get them and how do we keep them in balance? I simply want to say to you that these are impossible and in fact destructive in unredeemed societies. In other words, societies without God. Let me illustrate. Without God, fraternity degenerates into nationalism. Think Nazi Germany. Equality without God deteriorates into socialism. And regardless of what you may think about socialism and the positive press that it's receiving these days, socialism is nothing more than the gateway to communism. Or think totalitarianism or dictatorship. Liberty, on the other hand, without God, degenerates into the selfish overpowering of the weak and the poor. Think anarchy or might makes right. Now, many Americans today, as I said, are embarrassed by and question the revolution that founded this country. And some are abandoning it, and they're claiming for themselves an anti-American narrative of history called the 1619 Project. Won't get into that, but I will simply say that a lot of what we are seeing in our society right now, whether it be political correctness, postmodernism, identity politics, the sexual revolution, critical theory, socialism, all of that mirrors the French Revolution, not the American Revolution. In other words, all of this comes from 1789, not 1776. Sadly, many Americans only see our ancestors' errors, and we arrogantly assume that we are wiser than them. The problem is that we're cutting off the branch we're sitting on. We don't realize it, but we're jumping up and down on the very shoulders that we're standing on. I believe if there's ever a time for America to understand how we got here, it's now. Americans have failed to see the role of the legacy of the Hebrew Scriptures as the foundation for our freedom. You see, the American Revolution was based upon an even earlier revolution called the Exodus Revolution. In Exodus, and I'm talking about the biblical book of Exodus, God is the true revolutionary. Faith in God becomes the protest against every abuse of power, oppression, and inequity. And God literally turns the Egyptian world, the greatest superpower of the day, entirely upside down. And both the Jewish faith and then later on the Christian faith, both of these are counter-cultural protests. They're protests against power, abuse of power, oppression, inequality. In fact, I would suggest to you that Exodus is both the master story of human freedom and the greatest critique of the abuse of power the world has ever seen. Magna Carta means is Latin for a great charter. A charter is a formal statement of foundational rights and principles to a people. And so to say Exodus is the Magna Carta for freedom means that this gives us the foundations of freedom, the principles to freedom. It's the blueprint for social freedom. Exodus gives the foundational truths for building and maintaining an ordered and free society, and there will be seven of them. Now, every one of us wants this, right? Every one of us wants a society where we're free, but we also want a society where we're protected. And Exodus is going to give seven foundational truths for building and maintaining such an ordered and free society. Exodus gives us the DNA of what we call ordered freedom. It tells us how to have freedom with justice. And justice meaning not might makes right. Justice, rather, meaning God makes right. It is how to conserve the best of the past and progress toward a better future. To go forward, Americans must learn to go back. No one is more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they're free. And my friends, whether you agree with this or not, we are losing our freedom little by little. We must grasp that what happened at Mount Sinai in Exodus is completely opposed to what happened in Paris in 1789. Exodus is our model, not Paris. Paris leads to oppression. Sinai leads to freedom. You say Sinai? Mount Sinai? What's that? That goes to show how far removed we are from these principles. So let's look at this a little more carefully. I'm going to give you two of the seven principles in this message today. And principle number one is that freedom requires authority. More specifically, freedom requires God. Exodus begins with God. And this alone invites debate. Go back to the French Revolution for just a moment. In the spirit of Voltaire, the French Revolution rejected God and Christianity altogether. Now, admittedly, they were reacting against a corrupt and oppressive medieval church. And it's understandable why this may have aroused anger. But the French took it to extremes. They hated the clergy, took revenge on the church, removed all crosses, and worshiped the God of reason instead. They preferred secularism. Secularism is nothing more than the notion that the here and now are all that matters. The French would say we are God. And they feed off the best of Christian beliefs and yet protest the worst of all Christian failures. Their hostility toward God is staggering. In fact, so much so that it implies, I think, a backhanded compliment that God is critical in the recipe for true human freedom. God is not just part of the story, he is the story. We see this in the book of Exodus. Without God, there is no Israel. Without God, Israel stays enslaved. Without God, Moses never exists, and Moses never takes his place. Without God, there are no plagues. And without God, there's no deliverance, no freedom. But then that raises the question, which God? And we quickly see that this is not the God of the Hindus. It is not the God of Buddhists, or the God of Islam, or the God of atheists, or agnostics. People are free to pursue those gods. But freedom doesn't come from those gods. Unlike these false gods, God is not found by our search for Him. We don't make Him up. The fact of the matter is, He's the one who initiates with us. He reveals Himself to us, as He did with Moses. In Exodus chapter 3, we read the following words. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Horeb's another name for Sinai, by the way. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight. Why the bush is not burned? When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am. And then he said, Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Paused to say that we ought to keep in mind that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have been dead at this point for centuries. And this God is telling Moses he is still their God. Verse 7 continues, then the Lord says, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings. And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them out of up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hibites, and the Jebuzites. He's talking about coming to liberate Israel from Egyptian bondage. And Israel's freedom from Egypt is going to flow out of three direct encounters with God. This is the first, Exodus 3, 1 to 8, and it is to Moses alone. The second occurs in Exodus chapters 4 and 5. I'm not going to deal with that one. But simply to say that in both of these, the one and only true God appears, the creator of the universe who has no form and has never been captured by any image. He is the God who is ablaze but never burns up. And this God tells Moses that he's going to free his people from Egypt. And then God says that he will do this through Moses. And when Moses asks God who he is to say is sending him, God said to Moses, Exodus 3.14, I am who I am. And he said, Say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. God calls himself, I am who I am. God's name is not, I am who I was. God's name is not, I am who I hope to be. I am who I am. God never changes. The sense is he who just is. That's the point. God is free to be who he is. My friends, the first principle of freedom is this. Freedom is rooted in the God who has never, can never, nor never will be enslaved to anyone or anything. God is sovereign and he does what he pleases. No one coaches him, no one counsels him, no one teaches him, and no one guides him. God's third revelation is found at Mount Sinai in Exodus chapters 19 and 20. There God tells Moses to tell the people to consecrate themselves, wash their clothes, and stay away from the mountain, Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb. Now this time the entire nation of some two to three million people sees God as he reveals himself. Exodus 19 and verse 16 says, On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the mount at the foot of the mountain. And now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. I'm going to tell you what, this doesn't sound fun, and it doesn't sound optional. It sounds overpowering, and it is, can you imagine the scene? Thunders, lightning, thick cloud. Everything is quaking, everything is trembling. The sound of a trumpet grows louder and louder as people hold their ears. What's going on? God is revealing himself in the full weight of all that he is. And in comparison, the land and man and animals are all shaking like a wet leaf. You know, we are a lot like a fly caught in a bottle. A fly that's caught in a bottle will never look up on its own. And we never look upon our own as either. God is not discovered, nor is he someone of our own making or from our own reason. We didn't conjure him up. We do not draw him out of our own imaginations. We have simply no self-understanding at all without God understanding. And in order for us to have God understanding, God must reveal himself. God comes to us, and God comes to free his people. God is central to our freedom and to do what and to what freedom is. Fact of the matter is that God defines freedom. And my friends, there is no other worldview on the planet that tells us how to have freedom or to keep freedom. God values our freedom so much that he limits his own freedom to give freedom to us. And so should we with one another. If I am free, I must recognize your freedom. The first principle of freedom is that freedom is rooted in the God who's absolutely free. Freedom comes from God. Principle number two is that freedom must be grounded and authorized. What do I mean by that? It's interesting, the first thing that God does after freeing his people is to give them rules. Now, that sounds counterintuitive. It sounds like a contradiction. We think of rules as being opposed to freedom. But in reality, rules are not opposed to freedom. They're the key, the key in keeping freedom. In Exodus chapter 20, in verses 1 to 17, God gives to Israel the Ten Commandments. He says, I am the Lord thy God that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image of any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the fathers, the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest live long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. These ten rules, ten commandments, grew out of the very character of God Himself. God is unrivaled, therefore we have no other gods. He has no image, therefore we don't make an image. His name is above all, therefore nothing comes before him. God is at rest, so we rest. God is our father, so we honor our fathers and mothers. God is our life giver, that's why we don't kill. God is faithful, that's why we don't commit adultery. He is generous, that's why we do not steal. He is truthful, that's why we do not lie. He is sufficient for all of our needs, that is why we do not covet. The second principle for freedom from Exodus is this: that freedom must be grounded and authorized by God's rules. Freedom comes from God, and freedom is maintained by God's rules. They are the grounding of our freedom. God, this God alone, is the source of everything. The final reality behind the universe is God, and God has and allows no image. But interestingly, he says to us that we are his image alone. And because of that, each human being is precious to God. Whether they're strong or weak, black or white, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, able-bodied or handicapped, smart or slow, beautiful or plain. We're not created equal in ability or opportunity. We all know that. But we are created equal in value. And if people are made in God's image, then they are of inestimable worth. And to violate them is to violate God. And just as God's words from the mountain were central to Israel's freedom, his words are crucial to our having freedom and our keeping freedom. And so are our words about his words. The German atheistic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, is famous for asserting God is dead. In the early twentieth century, his words gained traction. It was assumed that the more modern the world would become in the future, the less religious it would be. And yet, globally, just the opposite has occurred. The more modern the world has become, religion has exploded. We say, well, that's good, right? No, it's not. Because a religion apart from I am who I am is demonic. Religion apart from Father, Christ, and Holy Spirit is devilish. And demons simply replace God with idols. Whether they be the idols of Allah or Buddha or Ari Krishna or tribal religions, the idols of atheism, agnosticism, could be the idol of nationalism, which is the love of country over God. It could be the idol of political ideas, or the love of rights or power over God, or the idol of consensus or democracy, which is the love of freedom over God. False religion is demonic, replaces God with idols. And this happens all over the world. It's also happened in America. I want you to understand again that the God who invented freedom, the God who ought to know something about freedom, says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. In other words, I freed you, so then you shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20, 2 and 3. History is littered with this truth. When will we ever see it? The more I am who I am is God, the freer we will be. The less I am who I am is God, the more oppressed and enslaved we will be. Only Yahweh is I am who I am. He is the only God, the true God. Freedom is based on knowing Him and obeying Him. Have you noticed? The world only offers two choices authoritarianism and anarchy. Authoritarianism versus anarchy. These differ. You say what are they? Well, quite simply, authoritarianism is order without freedom. Anarchy is freedom without order. Let me illustrate. Do you want excessive government control on your life? Do you want the government reaching into your pocket and getting more of your hard-earned dollars to fund policies that are ungodly? Do you want the government telling you what pronouns you can use? Do you want the government telling you can't use a gasoline-powered mower for crying out loud? That is authoritarianism. Now think about anarchy. Are you comfortable with mobs in the streets? Destroying property? Knocking down statues, smashing windows, looting stores, assaulting, beating, and raping innocent people? That's anarchy. Authoritarianism versus anarchy Is there a is there a middle of the road? Is there such a thing as the best parts of both? Is there such a thing as ordered freedom? Do we have to choose between freedom and order? Could it be both? What is the best way to have fraternity, equity, and freedom in balance? Is it the French view? Or is it the Exodus view? I'm saying it's rooted in the God who's perfectly free. It is rooted in the God who engineers our freedom. Because God is still I am who I am. Even when most people don't think so. And he says to us what he said to Pharaoh nine times, let my people go. Now we're largely talking about societal or political freedom, national freedom. I hope you understand that true freedom is spiritual freedom. Jesus said to those Jews that had believed him, if you abide in my word, then are you truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Jesus later says that he himself is the truth. Embracing Christ is what produces real freedom. But make no mistake about it, God's desire for you and his intent for you and for all of his people is that we be free. And freedom has certain ingredients that Exodus explains. I hope you'll keep listening.