Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2188
“For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in.” Exodus 14:3.
ISRAEL was clean escaped from Egypt. Not a hoof of their cattle was left behind, nor foot of child or aged man remained in the house of bondage. But though they were gone, they were not forgotten by the tyrant who had enslaved them. They had been a very useful body of workers, for they had built treasure cities and storehouses for Pharaoh. Compelled to work without wages, they cost the tyrant nothing but the expenditure of the lash. His exactions of forced labor had grown intolerable to the people, but the buildings erected had been a joy to the lord of Egypt. When they were quite gone, Pharaoh woke up to a sense of his loss and his attendants felt the same. So they cried, “Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” Then they resolved to drive them back, again, and they thought it easy to do so, for they said, “They are entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in.” They knew that the Israelites had no spirit for war and they felt sure that they had only to overtake them and hurry them back like a drove of cattle. They had found them such submissive servants that they expected to fit their fetters on them, again, and rivet them forever. Perhaps their God had shot His last arrow and Egypt might capture His people, again, without fear of plagues. Thus men thought—but the Lord thought otherwise.
Do not I speak to some at this hour who, during the last few months, have, by the power of the Lord’s gracious hand, escaped out of the bondage of sin? You have got clean away from your old master. With a high hand and an outstretched arm has God brought you forth into liberty! You remember the sprinkling of the blood and the eating of the Paschal Lamb—and you are now on your way to Canaan. But your former master and his friends have not forgotten you. You were once a valuable servant to Satan and he will not willingly lose you. Some of you whom God has saved by Grace could drink for Satan, lie for him, swear for him, lead others into evil ways and you could do other things, cheerfully, which I need not mention, which he always desires to have done in his kingdom. You were a trained servant and knew your master’s way so as to answer his purpose better than most. Servants of Satan usually serve him greedily and you were very eager. Nothing is too hot or too heavy for men who are thoroughly enthusiastic for evil. Sins that should be thought degrading are followed by men under the notion of pleasure and gaiety. “A short life and a merry one,” is too often the cry of persons who are preferring death to life.
The devil has the knack of making his bondsmen boast of their freedom and they follow with eagerness that which is to their own loss and ruin. Poor slaves! Their slavery has blinded their minds. Thanks be unto God, certain of you have lately fled from your former bondage! But the point I am to speak of is this—the great tyrant has not forgotten you and he designs in his heart your capture and re-enslavement. He and his are continually looking for opportunities by which they may bring you back into the thralldom of evil, fasten the manacles of habit upon your hands and fit the fetters of despair upon your feet. By the Grace of God I hope that the Prince of Evil and his helpers will be disappointed, but they will leave no stone unturned to effect their purposes. One of their hopes of driving you back is the belief that you are entangled by your circumstances and surroundings. They conceive that you have got into serious difficulty through your conversion and that you cannot find your way out of your perplexity. Now the enemy says, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil.” The Pharaoh of the infernal regions thinks to drive the fugitives back, again, like a flock of sheep and, notwithstanding all that God has done for them, he hopes, again, to bring them under his yoke. If Jehovah has
brought you out, His work will never be undone, but the enemy’s hope lies in his belief that you are hopelessly entangled by your present environment.
I speak, just now, mainly to new converts, and I trust I may encourage them. Satan has less hope of getting back those who have escaped from his tyranny for many years. If he can trip them up or worry them, even now, he will take a delight in doing it, but he begins to see that the older pilgrims are really the Lord’s and cannot fall into his hands. Of those who have only lately escaped from his power, he has greater hope, for they have not yet proven, by the test of experience, that the work within them is Divine. He hopes that possibly theirs is only temporary reformation and, if so, he can soon make them slip back into the mire of sin from which he hopes they have only half escaped. I am going to speak to the raw recruits, “from Egypt lately come,” hoping that, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, they may be cheered in pressing forward and may feel that they can never go back to their old sins.