Week 12/16-12/22: Foundation - God Comes To Rescue

Day One: Exodus 6:2-9 Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I did not make My name Yahweh known to them. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as foreigners. Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered My covenant. “Therefore tell the Israelites: I am Yahweh, and I will deliver you from the forced labor of the Egyptians and free you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am Yahweh your God, who delivered you from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.” Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.

ON OCTOBER 13, 2010, millions of people around the world were glued to their TVs as an incredible rescue operation was taking place before their eyes. Sixty-nine days prior, 33 men went to work as usual in a copper and gold mine in Copiapo, Chile. To their horror, the mine caved in, trapping all 33 people over 2,000 feet underground.

After initially fearing the w

orst, a sign of hope arose 17 days after the collapse as the miners were able to attach a note to a drill searching for them with the following message: “The 33 of us in the shelter are well.” The rescue that ensued took place live before a worldwide television audience. Incredibly, all 33 men were not only alive, but none of them sustained serious injury.

Imagine that you were one of those miners, trapped deep beneath the surface of the earth. There is absolutely nothing you can do to rescue yourself. Left to your own accord, you would sit in the belly of the earth until your physical resources ran dry. Your only hope would be that someone would do something incredible to rescue you from a situation in which you cannot rescue yourself.

While the Chilean miners experienced this in the physical realm, we all experience this same dire situation in the spiritual realm. We are all born into slavery of sin (John 8:34). There is nothing we can do on our own to escape this slavery. Fortunately, we have a personal and loving God at work on a rescue plan of eternal proportions.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷What does it mean to be a slave to sin?

▷▷Why couldn’t the miners save themselves? Why can’t you rescue yourself from slavery to sin?

▷▷How can you be rescued from slavery to sin?