Cowards and slaves! The thing they feared above all, you see, was death. If they could but keep the miserable life in their miserable bodies, they cared for nothing beyond. They were willing to see their children taken from them and murdered, willing to be beaten, worked like dumb beasts for other men’s profit, willing to be
idolaters, heathens, worshipping the false gods of Egypt, dumb beasts and stocks and stones, willing to be despised, wretched, helpless slaves—if they could but keep the dear life in them. God knows there are plenty like them now-a-days—plenty who do not care how mean, helpless, wicked, contemptible they are, if they can but get their living by their meanness.
“But a man must live,” says some one. How often one hears that made the excuse for all sorts of meanness, dishonesty, grasping tyranny. “A man must live!” Who told you that? It is better to die like a man than to live like a slave, and a wretch, and a sinner. Who told you that, I ask again? Not God’s Bible, surely. Not the example of great and good men. If Moses had thought that, do you think he would have gone back from Midian, when he was in safety and comfort, with a wife and home, and children at his knee, and leave all he had on earth to face Pharaoh and the Egyptians, to face danger, perhaps a cruel death in shame and torture, and all to deliver his countrymen out of Egypt? Moses would sooner die like a man helping his countrymen, than live on the fat of the land while they were slaves. And forty years before he had shown the same spirit too, when though he was rich and prosperous, and high in the world, the adopted son of King Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus ii. 11), he disdained to be a slave and to see his countrymen slaves round him. We read how he killed an Egyptian, who was ill-treating one of his brothers, the Jews—and how he then fled out of Egypt into Midian, houseless and friendless, esteeming as St. Paul says, “the reproach of Christ”—that is the affliction and ill-will which came on him for doing right, “better than all the treasures of Egypt” (Heb xi. 24-27).
A man must live? The valiant Tyrolese of old did not say that (more than seventy years ago), when they fought to the last drop of their blood to defend their country against the French invaders. They were not afraid to die for liberty; and therefore they won honour from all honourable men, praise from all whose praise is worth having for ever.
A man must live? The old Greeks and Romans, heathens though they were, were above so mean a speech as that. They used to say, it was the noblest thing that can befall a man to die—not to live in clover, eating and drinking at his ease—to die among the foremost, fighting for wife and child and home.
A man must live? The martyrs of old did not say that, when they endured the prison and the scourge, the sword and the fire, and chose rather to die in torments unspeakable than deny the Lord Jesus who bought them with His blood, rather than do what they knew to be wrong. (Hebrews xi.) They were not afraid of torture and death; but of doing wrong they were unspeakably afraid. They were free, those holy men of old, truly free—free from their own love of ease and cowardice and selfishness, and all that drags a man down and makes a slave of him. They knew that “life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment.” What matter if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Their souls were free whatever happened to their bodies—the tormentor could not touch them, because they believed in God, because they did not fear those who could kill the body, and after that had no more that they could do.
And do you not see that a coward can never be free, never be godly, never be like Christ? For by a coward
I mean not merely a man who is afraid of pain and trouble. Every one is that more or less. Jesus Himself was afraid when He cried in agony, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke xxii. 42.) But a coward is a man who is so much afraid that to escape pain and danger, he will do what he ought not—do what he is ashamed of doing—do what lowers him; and therefore our Lord Jesus had perfect courage when He tasted death for all men, and endured the very agony from which He shrank, and while He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass,” said also, “Nevertheless not my will, but Thine, be done.”
The Jews were cowards when they cried, “Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians.” While a man is in that pitiful mood he cannot rise, he cannot serve God—for he must remain the slave of his own body, of which he is so mightily careful, the slave of his own fears, the slave of his own love of bodily comfort. Such a man does not dare serve God. He dare not obey God, when obeying God is dangerous and unpleasant. He dare not claim his heavenly birthright, his share in God’s Spirit, his share in Christ’s kingdom, because that would bring discomfort on him, because he will have to give up the sins he loves, because he will have to endure the insults and ill-will of wicked men. Thus cowards can never be free, for it is only where the Spirit of God is that there is liberty.
But the Jews were not yet fit to be made soldiers of. God would not teach them at once not to be afraid of men. He did not command them to turn again and fight these Egyptians, neither did He lead them into the land of Canaan the strait and short road, through the