PERSEVERE TO VICTORY
Exodus 5:1-10, 20-21
As if by enchantment Moses materialized from Egypt’s shimmering sands: from a forty year exile; resolute in a God-given commission to liberate Israel; performing signs that convinced their elders and the people. Eye-blinding lightning and ear-splitting thunder wouldn’t have dazzled the slaves more. On his promise they pounced, stroking it like a long-lost lover. Jubilation resurrected dreams long since buried by sorrow and unanswered prayer—and with wild expectation they bowed in worship.
Supercharged by success in convincing Israel, Moses and Aaron anticipated a quivering Pharaoh to as readily comply when confronted with God’s ultimatum: LET MY PEOPLE GO! To instead find Pharaoh a drenching Niagara to their erupting Vesuvius. Not only not convinced, but not even impressed. Not only unaware of Israel’s God, but unconcerned about his demands. And not only unfazed by Israel’s drudgery, but hostile to their ecstasy.
From their conflict emerges a classic and still-relevant spiritual truth: obedient discipleship invariably costs before it pays. This is seen in the initial and ultimate results of God’s demand.
A. Note The Initial Cost To Israel
Everything got worse for them, though clearly in the right, and easier for Pharaoh, as clearly in the wrong. Far from emancipating his slaves, and aiming to break their will, he instituted more devastating servitude, and so ruthlessly enforced it that Israel considered Moses a false prophet. He who had seemed all-lion to them proved all-lamb to Pharaoh. The charisma that stimulated them merely amused their master. The man they saw as a rising he viewed as a shooting star.
And, when news came that already back-breaking work would become more degrading, Israel flogged their declared liberators with undisguised scorn. Venting their rage at Pharaoh, they savaged the brothers who dared raise, only to dash their hopes. The misery so long known assassinated the incipient hope Moses momentarily wrenched from despair only to leave them knocking at locked, unopened doors.
No matter that Moses and Aaron pleased with them, urging patience; or exhorted them, encouraging faith. No matter that the brothers guaranteed ultimate freedom from the king’s pulverizing cruelty if Israel persevered in faith.
NO MATTER! Israel’s fragile will broke beneath Pharaoh’s scepter—and they viewed God’s promise as a delusion and the brothers as heartless charlatans. In as somber a mood as the scorn in Pharaoh’s eyes, Moses speculated darkly: he hadn’t wanted to come at all, and knew now he was right; he knew his introspective nature would be a hindrance, and it was. Why, oh why, had God sent him to Egypt to look the imposter to Israel and the fool to Pharaoh? Why had God commissioned him in the desert, with no one present, then failed him in Egypt, before the entire court?
Questions and perplexities that are so real and relevant we can put ourselves in his place.
We note that Peter obeyed Jesus when told to put his nets into deep water, only to make a catch that threatened his boats Luke 5:6-7; and that the disciples obeyed Jesus when told to cross the sea to Capernaum, only to face a storm that threatened their lives Mark 6:43, 48.
That puzzles us. We can understand being corrected when wrong, and disciplined for our sins—but should we suffer when God calls for OBEDIENCE, and we COMPLY?
How often we discover that the powerful spiritual jolts that spin our inner generators merely GROUND and BLOW against other peoples’ obstinance. The convictions that pierce our souls merely RICOCHET off them like arrows off stone.
“If I’m convinced, why aren’t they?” we ask. “If I can see the light, why do they remain in darkness?”
Like Israel, we begin to wonder: should obedience be this difficult? Like Moses, we begin to ask, “God, is obedience worth the price?”
B. Note The Eventual Payment To Israel
Envy Pharaoh before Moses returned to Egypt: his influence as a world statesman; his building programs; his mastery of 2 million slaves. Envy him before Moses returns, for you’ll never envy him again.
Look beyond the first appearance of the lowly slaves before Pharaoh to a year later. Who wants to be Pharaoh then: after God had marched his devastating death march through the Egyptian pantheon, demolishing the nation’s religious infrastructure? Who would be Pharaoh a day AFTER the Exodus, with his personal reputation shattered; his nation a vast mortuary from Memphis to the cataracts; with slaves insolently departing; with his own people begging to stuff their pockets with gold and jewels?
And who would be Pharaoh the day AFTER the battle of the Red Sea, with his troops dead in heaps, and leather-lunged Hebrews on the far shore mocking contemptuously; with Miriam leading those sturdy women as they jangled tambourines and danced among the people, shouting, “The horse and his rider he has cast into the Sea!”
I mean...not even Pharaoh wanted to be Pharaoh THEN.
All this proves a Bible principle: serving God COSTS before it PAYS. Consider Jesus: he told the disciples of Emmaus, Luke 24:26, “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And as Hebrews 12:2 says, “Jesus...for the joy set before him endured the cross.”
Discipleship COSTS before it PAYS, whether it’s God’s emancipating proclamation for Israel, or ours from sin. That’s the point of this message—and it’s a truth we know but don’t welcome because it makes demands where we seek privileges. Particularly in our risk-averse society, where we find it difficult to reconcile ourselves to misfortune; where stocks should always go higher; where sickness happens only to unbelievers; where flat tires occur only if you’re nasty. Indeed, we think that intelligence and industry should be compensated, not penalized—and that goodness should be rewarded, not punished.
Only in our dreams. We cannot expect to effortlessly RETAIN in our generation what our fathers WON in theirs by the surrender of safety, comfort and life itself. God’s spiritual warfare against the fortress of self-will palisaded in human hearts will be successful, but not without casualties in the troops storming its ramparts. In Luther’s scolding words, when our Lord wore a crown of thorns, we can’t expect to wear only a crown of roses.
The price necessary to doing God’s will intimidates Christians. And Satan knows how to insinuate pain as an unacceptable price for any service rendered, particularly as he promises pleasure. And besides, he taunts us…we can’t succeed against him because we’re too frail and inconsistent, so why not submit and get onboard with him?
How vastly he underrates God’s presence in his people. Those afflicted with hemophilia tread softly everywhere, and avoid the bump and bruise that can produce a fatal hemorrhage. Thanks to Czarina Alexandra’s obsession with the clerical catastrophe Gregori Rasputin, that affliction helped dismantle the 300 year old Romanov dynasty in Russia.
But Christians aren’t spiritual hemophiliacs, who bleed to death once nicked in Christian service. What history and contemporary events prove is that any suffering experienced in defense of Christianity expands Christianity, whether it’s in Turkey, China, Indonesia, Asia or America. You name the place where Christians lose their jobs, experience illegal searches and lawsuits, go to jail and shed their blood, and THAT’S a place with a vigorous, overcoming discipleship that’s battering down Satanic strongholds.
In unrepentant ferocity Satan gluts his revenge on those who dare to serve God, but in unimpeachable conquest God triumphs and Satan loses. In every generation evil hates God, loves the flesh and exalts human wisdom, but it cannot dominate the spiritual life. Opposition may obstruct the Christian faith, but Jesus Christ inevitably overcomes. Indeed, beyond that, in even the darkest time, God promises enrichment to any person persevering through hardship.
Consider Moses. After a luxuriant 40 years, he experienced the unforgiving desert; after the indulgence of refined, perfumed ladies in palaces, a pungent shepherdess in a tent; after the vanity of rulers, politics and the court, a barren mountain and a few sheep.
Yet, that exile saved him. It incinerated the pleasure on which his youth gorged. He became the colossus of Sinai by having been the expatriate in Sinai.
That’s the ongoing challenge for us: look past the burdens of discipleship to the benefits they provide. Learn to love the cost as much as the purchase. Learn to sing, “nearer by God, to thee, even if it be a cross that raiseth me!” Learn to sing, “Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure, by the cross are sanctified!”
God calls us to look beyond the immediate burdens to the ultimate pleasures of discipleship; to overlook its costs by concentrating on its rewards. Obey God’s will, even when it’s hard; refuse disobedience or compromise, even when it’s easy. Righteous eventually succeeds and evil eventually fails. Christians sometimes do good, and nothing but bad happens, so they conclude that goodness doesn’t pay. The unsaved do wrong, and nothing but good happens, so they conclude that evil doesn’t cost. Untrue on both accounts. Evil costs and righteousness pays, though neither may be immediately evident.
God calls us to a victorious, not to a pampered life. He calls us to live precariously in a hostile environment, not safely in a hot-house. He makes us oaks in the woods, not pansies in flower-pots; spiritual Charles Atlas’, not 100 pound weaklings. Let’s get our faith out into the world and GROW! Pay the price for believing in Christ who is All Alone, and by himself, the Sole hope and Savior of mankind.
In closing. God’s promise of victory is for us. If we’re contemplating a decision for Christ but fearful of its cost; if we’re in Christ but personally frustrated or depressed; if we’re afraid of life and no longer TRY; if our faith has grown cold and formal and God isn’t as real as he once was; if we have trouble looking past the pleasure of temptation to its torment; if we have trouble forgiving someone; if we’re convinced that goodness is on the scaffold while evil is on the throne; if we can’t reconcile the Cost of discipleship with its Value.
Whatever it is that challenges our Christian service, Christ’s light shines: if we persevere through the cost, we’ll reap the benefits of discipleship. Success, not failure, is our destiny. An overcoming, not a defeated or compromised life, is our destiny. Don’t go on living in dark despair when Jesus shines that light in your soul.
In November 1620, a hundred men, women and children landed on Plymouth Rock. By the spring of 1621, fifty of them had died. Yet, when the Mayflower returned to England that summer, NONE of the survivors sailed with her. One of the Puritan leaders said, “It is not with us, as with men whom SMALL THINGS CAN DISCOURAGE.” From such confidence in God came a colony that exercised enormous moral and religious influence in building this nation.
Let God’s people say with them, “It is not with us to mourn the cost when we can celebrate the benefits of discipleship.” Let us shun short-term deceit for long-term integrity. Let us scorn any immediate victory that could one day be a defeat. Knowing that salvation is by grace while discipleship is by works, let us refuse to weigh obedience against cost or to let the degree of pain suffered, or the amount of gain received, determine our involvement in discipleship.
Let us not cravenly ask WHY? when called to suffer for obedience. Let us instead heroically ask, WHY NOT? And go beyond that to ask, WHY NOT embrace the cost of discipleship and let God use it for his purpose and my benefit? The first question makes us useless; the second makes us better; but only the third makes us victorious. Why would we settle for useless when we can be better—and why settle for better when we can be VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN servants?
I Peter 2:19-20 affirms the experience of Israel in Egypt. The whole Bible affirms both. Satan can harm us, but he cannot overcome us. As believers we must trust the latter to successfully endure the former. We must willingly accept pain to be worthy of a Savior who accepted death.
In 13th century England, banishment to the Continent meant the expatriate had to immediately hurry to the nearest port and embark on the first ship. If none was available, for as many days until one sailed, the banished had to strip to his underwear each day and wade into the Channel up to his chin, to prove he intended to leave.
Christian service occasionally MAY NOT involve hardship; but we must WADE into obedience up to our chins to prove we’re willing to SERVE if it does. Since Jesus didn’t count the cost before he came, we can’t consider the cost before we serve. Only IF we chance the FIRE and FLOOD do we MERIT HIS BLOOD.
