SYSTEM BREAKERS - CAPTIVITY AND DELIVERANCE
Lesson 5: Thursday, July 13, 9:45-10:15
System Breaker: Are you a Captive or Deliverer?
Read Numbers 14:1-24
Moses sent ten spies into the land of Canaan. Eight of them came out as captives. Only two came out as deliverers. All ten of them proclaimed the land as a land flowing with milk and honey (Num 13:27). The land was prosperous beyond what they could have imagined (Num 13:23...grapes so big you had to bear them with men carrying staffs). All ten of them also saw giants in the land. Those who came out as captives declared themselves “grasshoppers” in the sight of the inhabitants (Num 13:31-33)
It was Caleb, in Num 13:30 who said, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.” THE DELIVERER
The eight who came out as CAPTIVES said, in Num 13:31-33 “We are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we.” They were CAPTIVES who would be happier as Captives! Look at their testimonies:
1. WE are not able (vrs 31)
2. They are stronger than WE (vrs 31). Their observation based solely on their SIZE.
3. They brought an EVIL REPORT (vrs 32)....even lies: “it is a land that eats up the inhabitants.”
4. Finally, EXAGGERATION: (vrs 32-33) They are men of great stature, We saw giants, “We are in OUR OWN SIGHT grasshoppers” (no doubt they thought so) “and so we were in their sight.” (What? They interviewed them, so they knew how they appeared to them? I thought they were spies!!)
Numbers 14 tells us the consequences of choosing to be a Captive instead of a Deliverer. The verdict....40 more years in the desert. All the Captives would die and God would, apart from Moses, Joshua and Caleb, bring up a generation of Deliverers....who would TAKE THE LAND!
Obviously, this history of the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, points to similar parallels in all those who choose to follow THE ONE AND ONLY DELIVERER. In ourselves, we will always be captives...captive to sin, bondage of selfishness, followers of the crowd. In God, not only can we TAKE THE LAND and be delivered by the Deliverer, but we can be deliverers of our following generations.
It tends to be a historical and spiritual principle that those things God seeks to deliver us from are not easy. God did not send the Israelites into an abandoned land. He did not send them into a land occupied by “Pee Wee Hermans.” God was the first practitioner of the philosophy of Imminent Domain. God said take it and He expected his people to take it. He was the Deliverer. What He expected His people to be was Conquerors. It was not going to happen with the original slaves that left Egypt. They left Egypt but they brought the spirit of slavery with them. In their own words, they were saying, “God may have divided the sea, He may have fed a million of us every day for the last forty days, he may have provided water in the desert where there should have been none, he may have defeated the greatest army in the world, in the Egyptians, for us while we stood and watched, but HE IS INSUFFICIENT to bring us home!
God will bring each of us through deserts of wilderness, but He will bring us through. God will give us areas of our lives He wants us to conquer, that seem like we cannot do it alone. But that is because we can’t do it on our own. We need Him and He has promised to deliver us. Sometimes, the only thing that stands between us and what God wants for us is our mental ability to trust in His deliverance and provision and just take what He tells us to take.
Is any habit too hard for God to help us break? No. Is any situation where we are tempted to sin so great that we will find it too great and just have to give in? NO. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” God is ABLE! Stop creating your own inabilities!
Can God deliver us from bad relationships that seem to keep us in a desert? Can he give us enough resources to do what we think He has called us to do? Can God speak to our hearts and show us which way to go, which decisions to make, which man or woman he has reserved for us as our life’s mate? YES HE CAN!
The choice really lies in whether or not we choose to believe Him. If we choose not to, we will be captives the rest of our lives. Choosing to believe Him means we choose deliverance...the kind of deliverance we need to be conquerors.
Romans 8:28 says, “We know that ALL THINGS work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.” When Canaan asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”, we must answer with Paul in verse 37, “In all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through him that loved us.”
Be a CONQUEROR, not a SLAVE....a DELIVERER, not a CAPTIVE.
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