The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 166

Phamoh could not hinder, so the people could neither help nor hinder. When they were yet without strength, utterly without strength, in due time God intervened to deliver them. I. 'fbere is thus suggested to us bow :we should keep in mind ONE GREAT CAUBB oF HINDRANCE To THE GosPEL. A message like that of the Gospel of Christ finds great difficulty in its way from preoccupation of any kind, seeing that the mind of man cannot properly entertain two great topics of thought at the same time. Some one thing must hold a first place in thought; nnd when the heart is occupied with the presence of worldly cares, whatever form they take, then it must be peculiarly hard for the Gospel to find a foothold. God. when he seeks love and service from us, looks to find bis rivals in ambition, in pleasure, in riches; and we are used to hear frequent warnings against these rivals. But what rival is more dangerous than (say)poverty, that cleaving, biting, pinching spirit, which, when once it gets hold of a man, never lets him forget that it is near. What chance is there then to bring out of the heart a deep con- viction of sin and spiritual need? The difficulties of getting the natural man to attend to spiritual concerns are immensely increased by poverty as well as by riches. If, upon some considerations, it is seen to be hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, upon other considerations it is seen to be equally hard for the poor. The poor have the Gospel presented to them, but alas! it is often hard work to persuade them that it is a Gospel. Go to them, and how are you often met? It may be that your very exemp- tion from a. life-long struggle for daily bread blinds you to their peculiar difficulties. You a.re not able to see that grim wolf which is incessantly at the door, and never out of their thoughts. What wonder if at first-and indeed habitually-the poor should think that there is little or nothing in religion! Often they show their feeling very plainly by bitter and savage words. They want a. gospel; but not your gospel They do not care for a gospel which, while it makes large offers, makes also large demands. They do not care to be asked for self-denial, self-respect, contentment, and patient submission to hard conditions which cannot be easily or immediately altered. They want a gospel which will give, and give just what they choose to ask. The privations, the struggles, the agonies of the poor reduce them often nearer to the spirit of wild beasts than of human beings. Give them what indulges their appetites, and they will welcome you. Minister to the cravings of the flesh, and they will wait as long as you are disposed to supply. But proclaim unpalatable truths, and you might as well speak in a wilder- ness. We might pursue a. similar line of thought in considering the anguish of spirit and cruel bondage of heathendom. The missionary often has to speak to those whose minds are oppressed with terrible visions of deities who can only be propitiated by laborious and agonising penances. Read what is said concerning the life-long austerities of some Hindoo devotees, and then consider whether you have not in them a bondage of spirit which may only too effectually shut out even the most attractive truths of the Gospel. We might speak also of the cruel bondage of worldly conventions ; the incessant and weary struggle to keep up social position-a struggle which, ho"Wever ridiculous it may be made to look, is, in the eyes of multitudes, a great necessity. And if a man feels a thing a necessity, then you must, at least in your first approaches to him, treat it as a necessity. And last, but not least, there is the anguish anJ. bondage of disease, physical pain, perhaps approaching death. The sick send, or are supposed to send, for ministers of religion, but how plain it is in the great bulk of instances that such resorts are utterly ineffectual to bring the sick person to God! '!'here may be an appearance of repentance, a pretence of understanding the way of salvation; but when we know that the actual motive is the fear of death, and not the bitter consciousness of sin, then we cannot but distrust all the action following upon the motive. When a human being, in youth, in health, and with the prospect of a long life, professes to be smitten with convictions of sin, and begins to seek for a Saviour, we know where we are in considering his position. His apparent motive has everything in the circumstances to approve itself as a real one. l3ut when the appearance of interest in Divine things only comes consequent on the alarms of a dangerous, perh,ips a fatal illness, then we suspect that the cry for salvation is a. selfish and ignorant one; and how can we be sw-e that it will be anything ~ut a vain one? A courteous pretence of listening to the message of God when there 1s no real apprehension of it is practically the same thing as not listening at all. II. NOTE THE ODJECTION WHICH IS DROUGHT AGAINST THE GOSPEL FROM ITS INA.Bll,ITY  150 'l'HE DOOK OF EXODUS. [en. vr. 10-12.