God's demand and Pharaoh's answer.
I. THE DEMAND.
1. Its modesty. They merely ask liberty to depart on a three days' journey into the wilderness.
2. It was asked in good faith; it was not a cover for escape. God would give deliverance; but that was left in God's hand; and meanwhile they asked only for liberty to worship him.
3. Its reasonableness: they could not sacrifice the sacred animals of the Egyptians before their faces.
4. Its necessity. Pharaoh might not know Jehovah, but they knew him, and must serve him, "lest he fall upon us with the pestilence or the sword." The demand of the Church still is liberty to serve God in his own appointed way. It must be had. Luther's "God help me; I can do no other! We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
II. THE REFUSAL.
1. Its presumption. He did not know Jehovah, and therefore the message was a lie! Unbelief makes the bounds of its knowledge the bounds of truth and possibility. The pretensions of modern agnosticism.
2. It was a refusal of justice; it was a resolve to continue oppression. Unbelief is the brother and helper of wrong-doing.
3. It was made with reproach and insult. They were encouraging idleness and sedition: "Get ye to your burdens" "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also."
4. The rage of the wicked is often the best commendation of God's servants. It is a testimony to their faithfulness.—U.