“You shall have,’ ” Bays he, “two or three days of rest, to serve your God, but it must be in this land.” “Nay,” says Moses, “We cannot serve our God in this land, we must go forth into the wilderness.” Pharaoh bids them begone. Pharaoh gives way a little for, if he must yield, it must be by degrees. He raised up Moses, and he sent him in with this message to Pharaoh, “Thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me.” Pharaoh laughs at it “Ye are idle,” saith he, “ye are idle, ye shall not go.” A plague at once is God’s answer to Pharaoh’s laughter he turns their water into blood, and the fish that was in the river died. He saw their affliction, he heard their cry, he knew their sorrows, and he determined, with his own bare arm, to be avenged on Pharaoh, and to bring out all his people, the seed of Jacob, from their house of bondage. At last the cry of the people went up to their God in heaven. He subjected them to the most rigorous tasks they worked under the whip continually, and had to make bricks without straw, the hardest possible exaction that even a tyrant could have imagined.
Probably they were employed in building many of those mighty piles, the pyramids, which now stand upon the plains of Egypt. In mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service of the field, did he make them to serve with rigour. He made their lives bitter with hard bondage. He began to oppress the people, but the more he oppressed them, the more they increased. They had multiplied exceedingly, they had been favourably treated by succeeding kings, till at length a new king arose who knew not Joseph. You will remember that the quarrel was on this wise-God had sent his people into Egypt in the olden times, there to dwell in the land of Goshen. Pharaoh, as an absolute monarch, is permitted to go to the utmost degree of hardness of heart, and yet the Lord would show to all coming generations that his decrees shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure.
He did indeed raise up Pharaoh for this purpose, that he might show forth his power in him. On that occasion, God permitted human nature to arrive at its highest degree of stubbornness and obstinacy but he, nevertheless, cowed it, and overcame it. The controversy between Jehovah, the God of the whole earth, and Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was intended to be remembered, and spoken of throughout all generations. “There shall not a hoof be left behind.”- Exodus 10:26
A Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 22nd, 1860, by the REV.
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