WE ENTER THROUGH THE EXIT DOOR

Ministered May  18, 2003 am
Mike Blume

Exodus 17:3  And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?

Deuteronomy 6:18-23  And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD swore unto thy fathers,  (19)  To cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath spoken.  (20)  And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you?  (21)  Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand:  (22)  And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes:  (23)  And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore unto our fathers.

Deuteronomy 6:24  And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

Deuteronomy 9:27-28  Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:  (28)  Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

Luke 9:30-31  And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elijah:  (31)  Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

When Israel left Egypt, an account of the story was written in a book we have until this day entitled the EXODUS.
  •  Literally it means THE EXIT.
  •  THE WAY OUT.
  •  THE DEPARTURE.
  •  GOING AWAY.
It was an exit from the bondage and slavery in Egypt.
  •  The people cried for such a deliverance for generations.
  •  And Moses came as their deliverer.
But it was not just an EXIT, and that was all there was to it.

They would ENTER something else upon EXITING Egypt.

They were to enter through the exit door.

Now, many times their faith failed them, and they complained about leaving Egypt.

Exodus 16:3  And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Numbers 14:2  And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!

They knew they indeed did  leave Egypt.
  •  It was an EXODUS to be sure.
  •  An EXIT.
  •  But they did not realize that they were to ENTER something else upon Leaving Egypt.
So many today also look at Jesus as an EXIT door from the world and from the sins of life.
  •  And they do not realize that they will enter through this exit door.
  •  They consider the life of sins and the pleasures that do exist in sins, and they hesitate to use the EXIT DOOR.
  •  They concentrate upon what they will lose and release.
But God is telling us that He brings us out  to bring us in!
  • God will never ask you to release something for which He will not give you a more wonderful, more awesome and fantastic something else in return!
What God gives us in return for releasing the world…

What we enter into in exchange for what we leave…

…is as different from what we leave behind as a PROMISED LAND OF MILK AND HONEY is to slavery and whipped backs in Egypt!

He brings us out to BRING US IN!

Israel sinned so greatly in concentrating upon what they left behind.

The devil makes you concentrate on something that is actually so foolish and insane, and yet succeeds many times.

God told Adam and Eve they could eat of all the trees of the Garden, except one tree.
  •  The serpent gets  Eve to question the idea of whether or not God told them they could indeed eat of all the trees.
  •  She gives him the answer he looked for when she said they indeed can eat of all the trees, except for one tree.
  •  And he managed to cause her to concentrate on the one thing God forbade, and twisted the entire picture to make God look like He was holding back on them.
  •  A whole world of fruit trees,, and one single tree is forbidden!
By the same token, the devil dupes people from the VASTNESS of what God has for us if we serve Him, and gets us to concentrate on the minority item, in contrast to what God’s majority of gifting is, that will kill us anyway!
  •    And people fall for it.
Do not concentrate on the leaving behind aspect.
  • Concentrate on the place to which you are going!
Hebrews 11:13-16  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  (14)  For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.  (15)  And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.  (16)  But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

The people who became heroes of faith, and giants in the kingdom of God, were those who refused to remain mindful of the world they left.
  •  They kept their eyes focused ahead of them.
  •  And though it was far off ahead in the future… so far that it was beyond their mortal lives… they saw them afar off.
  •  They were persuaded of them.
  •  They embraced them, and clutched them in their hearts to never let them go.
  •  And they SPOKE IT OUT LOUD that they were PILGRIMS.
  •  They were ON THEIR WAY to a glory that would blow anyone’s mortal mind!
  •  Anyone who says those sorts of statements, declare PLAINLY that they SEEK A COUNTRY.
Everyone of them would have found a chance to return if they kept their minds on their past worlds.
  •  We would not read of Moses as such a figure  in the roll-call of the heroes of faith.
  •  Nor of Abel, Job, Noah, etc.
  •  Women like Ruth and Sarah and Rahab.
  •  Everyone of these people had one common key to their victory.
  •  They kept their eyes on the prize before them.
If you want to get to glory one day… take their example.
  •  Rip your mind off of the thoughts of what you left behind, and what it used to be like…
  •  And look straight ahead at what lies before.
  •  Forget those things that are behind you.
  •  The sufferings of this life in releasing the world is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us!
If you’re hesitating to let go of the world completely, thinking you’ll lack something you presently worked at enjoying, then you need to never forget that WE ENTER THROUGH THE EXIT door.

The way that God works is that He withholds the treasures, of even spiritual joys in this life, for those who release the world.
  •  As much as you hold onto from this world is actually unbalanced to be less for what blessings He will withhold from you as a result.
  •  For every inch of the world you hold onto, there’s a million miles of blessings, in comparison, that you will not know.
Forget this business of wanting to make sure you will want His blessings more, by holding onto the thing you refuse to release at the same time you test out His blessings.
  •  That insults God and you make Him out to be one whom you cannot trust.
  •  “Seeing is believing” is a statement made by insulting doubters of God.
  •  After all, Doubting Thomas said He would not believe that Jesus rose from the dead unless he saw the nail prints in his hands.
  •  Believing will be seeing.
  •  And Jesus said blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
  •  In other words, God reserves the BLESSINGS for those who trust Him to such a degree that they do not have to be shown something, while they hang onto the world, before they will release the world.
And while atop the mount of Transfiguration, as Jesus shone in glory, Moses and Elijah appeared in glory with Him.
  •  And they spoke to Jesus specifically about HIS DECEASE.
  •  About his death.
  •  DECEASE is from the Latin word DECESSUS, which means A GOING AWAY.
  •  You will be blessed to know that the Greek word translated as DECEASE is EXODUS!
Jesus was going to EXIT this world.
  •  He was going to leave the world.
  •  He was going away.
  •  Exiting.
  •  And that is what DEATH was rendered as in His own words.
It was the very thing that Peter rebuked him for discussing back in Chapter 16 of Matthew.
  •  In fact, the reason Peter rebuked Him was because Peter did not realize that WE ENTER THROUGH THE EXIT DOOR.
  •  Peter simply thought of being with Jesus.
  •  He thought of the suffering and agony of Jesus’ death.
  •  In fact, it may be why he told Jesus, when he awoke on that mountain and saw Elijah and Moses, ready to leave as the Bible tells us, “It is good for us to be here.”
  •  He contradicted the very discussion Moses and Elijah had with Jesus of HIS EXIT.
  •  Peter was too earthly minded to see any heavenly good.
If we do not grasp a revelation of ENTERING THROUGH THE EXIT DOOR, then we will be like Peter.
  •  And Jesus referred to Peter as SATAN, the adversary and offence to Jesus.
  •  In other words, if you cannot see beyond just leaving some world behind, then you will be a resistor of the things and the cause of God.
  •  While you hesitate about releasing the world, and remain seated on your fence, between totally getting into the world, and totally serving God, YOU ARE A HINDRANCE TO GOD.
The ironic thing about it all, is that since you see nothing beyond THIS WORLD as you hesitate to release this world, blinded to anything BEYOND this world, you will in fact find NOTHING but suffering after you leave this world in death one day.

But the people who can see joy on the other side of the great divide, and who retain those visions in their hearts and refuse to release them, are the people who will enjoy pleasures that are beyond any pleasures in this life.

The very thing they seek to hold onto -- pleasures, -- is ironically the greatest form of which they will never see.

That is what Jesus meant in his ironic statement that if we seek to hold onto this life, we will lose it forever, but if we release this life we will find it again for eternity.
  • In fact, Jesus said that after rebuking Peter for his resistance against thoughts of his death in Matthew 16.
After Hebrews 11 lists heroes of faith, telling us they refused to even consider the world from which they left, we read chapter 12 say:

Hebrews 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

WE ENTER THROUGH THE EXIT DOOR.

We get far greater joys and pleasures when we release the pleasures of sins of this world.

Its not just an EXIT.

2 Corinthians 6:17  Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

John 17:6  I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

When we leave the world, Jesus receives us.

You cannot know Him and how wonderful He is until you let go of the world.

His DEATH was an EXODUS.
  •  His decease was an EXIT.
  •  And when we are baptized into Jesus we are baptized into His death.
Nobody on earth could relate to Jesus about what He was about to experience.
  •  He would EXIT this life at Jerusalem.
  •  Jesus even urged the disciples in the Garden to pray with Him about the death He would experience.
  •  But they slept in that Garden just as they slept when Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus about that death.
  •  They could never relate to it.
  •  Whenever He spoke of His death and resurrection, Peter only thought of his death, and they never understood those words.
Since nobody in this world could relate, Moses and Elijah, men who had left this world and experienced that EXIT, came and fellowshipped with Jesus and discussed it.

Perhaps Jesus’ humanity was encouraged with FAITH for we do read he was heavy and burdened with the thoughts of leaving.
  •  He asked for the cup to be passed from him.
  •  He requested deliverance, but noted as an afterthought that for that reason He came into the world.
  •  But they experienced it.
  •  God buried Moses, and Satan must have fought over his body  with Michael because God was simply going to take that body up and away.
  •  Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire.
  •  And these spoke with Jesus about His own EXIT.
  •  They perhaps reminded that human part of Jesus, “HE BROUGHT US OUT TO BRING US IN.”
Moses may have never entered the promised land of Canaan in the EXODUS journey.
  • But Moses had an Exodus to beat the band when God lifted him up and away from this world and on into glory in an EXIT any Israelite would have gladly traded for Canaan!
When they walked through the doors in Egypt, they passed beneath blood of a lamb, and EXITED the deaths of the nation, and ENTERED a place of LIFE.

HIS DEATH IS AN EXIT.
  •  Baptism into Jesus is baptism in to HIS DEATH.
  •  INTO implies a door.
  •  His DEATH was called THE EXIT in Luke 9.
  •  You enter the world of the Kingdom of God when you pass through the doorway of His death.
You might have to -- you will have to -- let go of some pleasures of this life, but HE BRINGS YOU OUT TO BRING YOU IN!
  • You ENTER through the EXIT DOOR.
Don’t be like the Hebrews who died and never entered the land of Canaan.
  •  Don’t keep your mind on where he brought you from.
  •  All who thought back to Egypt never made it into Canaan.
  •  Get hold of the truth I am preaching to you about, and look ahead and catch a glimpse of heaven and glory and paradise, and embrace it, and be persuaded of them.
  •  And go through the EXIT DOOR IN FAITH!
When those heroes died, the bible says in Heb 11 they DIED IN FAITH!

Their deaths were EXITS through which they ENTERED.
  •  Heb 11 mentions their EXIT deaths as ENTRANCES and then follows in Heb 12 with the greatest of all, Jesus, who for the joy set before Him, as well, endured the agony of the EXIT.
  •  Obviously the JOY SET BEFORE HIM was greater than the suffering.
  •  Not worthy to be compared!
Repentance is DYING to this world and turning away from it.
  • It’s releasing this world and the pleasures of sin.
Its an about-face.
  • But WE ENTER through this EXIT DOOR.
Except we REPENT, we will perish.
  • IOW, unless you look at the EXIT DOOR as the ENTRANCE into something far greater, you will one day have no joy that you ironically try to maintain as you refuse to let go of this world and live for Jesus.
Let go and let God have His wonderful way..