"And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel; and Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that He had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped." (Ver. 29-31.) When God works, every barrier must give way. Moses had said, "The people will not believe me." But the question was not as to whether they would believe him, but whether they would believe God. When a man is enabled to view himself simply as the messenger of God, he may feel quite at ease as to the reception of his message. It does not detract, in the smallest degree, from his tender and affectionate solicitude in reference to those whom he addresses. Quite the contrary; but it preserves him from that inordinate anxiety of spirit which can only tend to unfit him for calm, elevated, steady testimony. The messenger of God should ever remember whose message he bears. When Zacharias said to the angel, "Whereby shall I know this?" was the latter perturbed by the question? Not in the least. His calm, dignified reply was, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings." (Luke i. 18, 19.) The angel rises before the doubting mortal, with a keen and exquisite sense of the dignity of his message. It is as if he would say, How can you doubt, when a messenger has actually been dispatched from the very presence-chamber of the Majesty of heaven? Thus should every messenger of God, in his measure, go forth, and, in this spirit, deliver his message.
CHAPTERS V. & VI.
The effect of the first appeal to Pharaoh seemed aught but encouraging. The thought of losing Israel made him clutch them with greater eagerness and watch them with greater vigilance. Whenever Satan's power becomes narrowed to a point, his rage increases. Thus it is here. The furnace is about to be quenched by the hand of redeeming love; but ere it is, it blazes forth with greater fierceness and intensity. The devil does not like to let go any one whom he has had in his terrible grasp. He is "a strong man armed," and while he "keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace." But, blessed be God, there is "a stronger than he," who has taken from him "his armor wherein he trusted," and divided the spoils among the favored objects of His everlasting love.
"And afterward, Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh,—'Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.'" (Chap. v. 1.) Such was Jehovah's message to Pharaoh. He claimed full deliverance for the people on the ground of their being His, and in order that they might hold a feast unto Him in the wilderness. Nothing can ever satisfy God in reference to His elect, but their entire emancipation from the yoke of bondage. "Loose him and let him go" is really the grand motto in God's gracious dealings with those who, though held in bondage by Satan, are nevertheless the objects of His eternal love.
When we contemplate Israel amid the brick-kilns of Egypt, we behold a graphic figure of the condition of every child of Adam by nature. There they were, crushed beneath the enemy's galling yoke, and having no power to deliver themselves. The mere mention of the word liberty only caused the oppressor to bind his captives with a stronger fetter, and to lade them with a still more grievous burden. It was absolutely necessary that deliverance should come from without. But from whence was it to come! Where were the resources to pay their ransom? or where was the power to break their chains? And even were there both the one and the other, where was the will? Who would take the trouble of delivering them? Alas! there was no hope, either within or around. They had only to look up. Their refuge was in God. He had both the power and the will. He could accomplish a redemption both by price and by power. In Jehovah, and in Him alone, was there salvation for ruined and oppressed Israel.
Thus it is in every case. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts iv. 12.) The sinner is in the hands of one who rules him with despotic power. He is "sold under sin"—"led captive by Satan at his will" fast bound in the fetters of lust, passion, and temper,—"without strength," "without hope," "without God." Such is the sinner's condition. How, then, can he help himself? What can he do? He is the slave of another, and everything he does is done in the capacity of a slave. His thoughts, his words, his acts, are the thoughts, words, and acts of a slave. Yea, though he should weep and sigh for emancipation, his very tears and sighs are the melancholy proofs of his slavery. He may struggle for freedom; but his very struggle, though it evinces a desire for liberty, is the positive declaration of his bondage.
Nor is it merely a question of the sinner's condition; his very nature is radically corrupt—wholly under the power of Satan. Hence he not only needs to be introduced into a new condition, but also to be endowed with a new nature. The nature and the condition go together. If it were possible for the sinner to better his condition, what would it avail so long as his nature was irrecoverable bad? A nobleman might take a beggar off the streets and adopt him; he might endow him with a noble's wealth, and set him in a noble's position; but he could not impart to him nobility of nature; and thus the nature of a beggarman would never be at home in the condition of a nobleman. There must be a nature to suit the condition; and there must be a condition to suit the capacity, the desires, the affections, and the tendencies of the nature.
Now, in the gospel of the grace of God, we are taught that the believer is introduced into an entirely new condition; that he is no longer viewed as in his former state of guilt and condemnation, but as in a state of perfect and everlasting justification; that the condition in which God now sees him is not only one of full pardon, but it is such that infinite holiness cannot find so much as a single stain. He has been taken out of his former condition of guilt, and placed absolutely and eternally in a new condition of unspotted righteousness. It is not, by any means, that his old condition is improved. This is utterly impossible. "That which is crooked cannot be made straight." "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" Nothing can be more opposed to the fundamental truth of the gospel than the theory of a gradual improvement in the sinner's condition. He is born in a certain condition, and until he is "born again" he cannot be in any other. He may try to improve, he may resolve to be better for the future—to "turn over a new leaf"—to live a different sort of life; but, all the while, he has not moved a single hair's breadth out of his real condition as a sinner. He may become "religious," as it is called,—he may try to pray, he may diligently attend to ordinances, and exhibit an appearance of moral reform; but none of these things can, in the smallest degree, affect his positive condition before God.
The case is precisely similar as to the question of nature. How can a man alter his nature? He may make it undergo a process, he may try to subdue it—to place it under discipline; but it is nature still. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." There must be a new nature as well as a new condition. And how is this to be had? By believing God's testimony concerning His Son. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 12, 13.) Here we learn that those who believe on the name of the only begotten Son of God, have the right or privilege of being sons of God. They are made partakers of a new nature: they have gotten eternal life.—"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John iii. 36.).—"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John v. 24.).—"And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3.).—"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life." (1 John v. 11, 12.)