The Wilderness Way

Exodus 13:17-18 (NKJV)

the Way - the War - the Wilderness

April 30, 2023

I have observed a parallel, a congruency between the Jewish Hebrew Slave and the American Black Slave and I have come this morning with a few questions that deserve an answer. What if history does not have to repeat itself like the world often tells us? A philosopher once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” What if we not only remember our history but also learn from it, and begin to change our minds and actions today, so that our tomorrow will not mirror our yesterday?

Let us consider the year 1446 BC, the time of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, Africa. Pharoah said, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us..." Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. The Bible says the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew! So, the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage in all manner of service in the field. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. Does that sound familiar with the history of American Slavery in 1619 AD? The Bible says that Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive." The tactics of oppression have remained the same, “Kill the boys of color and oppress the girls of color.” History teaches that God miraculously protected one Hebrew baby boy, when his sister Miriam, hid him in a small basket pitched with tar and placed it in the Nile River and followed it. As Pharoah’s daughter was bathing, she saw the baby and feeling sorry for him, she drew him out of the water and called him Moses. After 400 years of slavery now there was a Hebrew being raised and educated in the House of Pharoah to be a Prince in Egypt. God used Moses to be a deliverer for his people and through 10 great and terrible plagues “it came to pass, that Pharaoh had to let God’s people go.” The Bible says, “that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, "Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt." So, God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them by way of example, and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Therefore, let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.

I. Observe the Way - So let us take heed to the WAY the Children of God came out of bondage! Why leave Egypt? Why not just call for change in the Egyptian government for the better of all its citizens? Why not just call for change in the Egyptian society to tolerate and eventually appreciate its once enslaved people? A call for change does not work, we MUST be the instruments of change! After 400 years of oppression Egypt became more than a country to the Hebrews but most significantly it became a slave mindset for the people of God. Reverend Adam Clark said, “Their long slavery had so degraded their minds that they were incapable of any great or noble exertions; and it is only on the ground of this mental degradation, the infallible consequence of slavery, that we can account for their many dastardly acts, complaints, and second thoughts after their escape from Egypt.” I call this warped mindset the “Egypt Experience.”

What is the Egypt Experience? The Egypt Experience is any bondage or oppression that when looking back, it deceptively seems better than what is happening in the present. We educated, successful and accomplished Christians have been conditioned to tell our children about the good old days. How we could leave our doors unlocked at night and we could borrow sugar, butter or eggs from any neighbor and how our children could be disciplined by any teacher at any time. The reason why some Christians get hoodwinked into political scams is because they remembered yesterday and were deceived that somehow it used to be better than this for them in the past and all we need to do is go back to the way it was. How we get out of this Old Mindset of the Egypt Experience is to develop a New Mindset that the entire experience, no matter how long it is, was designed to be TEMPORARY! The Hebrews time in slavery in Egypt was long but ALWAYS temporary, because Egypt is not the Promised Land.