Tucked away in the LORD's statement allowing His people to choose for them a king as other nations did, we find an abiding injunction for the people, warning them never to return to the land of Egypt. Egypt symbolized everything associated with bondage and death, and the LORD had delivered them from this prison of destruction, "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm," Deuteronomy 5:15. Any thought of return was tantamount to a rejection of the LORD's great act of deliverance, and a willful rebellion against His sovereign grace through which the people were placed in freedom, and directed to serve Him. The LORD drew them forward; thus, they were never to go backwards again.

However, it is remarkable how often the people of the LORD lost courage, threw up their hands in despair, and longed to return to the bondage of Egypt. The complaints begin immediately, Exodus 16:3, and carry on in the wilderness, Numbers 11:5ff; 14:2ff. Repeatedly the people prefer the fleshpots of Egypt to the gentle guiding hand of the Father. And in Israel's later history, Jerusalem's kings take the same route. Threatened by outside forces, one king after another forms alliances with Egypt, trusting in the weapons and horses of Egypt rather than in the might and power of the LORD. And it all comes to a horrible end in the gruesome episode of the rebellious remnant that, despite the repeated pleas of the LORD, returns to Egypt, only to perish by sword, famine and pestilence, Jeremiah 42-44.

Israel's history begins and ends in Egypt. Is it any wonder that Hosea's words, "… out of Egypt I called my son," cry out for fulfillment, Hosea 11:1? He took them out, but through their own wilful disobedience, He drove them back again – as a punishment for their sin and rebellion, Hosea 11:5. Ultimately, God gives His people what they ask for; Israel receives the fleshpots she cried out for as her final, due reward.

But the LORD cannot completely cut off His people. Hosea's words find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus, who, as an obedient Son in God's house nonetheless had to return to the bondage, and assume the place of a slave in order to seal and effect the LORD's deliverance of all His people, Matthew 2:15. Where Israel fails, He triumphs. He obeys the divine command, and refuses to trust in human strength or to make alliances with the power of sin. He rests firmly in the LORD and, as a faithful Son in the royal house of David, executes the justice of the LORD through humility and sacrifice, offering Himself in the death of the cross. And in this death the real deliverance takes effect. In Him, the true remnant of Israel is spared from final judgment. In Him, the church is delivered from the house of bondage of Satan, and brought into the freedom of His light. The blessings of this freedom are administered to us week after week and day after day.

Clearly then, God's ancient warning applies more pointedly to the church today.

You are not your own; you were bought with a price, says Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:20. And he adds, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery, Galatians 5:1.

That is the New Testament formulation of the ancient command, and it stands as an abiding warning for us all. The church is called to live and stand fast in the freedom of son-ship, glorifying the Lord in reverence and fear.

However, human nature remains the same, also in the dispensation of the outpoured spirit. We, too, have been brought out of the house of bondage with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. But how often are we not caught wanting to go back that way again? All too often, longing eyes look back to what we were before we had any knowledge of God and His ways. God calls us forward; the old nature of sin always draws us back to the bondage from which we were taken. This remains the struggle of faith to the end.

Yet we may have continual hope and assurance in this struggle. Has not the Spirit of the Holy One been poured out into our hearts? And, as Paul says,

the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.2 Corinthians 3:17

Through the spirit we are drawn out of bondage more and more, and learn to stand in the freedom that Christ gives. This is the freedom of the covenant, where every believer gives his free, heartfelt "I do" to the call of the gospel, and acts accordingly. So we are all brought to the one "body," and in the fellowship of the Spirit we may freely sing our thanksgiving song to Him.

Let the church continually guard this freedom. We are called never to return to the house of bondage again. The vistas of a greater, more blessed future open up to us with ever greater intensity. That means that the way back is closed with ever greater finality to us. In the civil army, deserters are court-martialed and shot; in the army of the Son, a deserter may expect the spiritual judgment of death – especially considering the spiritual armour we have received, Ephesians 6: 10ff. Let then none in the fellowship of the church today be counted among the deserters, who in fear and rejection turn back to the bondage of the enemy. Take up arms and go forward, to the full revelation of the freedom and the glory of the Lord.

For we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith, and keep their souls.Hebrews 10:39