The Spirit Of Oppression

Exodus chapter 16







Today we are walking in: The Spirit of Oppression




Exodus 5:1




And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. H4057












WILDERNESS








Today we look to the word-WILDERNESS-H4057 midbar--wilderness pasture; uninhabited land; a pasture (i.e. open field, whither cattle are driven)--an uninhabited plain fit for feeding flocks, not a desert--a pasture













The Torah testifies...............




Numbers 9:1




And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness H4057 of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,











The prophets proclaim..................






Jeremiah 31:2




Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; H4057 even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.










The writings bear witness...........................






Joshua 1:4




From the wilderness H4057 and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.










The Spirit of Oppression




You cannot hold a man down without staying down with him. -Booker T. Washington




Wake up! Wake up! You slaves, wake up! It's 4:30 and time to wake up!"




"You there! You have been privileged to help your filthy friends raise Pharaoh's pylon today, so get your filthy carcass up to the overseer now, or I will help you with the whip!"




It must have been something like that to live in Egypt when Israel was held in bondage. The only way the slave drivers got people to work was with a whip. Oxen weren't given a shower or time to "brush their teeth," so neither were Pharaoh's slaves- who were no more than simple beasts of burden to Pharaoh and his evil overseers. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be awakened by a whip?




Once they were aroused from their sleep, the Israelites were driven into the field with whips, where they bent over all day to make bricks out of mud and straw. They hated it. The work imposed on them just added to their hatred of their enforced bondage. This is the reason why the oppressed have a negative attitude toward work even after they are delivered. It reminds them of their oppression. People who have been oppressed or have lived under the spirit of slavery develop a dislike for work.




Every time Israel took a rest, they had to be whipped to get them back on the job. The slave drivers wanted work, not rest. The children of Israel became overwhelmingly tired as the sun baked their skin and sweat poured down their faces and aching backs. Still the whips cracked over them constantly to keep them on the task. "Keep working! Keep working, you miserable slaves, or I'll give you something you can really feel miserable about!"




Two Names, One Enemy: Oppression And Irresponsibility




When people are oppressed-in any generation or any people- they develop a spirit of irresponsibility and a hatred for work. Many individuals today are carrying the baggage of their former oppression. Work isn't viewed as an opportunity to glorify Yah and receive His promotion; it is viewed as an obligation-merely a way to pay the bills.



After a while, the Israelites believed work was equated with pain. It was accompanied always by pressure, distress and the whip-which caused such pain. When they were finally delivered, they equated their deliverance to the absence of work and greatly rejoiced (Exod. 15:1, 20). In their "retirement," they thought, We made it! Retirement time! Fishing boats, hammocks, golf courses, tennis courts-no more work! And that's just how so many think today. Historically, formerly oppressed people always dream of going to a type of heaven where they will finally be free. Some even dream about getting a million dollars so they can quit work. If you think that way and do stumble across the money, Yah will probably take the million from you to send you back to work, because work is not a curse. It's the first thing You Gave man to do (Gen. 2:15).




Don't hate work. Love work. Develop a passion for the thing that Yah gave you to do. Do it the way Yah usha did it."`My food,' said Yahusha, `is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work"' (John 4:34).




When your work becomes as important as three meals a day, you are becoming a responsible person. When they have to pull you away from your work to eat, you are coming close to the spirit of responsibility. But if you can't wait for lunch time, you have the wrong spirit. If you start work at 9 A.M., and you can't wait for the coffee break, you have the wrong spirit. If you stretch out your break and read the papers until it's lunch time, you have a slave-minded spirit.




People who hate work can't handle time. They become irritated and depressed when they have time on theirhands, because time demands the responsibility of deciding how to spend it. They love it when people drive them and tell them what to do, because they have the spirit of the slave. And because nothing a slave does is for his own good, people who have been oppressed for years have difficulty with productivity. Most Third World and developing nations are suffering from this today.




Do you know how the prosperity of a country is measured? It is measured by the Gross National Product (GNP). The wealth of a country isn't measured by how much money they have in the national treasury, but by how much the people are producing. When the majority of your people have lived their lives under the whip of poverty and oppression, productivity suffers and the country stays poor. GNP simply means the collective productivity of the nation's citizenry.




Oppression Produces Laziness




Another effect of oppression is laziness. People who have been oppressed suffer from a spirit of laziness because they equate work with suffering and pain. If one has been forced to do a particular task all his life, as Israel was, and then is released from that obligation, that person will stop doing everything that was once forced upon him to do. The Israelites only did what they did twenty-four hours a day because they were forced to do it. Yet many of the things they were forced to do were good. It is possible for constructive, necessary things like housecleaning, yard work-even personal hygiene-if forced upon a person in servitude, to become unwelcome, disdained kinds of work. Even when that person is no longer forced to do those things, they may remain activities to avoid.



This kind of laziness is a product of the oppression itself. People don't want to be lazy. But they do become lazy from being the managed instead of the manager. They lose their energy and enthusiasm because of oppressive restraints put upon them that keep them from being self productive. Oppression actually conditions people to be unproductive, and laziness becomes a lifestyle. Lack of self-motivation and initiative prevail.




In Egypt, the children of Israel didn't have to find their own food. They didn't have to pay for their own houses.They didn't have to find their own water. They didn't have to find their own clothes. They didn't have to find anything because Pharaoh provided everything to keep them on the job. The oppressor provides everything for the oppressed in order to protect and maintain his investment.




Then when Moses led them out of Egypt, they had only been in the wilderness a few weeks when they started murmuring and became angry. What was their complaint? They "had no food!" They "had no water!" So they complained to Moses:




If we only had died by the LORD'S hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.

-EXODUS 16:3




The Israelites equated existing for a little while without food as a premeditated attempt to kill them. Why? Oppressed people are quick to accuse when they are no longer receiving the provisions of their servitude. They can't handle tough times. They can't handle a little lapse in the system of welfare. In this manner, oppression makes people lazy.




FEAR




People who are oppressed are also full of fear. They are fearful because everything they see is painful to them. Everything that happens to them is viewed as a power play to force them into doing something they don't want to do.So they avoid responsibility and live in fear.




Fear also comes from not knowing what your oppressors are going to do to you. Every time one of Pharaoh's soldiers showed up, the Israelites began to shake. Every time they saw a whip, they started trembling. And that spirit of fear didn't leave just because they left Egypt. They stayed and wandered forty years in that little patch of desert I viewed during my Israel-to-Cairo flight, when it could have been crossed in one short month. Fear kept them bound to that ground outside of Canaan, just as it keeps millions bound to their own oppression and poverty today.




Oppressed people are afraid of everything, even their own people. They cringe at the thought of anyone gaining power over them, especially those who were once oppressed with them.




Bearing all of this in mind, oppressed people view their employers as taskmasters bearing the whip. So they are intimidated by what they perceive as the oppressor when the boss walks into their office. As soon as he or she shows up, they feel unimportant. What's wrong? They're still intimidated. Fear lives in them even in freedom.




OPPRESSION AND DELIVERANCE-THE MIND AT WAR




This same thing happens spiritually after people have been delivered from sin. They see someone they used to hang out with or take drugs with-and fear comes in because they feel that they might be weak and go with them. They sometimes resist new ministry leaders in ministry and hideout from volunteer work. This is why Paul told Timothy, "Yah has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7, NKJV). Yah has not given the believer a spirit of fear, but we must believe it.




Once we submit to the redemptive work of Yah in Hamachiach Yahusha, we need to admit that we used to be bound. But deliverance is not freedom, so we must embark on the adventure of learning to walk in the kind of responsibility that will actually set us free. As we will examine in coming chapters, the wilderness is a place of preparation for freedom, but too many die there without ever being free.




This spirit of oppression in the ministry environment is deadly because it stops people from doing what Yah created them to do. They fear the thought of stepping out into the new territory-the very territory that will bring them freedom.




Unless revelation changes the mind of a new believer, when that person is delivered from a lifestyle of sin, he or she will continue to do exactly what sin had conditioned him or her to do. That's the power of oppression. Even adelivered and released man is afraid to be productive because he is afraid of going beyond the barriers that boundhim during his oppression.




Low SELF ESTEEM




Low self esteem is another effect of living under oppression. If someone has been oppressed, he begins to believe that down is where he belongs. If he is invited up, he will give a list of reasons why up is not the place for him.




I've observed this feeling of low self esteem in many people. People can be oppressed by law through some oppressive regime or by a parent. Then, when they gain a measure of deliverance, they still have to deal with a spirit of low self esteem. If you invite them to a nice place, they say, "That's all right, you didn't have to do that." If you buy them something nice, they will tell you that you didn't have to do it. They will try to hand it back. And if you can get them to receive it, they will apologize for receiving it.




If an oppressed person goes to a palace and is served caviar at the table, he can't eat it. He's too busy describing the tablecloth and looking at the gold forks. He doesn't believe he can eat with such nice things. He doesn't believe he deserves the best.




The free, confident man may use his good bone china every day. But the oppressed man who has never had anything won't-the good bone china stays in the china closet. He has difficulty believing that he has any value, so valuable things appear in his own eyes as too valuable for him. I dare some of you reading this to take out those expensive dishes you've been saving for company and start using them. Why? You deserve to use them.




I told my kids they are going to use everything. Why? I don't want them to look at certain dishes as if those dishes were too good for their use. That's the thinking of an oppressed person. The king doesn't put his golden chalice in a cupboard and drink out of plastic cups. He figures, "I'm a king. I deserve a king's cup."




This may seem a minor issue, but you may not be completely free until you can use your wedding dishes again. You may not be free until you can put salad in that expensive bowl and tell your children to eat with the silver forks every day. Go ahead, wear out your bone china. It isn't reserved for some prince in France. Use it. You're the prince.




Do you have rooms in your house into which no one goes? For whom are you reserving them? Walk on that carpet; sit in that chair. Wear that thing out, and Yah will provide another one. Don't go into debt and cause your family pressure, but if the Lord blesses you, go ahead and appreciate the blessing. Enjoy the benefits.




The oppressor will never allow those he oppresses to be equal with him because this minimizes his superiority, which he used in his oppression of others. He has to reduce those he preys upon to less than who they really are so he can justify his oppression. Therefore, oppressed people are so low in their estimation of themselves that they don't believe they deserve anything good. Low selfesteem plagues their lives because the oppressor gave them an estimation of themselves that made them look insignificant and small.




Poor Self-Concept




The next deadly fruit of oppression is poor selfconcept. Some people are told all their lives that they are nothing and that they will never amount to anything. After a while they believe it. Once they believe it, they are in trouble, because it takes an entire generation to remove the spirit of a poor self concept and low self worth, except by a divine interruption.




It is important to remember that every human is created equally in God's image and likeness, and all are therefore inherently the same in value.




No one can make you a human. You were born a human. Therefore, no one has the right to assign value to you-or to devalue you. Human value is not dependent upon what others think about us. It is inherent in who we are because of our creation by God.




The value of the gold ring on my finger isn't determined by what you think about it. You may say the ring is stupid or worthless, but it's still gold. You may say it's plastic, but it's still gold. You may say it's retarded, depressed and ugly, but it's still gold. What you think about it has nothing to do with what it is.




Civil rights can legally grant a ring to sit on my finger while the value of the thing is still in dispute. So don't confuse civil rights with human rights. In America, Martin Luther King, Jr. was only a deliverer, but the freedom to which he opened the legal right must still be possessed.




The principle issue is not civil rights, even though this is important. The true issue is human rights. It is human rights, not civil rights, that set people free. I could give you permission to vote but still look at you as inferior and inhuman.




Your value is not determined by what people think about you. It is determined by where you came from-and you came out of God. You were made in His image.




Selfishness




Oppression also produces the spirit of selfishness. If an oppressed person who never had anything suddenly gets something, he hangs on to it with his life. This is how oppression promotes selfishness, and this is why oppressed people can be very dangerous. If they ever get a position of power, everyone is in trouble. Oppression breeds greed.




When those who are oppressed in their minds get something they never had before, they protect it. They build a wall around it with barbed wire and hire lookouts. If you come into their little world, they will attempt to destroy you. Greed breeds more greed. "Things" begin to represent a false prestige and power, and those who threaten their accumulation are viewed as pests worthy of elimination. If you don't believe me, look at world history-countries have gone to war over treasure and land. The spirit of selfishness also manifests itself in the mind-set (attitude) of immediate gratification. This is the desire to demand instant pleasure and satisfaction. Oppression makes the status symbol of the oppressors to be the object of pursuit for the oppressed at the expense of development, personal growth and maturity.




Lack Of Creativity




One of the most defeating aspects of human oppression is the dull thinking that comes with it. The spirit of irresponsibility that comes from oppression brings a lack of creativity. If you have been told what to do all your life, you stop using your mind.




Oppressors don't want those they oppress to think for themselves. So they try to keep them ignorant, and they do everything in their power to keep them from getting a good education. The oppressor doesn't want the oppressed to expand their minds and get knowledge. It is ignorance that gives and maintains the power of oppression, so they use it as a tool.



When things get tough, our brains should kick in creatively. It is then that we figure out how we are going to put food on the table. But if we never have to figure things out, our brains shut down. It is in those tough times that free thinkers will sew those dresses, cook that rice or sell those cakes. We'll do something. Yah will make us industrious when He pulls Pharaoh's support out from under us.




Yah wants us to be inventive. Once we are delivered, He will give us a revelation of how creative we can be. I mean, Yah may turn our electricity off just so we can remember how to make a fire and how to cook in an open pit.




For most, as soon as we turn the gas stove on and it doesn't work, we get irritated and transfer this responsibility to someone else. Try thinking instead. Stop and think for a minute when a problem arises. Cut some wood and kindling, break out the matches and start your fire. Use your brain. Be responsible.




If you lose your house, don't sit down and cry. You didn't have one before you got the one you lost. Rent another one. Start over again. Do something. Don't just throw the towel in and say, "That's it." Too many people wander aimlessly after their deliverance. Yah Gave us fantastic brains, so be creative. In deliverance, Yah will allow many challenges so that He can once again activate our creativity, initiative and intellectual potential. Oppression destroys creativity and breeds dependency.




Yah Gave you the ability to deal effectively with everything that comes against you. This is why Paul writes:




Yah is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

-1 CORINTHIANS 10:13




The apostle Paul probably grew up in one of the most modern and well-provided-for homes of his day. He was a full Roman citizen and a full Hebrew. He had doctorates in law and theology from the top academic school of his day and a thriving career in Hebrew government.




Then one day Yah Pulled the rug out from under him. Suddenly he had no home and no job, and he had lost all his old well-to-do friends. But that was fine with him, because he was also finally free. "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty," he wrote to one of the many ministries he started. "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Phil. 4:12-13).




Paul was an oppressor who found out through his deliverance how oppressed he really was. So after his deliverance, he had to change his way of thinking. If he could do it, so can you. Suddenly his salary was dependent upon Yah and Yah alone. He was highly educated, but the keepers of the temple had no use for a washed-up Hebrew convert such as he. Soone day he had a thought: tents. Paul remembered that he knew how to make tents. And that is what he did to support his new life.




Yah won't allow you to be tempted beyond what you can handle. And even if you do make a mistake, Yah knew you were going to make it before you made it. But He also knew that He put in you the ability to work your way out of that mistake. Paul certainly made his share, but he grew from them all-and so can you.




Some people who have been delivered but who still battle oppression must be shown how to do everything. Their creativity level is so low that they can't take an assignment and put it into action through their own resourcefulness.




An oppressed person with no creativity may acquire land, but he can't think how to use it. So a man comes and buys the land from him for $50,000. Oh, what a lot of money, the seller thinks. But the man from Idaho grows potatoes, and the land becomes worth $15 million. The oppressed man wasn't creative enough to see beyond the dirt's $50,000 worth, so he takes the $50,000 and lets the management-minded thinker make an annual mint.




The spirit of irresponsibility always says, "This can't be done; this has never been done. No one ever did it like this; we can't do it like this. This can't happen here." But management's spirit of responsibility knows all things are possible. The spirit of responsibility knows there is always a way to accomplish everything.




Sometimes we ask Yah to fix something, but Yah wants us to use our brains to maximize ourselves. "Listen!" He says. "I've given you a brain with ten billion cells. I've given you imagination. I've given you knowledge. I've given you wisdom. I've given you insight. I've given you foresight. I've given you hindsight. I've given you sight! So why are you still coming to Me, wanting to know how to fix it? You fix it! Put your free- thinking management cap on. Think!"




The Holy Spirit will work with a human spirit as a member of His new creation management team. That's why He is called the paracletus. A paraclete is "one who comes alongside to help." He doesn't move in to take over your business, and He doesn't muscle in to take over your home or your dreams. He comes to help you make things happen and to manage them, because He is the Helper.




Are you waiting on God? Maybe His Holy Spirit is waiting on you. He's a helper; He's an assistant. But He can't assist a man who isn't doing anything! Remember Hamachiach 's wisdom in recognizing resources and the resource trading servant in the parable of the talents? Birds and flowers teach us God's love and trusting faith. His parable teaches us that we have unknown resources within us that Yah wants us to recognize and develop. So put on your management thinking cap. What can you do today to improve your situation? The Holy Spirit will help you once you decide to get up and move.




DISTRUST




When people have been oppressed, they learn to distrust their brothers because of the spirit of survival. The spirit of oppression and slavery also produces jealousy, distrust, suspicion and hate. When you are oppressed, all you want to do is make it through the day. You'll use anybody to get ahead and to survive life's miseries with more comfort.This is why people who have been oppressed usually fight each other. They don't trust one another, especially when one of them starts to move ahead. They are fearful of a power play, so they band together to pull any achiever back down.




Lack Of Initiative




Because of all the restrictive and inhibiting effects of oppression, the nonthinking tendencies of this condition naturally take the initiative from a person. It is that initiative that would drive him to do things for himself. People who have been in bondage for a long time have almost no personal drive left. They are told when to get up, when to go to this spot, when to chip these rocks, when to rest, when to eat and drink and when to stop. Then they are told when they can go to the bathroom, when they can go to bed and when to get up. "Get up! Time to make more of Pharaoh's bricks!"



When the oppressed obtain their deliverance, they still want someone to tell them what to do. When Yah says, "Work out your own salvation" (Phil. 2:12, NKJV), they panic and groan, "Yah usha, I thought You were going to work it out for me!"




If an individual still suffering from the spirit of oppression doesn't receive an opportunity to develop his or her potential after deliverance, that person will become a parasite who looks to others to take responsibility for his or her life. Yah usha leads and guides us and tells us how to do things. But He gives us the responsibility of doing our part. So if we don't pray, read the Word, stay in fellowship, follow God's direction, read good books, listen to good tapes and build ourselves up, we will drift.




Oppression's instilled selfishness, fear, laziness, poor self concept and hatred for work have ruined many lives. But the good news is that irresponsibility can be turned around. Yah wants to improve the skills of the responsible and give new abilities to those who have none. He wants to make managers out of mismanagers, and responsible adults out of all of His children.




We need to act on our faith. Once we come to Hamachiach , we must resist the oppressive thoughts of our past and decide to rid ourselves of any former laziness. We must decide to get up earlier to read those books we keep putting off or to go jogging. We must decide to get that mind and that body back in shape. The choice is always ours to get up earlier, pray a little longer and strengthen our relationship with God. When we do, the Holy Spirit will help us. But the act of choosing is always up to us.




Now, let's move on into chapter six to look at some lessons the Hebrew children teach us through their wilderness exploits.




The greater the obstacle overcome, the greater the personal development.




THE SPIRIT OF OPPRESSION




1. When your work becomes as important as three meals a day, you are becoming a responsible person.




2. Oppression actually conditions people to be unproductive, and laziness becomes a lifestyle.




3. Oppressed people are quick to accuse when they are no longer receiving the provisions of their servitude.




4. Oppressed people are afraid of everything, even their own people.




5. It is human rights, not civil rights, that set people free.




6. The spirit of responsibility knows there is always a way to accomplish everything.




7. The spirit of oppression and slavery also produces jealousy, distrust, suspicion and hate.