11 DOUBLE TROUBLE

It would be nice if we could say that it is highly exceptional that the Israelites Moses was called to deliver and whom he sought to serve by obeying God’s instructions, would turn so quickly against the very one that was trying to make things better for them. And this was with such strong complaints and expressions of discontent against him. That would be nice, but that would not be true. It is often the case that the leader is targeted when plans go awry. The helper is accused. The deliverer is attacked. So, hopefully, in this lesson we will be able to learn what a godly leader should do when this happens.

It was a great difficulty the Hebrew head-workmen were in, when they must either unfairly abuse those that were under them or be unfairly abused themselves by those who were over them. Would they rather tyrannize or be tyrannized? Would they bear down harder on others or risk themselves being born down on harder? In this case we see the Israelite foremen were caught between these two difficult choices. Verse 19 says, “The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, ‘You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.’”

The complaint with which they addressed Pharaoh was legitimate. With less provision or supplies than they had been receiving, they were now required to produce the same as their previous quota. Verse 15 says, “Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: ‘Why have you treated your servants this way?’” Where could they go with their expressions of grievances but to the supreme power, which is, under normal circumstances, ordained for the protection of the injured? As bad as Pharaoh was his oppressed subjects evidently felt they still had liberty to complain to him or the courage to complain even without permission. Evidently there was no law against petitioning or they would have been punished more harshly than they were. The request was a modest, but moving, representation that they made to their superiors of their condition as verse 16 says, “Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.” It was an unfair situation. People today too struggle in unfair and difficult circumstances. Some of these are private persons, some public, individuals or collective groups, some general and some specific. People today struggle too and look to Christian leaders for help. In the case of the Israeli slaves it is the unfair demands of the task-masters, who deny them what is necessary for carrying on their work. In today’s case, taxes (sometimes, but not all taxes are necessarily bad), laws, persecutions, criticisms, diseases, anti-Christian sentiment, jealousy and demon-inspired hatred and bitterness that for some people creates a situation in which people need leadership, comfort, healing, relief, protection, deliverance or guidance. Jesus told us in John 16:33 that in the world we would have trouble, but that we are not to fear because He has over come the world. He said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” This promise is the basis for our belief that the Christian leader today, another Moses in our generation, can prayerfully set slaves free as Moses did in his day. It is possible to compare our contemporary situation with the Hebrew slaves even if theirs was more extreme or concrete than today’s abstract troubles. They could not escape their difficulties and neither can folks today. At the end of this lesson we will identify several specific types of slavery that bind people in our day. We can set them free through the authority of the name of Jesus.

It is difficult to live in this world. There are problems even for those who do comparatively well. Yet those in authority blame the common people just as Pharaoh and his Egyptian officers blamed the Hebrews. It is often the case that those who are most rigorous in blaming others are actually the most blameworthy themselves. But what did the Israeli slaves get by their complaint? It only made bad worse. Pharaoh taunted them as verse 17 indicates, “Pharaoh said, ‘Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, “Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.”’” When they were almost killed with working, he told them they were idle: they underwent the fatigue of work, and yet lay under the unfair charge of slothfulness. Nothing appears to be a basis for this accusation except that they say, we want to go and worship our God. It sometimes happens that the best actions to be mentioned come under the worst of names in the mouths of our opponents or antagonists. Nothing is more important than obedient worship and yet some are criticized for doing it. Here is holy diligence in the best possible business, worship, yet it is censured by many as a blamable carelessness in the business of the world. It is well for us that men are not our judges, but a God who knows the principles on which we act is. Those that are diligent in doing sacrifice to the Lord will, with God, eventually escape the doom of the slothful servant, even though, with men, they do not escape this and other false accusations. Pharaoh added to their burdens: Go now and work, recorded in verse 18, “Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.” Wickedness proceeds from the wicked; what can be expected from unrighteous men but more unrighteousness? So these slaves are a demonstration of today’s slaves, experiencing a compounding of their troubles. This double trouble is hard to bear, but if the Christian will rise to the challenge and win inJesus’ name, the double trouble can become a double victory.

We can also see in this narrative how unfairly the Hebrew slaves complained of Moses and Aaron. They say in verse 21, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” This was not fair. Moses and Aaron had given sufficient evidence of their sincere intention for the liberty of the Israeli slaves and yet, because Moses and Aaron were not immediately successful as the slaves had hoped, they are criticized as accessaries to their slavery. The slaves might have humbled themselves before God, and taken to themselves the shame of their sin, which turned away good things from them; but no. Instead of this, they fly in the face of their best friends, and quarrel with the instruments of their deliverance, because of the difficulties and obstructions they met with in trying to give them the very deliverance they needed and wanted. Christian leader, those that are called out to public service for God and their generation must expect to be tried, not only by the malicious threats of proud enemies, but also by the unjust and unkind censures of unthinking friends. These “friends” judge only by outward appearance and look only a little ways ahead of them.

Here is a major truth in this lesson. Now what did Moses do in this impossible situation? It surely grieved Moses and Aaron to the heart that the anticipated deliverance was not quickly accomplished. Pharaoh’s and the Hebrews’ responses rather contradict Moses’ expectation. Their refusal and criticisms are unquestionably very cutting. They are like a sword in their bones. What did Moses do? He returned to the Lord. Yes. Yes. Yes. “Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me?’” (22) We must learn to do what Moses did. We must deflect the refusals and accusations and throw them on the Lord, to pass the case on to God. Moses knew that what he had said and done was by divine direction and that therefore any blame laid on him for it he considers a charge against God. Moses laid the matter out before the Lord God. Jeremiah also did this as we see in Jeremiah 10:7-9, “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” When we find ourselves, at any time, perplexed and embarrassed in the way of our duty, we ought to make our appeal directly, sincerely and humbly to God, and lay open our case before Him by faithful and fervent prayer. If we retreat, let us retreat to Him, and no further.

Moses frankly and candidly presented his grief to God. Verses 22, 23 say, “Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.’” Moses did not know how to reconcile the revealed good plan with the disappointing result; the commission he had received with the outcome he experienced. Is this God’s coming down to deliver Israel? Must I, who hoped to be a blessing to the Hebrew slaves, become a scourge to them? By this attempt to get them out of the pit, they are only sunk the deeper into it. You and I experience this too. We must do what Moses did. Return to the Lord in prayer. Even when God is coming towards His people in paths of mercy, He sometimes takes such detours that make us think we are being temporarily mistreated instead of blessed or set free. The instruments of deliverance, when they aim to help, seem to hinder. What we had hoped would be an improvement leading upward becomes a trap dragging us downward. God allows this so we will learn to not expect so much from man, secondary causes, and trust more in God who is the first cause, the Original Source, the Prime Mover and Fountain of all blessings. When the people of God think themselves ill-treated, they should go to God by earnest and persevering prayer, and plead with Him. That is the way to have better treatment in God’s good time.

We see that Moses asks a question. I do not know if it is a rhetorical question or a real question. “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people?” Moses is open with God. He complains of his poor success as though to say, Pharaoh has done evil to this people, and not one step seems to be taken towards their deliverance. It cannot but become a very heavy burden on the man or woman of God whom God employs, for him or her to see their labour does no good, and much more to see that it appears to be even counterproductive. It is not pleasant for a good minister to perceive that his or her efforts for men’s conviction, conversion or freedom only exasperate their problems and harden their hearts. We can well understand the sentiments of Ezekiel who, in his zeal for God was placed in an adversarial relationship with the leadership of Israel as wrote in Ezekiel 3:14, “The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me.” Moses seems to be asking what was further to be done. Why have you sent me? What other method can I use to fulfill my commission?” This kind of thing happens to Christian leaders. We cannot help but consider why we are sent. Yet the disappointments in our work must not drive us from God, but rather to Him with ever more tenacity.

What about the enslaved to whom we are sent as deliverers? In his teaching about false teachers and their eventual destruction, Peter tells us in 2 Peter 2:19 what people are slaves to—to what people are enslaved. “They (the false teachers) promise them (other people) freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” The important part of that verse that applies to our efforts to set people free from whatever enslaves them today is the last phrase, “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” Different people are mastered by different things. We need to try to discern what it is that is enslaving individuals and pray that each will be delivered from that specific thing, whatever it is. Of course, there are more than the things in this short list, but here is a sample of the sort of the things that have mastered some. People today are slaves to any of the following things. If any of these are an idol, more important to a person than God is, then it has mastered him or her when he or she should master it: Career, money, possessions, physical pleasures, food, recreational pleasures, popularity and pornography.

By the power of the Holy Spirit and with God’s encouragement and Moses’ example, move to make the double trouble you and those around you face into a double victory.