Mensa Otabil - The People's Anguish
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We’re still in Exodus chapter six, and we’re looking at verse nine. So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.
There’s a lot we can learn from the children of Israel as they respond to God’s intervention in their lives. God brought them a message of deliverance, vouching it with His name, and yet they couldn’t receive it. You would think that people who have been so wearied by bondage and slavery for hundreds of years would welcome a message of deliverance. However, they are not welcoming the message because there is a way in which slavery can become your normal, the place where you live, the place you stay, and the thing that you’re comfortable with. As bad as it is, you adapt to it, and the interruption of deliverance can unsettle you. That’s what it’s doing to the children of Israel.
So Moses goes back to them to assure them of God’s deliverance, and God speaks commitments to them. He makes seven commitments: I will, I will, I will. Yet, when they hear all these words, they reject them. They are not ready for deliverance and cry to the Lord for Him to deliver them. But when the Lord comes to deliver them, they are not ready. You know, many times people pray for God to do something for them-"God help me; God heal me; God provide this for me; God give me that.»
When God starts the process of giving them what they prayed for, they reject the process. Maybe when we pray, we expect that instant change. Probably that’s what the children of Israel were looking for-that a chariot from heaven would come and whisk them away, or they would vanish altogether from Egypt and appear somewhere in the Promised Land. God is not a magician. God works with us, through us, and in us, executing His purposes in our lives. The purpose is for Him to walk us through a path and get us into the place He wants us to be, or the place we have prayed to be.
So, the processes of God are not magical. It takes time. It requires effort and mental discipline on our part for us to go through the process to receive the answer to the prayer we’ve been looking for. I don’t know where you are; maybe you are where the children of Israel are. God has given you a promise, and you’ve prayed, and God has started answering your prayer. But the process may not be what you like, and in this case, the process of prayer indicates that the situation got worse immediately. Before it gets better, it often gets worse. It looks like they are infuriating Pharaoh; their burdens are heavier. The passage says they have anguish of spirit because their spirits are broken and crushed. They are wondering, «We want deliverance, not more burdens.»
That was the process because when you provoke deliverance from the enemy, he will react. He will respond. Don’t ever think that the enemy will clap for you and smile at you when you want deliverance-he will respond. When he does, you have to stand firm in the promises of God and walk through the process, because faithful is He who has promised, who also will do it.
Until God’s promises feel more real to us than our pain, we can never experience the divine interventions we hope for. God’s promises must be more real to us than our pain and discomfort, and it is at that point that we experience the interventions of God in our lives.
Let’s pray. Say with me, «Heavenly Father, Your promises are my reality. I choose to take sides with You against all my troubles. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.» Well, I’ll catch you again tomorrow, and Pastor Mensa Otabil, shalom, peace, and life to you.