False Professors

FALSE PROFESSORS/MIXED MULTITUDE

(Exodus 12:38)

“A mixed multitude also went up with them, along with flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.”

“This mixed multitude was never in bondage in Egypt. It was Israel that had to feel the task-master’s whip, and to make the bricks without straw. But these fellows had nothing to do.

They were Egyptians themselves- true-born Egyptians- “heirs of sin and children of wrath;” they never had any real bondage, and therefore they could not rejoice as the true Israelite did, when they were set free from the yoke of Pharaoh. These people are represented amongst us by certain

persons, who will tell us, “Ah! I know I have been a sinner.” That is as much as to say you have been an Egyptian, and that is all: “but I cannot say, I have felt my sin, and utterly abhorred it and wept over it.” They come and say, “I am a sinner,” hear something about Jesus Christ, catch at

it with a fancied faith- not with the faith that unites with the Lamb and brings us true salvation, but with a notional, pretended faith, and they get deliverance; and some of these people are marvellously happy; they do not have doubts and fears; they are at ease, like Moab; they have not been emptied from vessel to vessel. They can tell us about Egypt, of course; they know as much about it as the child of God. If the child of God describes the brick-kiln, and how they made bricks without straw, he has seen it, though he has not felt it; and he can talk about it, perhaps better than the poor Israelite; for the poor Israelite has sometimes been smitten on the mouth, it may be, so that he stammers, and cannot speak so well as the other, who never had a blow. He knows all about the bondage; perhaps he has invented some of it, in order to try the poor Israelite; and he can describe very accurately the going out of Egypt and the journey through the wilderness. But here is the difference, mark you, between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The Egyptians did not sprinkle the blood on the doorposts; and we do not read of the mixed multitude eating the paschal lamb, for it is written, “No stranger shall eat thereof.” Some persons are continually saying, “I believe I am going to heaven;” but they have never sprinkled the blood, never eaten the paschal Lamb, never had fellowship with Christ, and never had vital union with him.  O ye members of Christian churches! there are many of you who have a feigned experience and a feigned religion. How many there are of you who have the externals merely of godliness! ye are white-washed sepulchres, outwardly fair and beautiful, like the garnished gardens of a cemetery; but inwardly ye are full of dead men’s bones and rottenness! Be persuaded, I beseech you, to get no deliverance any way except by the blood of the Lamb, and by really feasting on Christ. . . .  Have you the blood on your door-post?  Have you eaten of Jesus? Do you live on him? Do you have fellowship with him? Has God the Holy Ghost brought you out of Egypt? or have you come out yourself?  Have you found refuge in his dear cross and wounded side? If you have, rejoice, for Pharaoh himself cannot bring you back again . . .”

[Spurgeon, MTP, Vol. 2, p. 31-33]