Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. (Exodus 6:9)

The story of the Exodus is the defining miracle of the Hebrew Bible—the archetype of all future promises of salvation. The deliverance God works for the people of Israel in rescuing our ancestors from Egypt gives us the vocabulary for all the great stories of redemption. Passover is our annual celebration of this miracle, but we often gloss over a tragic (but all too relatable) element of the story because our ancestors thought it was too good to be true.

For the Israelites who had been trapped in generational cycles of slavery, the announcement by Moses that the Lord planned to “deliver you from slavery … redeem you with an outstretched arm … and bring you into the land” (Exodus 6:6, 8), seemed like not just wishful thinking, but even cruel idealism. Today, in the midst of ongoing conflict in Israel, many are asking whether God still sees their suffering and hears their cries.

The response of the brokenhearted and enslaved Israelites is all too familiar to me as a minister of the gospel to my Jewish people. We have been commissioned to announce the good news that Jesus is the Messiah and our sins are forgiven! And yet, those we have been sent to are all too often unable to receive it as good news. The spiritual condition of those we are called to reach can cloud their vision and color the beauty of the gospel with dark overtones.

I’ve sat with many Jewish people like Jeremy,* who struggle to believe that God is willing and able to rescue them from life’s difficulties. We had discussed the gospel before, but this time, his openness was unmistakable. I gently asked whether he felt ready to place his trust in Jesus. He said yes, and we prayed together as he repeated the sinner’s prayer. When he opened his eyes, he said, “I feel like I see things differently now.”

As Jewish people in Israel and Ukraine face the pressures of war, many today feel a similar heaviness that makes God’s promises hard to embrace. God sent Moses to be his instrument to proclaim salvation, knowing that the Israelites would initially be unreceptive. Moses was warned about Pharaoh’s hard heart, but not the Israelites’ broken spirit. God had to encourage Moses after this disheartening encounter.

Let this be an encouragement to you as you endeavor to be a witness to Jesus. Yes, the gospel can seem too good to be true, which is why God commissions us to carry it to those who can’t yet believe it. And as we go, he turns what seems unbelievable into the very truth that sets people free.

*Name has been changed to protect privacy.