Sin is easy and fun. It requires little effort and produces a variety of pleasant physical, mental and emotional results. Did not Eve find the forbidden fruit “good for food … pleasant to the eyes … and a tree to be desired to make one wise?” Sin can provide a way out of a bad situation. It can solve any number of problems. It can satisfy a physical, mental or emotional need in very little time. Though one might have abandoned sin in the past, it can once again become the answer to whatever ails us and the solution to whatever problem confronts us. Its call is most powerful when there seems to be no better way out of an uncomfortable situation, or when one just needs a slight alteration in life’s course. Sin’s siren call is just a problem or desire away and so very easy to answer, which many do. I call this phenomenon The Egypt Syndrome. And once again, Ancient Israel offers us the prime example of what not to do when the inevitable call comes.

The Egypt Syndrome has an innate, unique quality–it can cause a terrible past to be remembered with fondness. The children of Jacob give us a number of cases in point. Let us examine a few incidents in which their short-term memories proved to be somewhat faulty as they made their way from Egyptian slavery to Mount Sinai where the Lord awaited them–a two week journey to the Promised Land that turned into a 40-year death march.

Not only had the Lord, through a series of incredible miracles, freed them from grinding, heavy-handed slavery, but had made them quite wealthy in the process. In an incredible example of irony, the same people who had viewed them as less than human and only a step above the animal kingdom had gladly given them large amounts of treasure as they prepared to leave. As recorded in Genesis 15:14 God had promised Abraham that his descendants would leave the land of their enslavement with “great substance.” This had happened. Israel was leaving Egypt with their wagons and vessels filled with free-will offerings from their former owners. Nothing but sunshine and rain, milk and honey lay ahead of them. Their hearts were overflowing with joy at having been freed from the land of pain and humiliation.

Then panic struck as they suddenly found themselves with the Red Sea ahead of them and the mightiest military on earth behind them in hot pursuit. Though they had just witnessed the greatness of their God in the form of a series of acts never before seen on earth, their response to the situation in which they now found themselves was totally devoid of faith: “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou (Moses) taken us away to die in this wilderness? Why hast thou carried us forth out of Egypt? … for it would have been better for us to SERVE THE EGYPTIANS, than that we should die in this wilderness” (Exo. 14:10-20). A severe case of short-term memory loss had afflicted God’s Chosen People within hours of marching triumphantly out of the land of slavery “with a high hand.” Every church child knows how the Lord delivered them out of their problem and destroyed the Egyptian army in the process. Crisis averted, they moved on toward their destination, once again in high spirits.

Then another problem arose as God tested His people again–they ran out of water. Once again they blamed Moses, who cried out to the Lord for help. Once again He provided what they needed. All was well until they found themselves in need of food, which brought out a familiar refrain: “Would to God that we had died by the hand of the Lord IN THE LAND OF EGYPT, when we sat by the flesh pots and ate bread to the full; … ye (Moses) have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exo. 16:2,3).

Having their food problem solved by the Lord, they soon ran out of water again, prompting them to once again express the desire to return to the grinding slavery and public humiliation of Egypt (Exo. 17:2,3), which would have been totally voluntary in that the Egyptian army lay on the bottom of the Red Sea. There was no one who could force them to return to Egypt, make bricks, bow down, etc. THEY WOULD ENSLAVE THEMSELVES TO THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE VOLUNTARILY. Unable to grasp the Lord’s test–complaint–problem system, the Israelites spent the next four decades wandering in the Wilderness of Sin while He killed off the complaining generation who never overcame the Egypt Syndrome. Unfortunately, neither have their spiritual descendants. To be continued. L.J.