The Two-Hundred-Eighty-Sixth (Slavery to What?)

We’re going to look at what scripture talks about regarding slavery this week.  Not what it says about slavery of one man to another, but spiritual slavery in our lives and the pattern of how YHWH delivers us from it.  However, first I want to talk about a recent realization I had, and it actually ties in somewhat to this week’s topic.

I’ve mentioned, in previous weeks, that there is a group of believers out there that doesn’t believe in a physical returning of Yeshua.  They interpret scripture as showing that all of Yeshua’s work was complete when He first came in the flesh, and everything after His death and resurrection that’s referred to in scripture is a spiritual fulfillment rather than a physical one.  They believe that over time, Yeshua’s kingdom will grow in the world and eventually overtake it such that the whole world, and everyone in it, believes in and worships Him.

The other thing I’ve mentioned in previous weeks is my belief that there seems to be at least some truth in most of the well-established views in Christianity; the views that people seem to latch onto that have some convincing scriptural verses associated with them.  The problem is that the whole view is not true despite the fact that one aspect, which, albeit, might be extremely small, is true.  The reason I bring this up is because what came to me this week, and what I’m presenting for your consideration before we really get into this week’s topic, is that the idea of Yeshua’s kingdom growing in the world and eventually overtaking it might have some truth to it.

Originally, I looked at this view as being focused on, or isolated to, the growth of the religion of Christianity.  As I came to realize that the majority of what Christianity is today is actually a paganized version of what YHWH wants His people to do and how He wants them to act, I couldn’t accept that what we’re seeing as Christianity growing in the world is a fulfillment of Yeshua’s kingdom growing in the world.  As I came to understand more and more of scripture and that YHWH still desires His people to be obedient to everything He said in scripture for His people, and when I saw that understanding growing organically in believers all around the world, I knew more and more that there’s no way the growth of mainstream Christianity is the growth of Yeshua’s kingdom.  The majority of it goes against everything Yeshua preached during His ministry.

The realization I came to this week is that the growth of Yeshua’s kingdom, such that it overtakes the whole world, may in fact be a growth of businesses that are run by true believers and operate in obedience to all the things Yeshua told His people to do and how He told them to live.  This may sound ridiculous at first, but I ask that while you consider this possibility you try your best to get out of the mindset of the world and into the mindset of everything that we’ve learned through our studies of scripture for the past almost six years.  We have to look at things from YHWH’s point of view rather than the point of view that the world has brainwashed us into believing is true.

When you look at the world, what do you see?  The world will tell you that it’s run by governments that establish rules and regulations that businesses have to operate within.  From that viewpoint, you see the government as the authority and the businesses as submissive to that authority.  When you actually look deeper, and what everyone has actually come to realize over the past few years, it’s quite the opposite.  The governments establish rules and regulations based on how the businesses lobby the government.  The authority actually rests with the businesses rather than the governments.

That authority isn’t just limited to governments, either.  Businesses are where all the people of the world have to get their goods and services from.  Whether it’s groceries for them to survive off of, or houses for them to live in, or vehicles for them to get around in, businesses are where people have to go to get whatever it is they need.  Businesses establish the terms and conditions by which the people get all these things, and businesses establish the times during the day and the year in which the people can acquire them.

Recently, I’ve come to recognize that there are quite a few believers that are predisposed, or maybe you could call them gifted, at starting and/or running a business.  The number is quite a bit larger than I grew up believing because all you see in the news, all the big names that are prominent, seem to be unbelievers.  So, what I’m presenting for your consideration is the possibility that the view that Yeshua’s kingdom would grow in the world and overtake it could be true in that it will be fulfilled by businesses run by true believers that operate in accordance with YHWH’s commandments growing to the point that they run the world.  

Stop for a moment and think about what that might look like.  What if all the businesses in the world, except for emergency services of course (which we’ve seen through Yeshua’s ministry is not a violation of YHWH’s commandments), shut down for Shabbat?  Just by doing that you would have the whole world observing Shabbat!  They wouldn’t be able to buy or sell and being employed by the businesses means they wouldn’t have to work.  Before you balk at that idea, in many areas of America at least, you already see this type of thing when it comes to Sunday.

What if all the businesses in the world shut down for YHWH’s feast days?  Again, if that were the case, the people of the world would have no problem and no dilemma in observing them.  They wouldn’t have to worry about saving up their vacation days in order to observe these holy days, which were established as holy by YHWH Himself.      

What if all the business owners of the world were so interested in seeing each other succeed that they became integrated with each other?  In YHWH’s commandments, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and we are not to charge interest to our brother and sister believers.  We should desire all of them to succeed just as we are able to succeed, so what if believers invested in each other’s companies to the point where they weren’t just paying each other for mentoring and guidance but they were invested to the point of actually, actively helping them succeed?  

You might be thinking to yourself that there’s no way that would ever work, but remember, we’re looking at this from YHWH’s point of view, not the world’s.  The world would tell you that you have to protect your own and be ruthless in competition in order to succeed.  The world would tell you that you have to operate 24/7 in order to succeed.  YHWH tells you that He will bless you if you follow His commandments.  He will make you the head, not the tail (Deuteronomy 28:13).  He will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to (Deuteronomy 28:8).  

When you consider all this, don’t you think there’s a possibility that in order for prophecies like all the nations giving offerings during the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14:16) to be fulfilled that the world would have to look this way?  We have to start thinking from YHWH’s point of view and acting in accordance with that view, trusting that He will bless us in it.  And the way this ties in with this week’s topic is that it has to do with spiritual slavery.

When you feel as though you are forced to operate in a certain way, whether you call it slavery or not that’s what it is.  If you feel as though you will get fired, or your business will collapse and die, or you’ll lose all your money and make your family homeless, or you’ll never have a successful career, etc., unless you do certain things or act a certain way or live a certain way, whatever it is that’s telling you that, or giving you that feeling, is what you are in spiritual slavery to.  Those are some sobering words, aren’t they?  

Sometimes we need sobering words to help us realize the truth and motivate us to take action.  I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been listening to a podcast called The Life Podcast, and when the interviewees go through their testimony of coming to understand that YHWH’s commandments are still applicable to us today, testimony after testimony includes YHWH giving blessings as a result of them choosing to put Him over the world.  They start to observe Shabbat, for example, and while it initially seems like their employer punishes them for it, it turns out that what happens actually helps them to not only observe Shabbat but also to have more time to devote to YHWH and their family without losing their income.  

That’s only one example, but there are many more.  I used to think they were the exception, but have come to realize that with YHWH they are the rule.  The way the world operates naturally leads you into spiritual slavery to it.  If we take an extreme example, if tomorrow the whole world decided that you could only buy and sell things on one day of the week, and that day is Shabbat, you would feel you have no choice but to violate YHWH’s commandment to observe Shabbat in order to actually survive in the world.  The majority of people work for businesses, so everyone would also feel like they have to work on Shabbat in order to survive.

This example seems to be very unlikely, or even an impossibility.  However, need I remind you that about six years ago the whole world literally shut down?  Not only did it shut down, people were jailed for violating the ridiculous, nonsensical restrictions being imposed.

There are examples in scripture that represent the spiritual slavery we’re talking about this week.  The most obvious one is the Israelites in Egypt.  What we’re going to do is not look at the physical slavery aspect itself but the pattern of their physical deliverance and salvation and how it applies to our spiritual slavery today.

Overall, there are a few major aspects of Israel’s deliverance to note.  First, there was a recognition of their situation by the people which resulted in a request to YHWH for their deliverance (Exodus 2:23).  Then, when it came time for the deliverance, they had to have faithfulness, which includes obedience, to prepare and leave as they were instructed (Exodus 12:1-34).  Once delivered, they had to submit to authority, YHWH’s authority (Exodus 19:8), and then put that submission into practice as they traveled through the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:2).  Finally, based on their continued obedience, they were able to receive the blessing, or reward, that YHWH promised them (Numbers 32:11, Deuteronomy 2:14).

This pattern is no different for us today than it was for the Israelites back then.  We have to recognize we need deliverance from whatever we’re enslaved to and then ask YHWH for that deliverance.  For us as believers the hard part is identifying the thing we’re enslaved to because the world hides the fact that it’s enslavement.  For unbelievers, the hard part is asking YHWH for the deliverance.  They realize the situation they’re in, that there must be something more than the rat race, and they search all over for where and how to get deliverance from it.  The world tells them YHWH doesn’t exist, so they don’t consider going to Him even though He’s the only one that can give us true deliverance.

That request for deliverance is only the first step, and sometimes our action stops there.  YHWH presents us with the opportunity to escape, just like the Israelites, but fear of the unknown keeps us from preparing and leaving.  We have to be willing to act out the same faithfulness the Israelites exhibited in order for us to experience the same type of deliverance.

In the case of the Israelites, they had the opportunity to see, and sometimes experience, the power of YHWH before taking the action to prepare and escape as instructed.  We don’t see plagues like those they saw in Egypt, but the idea is the same.  Our ability to recognize His work in our lives is what helps us have the confidence to take action when He needs us to.  Sometimes the situation we’re in is so dire that we figure anything would be better than that, so taking the action is not that hard of a choice.  However, that’s not always the case, and it’s those little things, or even big things, we see in our lives that we can only attribute to Him that help us take action.  

Upon being delivered, our action doesn’t stop.  This is where I would say the majority of Christians fail, and sometimes that’s because mainstream Christianity teaches that all you have to do is believe in Yeshua and you’re “good.”  People’s actions don’t follow their words in that they state they are a disciple of Yeshua but their lives still show being a disciple of the world, or to be more blunt, a disciple of Satan.    

Just like the Israelites, we have to continue to be obedient to YHWH in our deliverance.  It’s not a “one and done” with accepting Yeshua as our Savior.  That continued obedience looks like changing our lives, including how we physically look, act, and think, to be in line with YHWH’s expectations for how His people live.  For the Israelites, this meant, among other things, no longer making physical idols and worshipping them (Exodus 32:1-8).  For us today, it’s essentially the same thing.

While the Western world, at least, doesn’t typically have physical idols to worship, it makes ideas, thoughts, and actions idols.  We alluded to that earlier in that business revenue can be an idol where business owners choose to operate their business on YHWH’s day of rest or during His feast days because the world tells them that’s the only way to increase revenue, or at least to keep from losing it.  If YHWH could physically deliver an entire group of people from slavery to a nation, don’t you think He could also give a business that is obedient to Him more revenue despite being closed one day a week for Shabbat and a few more days a year for His feasts?  The examples of making ideas, thoughts, and actions idols are endless and certainly include individuals as well as businesses, but we won’t belabor that point.

Once we have that continued obedience, or even as we develop it, we can’t expect it to be smooth sailing all the time.  The Israelites were tested in the wilderness often, and we should expect to experience the same without it causing us to “fall off the wagon” and back into disobedience.  Now, we know that they struggled to be obedient and have faith a lot as they wandered in the wilderness, so we don’t know how their journey would have looked if they went on the straight and narrow immediately at Mount Sinai.  However, we’re people just like them, so it’s not unexpected for us to falter occasionally as well.  We should use their example as a lesson so we try not to make the same mistakes, though!

The other thing to recognize is that if we stumble, there is a method in place to get back up and try again.  Just like the sacrificial system YHWH gave in His commandments, we can repent and turn back to Him when we make mistakes and He is faithful to forgive us as if we never made them (1 John 1:9, Hebrews 8:12, Jeremiah 31:34).  We may beat ourselves up about the mistakes we make over and over again, but with our true, heartfelt repentance He blots out those mistakes and never remembers them again (Isaiah 43:25).  In other words, He doesn’t hold them against us.    

Finally, we can expect and look forward to our reward from YHWH when the time comes, based on our obedience to Him.  What that looks like, in my opinion, isn’t really defined.  Yes, I think it includes physical resurrection at some point in the future, but I don’t think that’s the only thing.  I think it includes physical rewards in this life as well, just like the Israelites were given the Promised Land.  I think it also includes being in heaven upon physical death until our physical resurrection.  Whatever the “Promised Land” is for us, we know He will be faithful to reward us with it.

There is a lot for us to learn from the Israelites’ deliverance and apply to our lives today, and the first step is to identify what we are spiritually enslaved to.  Take time this week to see if there’s something like that in your life, and then take the actions we’ve laid out here in order to be delivered from it.  Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!  

-Rob and Sara Gene

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The Gospel

We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)

The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)

Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)

His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)

Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life

(1 Corinthians 15:17-18, John 3:16)