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Often through the years of
counseling and Christian experience, I have seen Christians take a stand in
what they knew was God’s will only to be met with greater hardship than
before they took their stand. For example: a Christian decides that God
wants them to “tithe.” Almost immediately that Christian starts having
financial difficulties. Like when God called Abraham to leave his country
and kin to follow Him (Genesis 12), we don’t even get to chapter 13
until there is a famine in the land.
In Moses’ case, Moses obeys God and
goes to Pharaoh demanding that he should let the people go to hold a feast
in the wilderness. This was according to the Divine direction (Exodus
3:18). Pharaoh replied, “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.”
That same day a new order was issued
from the palace, emanating from Pharaoh himself, to the taskmasters of the
people, “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.” The taskmasters said to them, “Fulfill
your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.”
They appealed to Pharaoh, but he
would not listen to them. “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 to you, yet shall
ye deliver the tale of bricks.” Then the people turn on Moses
and Aaron saying, “The Lord look upon you, and
judge; because ye have made our savour to stink in the eyes of Pharaoh, and
in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword into their hand to slay us.”
So, you see, things got worse than
before. But God can afford to bring us through situations like this,
because of “the afterward” to which they lead. It was necessary that Moses,
Aaron, and the Hebrews should come to see that their case was desperate and
that no appeals or reasonings or arguments could alter it. It was necessary
that the leaders should be weaned from the enthusiastic loyalty of the
people, that they might lean only on the arm of the living God and venture
forth depending on Him alone. It was necessary that the people should see
that they could not better their position by any efforts of their own. Yes,
and their thoughts would henceforth be directed past the leaders, who were
discredited in their very first endeavor, to the hand and heart of the
Almighty.
So Moses goes before God and cries
out. “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.”
There is no other help for us when
passing through such discipline. When we see our hopes blasted, our plans
miscarry, our efforts do more harm than good, while we are discredited and
blamed, pursued with the taunts and hate of those for whom we were willing
to lay down our lives, we may preserve an outward calm; but there will be a
heart-break underneath, and the noblest part in us will wither, unless we
are able to pour out our whole complaint before God. Thus is the purpose
for things going from bad to worse. As Spurgeon puts it, the Great Shepherd
will send out the black dog to bring the sheep closer to the Shepherd.
It is a lesson for all of us. God
must bring us down before He can raise us up.
God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. (James
4:6) Emptying must precede filling. We must get to an end of ourselves
before He can begin in us. But what a beginning He makes!
Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see
what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and
with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. (Exodus
6:1) And as those words of encouragement and promise broke on his ear,
he must have forgotten the averted looks and bitter words of the people and
risen into a new world of restful expectation. Deliverance was sure, though
he had learned that it did not depend on anything that he could do, but on
that all-sufficient God, Who had announced Himself as the
I AM.
We must never let the difficulties
which confront us indicate that we are not on God’s path and doing His
work. Indeed the contrary is generally the case. If we are willing to walk
with God, He will test our sincerity. He will cause men to ride over us; He
will bring us through fire and water. But out of all He will bring us into
a large room and give us the very thing on which we have been taught to set
our hearts upon. Victory on the other side of the Red Sea will wipe away
the memory of those bitter disappointments in the discipline of humility.
And you
have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My
son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when
he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes
everyone he accepts as a son." Endure hardship as discipline; God is
treating you as sons. (Hebrews 12:5-7)
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Disciplined Humility