The people are happy to see Moses and at the end of chapter 4 we see that they are convinced that the Lord sent Moses and they worshipped together. Well, there's usually lots of enthusiasm when a new pastor comes and does lots of great things. Hope starts to build in the people and they get excited about God again. But no man can live up to the expectations and God certainly tends to do things in ways we may not like too much, so as we see here the excitement dies down pretty quick.
Moses first job is to go with Aaron to Pharaoh and tell him, "Uh king, the Lord our God says you should let my people go so we can walk for three days and then have a wild bush party in honour of me".
Can you just imagine Pharaoh, all dressed in his fancy royal attire, dusty, hairy old 80 year old Moses comes in with his 83 year old brother and says this? Pharaoh must of looked at him with bewilderment and says, "Oh is that so, and who is this Lord of yours? Why should I listen to him and let you go (as if you're going to come back). I don't know this Lord of yours, and no I will not let you go".
But in verse 3 we see that Moses and Aaron persisted, "No seriously, the God of the Hebrews has met with us so let us take this three day walk so we can offer sacrifices to our God. If we don't he will kill us with plague or sword."
Notice how Moses turns it up a notch here. At first it was just a party in the wilderness for Moses, so now he thinks well, maybe if I make it sound more important, he'll reconsider. But no, in fact Pharaoh turns it up a notch himself, probably getting a little irritated now.
You guys are stopping you're peoples work by distracting them. Stop this nonsense and let them get back to work.
And he wasn't done. A little later that day he decided to teach them a lesson so he sent an order for them to work even harder by not supplying the ingredients for making the bricks. So now they had to make the same amount of bricks but they also had to go get the straw themselves as well. It got really hard now as if it was easy before, and the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh pleading with him to ease up, but Pharaoh just called them lazy and said it was their own fault.
So Moses and Aaron are waiting outside and the foremen curse them saying, "May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials. We're as good as dead because there's no way we can deliver that many bricks now.
Then Moses goes and takes it up with God. "God why are you making it worse? Why did you even send me? How come you are not rescuing them?"
Isn't it true that sometimes when we surrender to and give our lives to God, things in this life may get harder for a while before they get better. Often with God its not about making things better right now, but about the future promises.
Pharaoh didn't know or respect God. He couldn't have thought this God had much power or cared about his people because they had been slaves in Egypt for so long. Pharoah represents how much of the world views our God and the church - non-existent, non-caring, non-powerful.
He represents the arrogance of all mankind when he asks, "Who is the Lord"?... Well let me tell him, and people we need to be reminded too. The book of Revelation tells us who he is.
He is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings on the earth.
He is the almighty God on the throne as brilliant as gemstomes and rainbows. He is the only worthy lamb who was slain to ransom his enemies.
He is the awesome judge of the universe whose wrath could incinerate everything with the snap of a finger. He has all authority in heaven and on earth.
He is perfectly holy and just. And He is, he was, and he always will be, he is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, he is the creator and sustainer of all things. And he is coming soon bringing his reward with him to repay all people according to their deeds.
He is all of that, and yet, He loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. And he has made us a kingdom of priests for God his father. We aren't worthy to say his name or even offer acceptable worship unless he makes us worthy.
And those that are with him today in heaven can only fall down and repeatedly say - holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.
When you look on the surface it appears sometimes that man does have more power, people don't see God as anything much in or outside of the church. Of course the greatest thing God has ever done is invisible on the outside - the giving of eternal life. Pharaoh didn't believe this God would be a problem because he had never seen Him act. That was soon to change.
Life is getting harder, so even the Hebrew people don't listen to God through Moses. As we move into chapter 6 we see that Moses doesn't believe Pharoah will listen either. Both believers and their leaders can get discouraged when life gets harder, when persecution comes, and we can fall back into listening to the world, seeking comfort, instead of hearing and obeying God, and believing His ultimate promises.
Notice who the foremen blame after they go to Pharoah. They shoot the messenger. They don't blame Pharaoh, they don't even blame God, they blame Moses and Aaron. Then Moses starts to doubt his call. I just came from a pastors conference where there were more than 1000 pastors. Do you know what many of the table conversations and messages were about? How people in congregations treat the pastor.
Blaming him for being too rigid about using the Bible as the authority, or making decisions that the pastor believes came from God after seeking Him through His word and prayer and fasting, just because they don't agree from their human perspective. And like Moses, thousands of pastors are questioning their call and quitting, because their people are never satisfied as if the church and pastors were put here to satisfy us.
At least blame the right source. If it comes from God's word and you don't like it, blame God, not Moses or the pastor who preaches it, or the friend who shows it to you. But we are afraid to blame God sometimes, so a person is an easier target. But the people in our text, they didn't have a clue what God was doing, and I suspect not many of them were seeking Him personally. They were willing to let Moses be the God guy, but only if it went well for them.
Very often when God is going to do something, it is corrective in nature, so there may be some hardship along the way to the final result. We are to be thankful for this because we know that bad things have to be fixed before good can come. Also because it is primarily through suffering that we grow in God. We rarely grow much spiritually when things have been easy and content for long periods of time. The new Testament is very clear that we should expect some tribulation and the positive benefits that can come from it.
The end of chap 5 and into chap 6 we see that it's OK to complain to God, especially when you are being obedient. You don't really have any right to complain to God if you aren't walking in his ways. Here God reaffirms the promise right down to a tee. This should give Moses confidence and assurance, but as God gives Moses the instruction to go to Pharaoh again, look what Moses exclaims in 6:12, "But Lord!"
We see that Moses reaffirms to the people what God had recently told him, but they didn't listen, so Moses doubts himself and falls back on his old excuse that he is such a clumsy speaker. Neither my people or Pharoah are going to listen to me.
Do you see why it's so difficult to be a leader for God, and why so few want to be and so many of those who do, don't last very long? I really feel for Moses here and how alone he must feel. On the one hand he has God giving him tough instructions, and on the other he feels responsible for his people and he wants to please them. He is really stuck in the middle. But the test of faith becomes whether you are going to trust God, or cater to people.
But Moses has a persistent faith here that has certainly been bolstered by the miracles he has seen God perform, and he and Aaron receive further commmands from God.
Then there seems to be an interlude to give us a genealogy in chap 6. This genealogy is not just randomly plopped here though. Notice there is focus on Aaron and Korah, and their sons. Remember this is the priestly line of Levy and it sets up what we will see is a family feud up ahead in Numbers chap 16 commonly known as Korah's rebellion.
You see God chose Aaron's sons to be the priests with Aaron. Korah and the rest of the Levites were given lesser but still important ministry positions. Not too long after, Korah sees how well the priests are doing materially so he went and gathered a bunch of other folks to rebel against Moses and Aaron saying, what right do you have to act as though you are greater than the rest of the people?
Moses says, "I didn't set it up this way, God did." And to prove it he sets up a test to see who is allowed in God's presence. He says its really the Lord who you are rebelling against, not me and Aaron, we're just messengers. Well God shows up and tells Aaron and Moses to get away from these rebels so He can instantly destroy all of them.
Moses and Aaron pleaded with God to not destroy all of them, just Korah the instigator and his immediate family. Then God showed himself and had the earth swallow up Korah's family to convince everyone that indeed God had annointed Moses and Aaron. But the next day they were all muttering and blaming Moses for killing his competition.
This time God didn't take no for an answer and killed over 14000 people with a plague until Aaron interceded. So you see how even though God does all these things that we will see him do in Egypt, not many years later God still has to prove himself to these stubborn Israelites over and over again.
I'm not going to go into detail about the plagues that God now brings against Egypt but here is quick video that portrays some of them.
Show video of the plagues from the Bible Series around 18 minute mark to 22
The recurring theme through all these plagues is Pharaoh's hardened heart. It is mentioned many times and three different Hebrew words are used. In chap 7 v 14 we see a word that is used only once referring to the hardened heart. This is the only time that it doesn't imply who hardened it, and the word means great or grievous. In this context we might use the word "mean".
Then there is a word that is used when it says several times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. This word is related to the first but is most often used to express honour or glory. So in essence Pharaoh is honouring or glorifying his own heart through his stubborn refusal to submit to Moses or God.
Finally there's the one most people have trouble with and that is when it says God hardened Pharaohs heart. Why would God harden his heart so he couldn't believe? Let me first point out that though earlier God says he will harden Pharaohs heart, it is not until the sixth plague that it says God actually did the hardening. For the first half of the plagues it seems that Pharaoh is hardening or glorifying his own heart.
Then as the plagues get worse it says that God starts hardening the heart. And this time the word means to strengthen or make more rigid. So it seems that literally God is just strengthening what is already there. But more accurately I believe this means that God is just allowing Pharaoh's heart to remain what it already is. He knew Pharaoh would not soften his stubborn, arrogant heart no matter what, so God just allowed that to be so. I don't believe it means that God made it impossible for Pharaoh to change his mind.
It's kind of like when you say, "that person makes me sick". Most likely they are not actually making you sick, but their behaviour is really bothering you. They are not actually giving you some kind of illness. In the same way I think this expression basically means that God's words and actions are causing Pharaoh to be even more stubborn. In this way by what God is doing, with the plagues and commands, God is strengthening Pharaoh's stubbornness, but it's not something that is out of Pharaoh's control.
Now it says that the Egyptian magicians were able to duplicate the first couple of miracles and plagues. How they are doing the same miracles we don't really know other than they knew some secret arts? But remember God says the false prophets will be able to do signs and wonders that could lead people astray. Well, it casts doubt about God when the world/man claims to be equal to or better than God.
But by plague three (8:16) the magicians concede that God is doing this, thus confirming that man and Satan's power will never keep up to God's.
Then we see that repeatedly Pharoah breaks his promises to let them go when there is a break in the trouble. How many Christians also call out to God when things are bad, then when they get better we stop fearing, calling, needing or keeping our promises to him?
So Pharoah is now seeing that maybe this isn't just magic. But he still just thinks it's the power of man and he won't be manipulated into giving in. I want to just say again that many people today think that Christians are just trying to manipulate them by sharing their faith. "you just want to make me do something I don't want to do". Many people think there is more evidence that there isn't a God when they look at the tragedies that happen in the world.
I believe God is showing us here that we must never give up when our faith is rejected by others. Don't hide away because people don't believe what you do, keep showing them God. But this is much easier if we can show them God's power and not just give them words. What has God done in your life or the life of your church that only God could do? God will always be more convincing than you.
The fact that we have a hard time coming up with something like that tells us that perhaps we are not listening to and obeying Him, that our belief that He is living and active in us is weak, or that he doesn't do anything special anymore after the work of salvation.
Which of those do you believe? Do you want to believe that? Are we selling God short by making him look impotent in his church because we don't do the tough stuff he calls us to in obedience? We need to constantly remind ourselves who God is.
In chapter 9:13-35 we see something very important from Pharaoh, false confession and repentance. Why is this important? Because this is very common in our culture today. We have to be really careful even when presenting the Gospel in a public venue, that we don't just appeal to people's emotions and give the impression that Jesus is a self-help method. Often when life is really bad for a person they are vulnerable to making an emotional decision for Christ that looks like what Pharaoh did.
Also notice in verses 20-21 that in this 7th plague God shows mercy to the Egyptian people too. If they feared God, in other words believed His words, they acted in faith by sheltering their slaves and livestock, and they were spared.
Often people accept Jesus to make our life better or change our bad situation, but when the crisis is over, it is discovered that this is not a true faith, they haven't really been changed, or have a relationship with God. When you really know Jesus, it goes way beyond what he can do for you. It is about who he is and who you are in relation to His magnificence, and it becomes more about how you can worship him with your life, than what he can do for you.
If you really understand what he has done to save us, you are content to just worship him and never ask for anything ever again. Every prayer he answers after that is just an amazing bonus that leads to more gratitude and worship. Even many who claim to be Christians see Jesus as their cosmic problem solver, and that is a very inacccurate picture of who He is.
* Why is God hardening Pharoah's heart? Notice how in verse 1 of chapter 10 it says I have hardened the heart of Pharaoh and his servants. But then in verse 7 it seems that the hardening of the servants has softened and they plead with Pharaoh to let the people go. Again suggesting that maybe this hardening can be overcome by our will. But Pharaoh starts to try to negotiate, and Moses will have no part of it. He will not compromise at all on what God has said, even if there are consequences. Pharaoh will just not yield completely to God.
So the plagues continue and isn't it interesting that 7 of these plagues match the ones we see in Revelation.
Finally we see that after all these plagues the Egyptian people show favour to the Israelites, but Pharoah still doesn't. I think there might be a lesson there about allowing government to rule without accountability, but we don't have time for that now. Even Pharaoh's own servants saw Moses as very great.
Then in chapter 11 we see a description of the final horrible plague that we will look at next week, and the great passover.
Why did God do all this? Wouldn't it have been just as effective and more efficient to just make Pharoaoh let them go in the first place? Why did people have to die and there be such turmoil?
Well in chapter 10 verse 2 God says this is all so you can tell your grandchildren of my mighty works, how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done so that you all know that I am God. SEE ROMANS 9
You see God is the author of all history and he has a purpose for everything. We shouldn't be asking why he did things things way, we should be asking why would he even create us in the first place. Of course he can do whatever he wants with us. Everything he has ever done, and will ever do is directed at us knowing him. All of it is meant to be a witness leading to Him. And to teach us why he had to send his Son Jesus to us. I am convinced that no human being has ever died that did not have a chance to meet with God and either believe or reject Him.
When we read these stories we need to ask ourselves, what did I learn about God and what does that mean for my life? We must not get hung up on questioning God's motives, we must trust that they are good and loving. It leads to knowing Him and knowing Christ, and God will use all means to accomplish this, nothing else matters to Him, but remember he is incapable of doing anything bad or evil, so look for his glory, look for His loving purpose even as we witness tragedies or the awful plague we will see next week.
