Copyright © 2007 Ron Schwartz
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Coming Out Of Egypt

Part 1.  Seven Times Worse

March 26, 2007

Ron and Karen Schwartz  

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Exodus 3:15-19 KJV

15 And God said moreover unto Moses…

18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

19 And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.

As long as Israel remained in Egypt, they were unable to worship God the way He wanted.  God wanted them to go three days into the wilderness, allowing them to worship God outside the influence of Egypt.  But Pharaoh would not allow it.  Therefore, Egypt can be seen to represent a religious bondage that prevents God’s people from worshipping Him.  The escape of the children of Israel from Egypt can also be an analogy of our escape from religious form and bondage into a true relationship with God.  Just as the children of Israel were in religious bondage to Egypt, many Christians are in bondage to religious form and conformity (slavery).  Most are not even aware of it.   This note however, is not to address the issues faced by those in slavery to religious bondage.  This note is to those who wish to escape it.

Exodus 3:17 KJV

And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

Repeated over and over again throughout the scripture is the principle of being “called out.”  Even the word “church” comes from the Greek word “ecclesia” which means “the called out ones.”  In this scripture, we find Abraham being called out of Ur.  Later on, the children of Israel are called out of Egypt, and then again out of Babylon.  What is important is that with each calling out there is also a calling to.  God always has a purpose for His called out ones. 

1 Peter 2:9 KJV

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

Christians are called out with purpose.  We tend to lose sight of the purpose and focus our attention on the coming out part.  Christianity then regresses into a list of “do’s and don’ts,” focusing on our outward appearance and superficial obedience, rather than the process of our transformation (what we are to become) from the inside out.

Fishers Of Men

Matthew 4:18-19 KJV

18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

It is not unusual for a rabbi to gather students (disciples) who serve him, and he teaches them.  But who were the students Jesus chose?  Rabbis normally select students from a list of possible candidates from respected families who were well-educated.  Students did not normally come from the average working class.  Try to imagine a rabbi walking through a village followed by wealthy young men who were all nicely dressed and groomed.  The students all walked around with their heads held high in the same arrogant manner as the rabbi they served.  Their distaste for the poor and the sinners around them would be only too evident.  Now imagine Jesus strolling through the same village, visiting with each and every person as though he or she were the only one who mattered.  Traveling with him was a tattered bunch of men whose ages varied greatly.  Some may have had stereotypical sailor’s manners or carried the scorn reserved for the likes of tax collectors.  Some were zealots, the equivalent of terrorists.  His choice of disciples was just as perplexing as his contempt for religious leaders.  What kind of rabbi was He?  He just did not fit the mold.

Through his choice of disciples, Jesus showed the world that it does not matter who you are or from where you come.  Anyone can be great in God’s kingdom.  Our contemporary Christianity more resembles the culture that Jesus was up against.  Wives and mothers, the uneducated, the working class poor, and even children are disqualified while the educated, articulate, and well-groomed men take center stage.  But you have to wonder: would these well-bred Christian leaders have been Jesus’ choice?

Unlike other rabbis who selected disciples from among the elite, Jesus selected His disciples from among the outcast.  It’s too bad that Christianity has not continued to follow His example.  Christians are forever told that unless they have certain qualities, they cannot be God’s leaders.  While this may be true of becoming a church leader, it is most certainly not true of becoming a leader in God’s kingdom.  As a result, most women, children, and uneducated people sit in silence, never fulfilling their potential in Christ.  They are dismissed and disqualified because of what they are not rather than being considered for what they are.

When Jesus invited His disciples to follow Him, He did not require them to become religious, go to synagogue, or “clean themselves up” in order for them to follow Him.   Instead of demanding that they flee from something, Jesus offered to give them something.  Following Him was not about giving something up: it was about gaining something.  It was not about what they had been before: it was about what they were to become.  What they were and what they had done in the past was irrelevant.  Their lives began at that moment.

The Jews who came out of Egypt were always looking back.  They were constantly comparing their current situation to the Egypt with which they were familiar.  Today’s Christians are similar.  They seem preoccupied with the past.  Their form of Christianity tends to be not where they are going but to what extent they have come out of their past.  Our focus should be like Jesus’: on the future.  Christians tend to judge one another on their “coming out” rather than on their “going in.”  They measure and judge one another by the degree that they have come out of their past rather than how far they gone into what the Lord called them.  This is the Christianity that sinners see.  It is a life replete with coming outs and giving ups.  They don’t see the Christian life as one of gains.

Evangelizing typically is not about gaining.  It’s about quitting.  People resist salvation because its presentation focuses more on what they will lose rather than what they will gain.  This was not how Jesus evangelized.  He saw two men and essentially asked, “How would you like to become fishers of men?”  They followed because of what they stood to gain (fishing for me).  He never told them that they had to stop fishing.

Egypt doesn’t want salvation to be free of religious requirements because that would mean that the Holy Spirit would be free to change their lives.  Just as Pharaoh pursued the children of Israel, there are Christian leaders who want to be the gods of new convert.  They don’t trust in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Christianity has created a cultural social climate that is anti-sinner.  Sinners are not welcome or wanted. You must change to fit a certain mold (the mold being different depending on the church) if you are to be a part of their club.  This club is exclusively for the religious.  Do you blame sinners for wanting no part of it?  We certainly don’t.

Seven Worse

Hebrews 6:18 KJV

That… we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

Leaving Egypt is not and must not be a destination in itself.  Direction and purpose must accompany it.  Trying to escape religion and form is one thing, but where has it taken you?  Where are you headed?  It’s like being set free from prison, then living just outside the fence.  Why not go out and enjoy your freedom?

Ask yourself, “Is my spiritual life defined by what I am not?”  Does the fact that you are a “comer out of” continue to define you?  It should not.  Once out, you should begin building a new life that causes you to “worship [the Father] in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).”

The Jews who left Egypt did so with determination and purpose.  Their purpose was to find the land promised to them as far back as Abraham.  Their goal was not to simply escape Egypt.  Those who leave Egypt must keep in mind that Pharaoh is only a few steps behind them.  His goal is to bring them back into bondage.  And there are Christians who have left Egypt just to succumb to his captivity.  They have passionately rejected anything that looks like form and religion, but instead of proceeding into true spiritual life, they regress into sin.  This is because they left Egypt with no destination in mind.  As a result, there is little to no spiritual fruit in their lives, and their lives have little redeeming value.  They seem frustrated and bitter.  They are like leeches that sap the strength of others who are proceeding on with purpose.

People who have “come out” of Egypt and have not “gone forward” to develop a relationship with God, which also reflects godly virtues, have gone nowhere.  They sit on the other side of the Red Sea in a miserable existence.  They may be free of religion, but without tangible spiritual development that touches lives, what purpose do they serve?

Matthew 12:43-45 KJV

43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.

44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.

45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

The application for this spiritual principle goes beyond demonic possession.  The principle is that empty things will be filled.  People who merely come out of Egypt without pursuing a purpose sit as empty houses.  They are inviting a worse state.

Consider the following:

Many parents live by a strict code or law.  They force this legalism upon their children.  Their lifestyle is all about the “cannots” (i.e., what their children can’t do, can’t say, can’t wear, can’t see, can’t experience, etc.).  What is the resulting state?   At least some of their children reject Christianity altogether and live in sin.  The parental focus was to “empty, swe[ep], and garnish” their children instead of filling them with God.  The resulting state is seven times worse than if they had never heard of Jesus.  How can this be?  The parents have effectively created in their children the idea that Christianity is to be dreaded.  It will now be seven times harder to reach them.

Here is another example:  Christians who focus their attention and effort to “empty, swe[ep], and garnish” the religious form and rituals out of their lives go nowhere spiritually.  Their spiritual lives become a religious witch-hunt.  They become so overly concerned about not being religious that they throw out the spiritual aspects of Christianity (including worship, prayer, devotion, and discipleship) that appear to be (but are not) religious.  Since most institutional churches practice various versions of worship, prayer, devotion, and discipleship, they assume that those things are also part of “religion.”  As a result, they not only shed religion from their lives, but they also shed their spirituality.  In discarding things like worship, prayer, and holiness, they essentially leave themselves no place to go.  They can leave Egypt but they can’t go anywhere else.  Their spiritual lives become seven times worse than if they had stayed in their institutional churches.  Instead of going nowhere in conformity (institutional churches), they go back into self-deception (sin) thinking that they are serving God.

New Egypt

Many people who have left Egypt end up recreating their captivity in a new Egypt.  They have somehow come to the conclusion that once they left, anything they do is moving forward.  That is far from true.  In the following scripture, we find the disciples of Jesus falling back into the mindset of their previous religion, Judaism.  It was a religion that spoke to men and pushed women and children away.   These disciples obeyed the calling of Jesus and came out, but they constantly fought the mindset that would bring them back in.

Mark 10:13-14 KJV

13 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.

14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

Christianity has become an adults only club.  In fact, most Christian books are written to adults.  Children are an afterthought.  When Christians come together, it usually becomes a discussion among adults.  Rarely are the thoughts of children considered or solicited.  Adults are just not interested in the ideas of children because their simplistic views do not stimulate the intellectual needs of adults.  So we become just like the disciples.  We “displease” Jesus by pushing the children away.  Try this: the next time you get into a heavy discussion about the Lord, stop and ask a child for his opinion.  If the child did not understand the conversation, perhaps the conversation is not worth pursuing.

Jesus said concerning children, “Of such is the kingdom of God.”  Do we really believe this or do we just pay it lip service?  If we do believe it, then why do we complicate subjects like salvation and faith?  Why does faith require an adult to explain it?

We have found that the highly theological and complex discussions are usually the sounds of Pharaoh’s voice drawing the believer back into slavery.  Just like the disciples who had to constantly fight the mindset of Judaism, we must also guard ourselves from wanting to return to the security of slavery.  Coming out is no guarantee of freedom.  We must pursue godliness in its purest form.  Oddly enough, this is something that children have no problem understanding.  Godliness and brotherly love are simple concepts.  Don’t convolute them with theories of law and theologies of religion.

Conclusion

Like the Jews who left Egypt, those who leave institutional churches must keep in mind that there is no profit in what they have given up.  The profit comes in where they go once they have left.  If all you have done is abandon religion, you have taken a good first step, but that’s all it is - a first step.  You have gone three days into the wilderness to worship God, but where are you going from here?

It is possible to find yourself seven times worse off in leaving an institutional church than in staying.  Coming out of Egypt is not magic and it does not include automatic transformation.  Transformation can only come about by the Spirit of God and has nothing to do with your geography.  It’s important to understand exactly where you are spiritually before undertaking a spiritual journey.

Form and religion is the result of the absence of a relationship with God.  It’s a substitute for a relationship. It is similar to a marriage that lacks intimacy.  Marriages that lack intimacy quickly degenerate into two people who live separate lives but go through the motions of marriage.  The motions replace the relationship that should be there.  Marriages like this become a form or a ritual and have no depth to them.

People who come out of Egypt but don’t pursue a relationship with God will inevitably go back (not forward) into a new Egypt.  It is not necessarily one created by an institutional church.  It is an Egypt of their own making.  This form of slavery usually demonstrates one of the following qualities:

1) Those who feel that the institutional church is apathetic, worldly, and filled with compromise.  They usually create a new Egypt of legalism (dict.: “a fixation on law or codes of conduct; misguided rigor, pride, and superficiality; the neglect of mercy”).

2) Those who see the institutional church as forcing conformity, religion, and form.  These people often end up in spiritual anarchy.  There is little difference between them and the world.  Their lives are often the same or worse than they were before they came to God, and they are incapable of distinguishing between godliness and religion –and there is a difference.   Being free of religion is not a license to sin.

3)Those who see the structure and fundamental concepts of the institutional church as being fundamentally incompatible with those of a true New Testament church.  These people usually end up as evangelists for home churches, no churches, or simulated New Testament structures like an artificial five-fold ministry.  But all these are the result of form.  It is replacing one form of slavery for another.

The solution for all of these groups is to first repent of falling back into slavery to Egypt and then pursue a life filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  It is this fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the casting of our crowns at the feet of Christ (making Him king instead of us or our churches), and the yielding to His control and authority that will restore Zion.  Zion will not be rebuilt by simply coming out of a church, it will not come by fashioning a five-fold ministry, nor will it come by pursuing spiritual gifts.  It can only come about when we come into His presence and make Him Lord and King of His Church.

(Part 2. “Swept And Garnished” will follow soon.)