By Pastor Hal Mayer
Dear Friends,
Thank you for joining me today as we delve further into the deliverance of God’s people. I thank the Lord that he has preserved my life these many years and given me the chance to proclaim His most important message to all who will listen to me. I pray the Lord will bless you as you listen. We will study the wonderful providence of God in their deliverance, but we will also look at the message below the surface in the amazing story of deliverance.
Let us pray. Our Father in heaven. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit that guides us into all truth. We ask that He will be with us today as we study. Open to us the word of life and teach us the things we should know. We need to think about the end times and the coming deliverance of your people. We sense a foreboding, and we realize time is shorter than ever and we are further down the track than we thought. Our subject today is of great importance to us, so bless us, we pray. May Jesus reign in our hearts and give us victory over the enemy. In His precious name, amen.
Turn with me to Exodus 3:16-22.
Here Moses is directed to approach the elders of Israel with a message that they are to work together and seek permission to go into the wilderness and sacrifice to God. A sacrifice is an act of worship. And Israel had gotten out of the habit of reverence for worship and the Sabbath. So, God said that He would “bring them up” out of Egypt. God’s word is something that can be relied on. It will happen. It is not uncertain. Whenever God speaks His power is in the words. And we have a whole book filled with God’s words to give us plenty of power. It is written so that in every circumstance of life we will have guidance and power. God’s word may not come to pass immediately, but they will come to pass. And it is a great encouragement to know that we can expect what God says will happen.
God has seen what the enemy has done to us in this world. He sees our history. He knows all that we are subject to. He sees all our affliction. And His word says He will deliver us. It will happen. It is not uncertain. If we are given over to the Lord, He will regard us tenderly even though we may be going through hell on earth.
God has given us warning that the enemy will not let us go easily though, especially to worship God as He requires. He will try to hang on to us. He will try to distract us. He will try to cause us to lose sight of Christ. He will even resort to persecution to get us to comply with his rebellion. Christ will have to deliver His people with an outstretched arm and by a mighty deliverance, because the enemy doesn’t want to let them go.
The Egyptians had their day of probation. God worked with them for many years. But, they rejected all of God’s appeals. They could have learned of God’s Sabbath, and true worship. They could have been a nation that honored God and enjoyed the privileges and benefits with the Hebrews of being God’s people. But they turned from all that and went their own way.
The Israelites had lost sight of true worship and were to learn how to worship God again. But God forewarned Moses that Pharaoh would not let the people go. They were now quite important to the economy of Egypt, and Pharaoh was suspicious that they would not return or that they would return with ideas and obligations that would disrupt their work flow.
Turn forward a couple of chapters to the fifth chapter of Exodus verses 1-3. “And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go. And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.”
Notice that when Moses was with the elders of Israel he uses the term the “God of your fathers,” but now with Pharaoh he uses the term the “God of Israel.” This is the first time in scripture the term is used.
God gives a promise to His people of deliverance with the intent to give them control of a goodly land. But first He asks them to worship Him and learn of Him. That’s the way He is with us. He will only deliver us if we seek Him and learn of Him.
Moses is to tell Pharaoh that they are going three days journey into the wilderness to worship. He touches on two tender points with Pharaoh, his honor and his economic base. Moses essentially said that the Israelites serve a higher God than the Egyptians and that the Egyptian ruler was subject to that God even if he didn’t want to acknowledge His pre-eminence. It was too humbling for Pharaoh to acknowledge the God of heaven. So, this request crossed his pride, and therefore his self-made honor.
God’s people will call on all people, “every nation, kindred, tongue and people” to keep the true Sabbath instead of the apostate of Sunday. Instead of admitting they are in error and submitting to God’s requirements, the rulers and people at the end of time will reject the Sabbath and create Sunday laws and other oppressive enactments as a means of protecting their honor. This will bring greater stress on God’s people who try to worship God as he requires.
God must also undo the economic system of Egypt and destroy it, because it was pressuring His people not to keep His commandments. He would deliver them to Canaan where He could establish an economic system according to His principles, that reflect the love and generosity of the Gospel that says, “give and it shall be given unto you.” Government handouts from a welfare state enslave the poor to systems and consequences that keep them in poverty. Selfish capitalism which closes its hand to the poor is also not God’s plan either. Besides Israel had to comply with rules and regulations in all other areas of government that required them to do things that are against God’s will. That’s the way the enemy always works.
God’s end-time people will also face the same thing. God will right wrongs through their deliverance. He will free them from the slavery designed to keep them loyal to an unjust economic system today just as verily as He delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
Moses and Aaron delivered the message to the Elders of Israel and was accepted of his brethren. Then they went to Pharaoh. Listen to Patriarchs and Prophets, page 257. “The two brothers entered the palace of the Pharaohs as ambassadors from the King of kings, and they spoke in His name: ‘Thus saith Jehovah, God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.’” Exodus 5:1.
Pharaoh answered, “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go.” Exodus 5:2.
Pharaoh had no veneration for the God of the Hebrews, and when Aaron speaking for Moses said, “The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword,” Pharaoh was pretty incensed. Exodus 5:3.
Patriarchs and Prophets, page 257, “Tidings of [Moses and Aaron] and of the interest they were exciting among the people had already reached the king. His anger was kindled. “Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let [hinder] the people from their works?” he said. “Get you unto your burdens.” Already the kingdom had suffered loss by the interference of these strangers. At thought of this he added, “Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.” Exodus 5:4.
Moses request of Pharaoh was humble and reasonable. He said that their journey was not something that they had planned among themselves, but that God had met with them and had called them to go into the wilderness and worship. He kindly asks without threats and with all due submission that was common in the palace of Pharaoh, “We pray thee,” he said. That’s the way we should be when we need to request something from some authority. We are not to demand our rights and march in the street or burn buildings down. We are to be humble petitioners. And leave the persuasion with God. He has power. He can do it. A long delay tries our patience. But if the cause is right, He will deliver or provide. The long delay tests our patience and should humble us.
What Moses and Aaron ask is only for a short vacation to “sacrifice to the Lord our God” as other people do to theirs. And they had a good reason to do so, “Lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.” These were words that the Egyptians understood. They themselves believed that if they didn’t sacrifice to their gods or worship according to the forms or rituals their gods required, the gods would take vengeance on them with some pestilence or disaster. Moses was suggesting to Pharaoh that they needed to go and worship and obey their God, in order that they may live. After all what good would his vassals be to Pharaoh if they were dead? But real living is bound up with reverence and worship for God. When we become true Christians, that’s when we start really living. Pharaoh’s denial of the request shows his unreasonableness even to his own hurt.
Moses was asking for religious liberty. Religious liberty had been taken away from them and Pharaoh knew, or suspected that if he relented on this point, then the God of the Hebrews would require something else and He would be called upon to agree to that. And there would be no end to the requests, and their work on his cities would suffer.
His excuses are unreasonable and slanderous. He accuses them of being idle as the reason for the talk of a religious retreat. They could not have been idle. Look at the cities they built and their other accomplishments. Pharaoh basely misrepresents them and falsely accused them.
“Let them not regard vain words.” Verse 9. Pharaoh blames Moses for the trouble and accuses him, by implication, of making the Israelites idle by vain words. But he is accusing God. God’s words he calls vain words. He has just crossed a line. God’s words are not vain words, they have power to accomplish more than all of the effort of the Egyptians and the Hebrews combined.
Yet, this is what many do today. They think God’s words are empty and vain. They mean nothing. The same spirit of Egypt in defying God is seen in the atheist who thinks that Christianity is a crutch that only unintelligent and unenlightened people need. Smart people don’t need God, they say. It is seen in the LGBTQ movement which God punished very strictly for their defiance. It is seen in nominal Christianity where there is no vital power.
Worship and retreat is necessary as a rest from labor. The human frame needs this rest. A day of rest is a day that you don’t have to go out into the world and conduct business or work, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. Always demanding more. Applying talent and skill to earn a hard living. When you can come apart and rest for one full day, not having any worldly obligations to consume the attentions, the human family finds relief.
But the enemy often represents the service and worship of God as only fit for those who have nothing else to do, the business of only the idle. But it is the indispensable duty of those that are very busy in this world to rest, because it provides them a retreat, one day each week, in which they can unplug and rejuvenate. It is actually the perfect solution for man’s intensity.
The Israelites asked for rest, and weren’t exactly prepared for more work which made their already difficult lives even more strenuous. They hardly had time for themselves as it was, and their lives were grueling. But now Pharaoh commands more work of them. Now they had to gather straw too and still produce the same amount of bricks. And if they did not, they would be punished.
God’s end-time, last generation people today will experience something akin to this during their affliction and distress in time of trouble. Listen to this from Great Controversy, page 616. “The people of God will then be plunged into those scenes of affliction and distress described by the prophet as the time of Jacob’s trouble. ‘Thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace… All faces are turned into paleness. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.’ Jeremiah 30:5-7.”
They will have deep anguish as they fear that they will dishonor God by an unconfessed and unforgiven sin. From Patriarchs and Prophets, page 256, we read, “In the time of trouble just before the coming of Christ, the righteous will be preserved through the ministration of heavenly angels; but there will be no security for the transgressor of God’s law. Angels cannot then protect those who are disregarding one of the divine precepts.”
Listen to Great Controversy Page 619, “Though God’s people will be surrounded by enemies who are bent upon their destruction, yet the anguish which they suffer is not a dread of persecution for the truth’s sake; they fear that every sin has not been repented of, and that through some fault in themselves they will fail to realize the fulfillment of the Saviour’s promise: I ‘will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world.’ Revelation 3:10. If they could have the assurance of pardon they would not shrink from torture or death; but should they prove unworthy, and lose their lives because of their own defects of character, then God’s holy name would be reproached.
“On every hand they hear the plottings of treason and see the active working of rebellion; and there is aroused within them an intense desire, an earnest yearning of soul, that this great apostasy may be terminated and the wickedness of the wicked may come to an end. But while they plead with God to stay the work of rebellion, it is with a keen sense of self-reproach that they themselves have no more power to resist and urge back the mighty tide of evil. They feel that had they always employed all their ability in the service of Christ, going forward from strength to strength, Satan’s forces would have less power to prevail against them.
“They afflict their souls before God, pointing to their past repentance of their many sins, and pleading the Saviour’s promise: ‘Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me.’ Isaiah 27:5. Their faith does not fail because their prayers are not immediately answered. Though suffering the keenest anxiety, terror, and distress, they do not cease their intercessions. They lay hold of the strength of God as Jacob laid hold of the Angel; and the language of their souls is: ‘I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.’”
And from Great Controversy, pages 621 and 622 this passage, “The season of distress and anguish before us will require a faith that can endure weariness, delay, and hunger—a faith that will not faint though severely tried. The period of probation is granted to all to prepare for that time. Jacob prevailed because he was persevering and determined. His victory is an evidence of the power of importunate prayer. All who will lay hold of God’s promises, as he did, and be as earnest and persevering as he was, will succeed as he succeeded. Those who are unwilling to deny self, to agonize before God, to pray long and earnestly for His blessing, will not obtain it. Wrestling with God—how few know what it is! How few have ever had their souls drawn out after God with intensity of desire until every power is on the stretch. When waves of despair which no language can express sweep over the suppliant, how few cling with unyielding faith to the promises of God.
“The ‘time of trouble, such as never was,’ is soon to open upon us; and we shall need an experience which we do not now possess and which many are too indolent to obtain. It is often the case that trouble is greater in anticipation than in reality; but this is not true of the crisis before us. The most vivid presentation cannot reach the magnitude of the ordeal. In that time of trial, every soul must stand for himself before God. ‘Though Noah, Daniel, and Job’ were in the land, ‘as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.’ Ezekiel 14:20.”
While the Israelites suffered external affliction, God’s last day people will suffer internal affliction. But the same faith was required of the Israelites as will be required of modern Israel. All their energies will be brought to focus during the last days.
As the Israelites approached their soon-coming deliverance, all the powers of church and state were arrayed against them. Pharaoh despised them and their religion. In his view, like every pre-Christian society, to have the favor of the gods meant that everyone within his territory had to comply with the religion of the state, and worship the same way, or the gods would be angry and bring some evil, some disaster upon them. So, he had no interest in letting Israel go worship a different god even if they left the country to do it.
Moses forewarned the Israelites of the fact that Pharaoh would not give in. Likewise, today we are given the assurance that when worship becomes a test, the rulers of this world will not give in either. Notice these statements from Great Controversy, page 610.
“Persecution in its varied forms is the development of a principle which will exist as long as Satan exists and Christianity has vital power. No man can serve God without enlisting against himself the opposition of the hosts of darkness. Evil angels will assail him, alarmed that his influence is taking the prey from their hands. Evil men, rebuked by his example, will unite with them in seeking to separate him from God by alluring temptations. When these do not succeed, then a compelling power is employed to force the conscience.
“But so long as Jesus remains man’s intercessor in the sanctuary above, the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is felt by rulers and people. It still controls to some extent the laws of the land. Were it not for these laws, the condition of the world would be much worse than it now is. While many of our rulers are active agents of Satan, God also has His agents among the leading men of the nation. The enemy moves upon his servants to propose measures that would greatly impede the work of God; but statesmen who fear the Lord are influenced by holy angels to oppose such propositions with unanswerable arguments. Thus a few men will hold in check a powerful current of evil. The opposition of the enemies of truth will be restrained that the third angel’s message may do its work. When the final warning shall be given, it will arrest the attention of these leading men through whom the Lord is now working, and some of them will accept it, and will stand with the people of God through the time of trouble…
And now from Great Controversy, page 614. “When He leaves the sanctuary, darkness covers the inhabitants of the earth… The restraint which has been upon the wicked is removed, and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent. God’s long-suffering has ended… Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than that which came upon Jerusalem of old.”
Did you notice that despite the fact that a few voices will hold in restraint the determined agenda of the powers that be, they will eventually remove religious liberty completely anyway? God’s people will be the center of attention. They will be hated and proscribed. They will be painted as the cause of all the problems of humanity. If we didn’t have the Bible to tell us the rest of the story, we would be overwhelmed with despair.
I’m going to tell you some things that happened recently because I think you need to understand how America is now controlled by similar principles. What was the purpose of the Trump administration? I believe God allowed it for a number of reasons. But one that sticks out in my mind is one that most people never thought about. It was to show God’s people what universal execration looks like. While Donald Trump stood for many things that America used to be, like religious liberty, sovereignty and freedom from control by foreign and domestic powers, he was not aligned with Catholic principles. He pulled out of the Paris climate agreement which the Papacy sees as the key to globalism, which puts Rome in the driver’s seat in global policy. Mr. Trump did many other things to anger the globalists of which the pope is foremost. He withdrew from the trans-pacific partnership (TPP), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the WHO, the UN Human Rights Counsel, and a number of other agreements. And world leaders hated him, and global coalitions of nations tried to work against him. The media dissed him at every turn. He was eventually banned from social media. He was universally despised. Trump was so popular with the people, and powerful that they had to unleash a pandemic on the whole world to bring his economic policies to their knees. And they had to commit massive fraud to prevent him from getting reelected. And no court would review it, leaving us to wonder why. Were they threatened?
Here are all the treaties and agreements Trump has abandoned [1]
Though God’s people are a whole lot different than Donald Trump, you can see how universal execration works. I hope you took good notes. I was paying attention and I thought “Here was a full-on example of what that means, with a different kind of target, of course.” While we don’t know what will happen to Mr. Trump ultimately, we know the death penalty will be meted out to God’s faithful ones when they are universally execrated.
Now that Mr. Biden is president, America is back in the good graces of the globalists, with a Roman Catholic executive, a predominantly Roman Catholic Supreme Court, and a largely compliant congress that is a about 1/3 Roman Catholic with most of the rest ecumenical evangelicals. America has been served up on a silver platter. And Rome couldn’t be happier. If you were paying attention you would have seen the Hegelian dialectic in powerful, sweeping, global play.
And God’s people have to give the message that Babylon has fallen and identify the beast. And people hate the truth. Even worldly truth. In this worsening hatred for all things truth, what do you think is going to happen to the Bible and its truth? The stage is being set. We will have to call people out of Babylon like Moses called the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses had to give Pharaoh a message of true worship that the true God requires. And so will we. “Come out of her my people” to worship God, Moses essentially said. Pharaoh met Moses’ request with a more punishing oppression of his people. He placed more burdens on them. Exodus 5:10-14.
“And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore?”
Pharaoh targeted God’s specific instructions to Israel. He deliberately tried to circumvent their request by increasing their burdens so that there was no hope of going into the wilderness to worship.
Before the close of probation, the enemies of God will target God’s revealed will. The people of God will be prohibited from keeping the Sabbath holy. And to make a more odious law and oppress them, the enemy will inspire men to especially require the people of God to violate the Sabbath by secular work on the seventh day, thus fulfilling the same principle; severe and odious violation of the conscience of God’s people.
The Egyptian taskmasters were very severe. Pharaoh having decreed an unrighteous decree and after demonizing the people in the eyes of his taskmasters, the taskmasters were free to be especially mean to the children of Israel. They enforced the decree with grievous vigor. The Bible tells us to “pray… that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.”
2 Thessalonians 3:1, 2.
The enmity of the dragon against God’s people is such that it breaks through all the laws of reason, honor, humanity and common justice.
Notice that the Israelites were dispersed throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble. This was probably the means by which Pharaoh’s injustice became known to all the kingdom, and perhaps they were pitied by some of the Egyptians, making Pharaoh’s government less acceptable even to his own subjects. Good will is never gained by persecution.
The Israelite officers were used with particular harshness. They were leaders and as leaders, they paid dearly for their role by being made an example and punished severely. They were responsible for the quantity of work and when they didn’t meet their quota because of the unreasonable demands, they were beaten.
In every age, the leaders in proclaiming truth, or leaders of reformatory movements have received the worst of the persecution. And so it will be at the end of time. Those who are leaders among God’s last generation will suffer more than others for their defense of the truth. These will not be anyone who has been compromised, for they will be removed from their role as leaders. They will yield to the pressure. But faithful leaders, humble leaders are the target of the enemy’s malice.
What strange steps God sometimes takes in delivering His people. He often brings them to utmost straits when he then delivers them. He allows them to get to a humanly hopeless state, then He works. It seems that at the darkest period when all seems lost that God delivers His people. At the lowest ebb angels stand ready to interpose. Very cloudy mornings produce the fairest days. It’s a paradox. God’s time to help is when things are at their worst. The worse the better.
Listen to this from The Great Controversy, page 636, “It is at midnight that God manifests His power for the deliverance of His people. The sun appears, shining in its strength. Signs and wonders follow in quick succession. The wicked look with terror and amazement upon the scene, while the righteous behold with solemn joy the tokens of their deliverance. Everything in nature seems turned out of its course. The streams cease to flow. Dark, heavy clouds come up and clash against each other. In the midst of the angry heavens is one clear space of indescribable glory, whence comes the voice of God like the sound of many waters, saying: “It is done.” Revelation 16:17.”
Now let us read Exodus 5:15-23. “Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants. There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people. But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the LORD. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks. And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task. And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the their eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us. And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.”
The Egyptian taskmasters had appointed Hebrew officers over the people, and it was their duty to see that the Israelites fulfilled their quotas of work. Patriarchs and Prophets, page 258, we says, “When the requirement of the king was put in force, the people scattered themselves throughout the land, to gather stubble instead of straw; but they found it impossible to accomplish the usual amount of labor. For this failure the Hebrew officers were cruelly beaten. These officers supposed that their oppression came from their taskmasters, and not from the king himself; and they went to him with their grievances. Their remonstrance was met by Pharaoh with a taunt: ‘Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord.’ They were ordered back to their work, with the declaration that their burdens were in no case to be lightened. Returning, they met Moses and Aaron, and cried out to them, ‘The Lord look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.’”
Their complaint to Pharaoh was just. But Pharaoh taunted them. They complained that they were almost dead from working, but Pharaoh said they were idle. They were fatigued with their work, yet they were under a cloud because they said “let us go and do sacrifice.”
It is common for the best actions to be mentioned under the worst names. Have you ever experienced that? Your best intentions treated as evil or viewed with suspicion? I have. And it’s not pleasant. Even your friends construe your best actions as done with malice or advantage, or for profit. Your diligent efforts are censured by people who know nothing of what sacrifices you have made. I’m glad men are not our judges. God is our judge and knows on what principles we act. Wickedness proceeds from the wicked, so what can be expected from the unrighteous but more unrighteousness.
They unjustly complained to Moses. “The Lord look upon you and judge, because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.” That’s verse 21.
This was not fair to Moses and Aaron. They had given sufficient evidence of their hearty good will to work in the dangerous work of liberating God’s people. Yet because the Israelites didn’t get immediate results of the thing they had hoped for, they were reproached as accessories to their slavery. They should have humbled themselves before God and repented of their shameful sin. But instead they fly in the face of their best, friends. They quarrel with the instruments of deliverance because of some little difficulties and obstructions they met with along the way.
Patriarchs and Prophets, page 259 says “As Moses listened to these reproaches he was greatly distressed. The sufferings of the people had been much increased. All over the land a cry of despair went up from old and young, and all united in charging upon him the disastrous change in their condition. In bitterness of soul he went before God…”
Those that are called to public service for the Lord in each generation must expect to be tried, not only by loud threats of their avowed enemies, but by the unjust and unkind criticism and censure of unthinking friends who judge by outward appearance and look only a little distance into the future.
Moses did what we must do in every circumstance like this. He prayed to God. He was grieved in his heart that Pharaoh’s action did not meet his expectations, but rather contradicted them. Their rebuke was like a sword that pierced him.
Moses acquainted the Lord with the problem. He knew what he had said and done was done by divine direction. Therefore, he considers that what is done to him is reflecting on God. Therefore, he spreads it before him as an interested party in the cause.
When we find ourselves at any time perplexed and embarrassed in following our duty, we should go to God and lay open our case before him by faithful and fervent prayer.
Moses was troubled. Is this God coming down to deliver His people? he must have wondered. “Must I, who hoped to be a blessing to them become a scourge instead. By this attempt to get them out of the pit, they are but sunk in deeper.”
Now listen to Patriarchs and Prophets, page 259. “During all the years of servitude in Egypt there had been among the Israelites some who adhered to the worship of Jehovah. These were sorely troubled as they saw their children daily witnessing the abominations of the heathen, and even bowing down to their false gods. In their distress they cried unto the Lord for deliverance from the Egyptian yoke, that they might be freed from the corrupting influence of idolatry. They did not conceal their faith, but declared to the Egyptians that the object of their worship was the Maker of heaven and earth, the only true and living God. They rehearsed the evidences of His existence and power, from creation down to the days of Jacob. The Egyptians thus had an opportunity to become acquainted with the religion of the Hebrews; but disdaining to be instructed by their slaves, they tried to seduce the worshipers of God by promises of reward, and, this failing, by threats and cruelty.”
“Wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people?” Moses asks in verse 22. When God comes in mercy to His people, He sometimes uses methods that they may think themselves severely treated. But God allows this so they may learn to cease from man and trust God.
Moses said, “Why is it thou hast sent me?” He complains of his ill success: “Pharaoh has done evil to this people, and not one step seems to be taken towards their deliverance.”
What a position to be in. Yet God was testing everybody, Moses, the Children of Israel and even Pharaoh. Would they believe and follow God’s instructions?
Patriarchs and Prophets, page 260. “The Hebrews had expected to obtain their freedom without any special trial of their faith or any real suffering or hardship. But they were not yet prepared for deliverance. They had little faith in God, and were unwilling patiently to endure their afflictions until He should see fit to work for them. Many were content to remain in bondage rather than meet the difficulties attending removal to a strange land; and the habits of some had become so much like those of the Egyptians that they preferred to dwell in Egypt. Therefore the Lord did not deliver them by the first manifestation of His power before Pharaoh. He overruled events more fully to develop the tyrannical spirit of the Egyptian king and also to reveal Himself to His people. Beholding His justice, His power, and His love, they would choose to leave Egypt and give themselves to His service. The task of Moses would have been much less difficult had not many of the Israelites become so corrupted that they were unwilling to leave Egypt.”
My friends, God wants to deliver His people today, but they are not ready. We are going to have to experience hardship and trial just like the Israelites in Egypt. The modern Egyptians all around us are strengthening their power. We can watch it in the news and feel it in the atmosphere. They don’t want anything to do with Christianity. They continue in their wickedness and licentiousness. The enemy is building a massive global cabal, a coalition of nations, of businesses and of society to fight God and His people in one last effort to rule the whole world and everybody in it. It will be a battle of major consequences.
Do you want to be ready for this battle? I do. I have to take time to know God and to let Him rule my life and do away with sin in my life if I want to be ready to stand. It’s almost time. We are farther down the track than we think.
Let us pray. Our heavenly Father, we see the end approaching. And we see the crises on the horizon. But we also see the deliverance so long promised your people. Please make us ready. Please take our sins away and help us to overcome them. We are far from what you want us to be. And help us to have faith to move quickly, I pray. In Jesus name, amen.