God's will often opposed by the great of the earth, and his servants rebuffed.
Encouraged by their success with the elders and with the people (Exodus 4:29-31), Moses and Aaron would stop boldly into the presence of Pharaoh. It was, no doubt, known that they represented the feelings of an entire nation, a nation moreover of whom the Egyptians had begun to be afraid (Exodus 1:9, Exodus 1:10). The courtiers would treat them, at any rate, with outward politeness and respect. They knew also that God was on their side, and would ultimately, if not at the first, give them success. Under these circumstances they made their request boldly and with much plainness (Exodus 5:1 and Exodus 5:3). But they were met with the most complete antagonism. Pharaoh was in his own eves not only the greatest king upon the face of the earth, but an actual god. If we are right in supposing him to be Menephthah, he was the son of a king who had set up his own image to be worshipped side by side with those of Ammon, Phthah, and Horus, three of the greatest Egyptian deities. He viewed the demand made of him as preposterous, and had probably not the slightest belief in the power of Jehovah to do him harm. Who was Jehovah? and what had he to fear from him? A god—if he was a god—who had not been able to prevent his people from becoming a nation of slaves. He therefore treated the petition of Moses with absolute contempt. And so it has ever been, and will ever be, with the great of the earth. They are so exalted above their fellows, that they think "no harm can happen unto them." They do not set themselves to inquire what is really God's will, but determinately carry out their own will in their own way. Even when they do not openly blaspheme, like this Pharaoh, and Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:29-35), and Herod Antipas (Luke 23:11), they ignore God, reject the just demands of his ministers, refuse to be guided by their advice. Thus his servants are ever being rebuffed. They ask that slavery should everywhere cease, and are told that in some places it is a necessity. They plead against the licensing of vice, and are bidden not to interfere with sanitary arrangements. They ask for laws to restrain intoxication, and are denounced as seeking to lessen the national revenue. They cry for the abolition of vivisection, and are held up to ridicule as sickly sentimentalists. All this is to be expected, and should not discourage them. Let them, like Moses and Aaron, continually repeat their demands; urge them, in season and out of season. They may be sure that they will triumph at last. "The Lord is on their side;" they need not fear what flesh can do against them.
HOMILIES BY H. T. ROBJOHNS