Crises bring out men's characters, and cause them to be properly appreciated.
It is evident that, as the crisis approached, Pharaoh sank in the estimation of his subjects, while Moses rose. Pharaoh showed himself changeable, faithless, careless of his subjects' good, rude, violent. He was about to show himself ready to rush from one extreme into the other (Exodus 11:1), and to "thrust out" the people whom he had so long detained. The conduct of Moses had been consistent, dignified, patriotic, bold, and courageous. He had come to be regarded by the Egyptians as "very great," and the conduct of the Israelite people had also obtained approval. Their patience, fortitude, submission to their leaders, and quiet endurance of suffering, had won upon the Egyptians, and caused them to be regarded with favour. So it is generally in crises.
I. CRISES BRING OUT THE CHARACTERS OF THE BAD, INTENSIFYING THEIR DEFECTS, Under the pressure of circumstances obstinacy becomes infatuation, indifference to human suffering develops into active cruelty, self-conceit into overbearing presumption, ill-temper into violence. At the near approach of danger the rash grow reckless, the timid cowardly, the hesitating wholly unstable, the selfish utterly egoist. In quiet times defects escape notice, which become palpable when a man is in difficulties. Many a king has reigned with credit till a crisis came, and then lost all his reputation, because his character could not bear the strain put upon it. Such times are like bursts of hot weather, under which "ill weeds grow apace."
II. THE CHARACTERS OF THE BETTER SORT OF MEN ARE ELEVATED AND IMPROVED UNDER CRISES. All the higher powers of the mind, all the nobler elements of the moral character, are brought into play by crises, and through their exercise strengthened and developed. Promptitude, resolution, boldness, trust in God, come with the call for them; and the discipline of a year under such circumstances does the work of twenty. The Moses of Exodus 10:1-29; Exodus 11:1-10. is a very different man from the Moses of Exodus 3:1-22. He is firm, resolute, self-reliant, may we not add, eloquent? No wonder that he was "very great" in the eyes both of the great officers of Pharaoh's court and of the people. He had withstood and baffled the magicians; he had withstood Pharaoh; he had never blenched nor wavered; he had never lost his temper. With a calm, equable, unfailing persistence, he had gone on preferring the same demand, threatening punishments if it were not granted, inflicting them, removing them on the slightest show of repentance and relenting. He had thus won the respect both of the Court and of the common people, as much as Pharaoh had lost it, and was now generally looked up to and regarded with feelings of admiration and approval. So the true character of the Christian minister is often brought out, tested, and recognised in times of severe trial and calamity, in a siege, a famine, a pestilence, a strike; and a respect is won, which twenty years of ordinary quiet work would not have elicited. Let ministers see to it, that they make the most of such occasions, not for their own honour, but for God's.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR