After the death of Joseph, a startling new development took place. “There arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.”
Up until this time the children of Israel are found, at the close of Genesis, a happy and prosperous people — providentially blessed by God through Joseph (beautiful type of Christ sheltering His own in the world). Yet they were in a foreign land — Egypt, type of this world — marked by death and judgment. It was not God’s purpose to leave them there. He was still pledged to their return to Canaan, the land of His promise.
In Exodus this divine program is brought into action. The time came when their sojourn in Egypt must end. But in the comforts of their surroundings there would be little inclination to depart.
Quite a few years had passed away since Joseph’s death and not one remained who had originally come from their own country. The record of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been preserved, but there was on their part no urgency to give up the pleasures of Egypt and start anew elsewhere. Under these attitudes the first requirement was to implant in His people a dire to leave the land in which they had been temporarily placed. It will be seen how God used “a king who knew not Joseph” for this end.
The circumstances of these people at this time will readily be seen as remarkably similar to much that marks the Church of God in the world today. Many of His people live in prosperity, material possessions and a sense of economic security unparalleled in history. The prospect of a heavenly home, as revealed in the Scriptures, is recognized as a definite truth but, alas, the hope of the Lord’s coming and the desire to be with Him is often dulled by the circumstances of daily comforts, the hope of further gain, and the pursuit of pleasures which this prosperity makes possible. The natural result is that many have little desire to leave behind, or be roved from, a scene stamped with God’s disapproval and ultimate judgment.
Beloved Christian reader, if pressing Christendom is characterized by such lack of response concerning the coming of the Lord, how is it with your individual heart? When the church fails to respond to God’s pleadings, the message becomes: “He that hath an ear to hear let him hear.” Oh that Christian hearts were more aware that this is not our true dwelling place and be looking rather for the grand moment when Christ will come to claim His own and call them out of this world into the glory of His presence!
ML 03/24/1968