“Swimming Egyptians Bring Closure”
As a child I remember singing “I have decided to follow Jesus… No turning back, No turning back.” I also loved to listen to Keith Green’s So You Want To Go Back To Egypt on his early album. Growing up as a Church kid, the idea of no turning back really didn’t have the impact on me as it did with those who had dabbled in the world before coming to Christ.
As I was reading my Bible this morning, the Passover story, it hit me how wise God’s wisdom really is. Moses had been doing nothing but listen to Pharaoh’s harsh words due to a hard heart and constant complaining by the Israelites for the circumstances they now faced. Israelites majored in whining, and they found their backs to the seas with the Egyptians charging their way with the purpose genocide. Then Moses raises his hands and the sea parts, winds blow, dry land appears, and the huge throng of Israelites crossed safely. After their safety was secured, Moses drops his hands, the walls of water collapse, and all the Egyptians flunk their swimming tests. The results: dead Egyptian bodies floating a shore all along the coast as a testimony to God’s greatness.
Then it hit me: The collapsing walls of water were not only to swamp the Egyptians to their death, but they were to close off any way or path “back to Egypt”. Physically, the break was complete. Israel could not physically go back, so they had only one way to go: forward in spite it being only desert to the naked eye. That is so how it is in our spiritual life.
What would be immortalized in the Jewish tradition was not their desire to return to Egypt as had been their attitude before crossing through the watery wall, but the glorious deeds of the Lord who prevented death’s sting by passing over their door and His delivery from the Egyptians.
As the book of Corinthians boast, “all things are new in Christ Jesus.” The Christian walk is not “rewalking” the past; it’s a total break from it. It is always a forward walk in faith.
For Moses and his Israelite brothers and sisters, God had been his Salvation, the evangelistic spirit. Now they would witness God as their pastor, shepherd, provider, leading them by faith, feeding them miraculous manna daily in a way they had not previously experienced. They would be given the Law on Mount Sinai, as God through Moses would teach them God’s principles, commandments, and statutes. Israel would experience one of their own, Moses, have am intimate prophetic experience to the point Moses would glow with the glory of the Lord radiating from him. Finally they would experience God’s faithfulness as He would lead an entire nation to the land He had promised.
God showed His salvation, His maintenance and provision, His instruction of His Word, His commandments, His statutes, His intimacy with mankind, and His oversight of the big picture, doing what he had promised to the patriarchs hundreds of years later. If God provided this to the Israelites, why would He not do it to His people today? The five-fold is rooted in the history of His people, and needs to be released in the present to His people today.