MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 6:9
PHYSICAL DESTITUTION STIFLING SPIRITUAL LIFE
This fact has long since passed away; but its lesson remains ever new. Its body is dead, and has returned to the dust; but its spirit survives immortal. God gave it a body in the actual history of the Hebrews that its meaning might become articulate to human ears. A permanent principle of our nature, and a distinctive feature of the Divine government are here embodied in an example.
I. The Fact which embodies the Principle.
1. The message addressed to Israel. “Moses so spake unto the Children of Israel” (Exodus 6:1-8). This message, in its substance and in its circumstances, was fitted to arrest the people’s attention and win their love. In that message, whether you regard its author, its bearer, or its nature, everything tended to entice; nothing to repel them. The time was also fitting, when their burdens were unbearable. Before the slave a pospect of liberty is opened; before the weary a prospect of rest. Will the drooping spirits of the multitude revive at this intelligence?
2. The neglect of the message. No; the promise, although it was rich and precious, stirred not the sluggish mass. It was a spark of fire that fell, but it fell on wetted wood, and kindled therefore no flame. “They hearkened not unto Moses.” Why? No people could be in deeper affliction, no kind message could be better authenticated. They neither denied the truth of the message, nor injured the person who bore it. When God’s great salvation was provided, the people neglected it. This the head and front of their offending. They said nothing against it, but they let it alone.
3. Examine the specific reason of their apathy. The cause of their indifference to liberty was the extreme severity of their bondage. They hearkened not “for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage.” Here is a paradox: the slavery excessively severe, and therefore the slave does not care for freedom. One would say, the force of the reason goes all the other way. We would rather expect that in proportion to the cruelty of the yoke would be the alacrity of the captives in rising at the Redeemer’s call. Had Pharaoh lavished kindness and luxury upon Joseph’s kindred, this might have been a reason why they treated with indifference the proffered method of escape. But because prosperity makes people callous to the voice of freedom, it does not follow that the extreme of adversity will put courage into their hearts. Extremes meet. Both great prosperity and great distress often crush every aspiration of freedom. Plenty extinguished the desire, and oppression the hope of freedom. Afterwards the same Hebrews shook off the iron yoke that had lain so long upon their bodies, and sunk so deeply into their souls. A door of hope was opened to them.
II. The principle embodied in the fact. The story of this ancient incident may seem to have no more affinity with modern character than the mummies which travellers dig from the tombs in Egypt have with the living men of to-day. Speaks to all.
1. The message. To us, as to them, it is a message of mercy. Specifically, it proclaims deliverance to the captive. God recognises all men as slaves, and sends an offer for freedom. Christ is the messenger of the covenant. A greater than Moses is here, publishing a greater salvation. We are redeemed from one master to serve another. “Let my people go that they may serve me.” He allures them into the wilderness, and abides with them there. The glory of the Lord goes before them during the journey, and settles on the mercy seat when they reach the promised land.
2. Such is the proposal, but it is not heeded. But few disbelieve or revile the messenger. They neglect him.
3. The reason of this neglect. Anguish and cruel bondage. Let us beware of mistake here. Both with them and us the true cause of the listlessness is the carnal mind. The evil is in the heart, but outward things become the occasions of specific disloyalties. Learn:—
(1.) The duty of Christ’s disciples to a careless neighbourhood. Abject poverty in these favoured exacts a heavy task from many. Bad dwellings. Hunger. Oppression. Their souls are soured to the bottom, and they care neither for God nor man. They are reckless. They are destitute of fear and of hope. They care not for the future. I am not palliating sin. A fact. What shall be done? Disciples of Christ should not give less attention to spiritual teaching, but more to the material well-being of fallen brothers.
(2.) The second lesson applies more directly to ourselves. Anguish of spirit, whether it comes from God’s hand in the form of personal affliction, or from man’s hand in the form of unjust oppression, may become the occasion of neglecting the salvation of Christ. We regard sorrow as a time of spiritual revival. Thanks to God, it often is. But the day of anguish is not the sinner’s best day for seeking the Saviour. Sorrow is not seed; it may conspire with other means to make the seed grow. Beware of neglecting your spiritual state while you are well. (Rev. W. Arnot.)
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exodus 6:9. God’s faithful messengers do speak His will speedily and fully to whom God sends it.
Former discouragements from men must not hinder God’s ministers further to declare His will.
After all God’s promises and commands perverse spirits may refuse to hear or believe.
God’s message to people in such straits is to ease their pain and enlarge their spirits.
Sense of pain makes some souls unreasonable, even to reject their mercies.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Bondage Effects! Exodus 6:9. Every man has a right to freedom. Of all earth’s hapless ones we pity him the most who languishes is hopeless bondage until he has lost all note of time, and looks through the rayless eyes of idiocy upon any change that gleams through the despairs of his dungeon. Very near to this had Israel sunk. They had a right to be free, but long oppression had sunk them into hugging the chains that fettered them. They were slow to seize the offered boon of freedom—so slow that Pharaoh was emboldened to resist the demand of Moses and Aaron to give liberty to the slaves.
“Yet while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward.”
—Bryant.
Vitality! Exodus 6:9. The sunbeam shines upon the entombed seed, and lo! a flower all beautiful with rainbow brightness—all fragrant with spicy perfumes rises from the grave. The same light will shine upon a rock, and leave it still a rock after a thousand years. Why? There was no life. The Spirit of God plants the germ of life in the softened soul, and the sunlight of the Saviour’s beaming countenance energizes. The rock remains unaffected by all the radiance of the Gospel until affliction pulverizes its hardness, and the Spirit implants the germ of life.
“We welcome clouds that bring the former rain,
Though they the present prospect blacken round,
And shade the beauties of the opening year,
That, by their stores enriched, the earth may yield,
A faithful summer and a plenteous crop.”
—Swain.