In verse 7 Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and the officers, saying, “Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves.” Instead of letting Israel go, Pharaoh actually increased their labor with rigor. He even commanded that they be given no more straw. It is the same in our experience. When God is about to rescue a certain person from today’s world, Satan takes away that person’s “straw”; that is, he deprives him of the supply from the world. This forces that one to work with more rigor in order to make a living.
In verse 8 Pharaoh said, “And the number of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not reduce any of it” (Heb.). Here we see that although Pharaoh cut off the supply of straw, he still required the same number of bricks. This indicates that it was much harder for God’s people to do the daily work. Many Christians have experienced something like this. After they were called by God, it was harder for them to earn a living than it was before they were called. Simply because they had been touched by Christ, Satan took away their “straw” without lessening his demands. Hence, it became more difficult for them to make a living.
Furthermore, Pharaoh said of the children of Israel, “For they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God” (v. 8). According to Pharaoh, it was because of idleness that the Israelites wanted to go into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God. In the eyes of today’s Pharaohs, especially in the eyes of the opposers and the unbelievers, we in the Lord’s recovery are idle. They accuse us of idleness in coming to the meeting hall so often to attend the meetings of the church or the meetings for the ministry of the Word. They condemn us, saying that we do not want to work, study, or care for our homes and families. According to their understanding, we use the meetings as an excuse for idleness.
In verse 9 Pharaoh said, “Let the labor be heavier on the men, that they may labor therein; and let them not regard vain words” (Heb.). Pharaoh did not want God’s people to regard what he thought were “vain words.” These “vain words,” however, were actually the word of God. The same is true today. Today’s Pharaohs regard the word of God as nothing more than vain words. As far as they are concerned, we who hearken to the word of God as it is sounded forth in the church meetings and in the meetings of the ministry are listening to vain words.
What we are doing in the church life may be idle in the eyes of the worldly people, but what they are doing is vanity in the eyes of God. Egypt is filled with busyness. Everyone still under bondage in Egypt is very busy. But as soon as someone is rescued from Egypt and is brought into the wilderness, he will become idle. Which do you prefer, busyness or idleness? I prefer this kind of idleness. Although I certainly am not a lazy person, I desire to be in what Pharaoh calls idleness. For example, I enjoy cleaning in my home and I am fond of working in the garden. But after spending a certain amount of time cleaning or working in this way, I may need to say, “Satan, this is enough. I will not do any more work now. Instead, I shall be idle before the Lord.” How good it is to be idle in this way!
There is a time when we all should say, “Satan, that is enough. It is now time for me to be idle.” To be idle in this sense means to feast unto the Lord and to sacrifice to Him. In the eyes of the worldly people, the church life is a life of idleness. Actually, we are neither idle nor busy—we are feasting and sacrificing. Before the Lord, this is the proper kind of human life.
God’s salvation is to rescue us out of busyness and to bring us into idleness. People today are too busy caring for the things of this life. Some are so industrious that they have no time to feast unto the Lord. We need to be delivered from this busyness in order to have more time for idleness. A lazy person should be trained to be busy. However, someone who is too busy must be trained to be idle, that is, to spend some time with the saints in the meetings of the church. The Christian life is not a life of worldly busyness; it is a life of proper idleness. We are not to be so busy with the things of this life that we disregard the word of God. How we enjoy being idle and regarding God’s “vain words” in the church meetings!
For us to live for Christ, we need to exist. Without our human existence we cannot live Christ. But today those in the fallen world care for nothing but their existence; they do not care for the purpose of their existence. To exist is one thing, but to exist for the divine purpose is another thing. The purpose ordained by God for our existence is to live Christ, to live God out, and to have God’s testimony. But the people of this world have only their existence; they have no purpose. Eventually they make their existence itself the purpose of their existence. They know nothing but existence. Satan picks up the existence of human beings or of human living and uses this existence to usurp people so that today the whole world cares only for existence, not for God’s purpose in existence.
All things necessary for our human existence need to be under a divine limitation. Anything that exceeds our need becomes worldly, “Egyptian,” something of Pharaoh, and it frustrates us from the economy of God’s purpose. In everything God’s economy must be the deciding factor. Our living should not be like that of the “Egyptians,” the worldly people. We need a place to live, and we need to keep our house clean. But if we continue with our cleaning when it is time to go to the meeting, our cleaning becomes “Egyptian,” something apart from the economy of God’s purpose. We are on earth not for cleaning but for a feast unto the Lord. Even how much time we spend with our children should be decided by God’s economy. Other Christians may act like the people of the world, but we have to be a holy people, a separated people.
Our living and our existence depend on the provision from the heavenly source, not on the supply from the world. For this we need the vision, and we need the exercise of our faith. Moses was a man of great faith to lead two million people out of Egypt into the wilderness, where there was no earthly supply for their human existence.