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Their struggles for freedom only made their lot worse. It was impossible for the
nation to serve the Lord while they were subject to the taskmasters' whip. The only thing
they could do was to cry to the Lord for deliverance and the Lord heard their cry.
At the burning bush, Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses and said to him:
"And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I
am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out
of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey ..."
(Exod. 3: 7, 8, R.V.).
Moses was commanded by God to go to Pharaoh and say to him:
"... Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My Son, My firstborn, and I have said unto thee, let My
son go that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to let him go: behold, I will slay thy
son, thy firstborn" (Exod. 4: 22, 23).
One of the first lessons we learn from the typical teaching of the Passover is that we
have to be free in order to serve the Lord acceptably. The epistle to the Romans makes it
clear that man by nature is a sinner, and his sin brings him into bondage.
"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him...that so we should no longer
be in bondage to sin" (Rom. 6: 6, R.V.).
The result of this is freedom:
"And being made free from sin ye became servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6: 18,
R.V.).
"But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit
unto sanctification ..." (Rom. 6: 22, R.V.).
Redemption and salvation mean freedom from the bondage and slavery to sin, so that
one can become a servant of God and carry out His will in practice.
"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8: 36).
Man loves to talk about liberty and one of his cherished aims is to experience it, but
little does he realize that unless he comes under the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, he is a slave, and always will remain so. When we are saved by complete faith
and trust in Christ, He cancels the slavery and then we are free, not to please ourselves,
but to please Him and render acceptable service and witness out of gratitude for all He
has done for us.
So in Israel's case of old; they had to be delivered from Egyptian slavery and this
could only be done by the power of God. But before they could be redeem by power,
they must needs be redeemed by blood. The redemption story is perfect in its details.
Being in Egypt they came under Egypt's doom, for the divine decree to Pharaoh was that
all the firstborn in the land of Egypt would die. There was no exemption for Israel, but a
way of salvation and deliverance was proclaimed. A paschal lamb was to be killed for