Jehovah also demanded that Pharaoh allow the children of Israel to sacrifice to Jehovah their God (v. 3). Sacrifice is a word parallel to feasting. To the children of Israel, the feast was a feast, but to God it was a sacrifice. Without the sacrifice, there was nothing to feast on. What the children of Israel were to feast on was the very sacrifice they were to offer to God. The Passover illustrates this. The lamb sacrificed to God was food for the children of Israel. This reveals that the feast and the sacrifice are two aspects of one thing. Whatever we sacrifice to God spontaneously becomes our feast. This also is dispensational worship. This kind of worship does not require that we prostrate ourselves before the Lord. God did not say, “Let My people go into the wilderness so that there they may prostrate themselves before Me.” God does not want His people to do this. He wants them to sacrifice to Him and to hold a feast unto Him.
In God’s demand placed on Pharaoh we see a perfect, complete salvation for His people. This salvation includes God’s rescuing His people from the usurping hand of Satan and bringing them into the wilderness in resurrection so that they can hold a feast unto Him and sacrifice to Him. What a wonderful salvation!
Now we come to Pharaoh’s resistance (5:2, 4-9). Pharaoh symbolizes the usurping Satan and our Satan-possessed and usurped self. Because the self is Pharaoh in a very practical way, we may be a Pharaoh both to ourselves and to others. A husband and wife may be a Pharaoh to each other, and parents may be a Pharaoh to their children.
A Pharaoh is one who keeps God’s people from feasting unto the Lord. For example, five brothers may live together in a brothers’ house. Three of them may desire to attend the church meeting as they usually do, but the others may restrain them and encourage them to stay home. In doing this, these two brothers become Pharaohs. Any time we keep others from feasting unto the Lord or from sacrificing to Him, we are a Pharaoh. Parents, for example, may be so concerned about their children’s education that they forbid them to attend the meetings of the church and require them to devote an unreasonable amount of time to study. When parents behave in such a way, they are Pharaohs to their children.
Sometimes we blame Satan too much. Yes, the usurping Satan is Pharaoh in an objective way. But we are Pharaohs in a practical, subjective way. We may be a Pharaoh to ourselves, not allowing ourselves to go into the wilderness to feast unto the Lord. If you check with your experience, you will see that many times you have frustrated yourself from feasting unto the Lord. You have kept yourself away from the meetings of the church, perhaps with tiredness as your excuse for not attending the church feast. Although you may have claimed to be too tired to attend the meetings, you were full of energy to talk on the telephone. Do not think that today only Satan himself is Pharaoh. Everyone can be a Pharaoh. Whenever the self is possessed by Satan and usurped by him, the self becomes a subjective Pharaoh.
Verse 2 records Pharaoh’s resistance in a detailed way: “And Pharaoh said, Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go” (Heb.). Here we see that Pharaoh denied Jehovah God, ignored His demand, and refused to let Israel go. Pharaoh refused even to acknowledge Jehovah, virtually denying Jehovah’s existence. Often when we frustrate others from feasting unto the Lord, we deny the Lord and ignore His demand. The same is true when we hinder ourselves from sacrificing to the Lord. In a very practical way, this means that if we keep ourselves from the church meetings, we are like Pharaoh who denied the Lord.
For us Christians to come together is a matter of great significance. Whenever we gather together according to the Lord’s ordination, we hold a feast unto the Lord and we sacrifice to our God. Suppose we Christians did not have a proper gathering. What would the Lord be able to do on earth? The Lord would not be able to do anything, and He would not receive any real worship. By this we see that the proper gathering together of Christians is of tremendous importance.
Some of the children of Israel may have thought that as long as they were delivered from the hand of Pharaoh and released from Egypt, everything would be all right. But that would not have been true. God’s chosen people were not only to make their exodus out of Egypt, but they were also to hold a feast unto the Lord in the wilderness and to sacrifice to Him. By its very nature a feast is a corporate matter. No one can hold a feast alone. To have a feast we must be together with many others. The more people there are, the better it is. Suppose a dinner of many courses is prepared and set on your dining table at home and you sit down to eat it by yourself. Is this a feast? Certainly not! In order for it to be a feast, you must invite a large number of people to eat with you. If you have just a few others to dine with you, this meal is still not a feast. You need a great company. In the same principle, no Christian can hold a feast unto the Lord alone or with just a few other believers. He must attend a proper gathering of Christians.
To miss a meeting of the church is to miss a feast and to lose out on the enjoyment. The loss we suffer in this way is not as serious as the loss God suffers. If we do not attend the feast, God has no feast and does not receive the sacrifice. May we all be deeply impressed with the importance of this.