The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 110

MAKE IT DIFFIOULT FOB HIM TO SECURE CREDENCE. Mosee anticipated bein" met not simply with hesitation and suspense of judgment, which would be all that" the ~ere absence of credentials would warrant, but by positive disbelief. "The Lord hath not appeared to thee." How account for this ? 1. The message he had to IYring was a very wonderful one. He had to ask the people to believe that, after centuries of silence, Go,l, the God of the patriarchs, had again appeared to him, and had spoken with him. This in itself was not incredible, but it would assume 11.n incredible aspect to those whose faith in a living God had become shadowy and uninfluential-who had learned to look on such appearances as connected, not with the present, but with a distant and already faded past. Credulous enough in some things, they would be incredulous as to .this; just as a believer in witchcraft or fairies might be the hardest to convince of a case of the supernatural aside from the lines of his ordinary thinking and beliefa. It is a similar difficulty which the preacher of the Gospel has to encounter in the indisposition of the natural mind to believe in anything outside of, or beyond, the sphere in which it ordinarily works and judges,-the sphere of things sensible (John xiv. 17). 'l'he super- natural is strange to it. It pushes it aside as inherently incredible, or at least as of no interest to it. ]:t'rom this the advance is easy to that which is so peculiarly a charac- teristic of our age, the denial of the supernatural aa such-the flat assertion that miracle is impossible. 2. The announcement contained in his message was so good as almost to surpass belief. Great good news has often this effect of producing incredulity. Of. Gen. xiv. 26,-" Jacob's heart fainted, and he believed them not," and Ps. cxxvi. And would not the Hebrews require evidence for the great good news that God had visited them, and was about to bring them out of Egypt, and plant them in Caa.nan ! In like manner, is it not vastly wonderful, almost passing belief, that God should have done for man all that the Gospel declares him to have done! Sending his Son, making atonement for sin, etc. 3. The difficulties in the way of the execution of the purpos<! seemed insuperable. Even with God on their side, it might seem to the Israelites as if the chances of their deliverance from Pharaoh were very small. True, God was omni- potent; but we know little if we have not learned how much easier it is to believe in God's power in the abstract, than to realise that this power is able to cope successfully with the actual difficulties of our position. The tendency of unbelief is to "limit the Holy One of Israel" (Ps. lxx.viii. 41). And this tendency is nowhere more manifest than in the difficulty men feel in believing that the Gospel of the Cross is indeed the very "power of God unto salvation "-able to cope with and overcome the moral evil of the world, and of their own hearts. 4. One difficulty Moses would not have to contend with, viz.: aversion to his message in itself. For, after all, the message brought to tho Israelites was in the line of their own fondest wishes-a fact which ought, if anything could, powerfully to have reco=ended it. How different with the Gospel, which, with its spiritual salvation, rouses in arms against itself every propensity of a heart at enmity against God I The Israelites must at least have desired that Moses' message would turn out to be true; but not so the mass of the hearers of the Gospel. They desire neither God nor his ways; have no taste for his salvation ; are only eager to find excuses for getting rid of the unwelcome truths. To overcome an obstacle of this kind, more is needed than outward credentials-even an effectual working of the Holy Ghost. III. INFERENCES FROlll THESE CONSIDERATIONS. 1. Preachers of the Gospel must prepare themselves for encountering unbelief. It is the old complaint-" Who hath believed our report?" (Is. !iii. 1). 2. TM success of Moses in overcoming the people's '11111,belief shows that he must have possessed decisive credentials of his mission. The complaint of this verse does not tally with what is sometimes alleged a.s to the unlimited drafts that may be made on human credulity. Moses did not find the people all readiness to believe him. He was bringing them a. message in the line of their dearest wishes, yet he anticipated nothing but incredulity. He had never much reason ~o complain of the over-credulity of the Israelites; his complaint was usually of their unbelief. Even after signs and wonders ha.d been wrought, he had a constant battle to fight with their unbelieving tendencies. How then, unless his credentials had been of the clearest and most decisive kind, could he possibly have succeeded? For, mark- (1) lt was not merely a few enthusiasts he had to carry with him,. but the whol~ body of the people. (2) He was no. demagogue, but a. man of slow, diffident, self-d1strust_ful nature, the l'lSt man who might be expected to play successfully on popular credulity  THE BOOK OF EXODUS, [ea. IV, 1-lU,