In the third chapter of Exodus we find God telling Moses that He is sending him back into Egypt to bring the children of Israel out of bondage.  In Scripture, “Egypt” is synonymous with “sin.”  Specifically, Egypt is equated with homosexuality and other types of sexual and religious perversion (Rev. 8:11).  While in Egypt the children of Israel were surrounded by and exposed to such moral degradation.  Leaven always affects the loaf.  By the time Moses arrived, Egyptian perversion (sexual and religious sin) had transformed once Godly Israel.  That would not be the last time such a thing would take place amidst the children of Israel.  Sexual and religious perversion are prophesied to be the major theme during the final days of this age when God’s two witnesses are speaking His Words to a God-rejecting world (Rev. 11:8).

Modern day Israel (the U.S., Britain and the Jews of the Middle East) are today in the throes of both sexual and religious perversions.  “Egypt” is also synonymous with the city of Jerusalem which was the headquarters of homosexuality (sodomy–Isa. 1:1,9,10/ Eze. 16: 46,53) early on and will be again in the time leading up to the return of Jesus Christ.  Here God calls the people of Judah and Jerusalem “sodomites” and accuses them of being like the people of “Gomorrah.”  He also accuses the nine tribes of Israel living in Samaria who were equally as sinful as their Judahite brethren, if not more so.  Recall that they were defeated and enslaved some 130 years earlier than the Jews.

Recall that in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome (1:21-28) he warned the church by telling them about the ancient Israelites, their sins and the Lord’s reaction to their sins.  We know from Ephesians 2:20 and I Corinthians 10:11 that the Holy Bible was preserved to serve as a teaching tool for the modern day church–“the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16).  Back to Romans 1:21-28. Of particular interest relative to this study is the fact that the ancient Israelites “refused to retain God in their mind” (vs 28).  Even though “they knew God,” they were unthankful, vain, foolish, filled with darkness; they became idolaters who turned God’s Truth into a lie (vss 21-25).  Sound familiar?   It should because this describes Christ’s depiction of the Laodicean era of His church–the era in which we now live.  His scathing characterization of the end-time church is recorded in Revelation 3:14-20.  It perfectly describes today’s Catholic/Protestant Church System.  Back to Roman’s one.

In verses 21-25 Paul reminds the Romans of what the Israelites became after leaving Egypt.  What is interesting relative to the first paragraph in this posting is what he wrote in verses 24-28.  Following their apostasy, GOD “GAVE THEM UP” TO HOMOSEXUALITY.  HOMOSEXUALITY BECAME THEIR NATURE.  Beginning from that perverse spiritual condition, what they then became and the lifestyle they adopted was simply their nature taking its natural course.  Read verses 24-31 carefully.  Now let us examine verse 32 which reveals the length the Israelites went to in defying the God Who had freed them from slavery in Egypt (sin).  In verse 32 we are told that the sinning Israelites knew that living the way they lived made them “worthy of death.”  Rebellion against God earned them the death penalty.  However, not only did they rebel against Him, but “took pleasure in them that followed their example.”  They flaunted their perverse lifestyle so as to gain converts who would follow in their spiritual footsteps.  Sound familiar?  It should.  Every self-proclaimed Sinner Saved By Grace I know or know of (billions) not only flaunt their sins, but strive to convert others to their brand of “Christianity.”  Their success is obvious.  Due to their efforts, some 2.5 billion of them now walk the earth.  Tens of thousands of them are self-proclaimed “ministers of righteousness” who follow the orders of the “angel of light” (11 Cor. 11:13-15).  This passage refers to Satan and his false prophets whom Jesus warned God seekers about in Matthew 24:4,5.  Now let us return to Exodus and take note of the extreme measures taken by the Lord in order to free His people from Egyptian slavery–to free them from sin.

In Exodus 5 God is telling Moses that He knows the plight of His chosen people (Israel) and that He is sending Moses back into Egypt to bring them out.  While in Egypt (420 years) the Israelites came into direct contact with the homosexual culture of the Egyptians.  They were also introduced to the Egyptians’ gods–bull calves.  They were eventually forced to work seven days each week which prevented their worship of the true God on His Sabbath day.  By the time Moses arrived on the Egyptian scene the Israelites had been totally Egyptianized.  They had lost their knowledge of the true God, their religion, their sabbath, their language, their culture and their history.  When Moses told them that God had sent him, they did know Whom he was talking about.  They asked Him who was this God Who had sent him.  God told him to tell them, “I am” had sent him.  He then added, “I am that I am.”  The Israelites were totally ignorant of the true God and His ways.

Because we all know the story of the extraction of Israel and the “mixed multitude (of Gentiles) who came out with them” (Exo. 12:38), we will simply list the curses God used to persuade Pharaoh to let His people go: He turned rods into snakes, water into blood, produced frogs, insects, cattle infections, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and the death of the Egyptian firstborn among the people as well as their animals.

The night before Israel left Egypt all who were leaving had to commemorate God’s forgiveness of their sins by observing what became known as “Passover” which featured the shedding of the blood of a sacrificial lamb.  Their sins forgiven, they then had to be baptized by emersion in water, which God affected when they passed through the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:2), thereby symbolically washing away all of their past sins.  They were now God’s holy people.  With the death of the Egyptian army, the Israelites and their Gentile converts were totally free.  All they needed to do from that point on was to obey God.  Next stop: Mt. Sinai where He would speak to them in an audible voice.  Their next stop was to be the Promised Land God had set aside for them as He had promised Abraham.

There is an age-old saying: “Some people just can’t tolerate success.”  The Israelites were just such people.  Fast forward a couple of weeks and we find them at the foot of Mt. Sinai where they have heard the audible voice of God telling them that if they would obey His “voice” (Word) he would give them the land He had promised Abraham and would meet their every need henceforth.  They agreed to obey Him, with the provision that He not speak to them Himself, but that He speak through Moses.  They did not want to hear His voice.  After all He had done for them, they could not tolerate His Words.  Sound familiar?  You should read my emails and letters and listen to my phone calls.  And who do they come from?  CHURCH PEOPLE.  And what is their problem?  THEY CAN’T TOLERATE THE “VOICE” OF GOD–HIS HOLY WORD.  They refuse to either read it or hear it spoken.  As Jesus said in Luke 10:16, by rejecting His Word Catholics and Protestants prove that they “despise” Him and His Father.  They love His “headlines” but hate the other 99% of His Word–His “fine print.”  As this series will make clear, church rebellion against the Godhead is not a  new phenomenon.  It began with God’s first church (congregation–Acts 7:38) which was the Church of Eden.  At that time Satan destroyed the entire church using one word–“not.”  Since then he has destroyed 99.99% of it using the same ploy–convincing the people that God lied to them–that they would “not” surely die if they sinned.  But God always has a remnant who will not listen to Satan’s correction of God’s Word, who will stand on His Word as written when the rest of the religious world is listening to Satan’s perverted version of it.  L.J.