Spiritual deafness

So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. - Exodus 6v9

Pharaoh was not pleased with Moses’ request. He had at his disposal a huge work force to carry out the massive building programmes taking place in Egypt. We know that the Pharaoh’s had a ‘thing’ for building because we can still see many of them today. The people of Israel may very well have been involved in the building of the pyramids or one of the big cities that the Pharaoh’s built.

Pharaoh knew he could never replace that work force. He was angry because Moses was trying to steal his workers. His response was cruel. He decided to teach them a lesson. He told his taskmasters to force them to not reduce their brick production, but to stop providing straw for the bricks. They had to gather their own straw while not reducing the quota of bricks.

So then Moses had to go back to the people. Of course they blamed him ‘If you had not gone to Pharaoh this would never had happened.’ Moses tried to explain that God had told him that He was still in control, He is the Lord, and He will do what He said He would do. But the people would not listen; all they could see was their circumstances. Things were so bad in their eyes that they could not see any way out. They would not listen to Moses because of ‘anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.’

This spiritual blindness was not unique to the people of Israel. Sadly our own spiritual state can often depend of own circumstances. I read this in The Valley of Vision this morning – ‘My sin is that my heart is pleased or troubled as things please or trouble me, without having a regard to Christ.’

Like these people my troubles most often come because I see things as they relate to me. I focus on me instead of Him. Spiritual deafness and spiritual blindness are always our own fault. It happens when we look on the ‘seen’ instead of the ‘unseen;’ when we see the earthly instead of the eternal.