Exodus 5

How does the Lord work in the lives of the people He loves? Can we count on the fact that He will make our path easy once we start to acknowledge His presence and power? The elders and people of Israel had seen the signs that God was sending Moses and they believed. But afterward, when Moses and Aaron went to confront Pharaoh with the Word of the Lord, life did not become easier for God's people, but much harder.

God's Word to Pharaoh through Moses must have seemed like a great affront to that great man. The specific words that the Lord had spoken in the prior chapter were even more direct. God had said, “Let my son (Israel) go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.” But here Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” Were God's messengers easing into their role as ambassadors? Pharaoh's response was clear: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

Now what? Moses and Aaron sounded like they were planning a worship experience in the wilderness. Were they leaving the impression that they would return to Egypt after they had completed their brief time away?

Whether they were leaning on their own understanding too much here, or were simply saying what God had told them to say in this first stage of engagement with Pharaoh, we can say this with confidence: They did not get the response that they wanted. Moses and Aaron went on to express concern for their own safety, rather than speaking about what would happen to Pharaoh's son. “Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

The king was not in a charitable mood. Moses and Aaron were getting in the way of his work plans for the Israelites. He blamed Moses and Aaron: “You make them rest from their burdens!” That same day he made the burdens of the Israelites much more severe. Where was the Lord in all this? Of course, He had warned Moses from the beginning that Pharaoh would not let the people go. But He had not told them the part about conditions getting worse before the Israelites received deliverance from their captors. Now they had to continue to produce the same number of bricks, but they had to gather the raw material, straw, themselves. They were also being accused of laziness. And why? Because of these men Moses and Aaron. That was the way that Pharaoh would deal with people that tried to stop his oppression of his slaves. He did not fear the God of the Hebrews. “Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” He would aim to make the people turn against the ambassadors of God.

Pharaoh did one other thing. He abused the foreman that had charge over the Israelites. He beat them and made unreasonable demands against them. This is the way an oppressor demoralizes those under his power. The goal was to move the foremen to turn against Moses and Aaron, leading all of the people with them in their attack. Pharaoh would not be their common enemy. God's ambassadors, Moses and Aaron, would be the ones that the Hebrews wanted to kill. Pharaoh would make it clear that the reason that these new demands were being pressed upon the people was the message that he received from Moses and Aaron. He would try to turn the people against the Word of God and against the messengers of that Word. If Moses and Aaron thought that they could ease into this role of speaking for God, it surely had not worked. Pharaoh spread this madness: “You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks.”

The reaction of the foremen was just what Pharaoh would have wanted. They turned on Moses and Aaron, saying, “You have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Moses turned to God in great distress. The foremen blamed Moses, and Moses blamed God.

He questioned the Lord. “Why have you done evil to this people?” That was a very complicated question. It was true that the madness of Pharaoh was evil. It was also true that God was sovereign over Pharaoh. But it was too early to decide that God had done evil to His people. God had heard their cries, and He was delivering them out of bondage. The actions of the Lord would be clearer when Joshua led them into The Promised Land. We must not judge the goodness of God to His church based on our present moment of trial.

The second question was more personal. “Why did you ever send me?” Moses was confused by the Lord's providence and distressed with the trouble and division that had come through His speech to Pharaoh.

The Redeemer of Jews and Gentiles has come. He faced great suffering. The first results of His great teaching and miracles were not particularly encouraging, The faithful church that follows Him can still expect tribulation even to this day. But one day our Joshua will bring us into The Promised Land above. That will be a good time to rightly assess the Lord's plans. Until that day, we follow the path of a crucified and risen King. What He tells us to preach, we proclaim before all men. We follow Him in the way of the cross. Our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is ahead of us in heaven.