It is by his perfect surrender that our true Exodus was accomplished.
At the close of Exodus 4, there is a sense of momentum in the narrative that’s almost palpable. Moses’s calling was clear; Aaron, his brother, was with him, and the very words of the Lord were on their lips. Everything was going swimmingly, so much so that you half expected Moses and Aaron to trounce into Pharaoh’s court and lead their comrades out of Egypt that same afternoon! Of course, that’s not what happened, as the Hebrew brothers run into a brick wall known as “Pharaoh’s Stubbornness” (Exod. 5:1-9). Whatever they had hoped to accomplish that day, the opposite occurred. Instead of rejoicing in the liberation of their people, the situation worsens for them. Things in Egypt go from bad to worse, as the hearts of God’s people become unbearably heavy, weighed down by back-breaking burdens and broken dreams.
Prior to Israel’s epoch-making exodus, they endured an intense season of scrutiny, suffering, and disappointment, which, no doubt, gave everyone pause. This isn’t unfamiliar territory for us, either. We’ve all been there when the bitter reality of what is goes against what we expected — friends break up with us, jobs are lost, opportunities are snatched away, health fails, loved ones betray us, and prayers seem to go unanswered. And yet, despite this cocktail of burdens and disappointments, God’s people are never left bereft of hope. Indeed, the hope to which the church clings is that dashed expectations, harsh experiences, and hollow excuses are eclipsed by the faithfulness of the Lord, who does for his people what they could never do for themselves.
1. When God’s Plan Feels Like Failure
During Moses and Aaron’s first audience with Pharaoh, the Egyptian king pays no heed to Moses’s word, nor to his God. He outright dismisses any knowledge of the “God of the Hebrews” (Exod. 5:2), and, instead, sees the request to be let go as proof that the Israelites don’t have enough work to do (Exod. 5:4). The only reason they’re begging for a reprieve is because they’ve slacked off too much (Exod. 5:8). This, of course, is “Dictatorship 101.” Totalitarian regimes thrive off an overburdened workforce, where commoners don’t have the time, nor the energy to organize a resistance.
Hearing Moses’s request stirred Pharaoh to implement a new labor policy, which said that all the brick makers would now have to supply their own raw materials to make the bricks. Brick-masons had to pull a double shift as foragers, all while churning out the same amount of bricks per day. The daily quota didn’t dip; the working conditions just got much more demanding, so much so that Israel’s foremen were being openly accosted (Exod. 5:10–14). Pharaoh’s new terms were quite literally impossible, but even after hearing the foremen’s protests, he wouldn’t budge (Exod. 5:15–16). Instead, he doubled down on his new policy. “You are idle, you are idle,” he seethed, “that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ Go now and work. No straw will be given you, but you must still deliver the same number of bricks” (Exod. 5:17–18).
It’s in moments when our expectations are left in shards on the floor that, like Moses, we’re prone to despair and unbelief.
The Hebrew foremen knew they were in trouble, so they looked for someone to blame, eventually pinning everything on Moses and his brother (Exod. 5:19–21). In a planned, hostile ambush, the foremen pounce on Moses and Aaron and curse them to their faces: “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh!” We should be just as perplexed as Moses surely was by this development. After all, just prior to this, Israel was singing God’s praises at Moses’s return and his revelation that the Lord was speaking again (Exod. 4:31). Now, they’re wondering why Moses ever opened his mouth at all, leaving Moses to ask the same question. “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people?” he inquires. “Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all” (Exod. 5:22–23).
Moses is completely baffled by this turn of events, seeing it as validation of all his previous fears (Exod. 4:1, 10, 13). “See, God, I told you I wasn’t the right man for this! Why did you ever send me? Why did you make me come back here? Why aren’t you doing what you said you were going to do?” This is a crisis of faith, one that stems from having his expectations dashed. Moses’s triumph turned into an utter failure, which undoubtedly left him confused, frustrated, and depressed, all at once. How could this be what God meant? How was this part of his plan? Is God there? Can I really trust him? It’s in moments when our expectations are left in shards on the floor that, like Moses, we’re prone to despair and unbelief.
But the point is that these will always be the outcomes when we cling to the wrong expectations. After all, what did God actually tell Moses? Did he assure him of smooth sailing? Of an exodus free from obstacles? Well, no; God told him that this would be a task full of difficulty (Exod. 3:19; 4:21). Pharaoh’s resistance, and the suffering that ensued, shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. What is surprising, though, is God’s response to his perplexed servant (Exod. 6:1–5).
Intriguingly, God neither answers Moses nor rebukes him. Instead of answering Moses’s “why” with reasons or explanations, the Lord reminds him who he is and what he has promised to do. “I am Yahweh,” he declares, “the God of your fathers, the God who makes and keeps his covenant, forever.”
Although he may not give us the answers we want, he always gives us the assurance we need.
All too often, we are thrown into disarray when life doesn’t unfold as we expected it would. We’re doing all the right things (or so we think), and we’re still in turmoil. We’re doing our best to live faithfully, but we’re still struggling, still suffering. God’s words are meant to prepare us for this reality so we’re not surprised or put off by it (1 Thess. 3:3–4; 1 Pet. 4:12). Those who belong to God were never promised a life of smooth sailing, free from brokenness, heartbreak, and confusion. But we were promised that even when our expectations collapse and crumble around us, our God won’t change, and he has never been one to back out on a promise. Although he may not give us the answers we want, he always gives us the assurance we need.
2. Patience for Those Who Are Broken
One of the prevailing themes of Scripture, and life itself, for that matter, is the patience of God. Some translations render this as being “long-suffering,” which is apt since that term captures just how much he puts up with. He suffers our unbelief, our failure, our betrayal, and our tired refusal to trust his words. After seeing this on full display in Moses’s reluctance to go along with God’s plans, now we are shown God’s patience on a national scale, as the people of God refuse to listen to Moses. Despite Moses bringing the words of the promise-making and promise-keeping God to them, those who were praising the Lord (Exod. 4:31) were now plugging their ears to his words (Exod. 6:9).
This up-and-down allegiance is a recurring motif that persists throughout the rest of the Old Testament. But what’s noteworthy is the reason for their unbelief — namely, “because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery” (Exod. 6:9). This is where it’d probably be helpful to put yourself in their sandals as much as possible. You’ve been a slave as long as you can remember. You used to hear old stories about some guy named Abraham, and all the promises he was given, but you’re not so sure about any of that now. There was this dude, Moses, who popped up briefly, before vanishing for forty years, who’s back now, talking to Pharaoh and making things so much worse. Would you be inclined to put any stock in what he was telling you? Humanly speaking, I can understand their crestfallen reaction.
Nevertheless, the collective sentiment of the people declined to believe in Moses, which is effectively the same as refusing to believe in God. They just couldn’t get past what they were experiencing. They couldn’t see beyond the anguish, cruelty, persecution, and adversity they were enduring. And who can blame them? Isn’t that just like us? While we aren’t enslaved in Egypt, we do know what it’s like to be broken in spirit. We know what it feels like when life’s hardships seem to deepen; when the bills start piling up after things already feel tight; when the water pipe busts the same week you lose your job and your car breaks down. The malice of suffering often gets us to fixate on our circumstances, to the point where we grow so consumed by what’s going wrong that we begin to doubt what God has said.
God’s great consolation to us is what he will do for us.
But even so, this is where we ought to be blown away by God’s patience, especially after what he tells Moses. “I am the Lord,” he reminds him, “tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you” (Exod. 6:28–29; 6:2, 6, 7, 8). God’s promises stay the same:
I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exod. 6:5–7).
“I know what you’re experiencing,” we might render God’s words. “I know what you’re going through. But I am the Lord, and my grace goes further than your misery. My word is for you, even still, even in your suffering.” God’s great consolation to us is what he will do for us. Rather than denying, downplaying, or dismissing our painful circumstances, he utters his Word over us, re-anchoring us, not in what we feel, but in who he is, the one who is with us and for us. Even when our circumstances scream otherwise, God keeps speaking the same faithful words to us: I have and I will.
3. God’s Grace Is Greater
I wish I could tell you that after all this, Moses was a different man. But I can’t. Even after everything he saw and heard, he still had his doubts. “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me,” Moses protests. “How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” (Exod. 6:10–12, 28–30). If this feels like déjà vu, that’s because it’s the same excuse from earlier (Exod. 4:10). As steely-eyed and steadfast as we often paint Moses to be, he appears so fickle and faithless here. He’s petrified of what’s being asked of him, and he is grasping at straws to avoid his calling. All he can see is how limited and inadequate he is. His own countrymen weren’t listening to him, so why would things be any different with the highest authority in the land?
Although we might understand and even sympathize with his excuses, we have to see them for what they are. After all, these excuses do nothing but shrink the power of God down to the size of his own limitations, as if God can only work within the margins of Moses’s ability to be confident, strong, or eloquent. We’re just like Moses, hiding behind our excuses. God remains unbothered by all of this, refusing even to entertain Moses’s justifications for why he shouldn’t be the one to go before Pharaoh. Instead, the Lord rehearses his call to him (Exod. 7:1–7).
As Moses hears all the things God assures him he will do, he is being reminded that this plan was never about him nor what he was capable of. The promise to bring the people of Israel wasn’t riding on his shoulders, let alone his lips. “Moses, this was never about your mouth,” God seems to say. “This has always been about me and my Word. I know you can’t do this. I never said you could. But I can, and I always said I would.” If there were any doubts before, the Lord makes it clear that Israel’s impending deliverance would only come through “great acts of judgment” (Exod. 6:6; 7:4), which is just to say, only by divine intervention. God isn’t waiting around for perfect people who will see his will through because they don’t exist. Moses was no superhero; he wasn’t selected for his impressiveness or any of his intrinsic qualities. He was a weak, flawed human being just like us (cf. Exod. 6:14–25). And it is precisely in and through weak and flawed human beings that God has decided to unfold his flawless promises (Exod. 6:26–27).
As we commune with God through the Word and the Spirit, he frees us to relinquish our excuses, knowing that there is no excuse that can eclipse the grace and faithfulness of God for us. And if we ever doubt that, we need only look to the One who never flinched, never faltered, and never failed to do the Father’s will. Faced with a fate infinitely worse than the wrath of Pharaoh, Jesus prayed: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Where we resist surrender or surrender imperfectly, Christ yields himself fully to the Father’s plan, obeying all the way, even “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). It is by his perfect surrender that our true Exodus was accomplished. Through him, our slavery to sin is severed, as he redeems us through outstretched nail-scarred arms that are pegged to a cross for us. Thus, when our expectations collapse around us, when our experiences overwhelm us, and when our excuses pile high, we look to Jesus, the obedient Son who surrendered everything for us, whose faithfulness covers our failure, whose obedience becomes our righteousness, and through whom we are forever set free.
