Pharaoh’s Second Chances

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Transcript:

We’re continuing on with our look at the story of Moses and how God used him to deliver the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. And today we’re going to talk about second chances. Second chances are great.

Third chances are great, too. I see this all the time with my kids. How many of you tell your kids one time to do things and they do it?

Or maybe, you know, those of you who have adult children, thinking back, did you tell them to do things once and they did it every time? Okay, I want to talk to you after church and find out how you made that happen. But I give my kids chance after chance.

Now, is it because I don’t care that they’re obedient? That’s absolutely not it. I want my kids to be obedient.

And at the same time, there’s grace. But I’ll give them chance after chance because I want them to be obedient. I want them to come to a place where they realize obedience is important and they do the right thing because it’s the right thing.

And so I will tell them, this is what you need to do. Sometimes they’ll do it. Sometimes that actually does amazingly happen that they will do what I tell them the first time.

Sometimes they’ll do it because daddy’s word said, you are supposed to do this. Sometimes we have to take it a step further and say, if you don’t do this, I will, and then fill in the blanks. And then you’ve got to make sure you follow through on that.

But if you don’t do this, this will happen. I’m going to give you one last opportunity. Do what you were told.

Now, do I have the power to jump in with a punishment the first time they don’t do something? Absolutely, I have that power. And yet, I don’t enjoy punishing my kids.

I know none of you enjoy punishing your kids. We don’t do it because we like it. We do it because we want them to learn obedience.

But you know what? if they’ll learn obedience without the punishment, all the better. And so sometimes we give them a second chance.

Sometimes we might even give them a third chance. I can’t tell you how many second chances God has given me. Matter of fact, we’ll be on second chances, third chances, fourth chances.

I’m sure glad that when Jesus said, forgive 70 times, seven times, that was just a figure of speech and he doesn’t cut it off at 490 times. And we can look around and say, God, how do you let people get by with the things you let them get by with? Well, first of all, make no mistake, God doesn’t let people get by with anything.

There are consequences. Sometimes the consequences are delayed, but there are always consequences for disobedience when it comes to God. It’s just sometimes God will give us a second chance or another second chance or another second chance before he steps in with judgment.

As I’ve talked about before, the Bible says that God is not slack concerning his promises. God is not forgetful and God is not negligent concerning his promises to bring justice and judgment on sin. God has not forgotten who he is or what he said he’d do.

The Bible says God is not slack concerning his promises as some men count slackness, but he is merciful and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And so why does God seemingly let people get by with things while he gives them chance after chance after chance after chance, it’s not because God is weak or forgetful or negligent. It’s because God is giving every opportunity, one more chance to us, to those around us, to do the right thing, to repent, to seek him before he steps in with punishment.

Now I’m not saying that God is like me or that I’m like God, but I will say it’s no coincidence that God describes himself as a father so many times in scripture. I understand God at least a little bit better since I’ve had kids. I understand a little bit more about why God interacts with us the way he does.

Now, will I ever fully understand God? No, but I understand things a little bit better why he does the things he does. I don’t think God enjoys to step in and chasten us, and yet the Bible says he chastens whom he loves.

And so I see the mercy of God that he steps in and gives us chance after chance, whether we deserve it or not. He gives us chance after chance to repent and do the right thing and seek him and obey. And yet, let’s not be fooled.

As Galatians says, God is not mocked for whatever man sows, that does he also reap. Let’s not convince ourselves that because God shows mercy and gives chance after chance that we can go on acting as we want with impunity. Eventually, it’s not that mercy runs out, but it’s that the chances run out.

And I think eventually God’s patience, comes to a point where he says, okay, now I’m going to step in and there’s going to be judgment. And that happens with our kids, doesn’t it? There comes a point where you’ve exhausted the chances and now we need to deal with this.

Now, I prefaced all of the message with that this morning to help you understand why didn’t God just take Pharaoh out? In my own life, God, why haven’t you done this or that? He has infinite wisdom and infinite judgment and knows how to handle situations for his glory and for the good of his people.

That’s what he was doing here with Pharaoh. He could have just wiped Pharaoh out, but God gave him another chance. For that matter, if we’re on the subject of, well, let’s not give a second chance, how many times did the Israelites come back around and say, no, we don’t believe?

Or when Moses was speaking on God’s behalf, who are you to bring us this message? Look what you’ve done to us. We talked about that last Sunday.

Look what you’ve done to us. You’ve increased our burden. Where was their faith in God?

And if we’re to a point where God shouldn’t give them a second chance, God gives second chances to his people as well. We shouldn’t seek justice when what we really need is mercy. And thank God that he gives second chances and gives a chance to repent.

And so last week we talked about how Moses went at God’s command and told Pharaoh that he spoke for the God of the Hebrews and said, let my people go. And it wasn’t just let my people go, period. The Bible actually says, would you let my people go for a few days that they may worship me in the wilderness.

Just let them go and have a feast to worship me. Now, I submit to you, it was never God’s intent for them to come back, but the request that he was making of Pharaoh, let me rephrase that, the request that Moses was making of Pharaoh on God’s behalf was not unreasonable. Just let him go for a few days.

And Pharaoh’s response was to say, if they’ve got so much free time that they’re thinking and worrying about worshiping God, Instead of focusing on work, then let’s just give them more work to do. If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean. So if you’ve got all this free time to worry about going out in the wilderness and worship, then you’ll just take that free time and you’re going to go and gather straw to make your bricks instead of us giving you the straw.

And so they had even more work to do. And it became nearly impossible for them to keep up with the task that they were given. And yet they were told, you cannot be one brick shy of what you’ve been making up to this point.

And so the people complained to Moses and said, why have you done this to us? Chapter 7, verse 1, And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Now God is not saying here that there is any other God besides him.

We know that that would conflict with the rest of scripture. He is the one and only. He says, I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory, I will not give to another.

And yet Pharaoh and the Egyptian people had long since gone after a multitude of gods. And what God is saying to Moses is that I have, in Pharaoh’s eyes, your threat level is on par with these other beings that he worships. The power that you’re bringing in my name into that court is the same as what he sees in his idols.

And Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet. You go and you speak with authority. You command.

You tell Pharaoh what to do. Who else can tell Pharaoh what to do? He’s the ruler of his entire empire.

At his word, things happen. And he answers to no one except his gods. Now you, Moses, go in and be as a god to him.

And you command him and you tell him, let my people go. And Aaron will be your prophet and speak on your behalf. A prophet is somebody who speaks for God.

So he says, you go here and you command Pharaoh as a God would, and Aaron will speak on your behalf and back you up as would a prophet. And thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh that he send the children of Israel out of his land. He says, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

Now I’ve talked about this before. He says, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. I don’t believe, based on what we’ve studied so far and what we see in the rest of the book of Exodus, that this means that Pharaoh was inclined to let the people go, and God made it to where he would not let them go, just so that God could bring plagues on Egypt.

That would be cruel. And that’s not what we see here. We see that even when Moses comes with a very reasonable request, that Pharaoh says, no, we’re not going to do that.

And so when the Bible says God would harden Pharaoh’s heart, We see that sometimes with our kids and discipline. But we can have a child who already is disobedient, and we tell them, go pick up your toys. No, I don’t want to do that.

And you say, okay, then you’re going to have time out, or I’m going to take kitty away, or you get no dessert, or maybe there’s a spanking. Whatever consequence there is, you give the consequences, and they sometimes dig their heels in even more, don’t they? Pharaoh’s acting like a spoiled child here.

So when the Bible says God hardened his heart, I believe it’s because God said, if you will not obey, here’s what will happen. And Pharaoh, his pride, rose up within himself. I am supposed to be the ruler of Egypt, not this God of the slaves.

And Pharaoh dug in his heels. He said, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. So God said, I will demonstrate my power.

I will demonstrate my lordship over Egypt. And we see, it appears with every successive sign that God sent over Egypt, every plague only increased Pharaoh’s resolve not to let them go until the very end. When finally Pharaoh’s disobedience and his pride were broken.

But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you that I may lay my hand upon Egypt. And again, this sounds like God’s saying, okay, he’s going to not listen to you so that I can show my power against Egypt, so that I can bring this punishment. And God didn’t make him refuse so that he could send punishment.

It’s not Pharaoh’s refusing so that I can punish Egypt. He’s saying, because Pharaoh won’t listen, then I will have to punish. And bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

So he says, Moses, you go and tell Pharaoh, and I’m going to send the people out of Egypt. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them. then they will know who I am.

If you go back to the previous story we looked at, didn’t Pharaoh say, I don’t know this God? You’re about to know who this God is. You’re about to know in a big way when he shows his power.

When I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt and bring the children of Israel from among them, there will be no doubt as to who the Lord is. And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they. And Moses was four score years old, and Aaron four score and three years old.

And when they spake unto Pharaoh. Understand what this means. He was four score years.

We’ve heard that before. Four score and seven years ago. A score is 20 years.

Four score years. Four times 20 is 80. Thank you.

I didn’t know the answer. Four score years old is 80. And four score and three is 83.

When they started their life’s work, what God had been preparing them for all this time. Moses was 80 years old and Aaron was 83 years old. Don’t ever think you’ve gotten to a point in your life that God can no longer use you.

Don’t ever think that you’ve gotten to a point in your life where your work is done for the Lord. I don’t care if it’s because of age. I don’t care if it’s because of disability.

I don’t care if it’s because things have happened to you in your life. If there is still breath in your lungs, then God can use you. Because God said, I could pick anybody that I want, but I’m going to send this 80-year-old man that I’ve spent 80 years preparing so that he now can spend this next 40 years ministering to my people.

And so these two octogenarians go in representing the God of the slaves. Probably not that impressive a sight to Pharaoh. And yet, oh, how quickly God can turn things around.

And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Show a miracle for you, then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent. And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had commanded. So they go in, they tell Pharaoh, we come and speak for the God of the Hebrews.

We come and speak for the Lord, who says, let my people go. Pharaoh refuses, asks for a sign, show me that you really are who you say you are. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

At that point, I’m letting his people go. You start coming at me with snakes. I had a little girl try to scare me with a rubber snake on Friday, and I reminded her I had not graded her Bible test yet.

Come at me with snakes. I’m letting your people go. That’s just the bottom line.

But Pharaoh was not impressed. Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.

For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. So Pharaoh looks at it and says, that’s a magic trick.

We can do that. And I thought for a long time, how on earth could they do that? I have no question in my mind that God can say, throw down a stick and I’ll make it a snake.

I mean, he made snakes and he made sticks, and I don’t see that being a problem for him. But how did the Egyptians do that? Evidently, these magicians were very skilled at what they did.

I don’t believe they actually possessed magical powers. But one of the theories about how they did this is that they were able to put snakes into sort of a trance where they became stiffened out, sort of like hypnosis, and then bring them out of it. So it would look like you’re carrying a stick, I suppose, and then you throw it down and it becomes a snake.

Well, here we have these symbols of the power of Egypt. Understand what you’re reading here, what you’re seeing. When Aaron throws down his rod and it becomes a serpent, and then Pharaoh says, yeah, my people can do that too.

And then the magicians throw down their rods, and they become serpents, which may have been serpents to begin with. Either that or this was some kind of sleight of hand trickery. I don’t know exactly how they did it.

But we’ve got a demonstration of the power of God, and we’ve got a demonstration of the power of Egypt’s gods. And it would seem in that moment, hey, they’re equal. Our gods are just as tough as yours. Then Aaron’s rod begins to eat the others.

Not only would that be a terrifying scene. I’m so glad they don’t show that in the Ten Commandments. They show Aaron’s snake, grab the other one.

I’m so glad they don’t show it swallowing. I’m just glad they don’t show that. That would be a horrifying scene to watch.

And yet what an unmistakable symbol that the God of the Hebrews is infinitely more powerful than the gods of Egypt. Swallow them up whole. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.

And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart that he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said. Now God had told him he’s going to dig his heels in. This is what’s going to happen.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. He refuseth to let the people go. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning.

Lo, he goeth out unto the water. And thou shalt stand by the river’s brink against he come. And the rod which was turned into a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand.

And thou shalt say unto him, the Lord, the God of Hebrews, I’m sorry, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. and behold, hitherto thou wouldst not hear. So he says, Pharaoh’s dug in his heels just like I said he would.

So I want you to go down in the morning to the bank of the river where Pharaoh’s going to be and I want you to meet him there. And I want you to take the rod that turned into a snake and then turned back. I want you to take that with you and I want you to say, God has told you, let his people go to worship him for a few days and you would not hear.

And tell him this, verse 17, Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river.

In that day, they worship the Nile as a god as well. In that day, just like today, most of Egypt’s population is found along the banks of the Nile. They live in essentially a giant desert that has this big, huge river of water running through it.

Water is necessary for life. I mean, I know with all of our technological innovation, we should be able to do what we want, but we still need water. And so the Nile can be the difference between life and death today, just as it was back then.

And so God is saying, not only I’m going to change your water to blood, He’s saying I’m going to hit right at the heart, right at the heart of this thing that is a life and death proposition for you and your whole country. And I’m going to change it to blood. How appropriate with all of the blood of God’s people that was shed by the Egyptians.

God says now your country will be filled with blood as well. He said the fish are going to die, the river is going to stink, and the people will not want to drink the water. They won’t be able to drink it.

He said you go down there and you tell him that I have told him what he’s supposed to do and he has refused to do it. You go down there and you tell him that I want my people to go or this will happen. You go down there and you put him on notice that if he continues to defy the will of God, if he continues to harden his heart and not to obey, that there will be judgment brought on his country.

Folks, so much of this can sound harsh to our ears until we realize what has taken place here. God has sent Moses already now for the third time or he’s about to send Moses for the third time to speak with Pharaoh. God from the very beginning looking on Pharaoh and how awful he was to the Hebrews.

Someone who would not only think it was okay to own other people, but would treat them in such a disgusting way. You look back at the early chapters of Exodus, it reminds me of the Nazis. I know nowadays in our country, in politics, you don’t like somebody, you call them a Nazi.

The word has basically lost all meaning. I’m serious, this reminds me of Auschwitz type stuff, trying to wipe out the Jews. And to go to somebody like that and say, stop it.

God could have just as easily killed Pharaoh, never said a word to him, just struck him dead, sent plagues on Egypt and set the Israelites free, but God gave Pharaoh a second chance. He came in once, he sent Moses in once and said, let my people go to worship for a few days. And Pharaoh refused.

God at that point could have said, okay, you’re done and your kingdom’s done. God could have said, no more chances, you’re through. Could have killed Pharaoh, could have overthrown Egypt, but he didn’t.

In what we’ve looked at today, he sends Moses back a second time and is preparing to send him a third time. God is amazingly merciful. God is also a God of judgment and the two go hand in hand.

God is just and must send judgment. And yet God does something he doesn’t have to do. Out of his own character, out of his own nature, he is merciful.

And because of that reason, he shows mercy when we don’t deserve it. And offered Pharaoh a second chance. In this story, he offered Pharaoh a second chance, if you want to call it that, a second chance three times.

So I don’t know if you want to call that a second chance, a third chance, and a fourth chance. But he gave him these three shots at another chance. God offered Pharaoh a chance to repent when he sent him his word.

He sent Moses back a second time and says, let my people go. In verse 2, he’s telling Moses, God is telling Moses to go back in a second time. He says, thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, and he shall send the children of Israel out of his land.

Excuse me, that he sent the children of Israel out of his land. Go back and tell him that. We know that he refused.

Moses went in and said, this is what God said. And at the hearing of his word, the appropriate response would have been for Pharaoh to bow his knee before God, to humble himself, to realize that he’s just a man, he’s as powerful as he may be and may think he is, he’s just a man, he’s just a created being who owes his throne, his life, his very existence to the goodwill of the one and only God, the one who made the universe and everything in it, including him, and to obey. God gave him at the hearing of his word the opportunity to repent and to obey, and yet he would not.

Now the second second chance that he gave him was this demonstration of his power. God gave Pharaoh an opportunity to wake up and to repent and to obey. When he demonstrated his power, he came in verse 12, and thereabouts we see the interaction with the rods.

And God said, throw it down and turn it into a serpent. Pharaoh’s response was, we can do that too. And then God overcame the gods of Egypt in this symbolic way.

Verse 12 says, For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. It’s not just that God defeated a god of Egypt.

It’s that he defeated all these gods of Egypt. We see that every man cast down his rod. All Pharaoh’s magicians who were there threw their rods down.

And Aaron’s rod swallowed all of them up. God demonstrated his power over Egypt’s gods, and by that, over Egypt itself. See, we started out with God saying, this is what I say to do.

And then we see he comes back and says, this is what I say to do. And by the way, I have the power to command you to do it. You ask before, who am I?

You need to know who am I? See, sometimes God demonstrates his power as a way to get us to wake up and say, this is why you need to obey me. It happened so many times later on in Israelite history through the book of Judges.

They would reject God. They would walk away. They would do as the Bible says, every man would do what was right in his own eyes.

which was not right at all. And God would send in another country and say, okay, if you don’t want to follow me, I’ll show you what it’s like not to follow me. And he would let another country come in and enslave them.

And then when they finally realized, oh wait, it was God’s power that protected us all along, and they would cry out to God, then God would use his power to free them again. So sometimes he draws us to repentance by a demonstration of his power. And the third second chance that God gave Pharaoh to repent was this warning of judgment.

He said, Moses, you go and tell him, this is what’s going to happen in his country. The rivers are going to be turned to blood. The water is going to be turned to blood.

The fish are going to die. The people won’t be able to drink this life-sustaining water. Go and warn him that there will be consequences for further disobedience.

So God gave Pharaoh these second chances. If we don’t pay attention to the whole story, it looks so harsh and cruel, or it can look so harsh and cruel, the way God interacted with Egypt and said, I’m going to send these plagues on you. Until we realize how awful Egypt was being to God’s people.

All the blood that was shed, all the suffering that was caused, and yet God still responded in mercy and gave them chance after chance after chance to repent, to change their ways and to obey Him. Ladies and gentlemen, God does the same with us. God gives us chance after chance after chance to repent.

Some of the things that He’s given us as chances to repent are the same things that He gave to Pharaoh. God gives us his word God tells us about who he is and what his standards are for right and wrong and how we have transgressed those standards the whole point of the Old Testament law was that we couldn’t keep it it was to show us what was already true that we were already fallen short of the holiness of God and I’ve used the example many times when you go to a theme park and there’s a ride as a child and it says you must be this tall to ride this ride and you’re a foot shorter than that Is it the sign that made you too short to ride the ride, or were you already too short? You’re already too short, the sign just pointed out and made you know that you were too short.

Same thing with the law. We were already sinners. We had already fallen short of the glory of God by disobeying Him.

And yet the law merely pointed out how grievous the problem was, how far we fell short of God’s standard of absolute holiness. And so God gave us His word and said, This is what I expect, and this is what you’ve not done. And his word says that the times of ignorance God winked at in the book of Acts.

The times of ignorance God winked at. But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. To repent.

God was merciful and gave us chance after chance. But now, you know what, it’s time to get serious. And he commands all men everywhere to repent.

There are calls throughout his word that this is where his standard is. This is where we fall short. All human beings, we all fall short.

And now he tells us to repent and to seek him. He gives us that chance to repent by His Word. And when we come here, when we gather in the church to hear His Word preached, He’s giving us an opportunity to repent.

As non-believers, He’s giving us the chance to repent and trust Christ. As believers, He’s giving us the opportunity to be confronted with the places where we still fall short and to seek reconciliation with Him. And so through His Word, He gives us the opportunity to repent. He doesn’t just leave us in darkness and ignorance.

He says, this is the truth. Now do what you’re supposed to with it. We’re confronted with the truth and then left with a choice to make.

Sometimes God gives us a chance to repent by demonstrating his power. Sometimes God does things still in our lives that are so remarkable that we realize it could only have been done by God himself. And it reminds us of who he is and how powerful he is and how little we really have control over in our lives.

And the intent of him demonstrating his power is to say, I’m here. I’m real and the things that I told you to do I really mean that. Seriously listen.

The miracles and the signs and the wonders that were done all throughout scripture were not just done to make the people go wow that was cool it was to remind the people who God is so that they would see him in the proper perspective. It was to validate the message. It was to remind them of what the truth was in previous weeks when we’ve talked about the rod being thrown down and turned into a serpent.

When we’ve talked about Moses’ hand being changed to leprous and then being healed again, that wasn’t just so Moses and Pharaoh would go, wow, how’d he do that? It was so that Moses and the Israelites and Pharaoh and everybody else involved would know that when God spoke and said, I am the Lord, that he meant it and he was who he said he was and that they needed to listen. God still demonstrates his power in our lives.

Sometimes God demonstrates his power by making great things happen for us that we never thought were possible, putting us just in the right place at the right time for his plans to work out, and we leave going, there’s no way that could have happened except God did it. Sometimes he demonstrates his power by taking things away from us that get in the way of our relationship with God. I told you have no other gods before me.

You’re going to make that job an idol, that job is now gone. You’re going to make that home, that car, that money, that person, whatever it is, an idol, I can take it all away. And God demonstrates his power in our lives so that we will take him seriously and listen.

And he gives us an opportunity to repent before it’s too late. God also gives us the opportunity to repent through promises of judgment. The Bible teaches that we will be held accountable for what we say and what we do.

Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man sows, that does he also reap. We’re given ample warning.

We’re given ample warning throughout scripture about what the choices are. We can repent and obey and trust him, or we can continue to reject him and disobey and reap the consequences. But God lays out the choice very clearly and says, here are the options.

Pharaoh, obey or disobey. And I’m going to turn your country upside down. I’m going to turn your life upside down.

There’s judgment coming. He tells us today, repent and obey because there’s judgment coming. Reading a passage earlier this week in Luke, where Jesus is talking to some of his followers about some disasters that had taken place in their area that they’d heard about.

Some people had had a tower collapse on them and said, do you assume that they were more sinful than anybody else and that’s why they were killed when the tower fell? He said, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He talked about the gate being wide that led to