A Word in Season: The Deafness of Anguish (Exodus 6:9)

The Gospel Shining Through the Old Testament

There are many portions of the Old Testament where the Gospel shines through brightly. Yes, perhaps not as clearly and as fully as it is revealed in Jesus Christ, but the concepts and the language even is so full of God's rich and free grace that we can very easily take it up and carry it forward into our own experience.

There's no difficulty in recognising the character and the work of the God of our salvation. And so we find, for example, in Exodus and chapter 6 that God speaks to Moses when he sent him back into Egypt and says to him, Now, God does not want Moses to keep that to himself.

That's not a private revelation in that sense. He is to take that news to the children of Israel. He is to speak to them from verse 6, saying, I have shown myself to be your God. 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. I've seen your sufferings and your sorrows. I've seen the chains in which you labour and I will set you free.

I will redeem you. I will bring you by blood and make you my own. I will take you as my people and I will be your God, the very essence of that covenant language. 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 give 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. That statement of covenant identity that bookends this declaration of blessing to the people of Israel.

And I will not only bring you to myself, but I will keep you through the trials and tribulations that you will face. And I will bring you into the promised inheritance. Now, any New Testament preacher could take up that language almost identically and rich and full with the sweet realities of God's salvation in Christ Jesus, bring it to bear upon the souls of men and women.

Deafness of Anguish and Cruel Bondage

And you'd have thought that when God spoke in that way to Israel, that there would have been this great eruption of delight and expectation, that the people would have cried out with joy and with faith and said, this is our God and he is saving us and will save us.

But what we read in verse nine, and these are striking words every time I hit them in the scriptures, they did not heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. Their misery made them deaf.

This deafness of anguish may have been because they had already had their hopes raised and dashed. Perhaps they thought that salvation would come more quickly or more completely. It might have been because of the depth of their misery.

Their cruel bondage made them think that there was no escape for them. Perhaps they even had a sense of their own sin and need and wondered if God would indeed be their God, whether or not these promises were true.

And tragically, we often find the same when this good news in all its fullness is brought in the New Testament. Sometimes people think that this is not for them, that they've gone too far, that they've been too bad, that their bondage is too great.

Their trouble of spirit makes them deaf to the entreaties of the preacher. Now we need, of course, the spirit of Christ to open our eyes to these truths and to open our ears that we might properly heed them.

God's Mercy Despite Human Deafness

But it's worth noting that the anguish of spirit and cruel bondage that stopped the people hearing what Moses had to say did not stop God acting for them. God went on to redeem these people. Even though Moses was fearful of what lay ahead, God began to number the people that he would bring out of Egypt.

And for us, let us not doubt the goodness and the mercy of God. Pray for yourself if you struggle because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage to hear and heed what God is saying. Ask him to make you hear, to show you the truth, to bring you to himself and to keep you with himself and to carry you until he brings you into that promised land which is for you if you will trust in his Redeemer, Jesus Christ.