We read in Revelation chapter
12 of a great warfare, a warfare that had been waged since the
dawn of creation. It's not a warfare between men
and nations, though it is the cause of all warfare between
men and nations. The warfare John speaks of in
Revelation 12 is a war waged against the Son of God by the
prince of this world, a war between Satan and our Savior, between
the fiend of hell and the friend of sinners, a war between the
deceiver of men and the deliverer of men. The war that John saw
in heaven is described as a great wonder. As soon as God's purpose
of grace was revealed, his purpose was revealed to angels of light
Declaring to them that he had created them to be ministering
spirits, ministering spirits who should serve the good of
chosen sinners, who would be heirs of salvation, Satan was
lifted up with pride. And he said, not me. What, an
angel serve a man? Not me. And he led a revolt in
heaven. against God, determined to overthrow
God's throne and to overthrow his purpose. And with his influence,
he dragged one-third of the heavenly host to perdition. So that one-third
of the angels of God were cast out of heaven, reserved by our
Lord Jesus Christ in chains of darkness, reserved in judgment
without mercy under the judgment of the last day. and Satan himself
cast out with them. Now though Satan's doom is sure,
his rage against God is relentless and ever increasing. He doesn't
often appear in open as one who is enraged, as one that you'd
look at in Call him a fire-breathing dragon, a great red dragon, a
polygon, Abaddon, but rather he commonly appears with great
subtlety, cleverly disguising himself, lest he be discovered. That's how he appeared to our
mother Eve in the garden and deceived her. He came with the
cunning, slithering subtlety of a snake and deceived her. Oh, how he seeks to deceive men
that he may destroy. But still this fiend of hell
truly is a fire-breathing dragon bent upon the destruction of
God, his purpose, and his people. He sought to devour the God-man,
our mediator, as soon as he came into this world. A decree was
issued that the male children of Israel should be slaughtered
lest the throne of a peanut governor would be overturned. But the
Lord God preserved it. Satan tried to destroy our Redeemer
in the wilderness of temptation when it tempted Him with all
those things that we are tempted by and tempted Him in time of
great physical weakness. But he found no power in himself
against the Lord Jesus. And oh, how he assaulted our
Savior in Gethsemane. I suppose it is not irreverent,
I hope not, for me to try to imagine the things with which
our Savior's heart was shaken when he anticipated being made
sin for us. I am confident Satan dangled
before him the prospect of being made sin. and sought to keep
him from going up to Calvary. But our Savior went to Calvary,
died in our room and in our stead. He who was born to rule the nations
for the salvation of his people then was caught up to God and
to his throne. And power was given him over
all flesh, yes, even over the fiend of hell, that he should
give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him.
And the exalted Savior, now being out of Satan's reach, Satan turns
his rage toward God's elect. usurping authority over the souls
of chosen sinners who are by nature his willing captives. And we all are by nature his
willing captives. We love bondage and we love captivity. It is our nature to love it.
He persecutes and makes war against the woman seen, against God's
elect. When John saw these things, he
cried, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea,
for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, and
the reason is this, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time. He knows his days are numbered,
and at the appointed hour the Son of God will cast him forever
into the pit. And yet, as Isaac Watts wrote,
Should earth against my soul engage and fiery darts be hurled,
still I can smile at Satan's rage and face a frowning world. Now the title of my message tonight
is, I Can Smile at Satan's Rage. And I want you to see why. Turn
to Exodus chapter 5. You may ask, well, how can you
smile at the rage of Satan? Because our great Savior has
bound the devil and cast him out by his triumphant accomplishments
as our Redeemer, as our crucified substitute. And he always prevails
over him. The warfare John describes in
Revelation 12 is a warfare between Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, and
the Prince of Darkness, the Prince of this world. But it is a warfare
over our souls. Satan goes up and down through
the earth as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And
those he seeks to devour are the woman's seed, Christ's seed,
his people, God's elect. I can smile at Satan's rage,
because I know that the angel of the bottomless pit shall soon
be cast into the bottomless pit, and Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation." This warfare and
its glorious outcome is depicted for us in the book of Exodus.
That's the principal message of the book of Exodus. Pharaoh
in Exodus His name comes from a word that means destroyer,
a word that conveys the idea of one who destroys. He is held before us as a typical
representation of Satan himself and of Antichrist. Egypt portrays
the world of darkness in which God's people live in bondage
by nature, held in darkness and bondage and in captivity and
loving to have it so. And the deliverance of the children
of Israel out of Egypt portrays the deliverance of God's people
by the saving grace of our God in Jesus Christ the Lord. The
chapter begins with a confrontation. The Lord Jesus sent Moses and
Aaron to Pharaoh not to plead with him, but rather to confront
him, to confront him as ambassadors of the King of Glory, the King
of Heaven, and demand of him that he let his people go. Look
at it. Afterward, Moses and Aaron went
in and told Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I sure
would like you to let my people go. No, let my people go. You turn them loose for this
purpose, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness, that
they may worship me, that they may hold a feast to my honor
in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, this destroyer
said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel
go? It seems apparent in reading
the context that he had gotten wind of the fact that Moses had
assembled the elders of Israel. I rather doubt Moses could have
done that without Pharaoh knowing about it. And he must have suspected
that Moses and Aaron were on their way to see Pharaoh, and
he gave them an audience. But it was an audience he gave
them only so that he could show his utter contempt for the Lord
God. And he says, who is the Lord
that I should let Israel go, that I should obey his voice
to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither
will I let Israel go. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Pharaoh, this title that was
commonly given to Egyptian rulers, was bent upon the destruction
of Israel rather than their deliverance. He would sooner destroy them
than turn them loose. At God's appointed time, the
Lord Jesus Christ comes to overthrow Satan's usurped dominion in the
hearts of chosen redeemed sinners just as he came at the appointed
time for the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. But Satan never
willingly releases his captives. So there's a great struggle that
takes place. And the struggle takes place in the city of Mansoul. It takes place inside chosen
sinners. This is what we have portrayed
for us in Exodus 5. The fact is, God never works
like we think he should. He never does things the way
we expect him to do them, and he certainly doesn't do things
the way religious men and women think he ought to do them. has been saved two or three times.
Everybody you know and everybody I know. Everybody has gotten
a good dose of religion. A good dose of religion that
hasn't affected them at all. There's much talk about many
things, even among folks who claim to believe the gospel of
God's grace, that totally ignores what this book has to say about
the experience of grace. And the experience of grace is
never as men suppose it should be. Let me show you. Hold your
hands here next to this five, and let's look at two or three
passages. Deuteronomy 32, verse 39. Deuteronomy 32, verse 39. The Lord God says, See now that
I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me. I kill, and I
make alive. Oscar, he never describes himself
the other way around. Not one time in his book. He
never says, I make alive and I heal. Not one time. He always
says, this is what God is like. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. He never says, I heal and I wound. But I wound and I heal. And this is what he's describing.
Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. When I come and take a sinner
in my hand to deliver that sinner from bondage and death and captivity
and curse and damnation in the pit, this is what I'm going to
do with him. I'm going to kill him and make
him alive. I'm going to wound him in his
heart and heal him. And nobody can stop me, because
I've come to deliver my own. Look in Job chapter 5, verse
18. He maketh sore, and bindeth up. He woundeth, and his hands make
whole. Now one more passage, 1 Samuel
chapter 2. Hannah's prayer for God. In all
of these passages, the Lord God is speaking about His grace.
And here Hannah speaks of His grace. In Hosea, we find these
words, Come, let us return to the Lord. Come, because He hath
torn, and He will heal us. He hath smitten, and He will
bind us up. Look here in 1 Samuel 2 verse
6, Hannah prayed, The Lord killeth, and maketh alive. He bringeth
down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor, and
maketh rich. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The Lord maketh poor. Oh, blessed
is that man. Blessed is that woman whom God
makes poor, and He maketh rich. He bringeth low, and lifteth
up. He raiseth up the poor out of
the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the gungheel, to
set them among princes, to make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth
are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them. Now you
can mark it down. He will never bring you up from
the grave until he brings you down to the grave. He will never
make you rich until he makes you poor. He will never fill
you until he empties you. He will never lift you up from
the dunghill until he puts you in the dust. He will never set
you among princes until he's made you a beggar in the dunghill. Now, if you're in Exodus chapter
5, you read this chapter, and we're going to just pick up some
highlights in it this evening. I hope you read these portions
at home before you come in and read them when we get done. But
the result of Moses' first meeting with Pharaoh, God sent Moses
down to Egypt. He'd gone back after 40 years
in the back side of the desert, and he'd gone down to deliver
the children of Israel. Now, he's an 80-year-old man.
But somehow I got a hunch that even an 80-year-old man who's
going on an errand with a mission from God Almighty for the first
time speaking for God to men is going with a little extra
click in his heels. I'm going to speak to Pharaoh
for God, Israel's fixing to come out of this place. And he went
away utterly humbled. Nothing turned out like God said
it was going to. Nothing. Nothing. Well, it did, but Moses
didn't pay attention to that part. God said, I'm going to
harden his heart. I'm going to send these plagues.
I fully expect that Moses expected. When he walked up to Pharaoh
and said, God said, let my people go, Pharaoh said, okay, y'all
get out of here. But that's not what happened.
And things were very discouraging. Pharaoh tightened his grip. He
resolved to make their escape impossible. So in the initial
experience of grace, when Satan's dominion is threatened, his rage,
too, increases. That's what we see here. The
fiery furnace is about to be quenched by the hand of redeeming
love, but before it is, it blazes with greater heat than before.
Satan never releases his captives until Christ breaks his grip. Never, never. This is how our
Lord describes it. He says, Satan is as a strong
man armed, and while he keepeth his palace, his goods are in
peace. But blessed be God, there is
a stronger than he, who has taken from him his armor, wherein he
trusted, and divided the spoils among the favored objects of
his electing love. Now God's determination is set
before us clearly here. It is God's determination to
deliver and save His people. His determination was to bring
them into Egypt, that He might bring them out of Egypt, but
that He might bring them out of Egypt, having spoiled the
Egyptians with all the riches of Egypt for the glory of His
name. And so it is God's determination
to save his people utterly and entirely so that we, having grown
into bondage and captivity under the curse of the law, brought
into sin and death and other degradation, come out from bondage
in the glorious liberty of the sons of God in better shape than
we could ever have been otherwise, having spoiled the nations of
the world. Notice how he speaks. When he
sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh, this was the message he gave
them. First he identifies himself and does so for the first time
as the Lord God of Israel. Yes, I'm God. I am the great
I Am. I am Jehovah. But I am the God
of this distinct people. I am their God. And the Lord
God owned Israel as his own people. peculiarly and distinctly his
people. But weren't the Egyptians his
people? Yeah, there he is, like cattle there he is. They're His,
like your farm belongs to you. They're His because He created
them and He owns them, but not His covenant people, not the
objects of His love. The Egyptians were created because
He is the God of the Hebrews and they are called My people. Oh, thank God for wondrous, free,
distinguishing, distinct grace, my people. There is a people
in this world whom God Almighty designates His people for whom
He does all things. And then the Lord demanded that
Pharaoh let his people go. Let his people go that they may
hold a feast unto Me. Let them go that they might worship
Him. That was Jehovah's message to Pharaoh. He demanded the full
deliverance of Israel on the ground that Israel belonged to
him. And that's how our Lord Jesus
operates. He comes to the law. He comes
to Satan. He speaks to all creation. And
he says, Lucifer! And let him go. He's mine. The Father gave him to me. I
chose Him in everlasting love. I bought Him with my blood. He
is mine. And nothing will ever satisfy
me except His emancipation. Omnipotent mercy and irresistible
grace says to sinners, dead in trespasses and in sins, in bondage
and darkness, loose it and let Him go. And they are loosed.
Let me show you something about our condition. When we see Israel
toiling as slaves among the brick kilns of Egypt, they have a graphic
picture of the condition of every child of Adam by nature, even
God's chosen. There we were crushed beneath
Satan's galling yoke with no power to deliver ourselves. The
thought of liberty in our minds only made our bonds tighter and
our burdens greater. If deliverance is to be had,
it must come from some source outside ourselves. But from where? Where can ransom be found to
buy back this people? Where can the price be found
sufficient with which to redeem us? Where is one who has the
power to accomplish redemption? Where is one who has the will
to do so? The Lord God says, I have laid
help upon one that is mighty. I've exalted one chosen out of
the people. Turn to Job chapter 33. Book
of Job chapter 33. Job's three friends, miserable
comforters they were, but like many who don't understand what
they say, spoke some very true things. And here in Job 33, beginning
of verse 18, Elihu gives us a very vivid description of how deliverance
is accomplished for God's elect. Let's begin in verse 18. He keepeth
back his soul from the pit. I spent my life playing with
hell, but God kept me from the pit. And his life from perishing
by the sword. He is chastened also with pain,
not the kind of pain you might imagine, pain upon his bed, and
the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life
abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed
away, that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen
stick out, and his soul draweth near unto the grave. and his
life to the destroyers. Blessed, blessed man. Oh, blessed, blessed man. My friend, Brother Harry Graham,
said to me on more than one occasion when I was just a young man,
he said, God, when God Almighty comes to deal with the sinner
in grace, if you could see what was going on, you'd think I wouldn't
treat a mad dog like that. I wouldn't treat a mad dog like
that, but God's ways aren't our ways. His soul draweth nearer
to the grave than his life to the destroyers. If there be a
messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show
unto man his uprightness, to show a man God's uprightness,
then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit. I have found a ransom. And when
he does, when God so speaks to the sinner who is drawing near
to death, whose destroyers are at the door, his flesh shall
be fresher than a child's. He shall return to the days of
his youth. He shall pray unto God, and God
will be favorable unto him. And he shall see his face with
joy, for he will render unto man, look at this, his grace. No, his righteousness. He renders
grace on the basis of the ransom he's found. He looketh upon men,
and if any say I have sinned and perverted that which was
right, and it profited me not, God would deliver his soul from
going down into the pit, and his life shall see light. Now watch this. Though all these
things worketh God oftentimes with men to bring back his soul
from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.
Thus it is in every case. Christ is the deliverer we must
have. There is salvation in no other.
Fallen sinners are under the usurped tyranny and dominion
of Satan. I say usurped tyranny, usurped
by Satan, and yet usurped by Satan according to the will of
God. They are sold under sin, led captive by Satan at his will. bound in fetters of their own
heart's lust, without strength, without God, without Christ,
and without hope. That's the condition of all men
by nature, God's elect included, who were by nature children of
wrath, even as others. Our nature matched our condition. The Lord Jesus, when he died
at Calvary, delivered us by that which Paul describes as the circumcision
of Christ. He delivered us from the filth
of the flesh. He delivered us from the curse
of the law. He delivered us from the clutches
of Satan. He raised us up and sat us with
him in heavenly places as our representative and gave us a
right standing before God as far as justice is concerned.
But we were still in bondage by nature. Our Lord's death,
His accomplishments at Calvary, having completely removed our
sins, having completely removed the curse, did nothing to change
our nature. And our nature must be changed
if we're to enjoy the riches of God's grace. Our Savior's
work on the cross didn't make us new creatures, but His work
in grace does. You see, we were by nature willing
vassals to Satan, but now, in Christ Jesus, he comes and makes
us new creatures, gives us a new heart, gives us a new nature,
free. You can take the slave and adopt
him, and you can do much for him, but you can't impart to
him your nature. Not so with our Redeemer. He
adopted us in everlasting election. And He comes in grace and causes
us to receive the adoption of sons, giving us a new nature,
imparting to us His own nature so that now He lives in us and
we live in Him. And now we have a standing before
God in the experience of grace as free-born children. Paul speaks
of this grace wherein We stand and have access to God so that
we stand before God Almighty, believing on his side, having
life everlasting with no fear and no terror, having free access
to him as freeborn children because of Jesus Christ our Lord. He's
given us such perfect righteousness. Such perfect acceptance with
God that God Almighty Himself in all His infinite holiness,
justice and truth sees no stain upon us. He's made us the very
righteousness of God in Him and He's given us the very nature
of righteousness which only He can give. Man is born in slavery
until he's born again. And until he's born again, he
can know nothing but slavery. It's not just an outward condition.
No, religion deals with outward things. The slavery I'm talking
about is an inward moral depravity, an utter corruption of nature,
bondage to lust obscene. The man gets a little dose of
religion, and he quits doing this and starts doing that, and
gets baptized, and joins the church, and takes the Lord's
Supper, and teaches Sunday school, and rotates on the service on
the beacon board, and goes to be a missionary, pastors churches,
write books, whatever you want to say. All kinds of religious
things. So he's known as a very holy,
pious, devoted man. But until he's born again, he's
nothing inwardly but corruption. You may scream, oh, I'm not like
that. But your conscience screams loudly and says you're a liar. You know you're just exactly
like that. That's the nature of man. Corruption and depravity
until God Almighty puts a new nature in us. The old nature
is not cleaned up. The old nature is not changed.
The new birth is not an improvement of the old. That which is born
of flesh is flesh, always will be, until it goes to the dust
again. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. How does this come? How does
a man have this new birth? How does this new nature come
into one? Only when God the Son comes in
the omnipotent power of His saving grace. and says to Satan, let
my people go. Only then. But upon what basis
does that happen? Upon what basis dares any sinner
hope he can ever walk before God in freedom, without guilt,
fearing no condemnation, having no terror, finding acceptance
with God? Look at verse 3 of Exodus 5.
God said, the God of the Hebrews have met with us. Let us go,
we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice
unto the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence
or with the sword. The only basis upon which we
can ever live before God and worship The only basis upon which
God Almighty can or will demand our freedom is the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ our Lord. The sacrifice God requires, the
sacrifice God provides, the sacrifice God accepts, the sacrifice God
is. And look what it tells here in
verse 3. First, the God of the Hebrews
hath met with us. It wasn't that Israel met with
God or came to God, but rather God met with Israel. God came
to Israel. Let us go three days' journey.
I don't know all the significance, but I know this. He's talking
about a sacrifice, and there were three days between the time
of the sacrifice and the resurrection of life. And let us sacrifice
to the Lord. Offer to God that sacrifice God
requires. And here's the reason. If we
don't, He's dead sure going to kill us. Lest He fall upon us
with pestilence or with the sword. Now that's the universal message
of Holy Scripture. Everything turns on, rests on,
and depends upon this one thing. Jesus Christ died and rose again. And we are forever linked to
Him. This is our joy. our peace and
our confidence, our assurance and our hope. We joy in God through
our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement.
Now, I've got to move on. The liberty and freedom of grace
doesn't come without pain. I don't know. I tried to do a
little research, and I should have called one of my doctor
buddies and asked, but probably they don't know either. They
just speculate. I know you women, when you give birth, You go through
some pain. And I said that very lightly
because I know none of us fellows understand what that's like.
But I have no idea whether a child pushing through the birth canal
goes through any pain at all or not. I don't know. But I do
know that the heaven-born soul experiences pain in everything
connected with the new birth. I don't have to explain everything.
I know about this much less everything the scriptures teach about this.
But there's no such thing as being saved without the pain
of birth. No such thing. It doesn't happen,
not with anyone. There's something of inward pain
connected with conviction and repentance. Paul said, I was
alive. But when the commandment came,
sin revived, and I died. Our Lord speaks of the sowing
of the seed of life in the hearts of men. But that seed that's
sowed in the heart that is called good ground is good ground prepared
by grace. And the way good ground is prepared
is you've got to go out there with a plow. And if the ground
could scream as that plow started to cut, it would scream, NO! And when God comes and plows
up the heart of man, it is a painful experience, so that his soul
withers within him, his comeliness withers. His strength perishes. He's brought to poverty, brought
to dust, brought to death. His soul languishes in despair
of life. That's the way of God with men. Christ is determined to deliver,
but Satan is determined to destroy. And that's the message of the
rest of this chapter. Pharaoh heard this message. from Moses and Aaron, and he
acted like an insignificant little politician whose power was threatened. If you pay attention to the news,
you see it all the time. His power was threatened, and
he was in a rage. He called his people in, his
soldiers, and he told them to require the Israelites to go. and work, and gather straw for
themselves. And he said, now don't you give
them any straw. You make them go gather their own straw, and
bring in the tale of bricks that I require, just as I've always
required, with nothing being supplied from me. And then when
they couldn't do it, he'd beat them. And that's what you have
in the rest of this chapter. Beat them. That's pretty much
the way Satan works with men. You have a description of it
in Luke chapter 9, I believe it's verse Luke 9.42, that young man who
was possessed of a devil. As he was yet coming, the devil
threw him down and tear him. So long as men and women are
not inclined to seek after the Lord. So long as men and women
are not concerned for their souls. happy to go along in bondage
and in sin and in death. When they have no hunger or thirst
for mercy, for righteousness, for grace, have no desire for
God or His ways, Satan pretty much leaves them alone. Just
leaves them alone. But oh, when Christ comes to
save, Satan is in a rage. And it seems to me, as best I
can observe things, that the fiend of hell has one favorite
way of seeking to destroy the souls of men. He ever puts them
to work. He ever puts them to work. Demands
them to make bricks. Bricks with which they can build
steps to ascend to God's altar. God demands faith. Produce a
little. God demands repentance. Where
is yours? God demands righteousness. Where
do you think you're going to get that? God demands a sincere
heart. And you know you're a hypocrite.
And so he puts folks to work. He says, go and work! And foolish man loves it so. Foolish man loves it. We all
want to do something. Just a little something. Give
me something. Give me something. How many times
somebody tried to make some kind of a compromise, give me a little
something to say, hey, just give me something, just anything.
A man ever seeking to bargain with God wants something I can
call mine. Some preparation, some work,
some deed, something that I can look at and say, there, now I
can bring myself to God. And thus it is in bondage, O.
The fact is, until God Almighty shuts the sinner up in such bondage
that he knows he can never be free except Christ set him free,
he will remain in bondage forever. Well, when the guilt and oppression
of the soul increases, when the bitterness gets worse, When the
commandment comes and sin revives and the sinner dies, the first
thing he's likely to do is despise the messenger of deliverance.
Look at verse 20. They met Moses and Aaron and
stood in the way as they came forth from Pharaoh and said to
them, the Lord look on you and judge. They said, may God send
you to hell because you have made our saver. to be abhorred
in the eyes of Pharaoh. I've seen that happen a few times.
Hunting dogs, in the heat of the chase, will sometimes snarl
at and bite their dearest friends, if you can say such about dogs.
And sinners, when sin is made bitter to them, often snarl at
and bite the man. who delivers the message of redemption
and grace. But that's all right. That's
all right. What do you do in such cases? You return to the
Lord, just as Moses did in verses 22 and 23. He said, Lord, wherefore
hast thou so evil entreated this people? Why is it that thou hast
sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to
speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people. Neither
hast thou delivered thy people at all. I'll say more about that
another time. But for now, just this. Folks
give Moses a hard time about that, chastising pretty severely.
But you know, God didn't. God didn't. God didn't show any
disproval at all. As a matter of fact, the Lord
commands us to do just what Moses did. berated by the people who turned
against him. And Moses, instead of fighting
with the people, turned to God and poured out his heart honestly
before God. The Lord said, command ye, command
ye me concerning my children, concerning my sons and daughters.
He said, put me in remembrance. That's just exactly what we're
supposed to do. Well, how do you know that's the way God looked
at this? Look at his answer, verse 1 of chapter 6. Then the
Lord said to Moses, now, now that Pharaoh has acted like
Pharaoh's act, now that Pharaoh the destroyer has acted like
a destroyer, now that my people are sure enough in bondage, now
that they are really made to taste the bitter darkness of
Egypt, now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with
a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall
he drive them out of his land." God Almighty never, ever, ever
gets in a hurry. God teach me that. No need for
Him to get in a hurry. He does everything exactly on
time. What do you do when God begins
to deal with somebody? Just watch, wait, pray. What do you do if God doesn't
deal with anybody? You watch, you wait, and you
pray. What do you do when it looks
like things are going horrible? Leave it alone. Just leave it
alone. I talked to a pastor friend of
mine just recently going through some difficulties. He said, I've
got some things I'm going to have to deal with. I said, don't
do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. You'll regret it, I promise
you. You'll regret it. What am I supposed to do? Wait. God will take care of it. God will take care of it. You
stick your hand in it, you're going to make a mess. Just wait.
God will take care of it. He will see to it that His power
is demonstrated and He will cause His people to recognize and know
His work to be His work. And when the fetters have sufficiently
scarred your soul to make you grateful to be free, He'll set
you free. But until He comes and sets you
free, freedom will not be obtained. Amen.