Exodus 5:20,21

Ye have made our savour to be abhorred.

Lessons

1. Sense of evil from tyrants may make the oppressed fall foul with their best friends.

2. Providence orders His servants sometimes to meet with friends after sad usage by oppressors.

3. Ministers of salvation wait to meet God’s afflicted, when they looked not after them.

4. Instruments of deliverance may desire a good egress of the oppressed from tyrants, and not find it (Exodus 5:20).

5. Sense overcharged with oppression may make men reproach God and curse His ministers.

6. Unbelieving souls are ready to set God against His own word, and instruments sent by Him.

7. Hasty unbelievers under cross providences are ready to charge the cause upon God’s ministers.

8. It is the lot of God’s instruments of life, to be charged to be causes of death, by foolish souls.

9. Such unreasonable charges are recorded to the shame of such brutish creatures (Exodus 5:21). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Ministers blamed

There was no other to lay the blame upon; and so they charge their trouble upon Moses and Aaron. “If you had not come we should have plodded along in our bondage, bearing it as best we could; but you came and raised our hopes, not only to dash them down, but to make our already hard lot more bitter and unbearable.” They were angry, apparently not with Pharaoh, but with God’s ministers. I have heard it said, that most sinners who have been aroused out of the sleep and death of sin “wake up mad.” Indeed, I am quite sure that this is often the case. I remember the case of a man who came to me at one of our meetings in America. He was in the greatest distress of mind, fairly frantic with the conviction of sin, and with the terror of conscience working mightily under the law. At the same time he was bitterly angry with Mr. Moody, who had preceded me in those meetings, and also with me. With a terrible oath he said: “I wish to God you and Moody had never come to this city, and begun these--Gospel meetings. Before you came and began to preach I had no trouble. I used to go to church regularly on Sunday morning; but I was not troubled about my sins. What a fool I was ever to come into this rink! I have had no peace day or night since I first heard Moody preach. And you have been making it worse. You talk of peace and joy; but you have turned my soul into a perfect hell. I cannot stay away from the meetings; and to come to them only makes me worse. You promise salvation; and I only find torment. I wish to God you would clear out and leave the city; and then perhaps I could get back my old peace. If this is religion, I am sure I do not want any of it.” And thus he raved and tore about like a madman. The devil was giving him a great tearing; and he could not distinguish between what the devil and his sin were doing in him, and the grace that was even then loosing him. Let us not be discouraged or surprised if the first effect of our preaching, or labour with souls, seems to make matters worse. “I am a lost soul,” cried George Whitefield’s brother, one day, while sitting at table with Lady Huntingdon, his brother, and some other earnest Christians who were talking of the things of the Kingdom. “Thank God for that,” cried Lady Huntingdon; “for now I am sure the Lord has begun a good work in you.” Conviction of sin, and the struggle of the old man to get out of the grip of God’s law, are not pleasant experiences; but they precede conversion. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)