Slaves of Free? : Part 1

True Words for Brave Men
by Rev. Charles Kingsley

(Page 8 of 19)

"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." - Exodus xiv. 13, 14.

Why did God bring the Jews out of Egypt? God Himself told them why. To fulfill the promise which He made to Abraham, their forefather, that of his children He would make a great nation.

Now the Jews in Egypt were not a nation at all. A nation is free, governed by its own laws, one body of people, held together by one fellow feeling, one language, one blood, one religion; as we English are. We are a nation. The Jews were none in Egypt, no more than Negro slaves in America were a nation. They served a people of a different blood, as the Jews did in Egypt. They had no laws of their own; they had no fellow-feeling with each other, which enabled them to make common cause together, and help each other, and free each other.

Selfishness and cowardice make some men slaves. Above all, ungodliness makes men slaves. For when men do not fear and obey God, they are sure to obey their own lusts and passions, and become slaves to them. They become ready to sell themselves soul and body for money, or pleasure, or food. And their fleshly lusts, their animal appetites, keep them down, selfish, divided, greedy, and needy, at the mercy of those who are stronger and cunninger than themselves, just as the Jews were kept down by the strong and cunning Egyptians.

They had slavish hearts in them, and as long as they had, God could not make them into a nation. The Jews had slaves' hearts in them. They were glad enough to get free out of Egypt, to escape from their heavy labor in brick and mortar, from being oppressed, beaten, killed at the will and fancy of the Egyptians, from having their male children thrown into the river as soon as they were born, to keep them from becoming too numerous. They were glad enough, poor wretches, to escape from all their misery and oppression of which we read in the first three chapters of Exodus. But if they could do that, that was all they cared for. They did not want to be made wise, righteous, strong, free-hearted - they did not care about being made into a nation. We read that when by the Red Sea shore (Exodus xiv.), they saw themselves in great danger, the army of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, following close upon them to attack them, they lost heart at once, and were sore afraid, and cried unto Moses, "Is not this the word which we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

Cowards and slaves! The thing they feared above all, you see, was death. If they could but keep the miserable life in their miserable bodies, they cared for nothing beyond. They were willing to see their children taken from them and murdered, willing to be beaten, worked like dumb beasts for other men's profit, willing to be idolaters, heathens, worshipping the false gods of Egypt, dumb beasts and stocks and stones, willing to be despised, wretched, helpless slaves - if they could but keep the dear life in them. God knows there are plenty like them now-a-days - plenty who do not care how mean, helpless, wicked, contemptible they are, if they can but get their living by their meanness.

"But a man must live," says some one.

How often one hears that made the excuse for all sorts of meanness, dishonesty, grasping tyranny. "A man must live!" Who told you that? It is better to die like a man than to live like a slave, and a wretch, and a sinner. Who told you that, I ask again? Not God's Bible, surely. Not the example of great and good men. If Moses had thought that, do you think he would have gone back from Midian, when he was in safety and comfort, with a wife and home, and children at his knee, and leave all he had on earth to face Pharaoh and the Egyptians, to face danger, perhaps a cruel death in shame and torture, and all to deliver his countrymen out of Egypt?

Moses would sooner die like a man helping his countrymen, than live on the fat of the land while they were slaves. And forty years before he had shown the same spirit too, when though he was rich and prosperous, and high in the world, the adopted son of King Pharaoh's daughter (Exodus ii. 11), he disdained to be a slave and to see his countrymen slaves round him. We read how he killed an Egyptian, who was ill-treating one of his brothers, the Jews - and how he then fled out of Egypt into Midian, houseless and friendless, esteeming as St. Paul says, "the reproach of Christ" - that is the affliction and ill-will which came on him for doing right, "better than all the treasures of Egypt" (Heb xi. 24-27).

A man must live? The valiant Tyrolese of old did not say that (more than seventy years ago), when they fought to the last drop of their blood to defend their country against the French invaders. They were not afraid to die for liberty; and therefore they won honor from all honorable men, praise from all whose praise is worth having for ever.

A man must live? The old Greeks and Romans, heathens though they were, were above so mean a speech as that. They used to say, it was the noblest thing that can befall a man to die - not to live in clover, eating and drinking at his ease - to die among the foremost, fighting for wife and child and home.

A man must live? The martyrs of old did not say that, when they endured the prison and the scourge, the sword and the fire, and chose rather to die in torments unspeakable than deny the Lord Jesus who bought them with His blood, rather than do what they knew to be wrong. (Hebrews xi.) They were not afraid of torture and death; but of doing wrong they were unspeakably afraid. They were free, those holy men of old, truly free - free from their own love of ease and cowardice and selfishness, and all that drags a man down and makes a slave of him. They knew that "life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment." What matter if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

Their souls were free whatever happened to their bodies - the tormentor could not touch them, because they believed in God, because they did not fear those who could kill the body, and after that had no more that they could do.

And do you not see that a coward can never be free, never be godly, never be like Christ? For by a coward I mean not merely a man who is afraid of pain and trouble. Every one is that more or less. Jesus Himself was afraid when He cried in agony, "Father, if they be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but your, be done." (Luke xxii. 42.) But a coward is a man who is so much afraid that to escape pain and danger, he will do what he

ought not - do what he is ashamed of doing - do what lowers him; and therefore our Lord Jesus had perfect courage when He tasted death for all men, and endured the very agony from which He shrank, and while He said, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass," said also, "Nevertheless not my will, but Your, be done."

The Jews were cowards when they cried, "Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians." While a man is in that pitiful mood he cannot rise, he cannot serve God - for he must remain the slave of his own body, of which he is so mightily careful, the slave of his own fears, the slave of his own love of bodily comfort. Such a man does not dare serve God. He dare not obey God, when obeying God is dangerous and unpleasant. He dare not claim his heavenly birthright, his share in God's Spirit, his share in Christ's kingdom, because that would bring discomfort on him, because he will have to give up the sins he loves, because he will have to endure the insults and ill-will of wicked men. Thus cowards can never be free, for it is only where the Spirit of God is that there is liberty.

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & co., 1884.