God's people will have opposition from many different sources.
Exodus 5:3-5 But Aaron and Moses persisted. “The God of the Hebrews has met
with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the
wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. If we don’t, he
will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”
4 Pharaoh replied, “Moses and
Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to
work! 5 Look, there are many of
your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”
We found out in my previous post that the unqualified get called
by God into ministry that is way over their head. We learned through Moses
that a lack of skill or specialized training seems to be what God is looking
for in the people that serve him.
It must have been a great relief to Moses when he returned to Egypt and the people of Israel were convinced that he is on a mission from God to help his people. They seem to be thrilled that out of nowhere, after God's promise seems to be on the edge of failure, God finally sends a rescuer to put an end to their suffering in Egypt.
Wouldn't it be great if ministry was always this easy? Isn't it a beautiful thing when God sends a leader, the leader goes to God's people and the people agree to their leadership and their program that the leader wants to implement. So far their isn't
any opposition and all is well but Moses hasn't been to see
Pharaoh yet.
Suddenly the Israelites situation has gone from bad to worse, Pharaoh decided that he had been too easy on the Israelites by providing
them with the materials that they needed to make bricks, so for now on they
had to produce the same quota of bricks without any help getting the
material they needed to make them.
Exodus 4:21 And the LORD told Moses, “When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform all the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will harden his heart so he will refuse to let the people go.
The blame game started up immediately despite the fact that they were so sure of God's plans and God already told they wouldn't be released and
allowed to go until God steps in and forces Pharaoh to let them go.
God's people don't like opposition and they are quick to let their God
appointed leaders know about it. It
is a shame that God's people treat their leaders this way but it may be
worse that the leaders run back to God and complain to him when God already warned them there would be opposition to his work.
Exodus 5:22-23 Then Moses went back to the LORD and protested, "Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me? 23 Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people. And you have done nothing to rescue them!"
We should expect that difficult days are going to come our way when we are
serving God. When we are God's friend and we are being used in ministry then we are an enemy to Satan and he will start working overtime to oppose us.
Satan is already actively opposing God's plan to bring the Messiah to the world to redeem his people. The chances of the Lion of the
tribe of Judah surviving all of the opposition to God's purpose and his people are extremely small but
that's just how God works.
God allows his promises to come to the edge of failure for a purpose, God's
people have to wait until there isn't any human ability to accomplish God's
promises so that God is the only one that can get credit for making them
happen. God knows that we will try to steal his glory if there is any way to
explain away his miracles.
When God's people are doing what he ask them to do they should expect opposition from the world and also from God's other children that don't understand how he is working. We know that the world has a great reason to oppose you but Satan will convince some of your church friends to also go against you.
Serving God requires that we remember:
- How strong and how desperate our enemy is.
- The helpless, desperate condition of the people that you are serving.
- Your own weakness and inability for the task.
We must rely on God's strength and his timing in order to accomplish his work.
