Most preachers love to teach that even though Israel left Egypt, it was still going to take a while for God to get Egypt out of Israel!
I always thought that meant Israel had to give up their wicked ways, stop sinning and start obeying.
Yet that is not the case at all.
In Egypt, the Israelites were obedient, to a fault!
The problem was not doing wrong, it was doing instead of believing, and believing on the Great I AM!
Instead of believing on the One who led them out of bondage and sustained them with miracle after miracle in the wilderness, they still live by the flesh, trusting what they could see and sense with their flesh.
They had worked for everything, and they still lived in that category of work to achieve, instead of believe and receive.
Egypt speaks self-effort, for its first mention is in association with Abram's abrupt flight to Egypt during times of famine, when God had not directed Abram to go anywhere near there!
"Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:" (Genesis 12:1)
The Lord gave Abram a simple and clear command: "Get out of your home to a land that I will show you."
But when hard times struck, Abram did not wait for God's direction.
"And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land." (Genesis 12:10)
The result: Abraham nearly imperiled the Egyptian king Abimelech, who lusted after Abram's lawful wife Sarai, because Abram had told her to hide her identity as his wife, lest he be killed that the king of Egypt could get her for himself. It was not a good setup, and Abram left soon after.
Egypt therefore is a symbol of self-effort, of taking matters into one's own hands, solving difficulties through one's own wit and strength instead of relying on the direction of the Lord and His Word.
While slaves in Egypt, the Israelites worked for their food, as well. Pastor Joseph Prince points out that they ate foods which had to pulled up through hard work.
We know of the toilsome food that they ate, based on their constant murmuring the wilderness following the Red Sea wipeout of Pharaoh and his pursuing hosts:
"We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:" (Numbers 11:5)
The Lord wanted to give His people a land flowing with milk and honey, foods which they would not have to work for, but which animals produce, and they would simply draw from.
What a wonderful example of God's providence for those who believe on Him!
So, when we talk about how the Israelites need to get "Egypt out of them" long after the Israelites got out of Egypt, we need to stress that it is not sin that they needed to be freed of precisely, but a works-righteousness mentality, which rejected faith in the Lord and trusting Him for all provision.
It was this fleshly mindset, disdaining the Spirit, which later caused an entire generation of Israelites to be forbidden to enter the Promised Land!
"Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;
"Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:" (Numbers 14:22-23)
The writer of Hebrews confirms that it was the Israelites' unbelief that sealed their fate to wander in the wilderness until the entire unbelieving generation of Israelites dropped dead:
"For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
"But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
"And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
"So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." (Hebrews 3:16-19)
Therefore, all us of want to get Egypt out of our lives; yet to do so is not a question of right doing, but of right believing, believing on the Word of God, and trusting that He will bring to pass all that He has promised!