It is popular to hear messages advocating change in society, particularly during election season. That's why most politicians attach the words "reform" and "change" in their political campaigns. In the Philippines for instance, the former president used in his campaign "Change is coming" as his slogan. People bought it.
I think the reason for the popularity of such a message is that people are not satisfied with what's going on around us and they hunger for genuine change. They want to see change in politics, in the economy, in public policies, and the monetary and banking systems. Though they cannot identify precisely the problem, instinctively they know something is wrong for it affects everybody's standard of living. What I worry about is that change can happen either way, for better or for worse.
Not all changes are desirable. Dictators in the past also used such slogans. Hitler, Mao Zedong, Lenin, and others also proclaim the message of social change. However, the result is a disaster.
In the New Testament, the apostle Paul is calling the Christians in Rome to renew their mind. In other words, to change their minds. In this article, in studying the history of Jews crossing the Red Sea, I want to share with you three kinds of changed minds.
In our story, we see this type of changed mind in the example of Pharaoh and his officials. We already saw in the previous article that Pharaoh and his officials acknowledged their defeat before Moses. They changed their mind from defying the word of God into submission after the death of the firstborn of Egypt. Such a change of mind was good. They were released from incurring God's wrath further.
However, such change was only temporary. Pharaoh and his officials returned to their original stance concerning the word of the Lord. Even in grief, they thought that losing the economic benefits derived from the services of the Jews was a greater tragedy. And so they changed their minds as anticipated by the Lord and they decided to pursue the Israelites in the wilderness to bring them back to Egypt. Such a change in mindset led Egypt into a deeper national disaster.
Many nations in our time are in great trouble. But instead of recognizing their sins before God and coming to Him for aid, they persisted in mocking the word of God. Such persistent defiance of God's word ends in nothing but national disaster.
The same is true in the case of individuals. An individual who refuses to listen to repeated warnings will certainly suffer great trouble. A change of mind opposing the will of God whether a society or an individual is entering into big trouble. We see what happened to the Egyptian army as a result of such defiance. The entire army of Egypt perished into the Red Sea and not one of them survived.
When the Jews left Egypt, there was a large crowd that joined them (12:38). This people infected the Jews with their negative mindset. Though they decided to leave Egypt, Egypt remained a treasure in their hearts. They thought that joining the Jews marching to the Promised Land would give them a more comfortable life. And so as they journey with the Jews and encounter a difficulty, they are the first to complain about the situation. The young nation as a whole complained with them.
We will frequently see this type of people with this kind of mindset throughout the Jewish wilderness journey. I think this is the primary reason why the generation of Moses did not enter the Promised Land. They all died in the wilderness. It was the generation of Joshua that entered the Promised Land.
In crossing the Red Sea, we read that as the Egyptians overtook the Israelites, they got terrified, cried out, and complained to Moses:
Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! (verses 11-12).
The real content of the hearts of these people was exposed. They followed Moses in leaving Egypt, but at the first encounter of difficulty, their minds changed. Their words betrayed what's inside their hearts.
We read:
And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and Moses his servant (verse 31).
This is the kind of change that the Lord wants. Earlier we were told that when the Jews saw the Egyptian army, they were terrified and complained. But after seeing the power of God turned against the army they feared, their minds changed. They feared the Lord instead and placed their trust in Moses.
This is the kind of attitude that the Lord wants to see among his people. If the Jews kept such an attitude, they would have entered the Promised Land. We learn one important lesson about human nature: people easily change their minds.
We learned in this article that not all changes of the mind are the same. There is a kind of change in mindset that leads to disaster, that exposes what's in the heart, and the kind of change that pleases God.
