Missing the Truth

One of the most startling biblical stories to me is the story of the escape of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

You remember that one. It has been done even in the movies. (Who can picture Moses today without imagining Charlton Heston?) Moses kills an Egyptian in defense of a kinsman and ends up on the run in the desert for 40 years. There he encounters ... God. The burning bush that didn't burn sends him back to Pharaoh to tell him to "Let My people go." And Pharaoh -- shock of shocks -- says, "No." What follows is a display of power never before or after equalled.

Moses and Aaron visit Pharaoh and demand he allow Israel to go into the desert to make sacrifices. He refuses and they turn water into blood. The Bible lists this so matter-of-factly, like, "Yeah, sure, I did that just the other day." And it's almost that way, since Pharaoh's magicians duplicate it. Pharaoh denies their petition. No go. So Moses brings up frogs. And so do the magicians. But there's a little catch. They can't get rid of them. So to show that Jehovah is God, Moses does. Pharaoh relents, then changes his mind. So Moses turns sand into lice. And the magicians of Pharaoh are out of their league. Interestingly, the text indicates that all this bad stuff is happening to the Egyptians but not to the Israelites. They just get to see it without suffering from it. But this "relent-and-repent" sequence continues. It continues through swarms of flies, diseases, and boils. Moses calls down hail so heavy that it kills every man and animal caught out in it. Then came locusts that ate whatever produce the hail missed. Then came three days of absolute darkness, "a darkness to be felt" (Exo 10:21), a palpable darkness. Really, really scary stuff. All of this, however, fails to ultimately make Pharaoh let them go (which, by the way, God attributes to Himself -- see Exo 11:10; Rom 9:17). So we get the final blow, the very Angel of Death. No TV movie, this. This is the real thing. Israel celebrates their first "Passover" because by obeying God and slaying a lamb with marks on the four posts of their doors, the Angel of Death passes over them and kills "all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock" (Exo 12:29). Every single one.

Now, enriched by the Egyptians, they run to the Red Sea. God again hardens Pharaoh's heart and he pursues them. Protected by God overnight, they wait while the Red Sea opens and they cross on dry land. When Pharaoh and his army try to follow, the sea closes and drowns them all. And the text reads, "Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses" (Exo 14:31). That's right. Chapter 15 is the Song of Moses rejoicing in God's marvelous work. And then we get to Chapter 16. "They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness (Exo 16:1-2).

Now, wait a minute! Consider the evidence before you. We have ten, count 'em, ten, unexplainable events, clear acts of God. They are directed, hitting Egyptians without harming Israelis. They are intense, ending up in the deaths of every firstborn in the land. They are miraculous, unavoidable signs of God at work. Follow these with a splitting of the sea, a crossing on dry land, and the complete annihilation of Pharaoh and his army before their very eyes, and you have a pretty powerful case for theism. So, they walk a little way across the desert, settle in for the evening, and complain. Complain! Complain?

You would think that those who saw the mighty and miraculous hand of God at work in clear view wouldn't soon forget. You would think that this kind of direct contact with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (you know, the man later named Israel) would have a profound effect on your worldview. You would think that there would be an indisoluble sense of "If God is for us, who can be against us?" beyond anything anyone else has ever experienced. Not these recently and miraculously freed slaves. They ... forgot.

Of course, there is nothing really remarkable about these people. We do the same thing. All the time. God gives us employment and we worry when our job is threatened as if God is no longer paying attention. God gives us a family and we worry when there are problems in that family as if God can only do it once and "Sorry, guys, now you're on your own." We enjoy God's hand on our health and then assume He has withdrawn it when we have a medical scare. We are ungrateful and forgetful people.

Don't be that guy. Don't be the ones that Paul talks about when he writes, "For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Rom 1:21-23). Notice these are those who knew God, not ignorant ones. Note that the primary error was/is not honoring God or giving thanks to Him. Notice that their primary response to their primary error is substituting, in the place of God, the Creation. You know, like we do so very frequently. Don't be that guy.

My recommendation? Honor God and give thanks to Him. Just a suggestion.