7/26 "Work for the Night is Coming."

The Book of Exodus contains the saga of God's personal liberation of his people Israel from the clutches of a blood-thirsty nation with an egomaniacal dictator. When this self proclaimed god would not free his slaves, the Lord plummeted him and his hapless subjects with a series of increasingly intensive and devastating plagues which left Egypt in a pitiable decimated state. Considering what happened to the Egyptian people, one might wonder why the "innocent" Egyptian people got caught in the middle of this confrontation between the God of Israel and Egypt's pathetic ruler who chose to take on Almighty God. For example, God could have zapped Pharoah with a few "body blows" that would have forced him to change his tune (see Exodus 9:15). But it wasn't all that simple. The Lord was not after Pharoah alone but directed his best shots against a nation of people who shared in the corporate guilt of genocide and enslavement against a whole nation of peoples (Exodus 1:8-22). The Egyptian economy was flourishing on the backs of their helpless slaves, and the Egyptian soul was in turn enslaved by their obsession with malignant gods and a string of leaders like the pharoah of the exodus who thought they were also gods. They were prey to the Egyptian "wise men" (as one commentator, at least, called them - see Word Biblical Commentary, Vol 3), who really were sorcerers and tools of real demonic forces. They had enslaved the minds of the Egyptians, condemned any child born into that malignant society, and reinforced Pharoah's claim to divinity in a deadly game of mass rebellion against the ONE TRUE GOD. This evil nation flourished from dynasty to dynasty and never skipped a beat in their relentless pursuit of self gratification, material wealth and power. No one was able to stand up to that kind of juggernaut. Now, of course, there were other decadent peoples before and after these Egyptians (Nazi Germany and Islamic fundamentalism quickly come to mind), but this society happened to find themselves in direct collision with the God of Israel who sovereignly decided that enough was enough and it was the right time to deliver his "Chosen People."

Now enter Moses. God used Moses and his brother Aaron to challenge the status quo in the Egypt of their day. Little by little in a series of devastating shots against the Egyptians' well being (disease, pestilence) and their ecology (land, water, animal life, light and weather), the so-called sustaining gods of Egypt were rendered impotent including Pharoah who remained stubborn until he succumbed long enough (for the Israelites to get out of town) to the last plague involving the judgment against the first-born. In that process (which included the drying up of the Red Sea and Pharoah's final humiliation), the Lord "evangelized" an entire "civilization" so that even a distant Canaanite prostitute was converted and became a "Mother" of Israel." Read about Rahab in Joshua 2:8-13; 6:24-25; Matthew 1:5. Futhermore, many Egyptians left Egypt and made common cause with the Israelites (see Exodus 12:38). So Pharoah's obstinacy resulted in the exaltation of God's name and the spiritual/physical liberation of many peoples. See Exodus 9:16. There is so much that we can learn from this, but suffice it to say for this small writing that genocide and the wholesale enslavement of peoples' minds and bodies can lead to dire consequences. With all that is going on in America (e.g. widespread sexual perversion, abortion, and widespread corruption) as well as an epidemic of violence throughout the world, we Christians need to "work for the night is coming when no man can work."(see John 9:4) God bless those who did just that in VBS at Lomontville this week.