The Mixed Multitude

And a mixed multitude went up also with them … (Exodus 12: 38)

Who was this mixed multitude? They must have been Egyptians who were running away from a ruined Egypt. They wanted to associate with the winning team. They had no room for the reconstruction of their motherland. They had their eye to the future with self interest as the guiding principle.

These were really not interested in the Israelites or their God. They were just fed up with the thrashing He had given Egypt.

Their hearts were not on Canaan, they just wanted to get out of Egypt.

In a few words they were plain opportunists, capitalists at the raw. They saw an opportunity to make a life, and what better way than join the winning team!

Their presence was trouble for Moses for forty years. They were always looking for the easier way of doing and accomplishing things. They had no place for the God of Israel in the least. You see their worship was Egyptian but their opportunities were with the Israelites. They had to have the best of both worlds.

That was the reason they were the ones who must have been the leading the troublemakers when the slightest discomfort was experienced. You see they were joining the best opportunity and discomfort was not part of the considered options.

‘Why did we get out of Egypt?’ was their constant complaint. ‘In Egypt we had this or the other. This life in the desert is boring, nothing we had ever expected, let alone considered’.

When things became hard, they were always quick to recreate or reenact Egypt. I am convinced they guided in the construction of the Egyptian idol, the golden calf and the resulting debauchery following its worship when Moses was on the mount with God to receive the commandments. To them it was an opportunity to worship the god they knew in the presence of an ignorant people. It was an opportunity to spread that religion to people who worshipped ‘strange’ gods even though they were very powerful.

Remember them choosing a leader to lead them back to Egypt (Numbers 14: 3, 4)? Their hearts were in Egypt but they simply didn’t want to leave a people who were talking about a better land. Or what do you think when you hear of a land flowing with milk and honey?

The worst part was that though at the start of the journey they were known as the mixed multitude, they could not later been distinguished from Israel. They had camouflaged their presence, becoming indistinguishable from the Israelites. Their dress and language made them Israelites. Only their hearts were Egyptian. They became like the pervading spread of evil leaven, contaminating without being recognized. They were the major inciters in the congregation, bringing sin upon sin on it.

Why this discourse? I think it is because it has been repeated innumerable times in the church. We can see the impact of it in many churches, especially big churches.

Have you noticed that when a church is starting that there are no joy riders? Anyone present has a function. The unbeliever is visible though very welcome. The pretender and opportunist is the one character who will never want to stick to such a church because they will stick out like a sore thumb. Another reason is that the genuineness of the ministry will automatically lock him out if he is not willing to change. In fact he is the one who will flee such a fellowship because a camouflage can never apply there. A chameleon functions best when there is foliage!

Let the same church grow to the extent that there are more numbers than members, raising funds to run ministry stops being a challenge and the challenge becomes using the funds. They will simply flock there, aiming especially at positions that will allow their self interest to flourish. This is because the numbers are too big to even want to deal with personal sins of the membership as doing so will open greater rot at all levels of the church.

There was this church where an elder (other churches would call him deacon) was caught in sin. When challenged by the others and threatened with disfellowship he simply smiled and said that he did not mind as he also had a few dossiers on a couple of others. Sadly that is where the story ended. In the same church another was challenged in a similar way and expressed shock as he said he had evidence that the pastor was just like him.

One day I was invited to preach in a certain church. God gave me a very strong message on judgment, especially in church. I asked whether the church was ready for God to start cleansing their church and the congregation responded in the affirmative. Then the pastor stood up.

‘Mimi ni msherati sana’ (I am very adulterous) were the first words he spoke. Of course I thought he was using the illustration to drive home the point of the sermon. I was shocked because he went on to substantiate his statements with the how’s and where’s he does it. Were it not for the fact that I was accompanied by my wife I could have thought I was imagining things. He was asking God to give him time to deal with that lifestyle before bringing judgment. 

There are churches that have lost their distinctive doctrines because the membership has grown too much to effectively give spiritual leadership.. Have you ever wondered why a church whose polity insists on a few essentials to admit to membership slowly waters down the requirements when the church becomes a mega church? 

I recently heard a conversation between two young people that amazed me. One was asking another why people are always bugging people about making a decision for Christ in the church. He was told that that was a requirement for membership plus of course the requirement for believer’s baptism by immersion.

‘But I am already a member!’ 

The other was shocked. This because the friend so far did not even understand salvation as to make a decision and he knew that the church does not accept as members people who are not born again and baptized.

He explained that as he wanted to get married in church, he had decided to attend membership classes, a ‘new’ requirement for membership which was supposed to complement salvation and baptism. He completed the classes and was admitted to membership so that he could perform his wedding in that church.

Of course we have heard of elders who are drunkards, some even owning bars in some large churches. We know of home breakers among the leadership, men and women who are not content with their spouse, some who maintain a harem of all the beautiful girls attending the church, first among them being the worship leaders. Some seek to seduce even the wives of members. Even the boys are not safe from the marauding eye of the mamas who hold positions, if not of leadership, of influence.

How did such characters join the membership, leave alone leadership? They are the mixed multitude. They couldn’t dare join when the church was small and struggling. They needed the crowd to blend in.

Incidentally most make their entry very memorable. They display a humility that seems to rival Christ’s. And their commitment! It puts to shame all previous commitment that took the church where they found it. Their singular giving sometimes rivals the whole collection of a Sunday a short while before they came. You wonder why the commitment took so long in coming. One can’t help imagining how far the church could have been had they joined it initially. Interesting enough nobody thinks of asking where they had been all the time or where they came from. No one seems to know why they left the church they had been members if they were members anywhere. No one is interested to know why their previous church does not come to seek them out which would be a given had they been as committed as they are to the new church. Some simply fear that seeking such clarification could scare away all that commitment and of course the money.

They quickly shoot to prominence and nobody wants to question why they take a shortcut to leadership especially with their shrouded past. You will find that whereas it required someone to have been a member for several years to get a leadership position, these can get it even before becoming members. 

This gains them access to all the decisions being made in the church and with their financial or conniving muscle they can manipulate it the way they choose.

They gradually turn the direction of the church to Egypt, not because they have backslidden but because that was their whole purpose of joining the church.

It required Moses’ continued presence for Israel to get to Canaan. Even then they led him to be disqualified from entering. And you will see that any time he was out of the camp for some time they were always talking and scheming about Egypt. That is the goal of a mixed multitude. They will get what they came for or they lead the whole group back to where they came from.

I was told of this elder who was confronted because he was caught in blatant sin. As he had joined the church at the time they had started building he became a very generous giver in the building program. When the leadership gave him the options which included discipline and excommunication if he persisted in sin, he dared them and gave them this condition. Give back all the bricks, nails, iron sheets, etc. you used in building this church. And of course they shut up.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us (1 John 2: 19)

How do we deal with the mixed multitude? Of course the first thing we need to do is making our ministry very uncomfortable for them.

We can’t even shock them into repentance, leave alone conviction because it is not in their makeup. We cannot pray for the Spirit to speak to them because the spirit in them is different from the one responsible for spiritual growth. Sin is in their DNA. The spirit of the world is the one controlling their spirits. In other words what we need for putting the church in check is not just foreign to them; it simply does not exist.

And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses (Leviticus 24: 10, 11)

Making rules for them will not give them cause to change, just a challenge to apply a more effective camouflage. 

Even their repentance cannot be trusted as they are simply regretting their lost opportunities. So their weeping is not because they are sorry for their sins and the fact that they have failed God. They are regretting being found out.

When God spoke to the Israelites about the residents in Canaan, He ordered them not to make any alliances with them. Why? 

Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images (Exodus 23:24)

…and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee (Exodus 23: 31b – 33)

But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.( Numbers 33: 55, 56)

The mixed multitude posed a greater danger than that of the Canaanites because it had become part of the community fabric. Dealing with them was complicated because they were more or less invisible. It is like dealing with an unrecognizable infection in your body. You can feel it eating into your body but you don’t have any clear means of excising it from the body.

Many young people become ‘very saved’ to hook a very serious spouse, especially one who is called into ministry. Their constitution will display itself later when ministry becomes very difficult. They can’t seem to understand why the prospects have suddenly dimmed when initially they seemed moon bound. Many times the marriage will go through a very turbulent season and might even break. This because the mixed multitude was not in the least interested in ministry, only the potential and opportunity the ministry offered. Sometimes they will strategically yoke to the called especially in times the minister is vulnerable as judgment many times becomes blurred. 

Many notable servants had such spouses. Moses’ wife appears like that. Otherwise why did she refuse to circumcise her second son? Why did she run back to her father when God confronted them about that? Why had she to be brought back by her father to her husband? Why do you find her descendant serving as a priest on an idolatrous shrine a mere generation after Moses’ death? Was she not one reason Aaron and Miriam had protested against his leadership?

Rachael was like that. That was why she could not face childlessness. She harassed everybody in the family to get her way. She was not content even when God gave her a child. Why did she steal her father’s idols’?

Michal, the wife David loved was like that. That was why she didn’t have any qualms about going to another man when David became a vagabond. That was why she could comfortably and without guilt go back to him once he became king. That was the reason she was embarrassed to see him dance like a commoner on the streets of Jerusalem.

Eli’s wife joins the crowd. That was the reason she could not understand all the fuss he was making when her sons took advantage of their positions to eat well and sleep around with the female worshippers.

Of course we know that the greater composition of Solomon’s harem was like that.

I hope I am not making you desperate. Is there hope for someone yoked to someone from the mixed multitude? What are the options? 

The first is to identify them. It is difficult to deal with an invisible enemy. How do we recognize them? When I was writing about the boy child I mentioned something similar to this issue. You will find many people who are on fire for God will be ‘conveniently’ yoked to spiritual extinguishers. The purpose is simply dulling the edge of one’s ministry. The solution is to increase one’s spiritual fire or passion that the extinguisher will either flee or explode.

Go back to where you started. Probably that was what had happened to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2 as that was the remedy Christ gave them. Go back to where you were spiritually before they joined you as that was probably the reason they joined you, to stop your growth, only that it required time to mature their strategy.

Are they uncomfortable when you confront sin? Make sin, even hidden sin your singular enemy. Preach against impure motives. Hebrews 4: 12 talks about God’s word exposing the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Use scripture to speak to situations you are afraid of, especially those that threaten your relationship with ‘them’. This will cause them to deal with scripture instead of you.

Put Christ above everything and everybody else.

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

That is the first thing we should do as the consequences of doing away with the mixed multitude, which is actually worldliness, may be the departure of the comforts our affinity with them has availed to us. We will consider not just a change of relationships but most likely our material status to be bold enough to agree to do away with the mixed multitude in our life and ministry. This is because they will be the ones who might be my most ardent supporters as they know my increased status will open me up to enjoy that elevation and this will compromise my spirituality. This is because God’s ministers are ‘unworthy slaves’ who have no identity or status to protect, only Christ’s Lordship to proclaim. And of course the fact that I can’t dare confront someone who has taken me up there.

Avoid having discussions with them. Don’t negotiate. Establish what it is God wants and stick with it. Ananias and Sapphira needed that. They were buying their stake in the apostles’ ministry. Were it not for the fact that Peter was clearly connected to his Master, they could easily have jutted to prominence in church circles. How many times do we care to understand the sources of all those gifts? Could we be inviting that spirit in our ministries?

Simon the sorcerer was another one, only that he had not gotten into the church to master the jargon. Assume he had been part of the church and offered that money.

‘I thank God for your powerful ministry. Would you please allow me to partner in it. I know I am not called to preaching. But God has given me the gift of business. Please take a gift from me. I will be humbled by your acceptance’. 

Chances are that we could have been reading a different story, if there was any story at all. Yet that is normally how they get into the mainstream in most churches. Then we think we are extremely blessed!

That will discriminate the motives, if not to us then to them. You see many are not even aware that they are being led by a different spirit. Clearly stating what you believe and standing for will make it possible for them to consider what they are getting into as they join, even support our ministry. That is what Peter did in both instances.

We will need to concentrate on doing what we are clear God has called us to. It is mainly the mixed multitude that will seek to get us ‘maximize’ our opportunities. This they will do by showing how much better my ministry will become if I diversify, because they think in business terms. Then they will become our coaches, even financiers in that. Am I called into evangelism? Why not start singing as a means of raising some extra money? Am I a singer? Then I should become a pastor to minister to my fans! Am I a pastor? Why not sing because my songs will inspire my supporters as well as give me an extra buck? And while I do it why not get to the radio and TV so that I will be able to get supporters from afar? Of course it will all be hidden in a verse here and there. And books! That is for another day, and not because I am a writer. But what will determine whether I am doing God’s will will be the driving force. Why do I do what I do? Am I following God’s direct order or my advisers?

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matthew 7: 21–23)

I am convinced the cause of all the stress on the tent making as the means of ministry support principally comes from the mixed multitude. This is because ministry to them does not make sense. What is serving God anyway? Ministry is another kind of business, a source of pursuing gain. Otherwise why make the exception the norm? We have many pastors nowadays who come from them and run their churches as a business enterprise. Some are bold enough to confess so and even rebuke the ‘traditional’ church since they have demonstrated that only a business enterprise is aggressive enough to manage a church. The mixed multitude has so infiltrated the churches that even pastors who were known for their abandonment to God are no different from business executives. Some call themselves the CEOs of their churches.

What is God telling you? Does it agree with what He told you when He called you? Who are your diehard fans and supporters? Do they ever rebuke you when you stray from the Gospel or they only confront you when you insist on preaching hard stuff? Do they even know what the gospel entails? Have you slowly edged out people you respected for their spirituality and closeness to God? 

So that you don’t think I am being too hard on the group let me give you the reasons why. Since Joseph’s times the Israelites knew that they were in Egypt for a season. In fact that was an ingredient of their whole history. They were taught to expect the exodus from their childhood. They longed for their land since Abraham. In fact God had to order them to settle down in Egypt.

Joseph’s bones were a reminder that they had a land waiting for them. They had sworn to carry them to Canaan and couldn’t have been comfortable with being in Egypt. Slavery heightened that longing. No hardship could remove that longing and expectation. As far as Israel was concerned, Egypt was a closed chapter. In fact the excitement they had when Moses appeared from God’s presence was the culmination of a great longing and expectation.

It is inconceivable that the same people could all of a sudden start longing for Egypt. Unless of course there was some outside motivator!

Why does a child showing so much commitment and focus in their education turn to drugs or immorality, ruining their lives in the process? Why does a man who is the pillar of society or church neglect his family? How does a church that was so focused on discipleship and missions use the same for publicity to get funds to enlarge their buildings? Why does a church that valued partnerships now insist on having impossible conditions for anyone willing to be a partner?

It also has to do with outside influence. Only that in church this influence is inside the structure. It is an outside spirit controlling the structure within. And this spirit has a very expansive agenda.

That is what happened to Ahab

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matthew 13: 25 - 30)

But we need to realize that they came because we had lowered our guard. We therefore ought to examine ourselves to see where it is we failed to watch, where we fell asleep when we ought to have been awake. This will help us avoid falling into the same pitfall again.