THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR – Charles Spurgeon

THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR

“And you shall say unto Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: and I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” Exodus 4:22, 23. “Then the Lord said unto Moses, Now shall you see what I will do to Pharaoh.” Exodus 6:1.

God had a people in Egypt. They were His own, the people of His choice. Although they had been grievously oppressed and had sunk into humiliating slavery, His interest in their welfare had in no way diminished. The Lord’s purpose in sending Moses to Egypt was that He might bring out that people from among the nations to make them a separate people for Himself. He intended to give them an inheritance, even the land flowing with milk and honey, so that they might dwell there as witnesses of His covenant and keep His testimonies.

What God was doing for His people Israel in the land of Ham, He is doing for His chosen ones throughout the entire world. From one perspective, the goal of the gospel is to gather a people from among the nations whom He foreknew, whom He predestined, and whom He has redeemed to be His peculiar heritage. These are to be taken out from among others, made into a separated people, brought into a distinct position, and given a distinct experience. “The people shall dwell alone; they shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Ultimately, they will be brought to a prepared place, for which they must be specially prepared, so that they may dwell there and that the Lord may fulfill His promise, “They shall be Mine in that day when I make up My jewels.”

The work of rescuing perishing sinners from the present evil world is just as worthy of God as the work of delivering Israel from Egypt. The same right hand of Jehovah, glorious in power, which released the sons of Jacob from Pharaoh’s thralldom, is now stretched out to ransom us from the dominion of Satan. The song of praise to Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, shall be more exultant than that which Miriam and the daughters of Israel sang by the Red Sea when they said, “Come, let us sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously.” Indeed, we shall sing at the last, the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, clearly indicating that the redemption from Egypt was always meant to be a type of the redemption of God’s people from the world. For Christ has a people whom He has redeemed from among men, and there is a church of which it is written, “Christ loved His church and gave Himself for it.”

Now, in the process of bringing out these people of God from among the mass of mankind, God sometimes uses instrumentality, just as He did in the former case. He may employ an instrument that seems as ill-suited for the work as Moses felt himself to be. Yet, the work is done, and to God belongs the honor of accomplishing it. As for those of us whom He uses, we are more than content to yield the honor to Him. We rejoice in His excellence while acknowledging that we cannot take any credit for ourselves. We are less than nothing in His sight, and even in our own sight, we are weak and worthless. To God alone shall the glory redound when redemption’s work is completed.

I invite you to first reflect upon the voice of God. According to our text, it is, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn: and I say unto you, Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” After we ponder this, we will consider the voice of man. This was to be the voice of man: “You shall say unto Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord.” What God had spoken was to be repeated by His servant, Moses. Finally, we will observe the power that was to accompany this voice of man. “I will be with your mouth, and you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.”

I. Let us begin by focusing on THE VOICE OF GOD, which was a real power in bringing His people out of Egypt. That voice was threefold—asserting His ownership of them, demanding their freedom, and ordaining their destiny. With imperial authority, He claims the people as His own: “Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn.” The Lord knows those who are His, and He declared them to be His own with a jealous insistence on His inalienable right to their allegiance and a deep concern for their welfare.

At that time, the children of Israel were in a deplorable condition. They were immersed in clay, making bricks. They were a band of slaves, degraded and brought down to the lowest condition. They were so broken in spirit that they submitted to every demand of the tyrant. When the day of deliverance arrived, they could not fathom the possibility of freedom or welcome the joyful change in their circumstances. As a nation, they had lost the very concept of liberty. It had been trampled out of them. The people seemed as if they would lose their nationality or only retain it as a nation of slaves. Yet, even in their degraded state, they were still beloved. The Lord loved them. He said, “Israel is My son, even My firstborn.”

Surely Pharaoh might have said, “This is a fine son! What must the God be who claims these brickmakers, this abject race, ‘This is My son’?” Yes, even these ill-conditioned, unkempt serfs, these debased men and women—He calls them “My firstborn, My son and heir.” A man is naturally proud of his son and heir, yet here is the mighty God, speaking in the language of mortal men, acknowledging these cheerless, despised people and saying, “Israel is My son, even My firstborn.” He is not ashamed of His people. He acknowledges His great love for them, just as He loved us when we were dead in trespasses and sin, just as He loved Israel when they were still in bondage and degradation.

He loved us when we were helpless, like an infant cast out in the open field. When no eye pitied us, He passed by and said, “Live.” Oh, wondrous grace of God that He should call His son when that son is still an Egyptian slave! Moreover, God acknowledged His people when they did not acknowledge Him. His name, “Jehovah,” was scarcely known to them. Although Moses came to them with clear credentials, they were ready to reject him. During their time in Egypt, the Israelites had fallen into the superstition of the Egyptians, forsaking the Lord. They had become a vain and sinful people, prone to deceit. Yet Jehovah still said, “Israel is My son, even My firstborn.”

And does the Lord acknowledge His people when they know Him not? Blessed be His name, He does, or they would never come to know Him. We love Him now because He first loved us, and had He not known us and loved us in advance, we would not be what we are today. It is the freeness and spontaneity of God’s grace that He calls His people His own, even when they do not yet know Him.

He acknowledges them by affirming His covenant. “Israel is My son” refers to the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God knows His people and shows favor to them, not because of anything they deserve, but because of the covenant He made with them. The covenant of grace is the foundation from which all the blessings of salvation flow.

How sweet it is that He does not merely call His people “His people,” but says, “Israel is My son.” There is a love between father and son that cannot be found anywhere else. Blood is thicker than water. Relationship has ties that cannot be broken. God calls His people “sons” before they are regenerated, and in due time, He sends His Spirit into their hearts, giving them the nature of children so they may enjoy their adoption as sons and cry, “Abba, Father.”

This is the love God has for His people, even before they are born again, and this love is the foundation of their redemption.

The Lord’s claim upon His people is absolute, and all other claims—whether from the law, sin, death, or hell—cannot stand against it. Though His people may submit to the claims of the wicked one, God’s claim on them will always stand. The Lord Jesus will not allow those whom He has ransomed by His blood to remain in bondage. They are His. He will not suffer even one of them to remain enslaved to Satan.

When God acknowledges His people, He asserts His right to their freedom, saying, “Let My son go.” This is a grand verse—a divine edict with sovereign force. It applies powerfully to our deliverance from under the law. The law claims all mankind under its curse, and the god of this world claims the human race as his subjects. But when our Redeemer came, He bore the curse, fulfilled the law, and on the grounds of simple justice, He demands our full and perfect liberty. “Let My son go.”

II. THE VOICE OF MAN: It may seem like a comedown, but God instructed Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let My son go.” Why did the Lord not say it Himself? Had He done so, Pharaoh would have ultimately yielded to the divine decree. But in His wisdom, God chose to cloak His power in weakness, speaking through Moses, who was slow of speech. This makes His grace and power all the more magnificent.

Why does God send us, poor mortals, who have experienced His love, to speak for Him? When He does, His grace is far more admirable! Just as His voice defeated Pharaoh through the feebleness of Moses, so too does He use us to bring His word to others, showing that His power is not diminished in using weak instruments.

In using such ill-adapted tools for the accomplishment of His great designs, He shows His own transcendent power. That famous well-cover at Antwerp, just opposite the cathedral—one of the finest pieces of worked iron ever known—is said to have been made by Quintyn Matsys with nothing but a hammer and a file, his fellow workmen having taken away his tools. If it is so, the more praise is due to his consummate skill. All the works of God overflow to His glory. But when the tools He uses appear to be totally inadequate to the results He achieves, our reverence is excited, while our reason is abashed, and we marvel at a power we cannot fully understand.

This truth comes home to some of us very closely. Let us ask ourselves: Does the Lord take you, my brother, or has He taken me, and does He speak words of eternal power through our poor little tongues—through these unruly members that are prone to do so much mischief? If He truly wins souls through them, or brings down the pride of Pharaoh through them, then shall it ring through eternity that the Lord has done marvelous things. He has taken the worm and made it a sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, and made it to thresh the mountains. He has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings He has ordained strength because of His enemies, that He might still the enemy and the avenger. Unto His name be glory forever and ever.

The feebleness of the human voice has never been more tangible than when it has attempted to repeat the sentences uttered by the mouth of the Lord. Moses seems to have thought that there must have been some mistake. Could it be that God meant to bring Israel out of Egypt by him? Whenever God designs to make His servants eminently useful, He lets them know their frailty. The more treasure there is in the vessel, the less its comeliness will be vaunted. It is mere common ware, an earthen vessel, so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

But when Moses found that he truly was employed by God, how fearless he was of ridicule. He went into Pharaoh and delivered his Master’s message. The interview between Moses, Aaron, and Pharaoh must have seemed supremely ridiculous to Pharaoh. It put him into a great rage. These two Israelites, wretched slaves, coming to tell the great king of Egypt that he must let Israel go—how absurd! Even to the Israelites, it must have seemed preposterous that two people like these should go before the king. Why, with one word, Pharaoh could have said, “Take off the dogs’ heads,” and so have ended all the business immediately. Yet they went and faced him in his royal palace, delivering what he might have thought a vain threat, but what they knew to be a veritable message from God.

Insignificant as we may be in ourselves, the very fact that God instructs us to speak should suffice to quell our fears. We must go and speak the Lord’s message and must not be afraid of being thought infatuated. I have, at times, told a sinner to live and believe in Christ, only to hear a mutter, “What is the good of telling a dead man to live?” Some wise brother has said, “You might as well shake a pocket handkerchief over a grave.” Yes, brother, it is true—quite true. But just as Moses might as well have shaken a pocket handkerchief outside Pharaoh’s palace, when God bids us go and tell Pharaoh to let His people go, we go and do it. And when the Lord bids any of us go to a sinner and say, “Believe,” we cannot make the sinner believe, nor can he make himself believe. But the preacher sent by God is an echo of God’s voice. God speaks through him. With authority, he is commissioned to say to the sinner, “Turn, turn; why will you die? Repent and be baptized, every one of you.” We are told to speak peremptorily, as ambassadors of the King. Not because of any prerogative we assume, but as we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience, there is power in our message. The voice that speaks through stammering Moses is divine, despite the ridicule that may be heaped upon it.

Moses, having received such a command to go and speak, must not be deterred by refusal. Pharaoh said, “I know not the Lord, neither will I let His people go.” Dear brother, you cannot win souls unless you are prepared to meet strong rebuffs. Yes, some are heartbroken when any resistance is offered them. But you may expect it. Old human nature does not know the Lord. You remember how Melancthon thought he would convert many when he began to preach, but when he discovered his mistake, he said, “Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon.” So it is. You will come across bits of grit that will break your knife. Do not be dismayed. The Lord will sharpen you and make you stronger still. For even that Pharaoh who said, “I will not let the people go,” will soon be on his knees, begging the people to depart.

We must be prepared for opposition, and neither flinch nor tremble, but brace ourselves for the struggle. Similarly, the man whom God sends should be assured of success. I am persuaded that Moses, after overcoming his initial difficulties with the people and recovering from his own diffidence, parleyed not with doubt but was strong in faith. There he stood with the wondrous rod, turning waters into blood, killing all their fish, covering the heavens with blackness, turning the dust into living creatures, bringing hail and grievous plagues—and he did it all as calmly and quietly as one who knows that he is the voice of God. How steadily he persevered in his work! With what diligence, he continued until, at last, the 10th plague found Moses unmoved, ready to conduct the people to the Red Sea and lead them into the wilderness!

O servants of God, be calm and confident. Keep preaching the gospel. Keep teaching in Sunday schools. Keep distributing tracts. Persevere steadily. Be sure of this: you shall not labor in vain, nor spend your strength for nothing. Do you still stutter? Are you still slow of speech? Nevertheless, continue. Have you been rebuked and rebuffed? Have you faced little but defeat? This is the way to success. You will pave the road with the rough flints of your failure. Toil on, and believe on. Be steadfast in your confidence, for with a high hand and an outstretched arm, the Lord will bring His elect out—and He will use you to bring some of them out. Only trust in the Lord and keep going on the even tenor of your way.

III. Our final word is on THE POWER OF GOD. Without the power of God, the voice of man would have been an utter failure. What effect was produced by the voice of Moses? Did not power go with it? It plagued Pharaoh and filled the sinful land of Egypt with plagues. Similarly, men who preach God’s gospel with God’s power fill the world with plagues. “I know that,” a man might say. “I wish I had never listened to that fellow. I couldn’t sleep last night.” No, the frogs were his bedchamber. The true preacher finds his hearer sometimes saying, “I will never go again. Wherever I am, I seem to be haunted and tormented by the truth that man has spoken so boldly. The commands he enforces run counter to the prejudices I cherish. They alarm my conscience and worry me incessantly.”

Yes, he has made a simple sermon bring forth all kinds of flies—thoughts that will sting a man wherever he goes, and he cannot escape from them! He may still rebel against the gospel—refuse to accept it—get angry, go to the theater one night, join in a little social revelry another night, but to no purpose. He does not enjoy anything. He does not know why. Soon, a thick darkness comes over his life, just as darkness covered all the land of Egypt. All that was once beautiful and brilliant is now obscured. All that was once pleasant and joyous is now eclipsed. The man finds that he does not even enjoy the ordinary comforts of life. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t want to yield to the gospel, but his very bread seems sour, and the water he draws is bitter. His troubles multiply quickly, one after another. First, a hailstorm leaves desolation behind; then a grievous disease among the cattle. The hand of the Lord is not confined to the farm—it will visit your home, your family, and your fondest love.

As of old, there was a cry going up in Egypt that it became unbearable to stay there, so God lays bare His arm in the exceedingly great plagues which His terrible law brings upon a man. When He means to bring him out and to Himself, God’s servants become the harbingers of plagues. Jesus Himself said, “I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword.” That sword is unsheathed, and families are divided against each other, with the grand intent that Israel should be brought out and peace established by the redemption Jehovah has provided.

What will happen in time? The oppressor will be glad to part with his bondmen. It sometimes happens that the ungodly become very glad to get rid of God’s chosen people, whom they are prone to persecute. “Their melancholy ill agrees with our liveliness,” they say. They did all they could to draw them into their parties and get them into their frivolities again. They laid traps to keep them from hearing the gospel, but now the Lord has begun to deal with them. Their old companions say, “Now we must leave him.” “I’ve tried all I could to get our old comrade back to our old parties,” says one, “but really, he said such things that he poisoned all our pleasures. We could not enjoy ourselves. Let us get rid of him. Do not let him be in our company anymore.”

Yes, it is a grand thing—when the preaching of the gospel makes the ungodly want to keep the converts away from their cliques—when they say, “Go off to the Tabernacle. We do not want you here. You have pestered us enough with your religion, and your prayers, and your crying, and your talk about being lost and needing to find a Savior.”

A lady who joined this church some years ago, moving in higher society, said to me, “I was quite willing to continue my acquaintance with my friends, but I found they gave me the cold shoulder and didn’t want me.” Just so. It is a great mercy when the Egyptians say, “Get you gone,” and when they are ready to give you jewels of silver and jewels of gold to get rid of you. The Lord wants His people to come right out and be separate. He knows how, by the simple utterance of the gospel, to put such a division between His people and those who are not His people, that even the ungodly will say, “Get you gone. We want to have nothing further to do with you.” Glory be to God when such a thing happens.

And the Lord knows how to make all opposition cease, for it is written that when Israel came out of Egypt, not so much as a dog moved its tongue against the children of Israel. Before, they were such slaves that if a dog barked at them, they dared not respond, for fear it might be the dog of an Egyptian. Everyone was against them. But when the Lord brought them out, there was not a dog that dared bark that night. The Egyptians were all anxious for them to leave, and willing for them to go. Pharaoh, too, must have astonished his subjects with his sudden zeal to see this strange people gone.

Do you know what that means? Oh, what fights and battles; what wars and strife there were in my soul when I was trying to find Christ! My old sins came up against me, my memory unearthed buried trespasses, and faults and failings gathered in force like a flood, threatening to overwhelm me. Everything in my constant studies and daily experiences seemed to drive me back from Christ. But on that memorable Sabbath morning, when I heard the word, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” I did look, and lo, against me not a dog moved its tongue. My sins did not complain. They were drowned in the Red Sea of Jesus’ blood. My old corruptions—I did not know at the time that I had any; they were so very quiet. Temptations ceased to trouble me. For that little while, at least, the warrior seemed to sheathe his sword, and the brick maker laid down his clay to go out of Egypt with jewels of silver and jewels of gold. I could sing unto the Lord, for He had triumphed gloriously.

I have met some of these old Egyptians since then, a good number of them, and I have had some hard dealings with them. But at that time, all was still and quiet, happy and blessed—“Happy day, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away!” With the paschal lamb in our mouths, nobody dares challenge us. The blood on the door is an unanswerable answer to every accuser, quibbler, or adversary. Glory be to God, then, who can fetch out His people and deliver them from their sins, their lusts, their habits, their passions—deliver them from death—deliver them from going down into the pit—and so deliver them that none shall lay anything to their charge, since God has justified them, and Christ has absolved them.

May the Lord grant us grace to be used as His instruments, just as Moses was. And may we, each one of us, cry unto the Lord if we are in bondage, just as Israel did in Egypt. May the Lord, in mercy, send forth concerning every poor sinner here just such a message as He sent concerning His people in the house of bondage. “Thus says the Lord, Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” If He will work among us as He did in the olden times, to Him shall be the glory now at this present, yes, and forevermore. Amen.

—Charles Spurgeon