Four hundred and thirty years were getting over.
Time for the children of Israel (and the adults as well) to begin their exodus homewards from Egypt. Moses was selected by God to lead the masses in a marvelous way, with sister Miriam getting mother Jochebed to wean the baby (that was 5 “m”s). Oh yes, before that God saw to it that the midwives spared the male children (that is +2 “m”s).
The whole story is History!
After Moses mellows in the land of Midian (oh, these “m”s insist on following me), he returns to Egypt to plead with Pharoah with the call of God to “let my people go” (pah, it has turned to “p”s now)
But let’s not allow these alliterations to divert our attention from the subject of this week. Which by the way was inspired by a rising musician called Atul who organized a concert at St.Andrew’s Kirk not many moons ago.
The story line (drawn from a Gaither show) that stuck in my mind was the way negotiations proceeded between the Pharoah and the erstwhile Prince.
After a pretty dreary rally between the two when Pharoah gave nothing away, Moses and Aron score some smashing points and Pharoah makes the first concession.
“Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land“. (Ex. 8:25)
“In the land” is the operative phrase here that Pharoah was careful to use. “Go” if you must but stay within the country. Likening Egypt to the “world” in a wonderful simile, Pastor Gabriel Swaggart (I encourage you to watch his exhortative sermon @ https://youtu.be/lxXkL1TtdzA?si=pIFObNPW48LIy2Rb) uncovers the scheme by Satan, layer by insidious layer.
Moses: “That will be abomination to the Egyptians. We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us.“
Pharaoh: “I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: intreat for me.“
Meaning: Go from the country if you must, but not far. Stay within its (worldly) influence.
Pharaoh: Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go?
Moses: We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go.
Pharoah: Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord
Meaning: Leave women and children back. (then, you are sure to return)
Pharaoh: Go ye, serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones (and women) also go with you.
Moses: Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not a hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God; and we know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither.
This dialogue was not proceeding in vacuum. God was intervening at every turn with a series of plagues – the plagues of blood, frogs, gnats and flies, the plague on livestock, the plagues of boil, hail, locusts, and darkness and the plague on the first born. The incidence of plague, Pharoah’s call to Moses, his granting of concession and cessation of plague was going on in a cycle until the 9th plague. And after the 10th plague, Pharoah and the Egyptians urged the children of Israel to
“Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone…”
This concept of totality is echoed in the New Testament. Read Mark 12: 29 & 30
29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength”
No compromise with the world