How amusing and humbling it is for us to read Moses’ plaintive cry to God after his obedient attempts to help his people leads to an increase in their suffering:
O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all.
It’s amusing because we know what comes next in the story. In just a few pages, we will see the most dramatically miraculous rescue of a people from slavery the world has ever seen, but here is a confused and desperate Moses, declaring, “You have not delivered Your people at all,” right before it all takes place.
It’s humbling because we know we’re just like Moses. And we’re just like the disciples, who, on the eve of being rescued from slavery to sin and death, thought Jesus had not delivered them at all.
I can’t tell you what comes next in your story, but here’s what’s coming up in our story:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Yes, for now, we have “momentary, light affliction.” We’re given less straw and forced to make just as many bricks. We’re mocked. We’re run out of town. We’re put in jail. We’re kidnapped. We’re tortured. We’re beheaded. But the “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” that will interrupt and put an end to suffering will be even more dramatically filled with justice for evil and undeserved grace for God’s people than ten plagues and a parting of the sea. Let’s not give up now in the despair of “You have not delivered Your people at all!” Let’s wait a few pages.