The King’s Purpose for His People Part 1

by John Lowe
(Laurens SC, USA)

“The King’s Purpose for His People”
6/11/2006
“The Kingdom of Heaven”

Lesson #2
Title: “The King’s Purpose for His People”
Text: Exodus 19:3-6 (GNB)

This is the second in a series of lessons that deal with the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the first lesson, we discovered how God began His Kingdom by choosing a particular people that would become known as Israel and leading them out of bondage from the Egyptian slave owners.
God saw the bondage of His people, and He predestined an epic story of redemption and freedom that brought them to Him.
As he brought them to Sinai, the mountain of God, He reminded them how He had delivered them from Egypt, and how he carried them on eagle’s wings, and how he brought them to Him.

Now I will read our text; Exodus 19:3-6:
3 and Moses went up the mountain to meet with God. The Lord called to him from the mountain and told him to say to the Israelites, Jacob’s descendants:
4 “You saw what I, the Lord, did to the Egyptians and how I carried you as an eagle carries her young on her wings, and brought you here to me.
5 Now, if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own people. The whole earth is mine, but you will be my chosen people,
6 a people dedicated to me alone, and you will serve me as priests.”

God called Moses and told him to go up Mount Sinai; where He would meet with him and give him the Ten Commandments.
We read in verse 4, “You saw what I, the Lord, did to the Egyptians and how I carried you as an eagle carries her young on her wings, and brought you here to me.”
The LORD was saying, Moses, before you give the people these Commandments, before anything else, you are to remind them that I bore them on eagles’ wings.
Why in the world would the LORD say that?
It’s a very enduring thing to say, but when did God do that?
When did the LORD bear them on eagles’ wings?
The people who originally heard these words knew very well what the LORD was talking about because the memory was still very fresh in their minds.
The Lord was saying something like this.
Do you remember when you were trapped in Egypt, and there was no place for you to go, and you were in bondage and in trouble?
Do you remember when you groaned in your captivity, because of the oppression and terrible cruelty of your taskmasters?
Do you remember looking at your precious children and realizing that there was no hope, or future at all for them, beyond chains, a lash, and an early death?
I heard your cries, I saw your tears.
And I came down to buy you back out of slavery.
Do you remember, my children? Says the LORD.
Do you remember standing on the shore with the Red Sea lapping at your feet, and Pharaoh’s troops massing at your back?
Do you remember the despair that you felt because you couldn’t go forward or backward and death was riding on chariots, like a storm out of Egypt?
I made a way for you where there was no way.
Do you remember my people?
Can you remember the days in the wilderness, where there was nothing to drink and your throats were dry and your little ones cried for water?
I opened up a spring for you…..a stream of fresh sweet water that came gushing over the parched desert floor.
Do you remember Israel?
I stepped into your lives to save you.
I swooped down and bore you on eagles’ wings; do you remember?
God’s love could be seen everywhere; from the manna, sweet as honey, that they collected and ate, to the cool water coming out of the desert sand, and in the soldier's helmets that washed up on shore.
“I bore you on eagles’ wings, “says the LORD.
What does that mean anyway?—“I bore you on eagles’ wings.”
We talked about that in the first lesson with the illustration of a mother eagle teaching her chick to fly.
A mama eagle will make a nest, and she will fill it up with sticks, leaves, and animal fur, making a cozy nest for her chicks.
When the time comes, however, they will become a little less comfortable.
The mother eagle will take them to a great height, and drop them.
The eaglet begins to flutter; he’s never done this before, and he’s not sure what to do, so he continues to flap his wings.
And he’s heading down fast.
As the little fellow plummets to earth, mama eagle watches, and what does she do, she swoops down and picks the little bird up right before he hits the ground.
The lesson is repeated several times, and each time she swoops down to save him and bears him up…..on eagles’ wings.
And that’s exactly what the Lord is saying to Moses.
Please tell them—“Make sure that you remind them—before you give them these Commandments, how much I loved them in the past, remind them how I’ve watched over their lives every day and concerned myself with their future.”
The LORD is saying, “Because I know what is best for you, and I have proven it to you through your deliverance from Egypt, I know what I’m talking about in these Ten Commandments; they are there so that you may live a long, easy life, filled with joy and happiness.”
They are there because God knows what is best for you, and God wants to bear you on eagles’ wings; it’s OK if you fall, because like the mama eagle, God will catch you when you fall.
He wanted to have a relationship with His people that was real and productive.
And He wants the same from His people today.
He desires for His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
The problem is that many believers have no Kingdom vision because they have no Kingdom relationship.
When you have a relationship with the King of the universe, you have an unquenchable desire to serve him.
However, the King has certain expectations in relationship to His subjects.
God desires that all people would come to know Him through salvation.
Salvation is given as a gift and it is not earned.
That’s what Paul wrote about in his letter to the church at Ephesus: “For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8—1901 ASV)
The King wants us to be redeemed from sin.
Romans 6:18-22 speaks profoundly about the freedom that we have from things in life.
18 I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.
19 All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children.
20 For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope
21 that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22 For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth.
In this passage, Paul draws a distinction between the sufferings of the present and the glorious hope for the future.
Paul had suffered greatly for the sake of the gospel.
Yet he acknowledged that those sufferings were nothing compared to the future glory he looked forward to.
God’s children will share in the glory of Christ, and they will be just like Him.
Christ is the believers’ hope of glory.
We have no other claim to heaven than the Savior Himself.
The reality that He indwells us makes heaven as sure as if we were already there.
The knowledge that He indwells us is what Paul calls The Great Mystery; that God would choose to live within His children.
The King desires us to be free from the fear of death.