“Therefore I made them go out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness.” Ezekiel 20:10
The other day I was watching a funny dog video (yes I’m one of those people) and within it lied a deeper principle than what appeared on the surface. The video contained a small dog behind a glass door barking and jumping like crazy, his actions more than apparent…let me out! Yet as soon as his human opened the door wide, the dog simply sat down and refused to exit. He was apparently more than satisfied with his current bondage in the house over the freedom that was now made open to him. Yet why would he desire access to go somewhere he really didn’t want to go? And it is here that the unseen principle lies. How long do you have to live in bondage to a certain thing before it becomes your new comfortable normal? Where is the tipping point where sinful bondage seems more appealing than righteous freedom?
We see just this example in chapter 20 of the prophetic book of Ezekiel. The elders of the idol-worshipping, God rejecting Israelites, have come to Ezekiel to pander a positive prophetic word from the Lord. You see, their act here of requesting a hopefully positive Word from the Lord, is the dog barking at the closed door. They didn’t want to actually go out the door, they just wanted to see that it’s open in case they did deicide to leave the bondage of their sin. And as the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel it is a stiff rebuke to the barking elders. And God’s rebuke materializes in the form of a harsh reminder of the insane cyclical nature and behavior of the very people that stood before Him, the Israelites.
Recall way back to the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus. The Israelites had been enslaved by the Egyptians; made into brick-making slaves forced to complete the Pharaoh’s ambitious building projects. There were even specific episodes mentioned in Exodus where after Moses made his requests to have the Israelites freed, that the Pharoah made their slavery even more harsh, a sort of doubling up of pain and anguish to get their attention while dealing punishment. Yet after all this suffering and slavery, when God brought the final and most devastating plague, thereby opening the floodgates of Egypt and the way to freedom, the Israelites, just as that little dog, didn’t want to walk through the door. They wanted to stay. Even in the harsh slavery in which they were endlessly relegated, they wanted to stay in the current state they knew so well. And so what did God do? Our study verse says He “made them go.” How ironic that we can, as humans, get ourselves into such a deep state of personal bondage that we will refuse to leave it...even when offered freedom.
I see it constantly in the world, I see it in those around me, and I’m not too proud to say that I have personally lived it. That is, living so closely with your sin that the bondage of it seems to become a friend. Even though you know that friend is bad for you in his influence and suggestion, you still prefer the destructive nuances of familiarity over the positivity of change, newness, and difference. And many times in my own life as God has opened the door to freedom from my sin, I simply peered outside the door, took a look at what was offered, and then refused to go. It is quite the curious psychological state of humans, our willingness to stay in Egyptian slavery versus giving up our idolatry and heading off for the goodness of God’s promised land.
Folks, today, if your honest, something has a hook in you. It might be pride, arrogance, or levels of selfish egotism that drive you to consistently put yourself on a pedestal well above the rest of the world. It might be lust of the flesh, that is wandering eyes and a wandering heart that seeks to please any and all internal sexual desires. Because of the boom of online pornography, (it’s estimated that there’s over 100 million pornography users in the US alone) millions of lives today are finding themselves enslaved to the images their eyes tell them they need. Or maybe your hook is drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. The chemical stimulants feeding the need to self-medicate and making each day of slavery seem needed, warranted, or even deserved. Whatever poison you pick, there is a form of sin-fueled bondage that will ensure that you stay where you are, safely a great distance from the promised land that God has opened wide to you.
Today, you don’t have to bark and yip for the door of freedom to be opened to you, God opened it over 2000 years ago. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, here to do the work of opening up the door of salvation and freedom for all. But in order for you to walk through that open door, you will have to make a difficult choice. Leave the comfort and familiarity of your sin, or step into the newness of redemption and freedom. For me, I praise God every day for that moment when He called me out of my bondage and into the glorious, promised land of His grace, mercy, goodness, and love. I pray today that you will step out in your own faith-fueled moment and walk out of your bondage and into the glorious sunlight of God’s freedom.
God bless you today as you boldly attempt to leave what binds you ~ Dan
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” Romans 6:16
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