Trusting God When Obedience Makes Things Worse

Many people are familiar with the account of the Exodus, i.e. God’s deliverance of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt, but often our summaries of it hit only “the highlights,” jumping from the burning bush to the plagues to the parting of the Red Sea. Having fled to the wilderness after killing an Egyptian, Moses encounters God at the burning bush and receives the command to return to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and demand that the Israelites be released from their 400-year-long slavery. No big deal, right? Moses obeys but only after arguing with God about his lack of qualifications for such a prominent role, and he finally gathers up his family to head back to Egypt.

The next highlight we typically jump to is the ten plagues that God sends upon the Egyptians as Pharaoh repeatedly (and predictably, thanks to God’s giving a Moses a heads-up that this would happen) refuses to listen to God’s command as spoken through Moses and his brother Aaron. Eventually, after the first Passover, when God provided a way of salvation for the Hebrews from the angel of death who was to kill every firstborn son, Pharaoh finally let the Israelites leave but not without having yet another change of heart and pursuing them to the Red Sea, where God parted the waters to let the Israelites pass through safely before flooding the Egyptian army.

But in between the burning bush and the plagues is Exodus chapter 5, and it contains an important lesson if we pause long enough to look. When chapter 5 occurs, Moses has just returned to Egypt, and he and Aaron make their first visit to Pharaoh to request a several-day reprieve for the Israelites so they may travel to the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God. At the time, Pharaoh has the Israelites performing the particularly grueling task of making bricks from straw that was provided to them, and he sees the brothers’ request as a ploy to get his slaves out of doing their forced labor for a few days. In response, he not only denies the request, but he orders that the Israelites be forced to gather their own straw for the bricks. And on top of that he demands that they meet the same daily quota as when the straw was provided.

Understandably, the Israelites were furious and took out their anger on Moses and Aaron: “The LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us” (Exodus 5:21, ESV). Moses had returned to bring deliverance to his people and instead found that his actions—actions taken in obedience to God—had brought greater hardship upon them. What was up with that? Obedience is supposed to bring blessing, right?

Moses did what we would expect any human to do in his situation. He had done what God told him to do, and now the people he was trying to help were turning on him, so he turned right around and questioned God about it. “Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, ‘O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? 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’” (Exodus 5: 22-23, ESV). I don’t know about you, but that sounds like exactly what I would say if I had done what God told me to do and had found the opposite effect from what I was expecting.

Today, we have the benefit of knowing what would happen next, how God would keep His promise and rescue the Israelites from bondage, but I think it’s important that we don’t immediately jump in our minds to the end of the story and instead sit a moment with Moses at the end of chapter 5. He had been obedient. He had taken great personal risk and gone through tremendous upheaval to do what God told him to do. And here he was faced with a reality that looked nothing like what God had promised. There was no deliverance; instead, there was increased abuse. It would have been easy for him at that point to give up, turn his back on God, and say, “Well there’s no point in continuing now. I was obviously wrong to believe things would actually get better.” But in taking his doubts and frustrations to God, he kept his heart open to hear God’s reply.

Right after Moses confronts God with “you have not delivered your people at all” (5:23), God replies with a striking first word: “Now.” He says, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land” (Exodus 6:1, ESV). It wasn’t that God hadn’t delivered on His promise. It was just that God hadn’t completed the delivery of His promise yet. God had told Moses back at the burning bush (Exodus 3) that Pharaoh would refuse to let the Hebrews go at first. On the way to Egypt (Exodus 4), He gave Moses a heads-up about the final plague—the killing of Pharaoh’s firstborn son. But God never promised immediacy or revealed the exact timeline for these events to occur. He never promised that things wouldn’t get worse before they got better, and Moses had to trust that the pieces God had told him would happen would still happen even though they hadn’t happened yet.

God in His mercy met Moses at his point of doubt and graciously reminded him of the long-standing relationship He had had with the Hebrew people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He speaks to Moses in the past tense (“I appeared […] I also established my covenant”), in the present tense (“I am the LORD”), and in the future tense (“I will bring you out […] I will deliver you […] I will redeem you”), impressing upon him the power and faithfulness of God throughout time and showing him that he was just one small piece in an overarching chronicle of God’s relationship with mankind (Exodus 6:2-8). With this reminder Moses’ faith is bolstered, and he chooses to continue walking in obedience to God, even though the Israelites were not convinced (Exodus 6:9). He chooses to trust God and take Him at His word.

We know from 2 Timothy 3:16 that every part of Scripture is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and I can’t help but think that Exodus 5 and 6 are included in the Bible to help us grow in our faith—to challenge us to remember God’s faithfulness to keep His promises even when it seems like He’s forgotten about them and to encourage us during times when our obedience seems to make things worse rather than better. God’s plan will never fail. His faithfulness will never falter. Our job is to remain steadfast in obedience—regardless of what backlash we receive—to reflect the goodness, glory, and faithfulness of God to a watching world.

PC: Leila Coblentz. Used with permission.