OUT OF EGYPT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 50.

OUT OF EGYPT.

TWENTY-FIVE centuries in the past! How long it seems as we count the hundreds! Yet how near the Sacred History brings that time! Egypt, rich, populous, learned, powerful, earth's richest land! In her midst a nation of slaves, sprung from a prince, who could so easily trace his lineage back to Noah, through Noah's greatest son.

A nation whose ancestors had talked with God, who had seen so much of the coming glory that they despised the dominion of earth, confessing themselves strangers and pilgrims in earth's sunniest clime; a nation in whom centered all the promises of God.

How that nation groaned under the curse, the hard, cruel bondage in brick and mortar, in piling up some of Egypt's greatest monuments perhaps, in making the daily stint of bricks without straw with no cessation or rest; little wonder that Egypt's land was likened to a house of bondage knowing no freedom, to an iron furnace burning out the life and vigor from heart and hope. Children of the promise begat children for slavery. Mothers brought forth little ones for bondage or death. Toiling and moiling, moaning and groaning, Israel suffered and stumbled and prayed and wept, and in their blindness worshiped the very gods whose devotees oppressed them.

BUT God did not forget them. One of their own number must be their deliverer. He was born, a "proper child." From the doom of death he came to the heirship of the throne, mighty in deed, and learned in all the lore of Egypt. Guilty of crime in avenging wrong, he flees, and for forty years takes a post graduate course in the school of God. He is now an old man—is Moses; fourscore years has passed over his head. Yet here his life really begins; for God calls him. Down into dark Egypt he goes to deliver by the power of God the people of bondage.

To THAT people he carries the glad tidings that Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God, remembers His people. He bears to the king the message, "Thus saith Jehovah, Let My people go that they may serve Me." Freedom is necessary to acceptable service. Wo be to him who seeks to fetter the moral man. Great will be the judgment upon many masters in God's day of doom. The proud Pharaoh rejected the message, which might have been the glad tidings of God to him, freeing his own soul, and bringing light and joy to the thousands of Israel and Egypt. Then would God's power have been shown through him to his own everlasting good and the glory of Jehovah's name. But he would not, till Egypt was laid waste and the flower of its young men were lying at the bottom of the Red Sea.

"OUT of Egypt have I called My Son," says the Lord through His prophet. Egypt stands for the darkness of this world, and its bondage for the bondage of sin. Many left Egypt physically in that long ago year who never got out of Egypt spiritually. Their hearts were still there. Nay, more, Egypt dwelt in them. They longed for its fleshpots, its leeks, its onions, its garlic, its sun-gods. At the first opportunity, when their strong

leader was absent, in the sight of the burning glory of God, they set up a golden image of Apis, the Egyptian sun-god, and substituted it for Jehovah. Alas! how many others have been called from spiritual Egypt to the Canaan of God who are carrying Egypt with them all the way. When the journey goes smooth, after some great deliverance, when quaffing refreshing draughts from Elim's wells, they sing; but when the service is hard, when darkness comes, when trials thicken, when difficulties arise, God is forgotten or murmured against, and Egypt becomes dominant in the heart and life. Like their prototypes of old, they sooner or later fall by the way in the wilderness wandering.

OUT of Egypt! there is cheer in the call. Out of its darkness of superstition, and foul idolatry! Out of its bondage of sin and lust! Out of its ripened fruit of sin, the plagues of just wrath upon its devotees! But it is never out of Egypt into something worse.

INTO Canaan's land God called His people. It looked as tho they were going into the Red Sea; but He who is "the way" made a path through its dark waters. It looked as tho they would die in the thirsty desert, but God led them to Elim's wells and groves, and opened beside them a perennial spring of life. It looked as tho God led them out of the plenty of Egypt into a wilderness of starvation; but the skies rained manna—"man did eat angels' food." It looked as tho the wilderness would wear them out, shut them in forever; but their very garments waxed not old, and they came as soon as they were willing to the land of promise.

OUT of Egypt God calls every soul of this world—out of its sin, its darkness, its lusts, its doom; and dear soul, if you have not heeded the call, do it now. You may have heard and started on the way; then follow the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Drink of the water by the way. Feed on the heavenly manna. Lust not for the things behind, always to your leanness of soul; but follow on till the eternal glory of the land of promise is yours.