Chapter 2
All The Way Out
God never intended for you to be half saved. God never does anything half way, when He forgives your sins, He forgives all of them, not a half of them, not three-fourths of them, not a fourth of them but when He forgives you, He forgives you completely. Many people have been completely forgiven by God, but try to live a split life. Half living the new life in Christ while still living their old life of sin and pleasing their self.
When you are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, not some but all of your sins are washed away. When you go down into the waters of baptism, it is the blood of Jesus Christ that completely covers your life. The blood of Jesus does not cover part of your sins, you are not saved halfway, and you are not partially forgiven. Have you ever wrecked a car on which you only had liability insurance, or partial coverage? You prob-ably got a wake up call because when the insurance check came for the wrecked car, you only got $3,000 when you needed to receive $12,000. Now you have a car that is a piece of junk and a $3,000 dollar settlement. You cannot get to work without transporta-tion, so you have to go out and look for a $3,000 dollar car when you had a $12,000 dollar car that you wrecked. That is a sick feeling. That is what partial coverage will do, but that is not what we find in the scriptures and that is definitely not what we find in the Word of God.
If you look through the Bible you will see the clear symbology of the blood. You will find out that the blood of Christ is what completely covers our sins. In the Old Tes-tament, the blood (of sacrificial animals) was only to roll the sins ahead for one year, it only pushed sins forward for a later judgement. When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, through His death on the cross and His blood being shed, He did not just push sins ahead but He remitted sins forever. (Hebrews 9:23-28)
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. — Hebrews 10:1-4, 10
You may think “How could I possibly access that”? You must be covered by the blood of Jesus and have it applied to your life. Let me briefly explain how you can do this. You have to repent of your sins and turn from those things, and then God will for-give you. You have to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission (washing away) of your sins. Through His blood that was shed, He will wash all those sins away.
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. — Acts 2:37-38
He will not do it halfway. He never intended for you to be half saved. But He in-tends for you to come completely out of the life of sin that you were living. Egypt in the Old Testament is a typology of sin and the world of sin. God sent Moses to bring the people out of that life of slavery and bondage (which is what sin truly is), and bring them into the land God had promised them. As Moses was explaining to Pharaoh what God wanted to happen, he told him that God wanted them to go into the wilderness and make sacrifices unto Him.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, and gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. — Exodus 6:13
Maybe you’ve heard the story about the Egyptians and the Hebrews, about God delivering the Hebrews out of bondage from the Egyptians. If you are not familiar with the story you can read it in the book of Exodus. I suggest you read starting with chap-ters six and seven and go all the way through to chapters fifteen and sixteen of Exodus. You can read this inspiring story in great detail just as the Bible delivers it. But for now, allow me to share a few thoughts with you about the story and show you what happened when it was time for them to leave Egypt.
When Moses and Aaron first approached Pharaoh about leaving, Pharaoh said, “Ok, you can go but I do not want you to go very far. You can leave, but do not go far”. We live in a corrupt society and an evil world today that says “You can have your church, but just don’t be all sold out on this Jesus’ name thing”. “You can have religion, but do not get all caught up in giving your time and your energy”. This is similar to how Pharaoh tried to pacify Moses and Aaron, by offering them a compromise.
The world and your sinful flesh will always try to negotiate with you the same way Pharaoh negotiated with Moses and Aaron for the children of Israel. He was fine with them feeling like they had a little freedom, but he did not want to lose them as slaves. For us it is kind of like the world is saying to us, “Yes, go to church on Sunday, but don’t be too fanatical about it. Don’t behave righteously when you are at work or at home Monday through Saturday. I do not want you to be too holy or too righteous. You can go but just do not go too far.”
The devil tells us, “You can go to a church, just do not go to one that pricks and convicts you and makes you want to change the things that aren’t like Christ. You can go to church and you can even go to one of those ‘Holy Roller Pentecostal’ churches, but just sit there and watch infomercials in your head the whole time the preacher is preaching. You can go to a One God Apostolic church, just do not get involved with that speaking in tongues business and being baptized in Jesus’ name thing. Oh yeah, you should go and be healed because they seem to have the market cornered on how you can be healed without going to a doctor, just do not have a life-change while you are there.” The devil, the spirit of the world, and our flesh says “You can go, just do not go too far”.
It is OK for you to attend church, but your soul’s enemies do not want you to get involved too heavily. They will allow you to attend church, but they do not want you to be involved with ministry. If you are involved with the ministry, then you have expecta-tions, and accountability to move even more in the right direction and out of the grasp of your enemy. They say, “Don’t show up at the membership class because that is going a little bit too far, and maybe they are trying to brain wash you.” Just like Pharaoh did to Moses and Aaron, the world will let you go, but they will not let you go too far. They do not want to lose you.
The world says to our teens and children, “Go to church, but while you are there, sit and think about your video games, think about your boyfriend or your girlfriend, think about work you have to do for school.” What could happen if our teens and children came to service with their minds made up to get into the presence of God? When you realize that the world is out to steal their futures from them, you realize that children’s ministry is not just about juice and cookies. Youth events and student ministry are not just about trips to amusement parks, concerts and summer camp. It is so much more than that. If student ministry is a true ministry then the teenagers can minister. Children can pray and receive the Holy Ghost and pray for other children and they can receive the Holy Ghost. Take a moment to realize the advantages of being sold out. Spiritually sold out and completely committed people naturally attract other people and are easily able to minister to them.
What if children and adults decided they weren’t going to just go through the motions and “play church”, but they were going to really plug in and give their very best praise? I can tell you from experience that when that happens, we have powerful expe-riences in the presence of God. Chains are broken off of people’s lives, people’s fami-lies, and people’s finances. There is something special about pulling completely away from the world, and giving yourself totally to God. Ask yourself, what could happen in your family, your school, or your workplace if you were sold out to Jesus Christ com-pletely?
Pharaoh said to Moses, “Go! But do not go all the way; do not go too far.” If you are going to come out of Egypt, if you are going to come out of slavery to sin and pleas-ing self, you will have to make a statement to “Pharaoh”. There is no room for negotiat-ing here, if you want to come out all the way, you have to make a statement. “Pharaoh! I am going out, and I am going all the way.” When Pharaoh said, “You are allowed to go but just do not go too far,” Moses was a little bit indignant. Moses replied to Pharaoh, “When we go, we are leaving, we are packing up our tents and we are going out of here, and we are not coming back.” Too many people come into the church but still have tents set up out in the world. Too many people want the blessings of God in their life but would still like to enjoy the things of the world. When you come out of the world, you have to come all the way out. When you leave the bondage of “Egypt”, the slavery of sin, you need to come out completely.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, — 2 Corinthians 6:17
Pack up your tent and pitch it in a new place. Put your tent up in the sanctuary, in the house of God. In fact, build your house, your life, and your family in the Kingdom of God. You cannot do it halfway, you cannot come out partially. When you come out, you have to come out all the way. And the good news is, you have an ally, and an ad-vocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous, He will help you. You do not have to do it on your own.
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: — 1 John 2:1
Pharaoh finally concedes to allow the adults to go and do their worship, but tells Moses and Aaron that they must leave the children. It was like Pharaoh was saying adults can go, but the children should not make the journey, it might be too hard for them. We need righteous parents. Adults who see the kind of society that we live in today, who make up their mind and determine to come out, and bring their family with them. They are adamant that no matter what they have to go through, they won’t leave their children behind. Financial struggles, being ostracized from friends or extended family, none of that will deter them from bringing their family with them. They will not leave the family behind for the enemy of their souls to make slaves of their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. With their life they make the statement, I am leaving this life, and when I leave, I’m taking my family with me!
Who will be man or woman enough to stand up and declare that we have been in the world and we have served our flesh and the devil all this time but now we are coming out? You might say, I would, but my family is not all in the church. If they want to leave bondage, but for whatever reason they are having a hard time following you to freedom, then plead the blood of Jesus Christ over them every day of their lives. Wake up every morning and plead the blood. Call out their name, and say, “Jesus, I plead your blood over
Look at Pharaoh in the scripture after the seventh, eighth, and ninth plague, he tells them to go and that they can even take the children, but leave the cattle. This is how the devil wants to negotiate with you. This is exactly how the spirit of the world and the pull of your flesh want to negotiate with you. They want you to give them something, just something to have to return to them for. Moses emphatically told Pharaoh, when we leave, not a hoof will be left behind. When we leave, we are taking the sacrifice, we are taking the blessings, we are taking the inheritance that we have received from the Lord and we are taking all of that with us.
When you come out of the world, there are some things that you are supposed to bring with you into the Kingdom of God. When you come out of the world, you bring talents, you bring abilities, and you bring skills that you have received, abilities that you inherited and learned while you were in the world. They ultimately came from God but you got them while you were in the world; even your wealth and the means that God has given you to make a living. You obtained those things with God’s help, and you obtained them while you were in the world. That does not mean that those talents, skills and abilities belong to the world.
When you come out of the world, you have to bring those talents with you, and they need to be sacrificed. You need to realize the areas that God has truly blessed you, whether it be in talent, finances, or abilities and say, now we will use these things for the Kingdom of God. Sacrificing in the Old Testament, and people bringing sacrific-es was not just about atonement and salvation. They would bring those sacrifices and offer them to God to roll the sins ahead and start the atonement process. The sacrifices did more than just atone for their sins. The sacrifice of the people in the Old Testament benefited ministry and it was for the propagation of the work of the ministry.
When you bring the talents, skills, and treasure that you obtained and inherited out in the world, into the church; and you give those talents to God, the devil gets pretty irritated. He gets upset because he does not like you taking those treasures that you have obtained out there and bringing them under the blood and using them for the Kingdom of God, the propagation of Gospel, and the work of the ministry. He gets irri-tated and he gets upset, so don’t think it’s strange when he tries to mess with you . He will use people close to you to say things to you like, “Are you going to give all that to the church? You worked hard for that.” This is where the element of sacrifice comes in. You are not making a sacrifice for your atonement or salvation, but so that the Kingdom of God can go forward more efficiently. It is not truly a sacrifice if it doesn’t cost you something.
In Pharaohs case, finally, God had had enough. The plagues were enough warning. God had sufficiently debased all the Egyptian gods through each of the plagues. After nine different punishments on Pharaoh and his people, God was getting ready to pronounce his harshest and most severe punishment ever. You see, when Moses was born, the Pharaoh and Egypt were afraid that the Hebrews were growing to mighty and so they had a mass genocide of babies and threw them into the river to drown. So God was going to repay them with the loss of their firstborn through a visit by the death angel.
God told Moses to get the children of Israel together, and give them instructions about the Passover lamb. Judgment was coming to the Egyptians. Judgment is coming on our society. Judgment is coming on our world, the generation that we live in will be judged. The four horsemen in the book of Revelation; they are on their way. We are not that far off. When Moses asked about the children of Israel, God told him to tell the children of Israel to put the blood from the lamb on their door posts, and when the death angel saw the blood, he would pass over that house. When Jesus Christ’s blood is on your life it is still doing the job of atonement for you and I today. The blood still does the work of atonement because of the death of Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world. It is not our righteousness. It is not our goodness, it is not our treasures, it is not our skill or our talents or our abilities but it is the blood of Jesus Christ.
Judgment is coming upon this world but if you have Jesus’ blood applied to your life you are going to make it out. Ask Jesus Christ to cover you in His blood every day. You will not be perfect, and you will still make mistakes. Those who are covered by the blood of Jesus have a much better chance of getting out with our families intact, than those that are not covered. It is time for us, like the children of Israel, to get our shoes on and get our bags packed, figuratively speaking. We need to be ready to go.
Jesus is coming back to this earth and He is coming very soon. We need to be ready to meet Him. We need to have our shoes on; we need to have our clothes and our bags packed and what we are going to do for God, we have to do now. There’s never been a time like there is right now, to do the work of God. There’s never been a situation or an hour that we were so primed and equipped to do the will of God. We have more media capabilities, we have phones, videos, the internet, social media and websites; we have everything we could possibly need. We can contact people all across the world in just a few minutes without ever leaving the convenience of our homes. We have all of the necessary tools to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the children of Israel were finally leaving Egypt, God said, I want you to go and borrow from your neighbors that are not Israelites; I want you to go and borrow from your Egyptian neighbors. Do not borrow just a little bit, but borrow a whole lot! Borrow like you are not coming back with it. God told them to “steal” from the Egyptians, He told them to plunder them. In essence God was paying them back for many generations and years of hard labor in Egypt. God was telling the Hebrews, you worked for it, you earned it, you put in your time and now I want to make sure you get rewarded for it.
Some have trouble understanding why God would allow His people to go through the bondage and slavery in Egypt. You need to understand something, they did not go out of Egypt a poor nation; they went out a rich nation. They went out plundering the Egyptians. After they went out, God destroyed the Egyptian army, and they did not leave empty handed. When God brings you out of the world, He will not bring you out empty handed. God is getting ready to come back and judge the world, He does not intend for the church to be empty handed. He does not intend for us to be poor and broke. God wants to bless you and he wants to prosper you. You have to be willing to act now for God. If you will come completely out of sin and the world, God will bless you. If you do not, you will face judgment with everybody else who chooses that lifestyle.
You want to come out and have deliverance and be free from Egypt. You want to be free from the old life and be a blessing in doing so. So what is your next step? The Bible tells us that there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night for them to follow.
And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: — Exodus 13:21
Many people today are lost somewhere between Egypt and the Promised Land because they do not know how to follow the fire. The pillar of fire by night can be sym-bolic to us living in a dark society. God brought us out of Egypt, He brought us out of a world of sin, out of a world of darkness into His marvelous light and now we have the fire. The scripture refers to the Holy Ghost as fire and the scripture also tells us that the Holy Ghost which is the Spirit of Truth will teach you all things and show you all things and lead you and guide you into all truth.
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance:but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: — Matthew 3:11
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak:and he will shew you things to come. — John 16:13
As Christians, we have a pillar of fire to lead us through the world today. It is time for us to begin paying attention to what the Holy Ghost is saying to us as Christians. It is time we get on our knees, not just on Sunday, but Monday through Saturday too. We have to find time every day to pray. We need to say, God lead me, I do not want to be lost. Guide me Jesus, I do not want to miss out on what you are doing. I want to hear your voice, and follow your lead. Until we do this, we will go to church and hardly hear the voice of God. Everything the preacher says will just sound muffled and mixed up to our spirit. You will not hear God consistently if you are not spending time with Him regularly. Many people complain that they do not get much out of a church service. Some have told me that they did not understand much of what was said during the preaching or teaching. My follow up question is, “What did you do to prepare for the service?” If you will spend even twenty to thirty minutes in prayer before a church service, you will get so much more out of it spiritually.
If we are not tuned in to the Holy Ghost, if we are not tuned in to what God would have for us in the service, it does not matter how great the preacher preaches, what the musicians play or praise singers sing. It does not matter what kind of ministry goes on, you are not going to get anything out of the service because you are not trying to follow the pillar of fire. You do not know how to keep your spiritual eyes focused upon the pillar of fire that will lead you and guide you through the darkness of the night. We have to be willing, and we must be tuned in, to follow the Spirit of God. The Holy Ghost will lead us and guide us, and we can make it through every trial, and through every situation, even when our past catches up with us.
The children of Israel also had to deal with a past that caught up to them just as they thought that they had left Egypt behind for good. As they were following the pillar of fire, following God, they found themselves face to face with the Red Sea. God had led them right up to the Red Sea with no visible means to cross it. When they turned around, they saw Pharaoh and all of his chariots and all of his horsemen coming after them. Their past was trying to take them captive again. The children of Israel were servants not warriors. They had no means of fighting, they had no weapons, and they had no military training which they could turn to and use to fight against the armies of Pharaoh. They were sandwiched between the armies of Pharaoh (his chariots and his horsemen) and the Red Sea. The Red Sea was too long, too wide and too deep for them to get across. There was no way out, but God had led them to that place!
Maybe God has brought you to a place in your life that you see no way out of. You might have been just following what God wanted for your life. You wonder why if you were sensitive to God and followed His lead that you could end up where you are right now. Your past is about to catch up with you, the future in front of you looks dark and grim and you are not sure how you are going to make it. You tried to get out, but here you are. Is there no escaping the bondage of the past? Everything around you seems to say that doom is certain, but God brought you here. God led you here. When you get to the place where only God can save, Hallelujah! It is at this point that we must do what the children of Israel were told to do; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
Many times we have a hard time just standing still and waiting on God to move on our behalf. God is telling us to quit looking for a way out, because He is the way out. He doesn’t want us to lean to our own understanding for the answer, because He is the answer. Don’t try to find another door, because He is the Door. Stop trying to have a “better” life. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. When Jesus Christ came to this earth, He lived a perfect life and died a sinless death and took upon Himself the sins of the world. He died for our forgiveness, for our redemption, and our atonement. Through His blood, we experience the same type of deliverance that the children of Israel re-ceived, when God parted the Red Sea for them to cross on dry ground.
Hollywood often depicts the parting of the Red Sea as a couple walls of water separated only a couple of feet, it was not like that. It was not even six feet or ten feet or twelve feet. The fact is; the parting of the sea had to be over three miles long. That is how far the Red Sea had to part. How do we know this? This is what the Quarter Master General of the United States Army said would be required for a million and a half people to cross the Red Sea in one night.
Paraphrased to simplify, this is the observation that the Quarter Master General made: If they were going to cross the red sea in one night, they would need to have a constant stream of 5000 people crossing it at a time. Even at that pace, a little over three miles is what it would take in distance.
When God makes a way, he just does not make a little way so that you will have to squeeze through and scrape your arms on the way through. No, when God makes a way, He makes a way so spacious that when you go, you do not have to go single file, you do not have to go by yourself. When you go, you can go holding the hands of your family, you can go shouting and dancing and rejoicing arm in arm with your family.
If you will keep following the pillar of fire (the Holy Spirit), it will lead you and you will not stop until you are on the other side of your insurmountable obstacle. You may have to stand still for a moment to see the salvation of the Lord; but His salvation will come and it will come on time. The victories that God gives us should make us burst into singing. We should rejoice in the victories. We rejoice in all the battles God allows us to overcome and to conquer.
The fifteenth chapter of Exodus is a record of the song the Israelites sang. I want you to read the song that they broke out in. When they got to the other side, they real-ized God had brought them out of Egypt (a type of sin and slavery). They understood God had brought them out of sin, out of their bondage, out of their slavery. Out of their shackles, working and building, doing all of these things for their masters in Egypt. Turning from and leaving sin and the bondage of sin for us translates to repentance and turning to follow God and His way in our lives. Then God brought them out of the first trial of their free life which was the Red Sea. Coming through the Red Sea is a type of Baptism from the old into the new. When we are baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, we bury the old man of sin and we escape the judgment and bondage from our past.
God delivered them, He parted the Red Sea and they walked through on dry ground. When they were on the other side, they turned around, just to see. God told them to look back because the armies that you have seen today, the past that has haunted you up until this point, it is not an issue anymore, it is not a problem anymore. I am going to take care of that for you today. When you are baptized you are saying goodbye to the things that had you bound, and enslaved for far too long. Don’t just come part of the way, come all of the way out of your past. All the way out of Egypt on your way to the promises of God for your life.
Here is what what they sang after they were all the way out, you could sing it too.
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone — Exodus 15:1-5
Questions For Reflection:
1) As you leave your past behind, what are some of the emotions you deal with regu-larly? (ie..fear, confusion, disappointment, heaviness, frustration) How do you han-dle these emotions?
2) What do you do to prepare for church services and spiritual events?
3) What would radically living for God look like for you?