“Worse First” – FBC Morning Light (1/31/2024)

A good Wednesday morning to you. I hope your week is going well thus far. Today in our Bible reading we're looking at Exodus chapters 5 through 8. I want to point out something that is a common experience and maybe you have experienced it as well.

Pharaoh Increases the Burden Before Deliverance

The Lord has said to Moses, go to Egypt and I'm going to use you to deliver the people of Israel from bondage, from the Egyptian slavery. Go before Pharaoh, tell Pharaoh to let my people go. So Moses goes before Pharaoh, he says, this is what the Lord says, he said, let my people go that they may serve me.

And Pharaoh replies, no, I'm not going to do that. You think I am crazy? I got all this slave labor, there's no way I'm going to let those people go. In fact, he says, this is what I'm going to do, you're obviously lazy, you obviously have too much time on your hands, so I'm just going to make your work harder.

People are going to have to go out and find straw that they're going to use to make the bricks. I'm not going to provide it anymore, you have to get it yourselves, and you have to make the same number of bricks.

Well, that doesn't sit real well, as you might imagine. Verse 8 says, you shall lay on them, Pharaoh says to the taskmasters, you lay on them the quote of the bricks that they made before, you shall not reduce it, for they are idle.

Therefore they cry out, saying, let us go and sacrifice to our God. Then in verse 14, the officers of the children of Israel whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, so they were like Israelites who were foremen over the brickmakers, they were beaten and were asked, why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today?

Well, the task has gotten unbearably great, they can't do it. The hardship is just incredible. And in verse 21, the people respond to Moses, and they say, let the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.

In other words, you haven't come to deliver us, they say to Moses, these are the Israelites, these are the Hebrew people, they're saying to Moses, you haven't come to deliver us, you've come to make our lives more miserable.

Well, even Moses gets in on it, he goes back to the Lord and he says, Lord, why have you brought this trouble on this people? Why is it that you've sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh, Moses says, to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, neither have you delivered your people at all.

The Lord’s Promise of Redemption in Exodus 6

Well, have you not experienced that oftentimes, just before deliverance from hardship comes, the hardship only grows greater, maybe the darkness deeper, the pain even more intense, just before deliverance finally comes.

That's what the people of Israel are experiencing, and it is so deep that when the Lord replies to Moses and gives Moses an answer and says, here's what I want you to go back to the people of Israel to say, and this is what the Lord tells him in chapter 6, verses 6 to 8, he says, therefore, say to the children of Israel, I am the Lord, I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments, and I will take you as my people, and I will be your God, and then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage, I am the Lord.

Well, then certainly that's going to make the people feel better, right? No. Verse 9 says, Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not heed Moses. They didn't pay any attention to what he had to say.

Why? Because they hated God? Because they hated Moses? No, why? What's the real reason why they didn't give any heed to him? Because, verse 9 says, of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. In other words, the heartache and hardship that even God's people go through can be so deep and intense that any word of hope and comfort is just dismissed out of hand.

Just dismissed out of hand. You stop up your ears to it. Now, I'm not suggesting that that's the response we ought to have, and it's a good response to have to the word of the Lord that comes in promise that he gives, but I think the Lord understands that.

He didn't then turn around and just destroy the Israelites because of their response to him, no. He kept working, he kept fulfilling his promise. I think this is one reason why it's often helpful when you have the opportunity to be with someone who's going through deep anguish and great pain, that sometimes one of the best things you can do is just sit with them.

Patient Presence with the Suffering

Quietly, patiently, compassionately sit with them. Don't immediately rush into someone who's going through great difficulty and pain and hardship and deep darkness and start rattling off all of the great promises of God.

There may be time for that, there will be time for that to come, but be patient with it. Wait, wait. Let them process the pain and the hardship, and in your patience and in your compassion, God will eventually open up the opportunity for you to express those promises of God that will maybe more readily receive.

Just a word of advice, I would think. Well, Father, help us to be patient and help us to be understanding. At the same time, give us faith in hardship and difficulty to believe your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, listen, have a great Wednesday. May the Lord bless you.