Quote from Forum Archives on July 27, 2009, 11:40 am

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

 

GOD’S SAVING POWER #2/5

 

 

GOD IS POWERFUL

July 26, 2009

 

 

Text: Exodus 7:8-13, 8:16-19 (read Scripture at page 2)

 

 

As I shared last Sunday, tomorrow marks the beginning of our week of Vacation Bible School.  I encourage everyone to attend as either a volunteer or as a student.  VBS can only work if when have both.  Remember, the Christian faith is passed to the succeeding generation only to the extent that we invest ourselves in the lives of our children.  They need to hear our testimonies of God’s faithfulness to every generation.  Our VBS this year features “Crocodile Dock,” where fearless kids shine God’s light.  Throughout the week, we will be hearing stories of God’s saving power.  Don’t forget to register before leaving today.

 

I began a new sermon series last week, which is developed the VBS Bible lessons and themes, “God’s Saving Power.”  Most of the Bible lessons are taken from Exodus and the account of the Israelite’s release from bondage in Egypt.  Last week, we considered Exodus 3:1-15 and how it testifies that God is with us.  This morning, I continue the lesson from Scripture that testifies that “God Is Powerful.”  We want to read this morning from Exodus 7:8-13 and 8:16-19.  [read]

 

As with the account of Moses and the burning bush, the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh is one of the Bible stories that we learn early on and refer to it frequently in Sunday school classes, VBS, devotionals, and even a few sermons.  And as with Moses and the burning bush, there is always more we can learn even from the familiar Scripture.

 

Not without objection, Moses follows God’s command for him to return to Egypt, go before Pharaoh, and demand that the Israelites be released.  Moses has done this, as we read in Exodus 5:1, “Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.’”  Pharaoh, however, was not inclined to give much attention to God, as his reply indicates, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”  In typical tyrant fashion, Pharaoh was not going to pay attention to anyone else when it meant changing his evil ways.  In fact, in response to the first confrontation, Pharaoh not only increased the slave’s workload; he also made it more difficult them to accomplish it.  Whereas not many days before the Israelites had rejoiced that Moses was going to lead them out of captivity, they now despised him as the source of their new hardships.  Pharaoh was no dummy.  He knew how to put the brakes on revolution by turning the people against themselves, and his plan was working.  It was not looking good for the Hebrews.

 

But this is where today’s title comes in.  “God Is Powerful.”  We can read through chapters 7 through 11 of Exodus and easily think that God’s power is shown in the plagues and that be the end of it.  Yes, the power of God is on full display in the plagues, but there is much more going on than God just producing ten plagues.  The power of God was being demonstrated even more powerfully in some subtler ways.  The plagues were just a means to throw light on the true object of God’s revelation of His power.

 

We begin with the recognition that the conflict is between God and Pharaoh.  Why the king of Egypt?  Well, he enslaved the people that God wanted to free, of course, but more than that, Pharaoh was considered to be a god.  In fact, his title specified that he was the god who “protected Egypt and subdues the foreign lands.”  He was regarded as the child of Amun, the supreme god.  Wealth, power, and worship belonged to the Pharaoh.  Anyone who approached him had to fall to the ground, smelling the earth, and call upon this “perfect god” and exalt his beauty. (John H. Dobson, Exodus, Judson Press, 1977, p. 45)  In the minds of those witnessing the event, this was a contest of the gods and, obviously, the god who won would be the most powerful.

 

This is an important context to keep in mind.  To most of the known world at that time, Pharaoh was not just a powerful king; he was the most powerful god.  This also helps us to understand another couple of pieces of curiosity that arises in this account.  First, how is it that Pharaoh’s magicians can duplicate some of the signs and plagues brought by the Lord?  Well, part of our answer, if not in whole answer, is found in the reality that Pharaoh and his priests were devoted to several false gods.  We know false gods as demons.  None of them are really a god, but they do have powers.  Egypt has long been known for its magicians and conjurors.  Even today, travelers are still amazed by their cleverness.  Both snakes and crocodiles have been seen to be made so stiff that the magician can pick them up by the tip of their tails like sticks.  We will never know what the “secret arts” of Pharaoh’s magicians were.  Did they turn staffs into snakes, or did they make snakes appear to be staffs?

 

Even in more modern times, there are still signs of wonder and power done by those who submit to false gods.  The most powerful sorcerers among the Eskimos was the Shaman Alualuk.  After his own conversion experience with Jesus Christ, he was asked whose power he had used in his sorcery.  He replied, “The devil’s, of course.”  We cannot expect to understand how powers like these work, but we can notice that magic and similar practices either destroy the Christian faith of those who habitually take part in them, or they prevent the proper development of the Christian faith, and that deliverance is possible through Jesus Christ. (John H. Dobson, Exodus, Judson Press, 1977, pp. 46-47)

 

In the case of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, we note that Pharaoh did not appear to be amazed by the staff that turned into a snake.  In response, he summoned his own wise men and sorcerers, although if Pharaoh was the god, we might wonder why he had to summon anyone.  Nevertheless, “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake.” (Exodus 7:11-12)  But just as Pharaoh was unimpressed with God’s power, God was unimpressed with Pharaoh’s power.  “But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” (Exodus 7:12)  God is powerful.

 

In spite of God’s power, Pharaoh refused to budge.  “Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.” (Exodus 7:13)  Earlier, God had told Moses, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you.  Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.  And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.” (Exodus 7:3-7)  This leads us to the second curiosity: did God intentionally prevent Pharaoh from letting the Israelites go simply because He wanted to bring further devastation upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians?  Was it God’s fault, then, that so many people suffered and died before His will would be obeyed?

 

Once again, let us consider the full context.  And that context was that, to the ordinary Egyptian, and probably to a few Israelites, Pharaoh was a god.  It is sort of hard to comprehend a god meekly backing down when challenged by either men or gods.  Not even tyrants who do not think of themselves as literal gods back down in the face of threats to their power.  A fact that has already been given us about Pharaoh is that he is obstinate and defiant.  Exodus 5 makes that clear.  It is also clear that any man who refuses to listen to God’s commands finds his conscience growing harder, and it becomes more difficult to obey the next call or command of God.  The more often we do wrong, the more difficult it becomes to change and to do what is right.  It seems that this is how God has made us.  It is part of God’s judgment on sin that when we sin we remove ourselves from Him and make it harder to respond to Him.  This is a good reason, maybe the most compelling reason we need, to reach children with the Gospel so that they have their opportunity to love the Lord before their hearts are turned away by their accumulation of sin.

 

This is where Pharaoh was at.  He began by being obstinate, and he hardened his own heart.  As he refused to obey God, he condemned himself.  This was God’s judgment.  God did not make Pharaoh sin in order for Him to punish Egypt more.  God allowed Pharaoh to do what Pharaoh wanted to do.  When a person uses his freedom to disobey God and to keep refusing Him, part of the penalty is to have a “hardened heart.”

 

The unfortunate result is that God brought the plagues to Egypt and upon the Egyptians.  As a result of obstinance, defiance, and disobedience to God, people suffered.  They needlessly suffered.  But Pharaoh refused to be moved by his people’s suffering.  That was not important to him; after all, he was their god.  In fact, during the first three plagues, Pharaoh saw slivers of hope as his magicians and sorcerers kept duplicating the mighty acts of God by their own deceptions and demonic powers.

 

However, by the fourth plague, even that changes.  It was the plague of gnats.  The very dust of Egypt became gnats.  That’s a lot of gnats.  And here is when things began to change.  “But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.  And the gnats were on men and animals.”  (Exodus 8:18)  The magicians were so perplexed that they said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” (Exodus 8:19)  God is powerful.

 

Regardless of what Pharaoh privately thought, he was not going to crack.  He was not going to budge an inch on the matter.  “But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.”  (Exodus 8:19)  It took several more plagues before that began to change.  As the plagues proceeded, Pharaoh had moments of giving in, sometimes more and sometimes less, but he always went back on his word after the crisis passed.  Pharaoh knew that his hold on power was crumbling, but he would not give in to that reality.  He continued to fight the Lord until that final plague.  But that is the topic for the next sermon.

 

In spite of the wonders and magnificent display of power that the plagues God brought upon Egypt must have been, they shrink to near insignificance alongside God’s greatest display of power.  Ironically, that greatest display of God’s complete power appears to the unbelieving, ignorant man as His weakest moment.

 

In spite of defeating Pharaoh, who was worshiped as a god, and in spite of defeating all the other false gods man has conjured over the centuries, men, women, and children throughout all the ages have continued to dwell in bondage.  We are hopelessly enslaved to the darkness of sin.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)  That is our condition.  Remember what I said about the condition of Pharaoh’s heart and conscience?  It has gotten no better over the ages.  Except that when it was right in God’s time, the Redeemer was born into this world to save His people from their sin.  “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)  Yes, upon that cruel cross, God looked weak and broken and defeated.  But there was a power at work there that the world was just beginning to glimpse.  It was – and is – the power of God’s love.  It is God’s love that means mercy, grace, forgiveness, and deliverance from our self-made darkness of sin.  “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12)  God is still leading His people out of bondage.  God is powerful.

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

 

 

 

 

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