Ex

Ex. 12:29-42

5/25/2008

“Israel Went Out From the Land of Egypt”

This is Israel’s exodus out of Egypt. In the Exodus we have a major, if not the most definitive, picture of our redemption. Throughout Israel’s later history, whenever Israel needed to be reminded of the great and mighty acts of God in history, the people of Israel were exhorted to recall how God delivered them out of Egypt. If fact, many of their holy days were reminders of their exodus. And it was the Exodus, which God presented again and again as the very rationale for their obedience to Him. Also, as Israel’s history progressed and its sins grew and as the prophets began to speak of the coming judgment, they also spoke of God’s greater redemption in the language and metaphor of the Exodus. The Exodus served, then, as a major paradigm of God’s redemption. So then, a proper understanding of this event will help us in our understanding of our redemption and even in the way we view and evangelize the unbelievers around us.

The Exodus was, first and foremost, Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptian slavery. The Hebrews were slaves in Egypt. They were slaves under a cruel, tyrannical regime. That is why no one had to force them to leave Egypt behind. Egypt had been their home for generations, for 430 years. But it was not good for them in Egypt. It was not good at all. There was distant memory of a good time. They were welcomed and they were given special privileges because of Joseph’s contribution. But that was when they were only seventy in number. Now they grew and grew in number. And a new king arose, who knew nothing and cared nothing about Joseph and his people. Under this new regime, they were discriminated against. They were despised. Pharaoh even tried to kill all their male children, to kill their future. And one day, without any warning, Pharaoh made them slaves. And what a hard taskmaster Pharaoh was! From the crack of dawn to late at night, they were forced to make bricks until they met their quotas that were impossible to meet. And, of course, they had no recourse against all the injustices committed against them. And now, finally after the ten plagues, Pharaoh was letting them leave Egypt! So horrible was their life in Egypt, no one had to force them to leave Egypt behind.

Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptian slavery was, of course, but a picture. Through it God pointed to a greater deliverance, for the deliverance we truly need is from a greater, much worse slavery. The Egyptian slavery could take away the Hebrews’ physical, social and financial freedom. The Egyptian slavery could make their daily life miserable and wretched. The Egyptian slavery could even kill their bodies. But it could not kill their souls and bring them to eternal destruction. Though their bodies were weak and beaten, though they were exhausted and spent in their back-breaking labor, they could still cry out to God and bring their petitions to Him. So God said to Moses that He heard the cries of His people. Think of John the Apostle. Though his body was in exile in the island of Patmos, his spirit was free to soar into the heavenly council of God and receive the glorious revelation of Jesus Christ. Israel’s Egyptian bondage was bad. But it was only a dim reflection of a much worse slavery: our slavery to sin, which leads to death (Rom. 6:16), to eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord (2 Thess. 1:9), to Satan himself (Eph. 2:1-3). And Jesus Christ has come to deliver us from that horrible bondage to sin.

But here is an existential problem we face: if the Egyptian bondage was so bad and it was a picture of our bondage to sin and if all those, who are outside of Christ, are still in bondage to sin and Satan, why don’t they seem miserable? Why do they--at least some of them--seem contented and even happy and fulfilled? Why don’t they turn they eyes toward heaven and desperately cry out to be set free from their bondage? Of course, many of them are steeped in their troubles and they often feel lost and helpless in their miseries--but not enough to surrender themselves to God and plead for His mercy. We can readily come up with a simple, biblical answer: “They are dead in their trespasses and sins. They are deceived by the evil one but they are self-deceived as well in the corruption of their heart. They just don’t know better, blinded as they are by their sin.”

But our problem runs a little deeper, especially when we survey the landscape of our hearts. How do we feel about where we are and where we have been delivered from? Do we let out a sigh of relief whenever we think about how it used to be when we were enslaved to sin and Satan? Are we glad and in our gladness do we give thanks to God whenever we think about our new life in Jesus Christ? Do we view our redemption as something that is worth singing about and worth telling others about? Is there a radical and profound difference we see in our lives as a result of our redemption? Can we say why the gospel of Jesus Christ is good sincerely and earnestly? If not, why not? Why is it difficult for us to be confident and bold in our Christian witness? Why do we feel intimidated by others? Why are we so tongue-tied when we try to share the gospel?

What is more, it is not only the unbelievers, who have problems. There is no shortage of complications and struggles in our lives as well. At times we feel terribly dejected and beaten down. There are times when our unbelieving friends seem to be doing so much better.

When we consider these things, we realize that we cannot have a simplistic caricature of what the bondage to sin is like and our redemption in Christ is like--the bondage to sin being a life of total misery in every sense and our redemption being its total opposite. Our Christian life is not a fairy tale, is it--a story that is so simple in black and white? Think about the way the Israelites reacted to the hardships in their wilderness journey. They wanted to go back to Egypt! They actually wanted to go back to Egypt, the land of slavery! They complained to Moses,

“Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger…. Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at” (Ex. 16:3; Num. 11:4-6).

We can seriously doubt whether this description of their life in Egypt was accurate. As someone said, the past can seem terribly charming just because it is in the past. That would be truer especially if the present is fraught with trouble and danger. “The good old days”. But we cannot deny that the Hebrews did have much more variety of foods when they were back in Egypt. The labor was hard but at least they didn’t have to travel all the time in the wilderness, living in tents and with that uncomfortable sense of being unsettled all the time. And they could never be sure where they would find their next water supply. All I am trying to point out here is that their life in Egypt was not “bad” in every sense of the word. It was to Pharaoh’s own interest to make sure that the Hebrews were given enough to eat and rest so that they could keep working and not start a riot in desperation.

Then what was really “bad” about their life in Egypt? When faced with the scarcity of the wilderness, they thought that their slavery in Egypt was not so bad. It is not so shocking--is it?--to see them choose the security of slavery over the uncertainty and responsibility of freedom? Haven’t we heard that the temptation is great for many former inmates to just go back to prison for its “security” (as ironic as it may sound) and for the regular three meals they get?

Again, what was so bad about their life in Egypt? What was so bad about the way your life used to be before you became a Christian? Do you remember? A good way to answer this question biblically and accurately is to ask it in this way: if the Hebrews were not slaves in Egypt, would they have no reason to leave Egypt? We know the answer to that question, don’t we? Their suffering and back-breaking labor as slaves were not the primary reason for their exodus. Even if they were not slaves, even if they were treated as kings in that land, they would still have to leave. Why? Because Egypt was not their true home. Egypt was not the land their God promised to give to them: the land of Canaan was. And that was the ultimate difference between Egypt and Canaan: the promise of God.

Why, then, did God choose the land of Canaan over Egypt? Was it because the land of Canaan was more fertile than all other lands, more fertile than the Nile Delta of Egypt? It was certainly referred to as “a land flowing with milk and honey”. And a cluster of grapes from that land was so huge that the Hebrew spies had to carry them on a pole. But that was not the primary reason. We read in Deut. 11:10-14 that the land of Canaan, unlike the land of Egypt, was wholly dependent upon the early rain and the later rain for its produce. Since God is the One, who gives rain in its season, the Hebrews in that land would be dependent on Him all year long for their survival in a most obvious way. There the people of Israel would be challenged to find their security not in the Nile but in the faithfulness of God.

What is the choice ultimately about? The choice is not between the fish and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic of Egypt and the milk and honey of Canaan, is it? If that were the case, we could not evangelize others unless we were better than they. Only those who made it in the world--the successful businessmen, the renowned scholars, the influential politicians and other kinds of celebrities--could even begin to think about sharing their faith with others. Those, who are poor and sick and uneducated and unattractive, would be looked down upon even in the church as weak in faith or even being in sin. Not only that, we would not dare to share the gospel with those, who happened to be more successful than we. As a matter of fact, we should convert to their religion, which made them more successful! As you can see, in such a system, God would be no more than the handmaiden of wealth and health, a means to prosperity and success.

No, the choice between Egypt and Canaan was not ultimately about which land produced more and better produce. The choice was ultimately concerned with the question of who we are. Here, we are talking about things at their ultimate level. The choice before the Hebrews was not between the fertile Egypt and an arid desert. The land of Canaan flowed with milk and honey, after all. But God led the Hebrews through the wilderness for forty years before they got to the promised land. Why? We read in Deut. 8:2-3,

“And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”

You see? We are dealing with the very nature of man, who is created in the image of God! We are made in the image of God. We are created not to live by bread but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Therefore, our life cannot be about the fish and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic that we eat. Our life cannot even be about drinking and eating the milk and honey from the promised land. Our life is ultimately about living in communion with God, walking by faith in His promises and not by sight. It is like Abram leaving his country, his family and his father’s household to follow the command of God. It is like Abram being able to say to Lot, “If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left” (Gen. 13:8-9) and letting him choose the land of the Jordan Valley, which was “like the garden of the Lord” (Gen. 13:10). This is the kind of confidence we can have when we follow the promise of God, not the security of our immediate circumstances. Our life is about boldly leaving the shallow waters of the worldly security and venturing into the ocean-depth of God’s promises. Yes, there in the deep waters of the ocean, great storms and giant waves await us. But at the same time, what wealth, what abundance, of unseen wonders and deep mysteries are hidden there for our discovery in wonder and amazement--things we cannot see in the shallow waters of the beach! There in the deep waters of the ocean, our feet cannot touch the ground. But as long as our feet touch the ground, we don’t know what it feels like to be held by the divine hand, which is steadier and securer than the ground under our feet! Of all people, we who live in southern California should know how unsteady the ground can be. When we venture out to the ocean-depth of God’s promises, when our feet are taken off the ground of worldly security, we can feel the everlasting steadiness and security of God’s almighty, faithful hand. God is calling us to that life of faith.

What is it that we should be most happy about? What is it that we should be boasting about before the world? Our accomplishments and credentials, our assets and influence, our good looks? No, when we think of our redemption, when we think of our witness to the world, we are not concerning ourselves with such superficial things. We are dealing with the very essence of man and his eternal destinies. Anyone, who does not know the Lord and acknowledge his Creator, no matter how successful and powerful and intellectual and attractive he may be, should deserve our pity, not our jealousy and fear, right? No matter how accomplished a person is, if he does not know the Lord, he is broken, out of order; he is falling short of the glory of God, and the glory, for which God made him! He has no idea how glorious his life can be in the hand of God.

But there was another equally fundamental reason for Israel’s exodus. The Lord commanded Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son’” (Ex. 4:22-23). We see in our passage how this warning was fulfilled because of the stubbornness of Pharaoh. And after the Passover, Pharaoh said to Moses, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said” (v. 31). The primary purpose of Israel’s exodus was not Israel’s emancipation from the Egyptian bondage. Israel’s freedom from slavery was only a means (if I may say so) to a greater purpose: Israel had to be set free from the Egyptian slavery so that they might be able to serve the Lord.

Of course, as I said at the beginning, no physical bondage can stop our spiritual communion with God. We know how much it can affect and even limit our Christian life. Think of our brothers and sisters in Algeria and in other places under oppressive regimes. Many of them cannot even gather together freely to worship God. But we also know how the physical afflictions and political oppression can intensify one’s worship of God, one’s love for God, one’s treasuring of God. But here in Israel’s exodus, God is providing a picture of our true redemption. In saying this, I am not implying that Israel’s exodus was just a made-up story, a parable, and not a real, historical event. Israel’s exodus was a real, historical event. We can even say that true, eternal salvation was given to the truly elect through the Exodus. We may even say that this true salvation was given only to those, who physically participated in the Exodus (though not all who physically participated in it were truly saved). But it is also true that the Exodus was a physical picture of a spiritual reality.

What is the spiritual reality? That we cannot serve two masters at the same time. To show this principle, God set the people of Israel free from their slavery in Egypt so that they could serve the Lord God and Him alone. And that is what our redemption is for--to serve the Lord!

The Exodus calls us to expand our understanding of biblical redemption. Our redemption is more than simply being delivered from the bondage to sin and Satan. It is more than simply being forgiven of our sins and spared from the eternal destruction for sinners. That is only a half of the story. Jesus Christ came not only to save us from sin; Jesus came so that we might also have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). And this life is abundant because the blessings that God bestows on us in Jesus Christ are great and too many to count. Jesus came into this world and lived the way He lived and suffered the way He suffered and died the way He died and rose again the way He did so that He might give us the abundance of His life--His righteousness, His love, His peace, His joy, His inheritance, His blessedness, etc.!

But that is not all! Through His redemption, Jesus enables us not only to enjoy His many blessings but also to participate in His life, to live a life that is noblest and most fulfilling and satisfying! Our life in this world is temporary and fleeting and finite and perishable. It cannot be sustained forever. It will grow old and die. It will have to be used and spent in one way or the other. We cannot stop our life from being used up. Paul gives us a wonderful analogy for our life: a drink offering. He saw his life as a drink offering to be poured out (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6). As we live each day, our life is being poured out until it will be completely emptied out on our deathbed. Where do we want to pour out our life? It will have to be poured out somewhere. It is being poured out as time ticks away. It can be poured out on the street. It can be poured out on the arid desert of insatiable carnal pleasures and worldly ambitions. Or it can be poured out on the altar of God’s service. Paul says in Phil. 2:17, “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” Paul rejoiced that his life could be poured out to the last dregs to the upbuilding of the Philippians’ faith. For what is nobler and more fulfilling than to be spent and consumed in the service of the most glorious and majestic God? What better cause, what better usage of our life is there than to poured out at the altar of God’s service?

When we pour out our life in the service of God and His kingdom, there is a life that is not wasted but most usefully spent. Indeed, God makes promises of His rich rewards. Many of us are reading the Book of Revelation now. Do you remember the promises that Christ gives in His letters to the seven churches?

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7);

“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10);

“To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Rev. 2:17);

“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star” (Rev. 2:26-27);

“The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5);

“The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name” (Rev. 3:12);

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21).

What glorious promises are ours from Christ! Only the life that is poured out in service of God is a life not wasted. For our good and generous God rewards richly for every drop of tears and sweat we shed for His glory. Do we seek God’s rewards for our selfish ambitions? No! Because God dispenses these rewards out of pleasure and delight! Whatever God rewards us for, it is done for His glory, according to His command, out of love for Him! God will not dispense the rewards as an indifferent Judge but as our loving Father delighting in our labor of love for Him, as weak as it is! So, when we receive our rewards, we bring glory and honor to Him! And if we seek these rewards, it is because we desire to see His glory and delight in us! And all our rewards will be a testimony to His great work of redemption, which transformed sinners into saints, cowards into daring soldiers of Christ.

Do you see, then, the divine purpose behind Israel’s suffering in Egypt, which made them cry out to God? Their suffering in Egypt was not an accident; it was according to God’s decree. For God told Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions” (Gen. 15:13-14). They had to be sojourners in a foreign land for four hundred years because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full (Gen. 15:16). When the fullness of time came, God awakened Israel to the remembrance of His promise to them through their suffering as slaves--to remind them that Egypt was not their home, that their life was not about the meat and the fish and the onions, that they were destined for a far more glorious life in communion with God, in service to God.

But we know that the Exodus came about only after the terrifying judgment on Pharaoh and the Egyptians on the night of the Passover. And the people of Israel were spared from that judgment only because the provision that God made for them through the Passover lambs: the Paschal lambs had to be sacrificed in the place of the firstborn sons. There we see a picture of our Exodus in Jesus Christ, the true Paschal Lamb, through whom and by whom we have been spared from the judgment of God against sinners. And in Jesus Christ, the true Israel, we have the heavenly (eschatological) Exodus. This Exodus we have in Jesus Christ is not just a deliverance from the slavery of Egypt but from the bondage to sin and Satan, from the eternal judgment of God. This Exodus we have in Jesus Christ is for a journey, not toward an earthly promised land, still not free from sin and curses and death; it is toward the heavenly Promised Land, where there are no more tears, no more mourning, no more death. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you have been truly blessed to participate in the true Exodus, which Jesus accomplished for us through His death and resurrection, as He passed from this world unto the world to come, unto the kingdom of resurrection glory.

As God has called us unto this Exodus, let us not look back and linger in hesitation while the journey to heaven awaits us. Let us not long for the fish and the melons and the leeks and the garlic of this world when we have the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ, when we have the surpassing glories of our heavenly inheritance before us. And let us pour out our life gladly and profusely at the altar of service unto God, until that day when our journey shall come to its glorious end and we shall be richly rewarded by our God to His glory and our joy!