Ex 1:13 The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously;
Ex 1:14 and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.
It
is often common with the dealings of God with men for God to cause men to
become painfully aware of their bondage to enable them to see their need for
redemption.
Pharaoh is a picture of Satan. Egypt is a picture of the world. Israel’s
bondage in Egypt was a picture of the sinner’s bondage to sin in the world.
The problem with the sinner is that he does not see his deplorable condition.
On the contrary, he enjoys the bondage of sin that is breaking him piece by
piece, inch by inch.
Often, before God saves a sinner, He makes him painfully aware of his bondage
to sin. He makes him aware that sin is a taskmaster and that his service is an
affliction and grievous. That he is helpless and hopeless to free himself from
this condition.
At this point, God is opening the sinner’s eyes, creating the need in his heart
to be freed and redeemed from sin. At this stage, the sinner is ready for “Moses.” Moses is just in the next
chapters in his life, so to speak.
When a sinner becomes painfully aware that he is a sinner in bondage to sin,
helpless and hopeless to save himself, the Savior is just around the corner. It
is at this point that the sinner is ready for His salvation.
