God is the Source of our Boldness
Exodus 7:1-13
- We’re continuing our study through the book of Exodus.
- As we study, we’re asking the question, “What can we learn about honoring God from this passage?”
- Last week, we asked the question, “Why do we doubt?”
- We saw through the example of Moses that we doubt when we’re overwhelmed, we doubt when others doubt, and we doubt when we forget.
- Moses was overwhelmed because Pharaoh refused to let his people go, and instead increased their workload, so that caused him to doubt.
- Then, the people doubted and were upset with Moses, blaming him for their extra workload, so that caused him to doubt even more.
- Then, Moses also had forgotten about God’s Promise to deliver his people and bring them to the Promised Land, so that caused him to doubt even more.
- But God was patient with him, and today, we find Moses moving forward with boldness, once again going before Pharaoh.
- Of course, that boldness wasn’t something Moses stirred up on his own…
- No, God was the source of his boldness.
- I’m reminded of a time years ago when I had to confront someone close to me about their sin.
- I was only about 22 or 23 years old at the time, and I hadn’t had to do anything like this before.
- Unfortunately, the sin this person committed was not something that could remain hidden or just be brushed off to the side.
- I remember experiencing all sorts of emotions.
- Anger, confusion, disappointment, to name a few…
- I prayed, and asked God to let me out of going to this person, but the more I asked, the stronger the confirmation became that I needed to confront them.
- So the day came when I finally confronted this person, and I remember God giving me a boldness to say what needed to be said.
- It was very painful to do, but once I started, God gave me the words, and He strengthened me to say what needed to be said.
- Sadly, what I said to him was not received well at all…
- This person became very angry at me, and called me judgmental and a Pharisee…
- That was one of the most difficult days I’ve ever experienced in my life, but I know that God gave me the boldness to say what needed to be said!
- So let’s look at 3 reasons that we can have boldness when God wants us to do difficult things.
I.) He Knows Everything- Vs 1-7
- A few years ago, the floor in our laundry room had rotted and fallen in.
- I’m not a carpenter or a handyman, so I didn’t know what to do.
- I figured I could hire someone to do it but didn’t have the money at the time.
- This was just before Aaron was born, so Sherri’s parents were up visiting, and when her dad, Paul, saw the problem, he said, “I know how to fix that.”
- He proceeded to give me the instructions on what to do, but I must have had a blank stare on my face because he said, “You know what, I’ve got lots of time. Let’s do this project together.”
- So he and I went to the store to buy the needed supplies and as he was giving me instructions, he was helping me with the project.
- When I first looked at that rotted out floor, I thought, “There’s no way I can do this!”
- But when dad offered to help, and actually did it with me, I no longer feared the project…
- I was confident I could do it because dad knew how to do it, and I couldn’t mess it up with the expert there.
- So every measurement I made and every nail I pounded was done with boldness instead of fear because dad knew what steps were next, and he could see the finished product in his mind.
- Moses up to this point has struggled with doubt and fear as well, but now, God is telling him it’s time for action.
- So here in chapter 7, we no longer see Moses questioning God with his doubts…
- No, we see Moses moving forward with boldness because God is with him.
- Just to give Moses added confidence, God tells him exactly what’s going to happen…
- He also tells him what he needs to say, and how Pharaoh will respond…
- It’s all step by step, so nothing will be a surprise to Moses.
- God starts by saying, in vs 1, that He has made Moses as God, or as a god, to Pharaoh.
- The Hebrew actually says, “I have set thee in God’s stead to Pharaoh.”
- So Moses was going to be God’s direct representative to Pharaoh.
- He would be the one in front of Pharaoh, acting on God’s behalf.
- Aaron was his prophet, which in Hebrew means ‘spokesman.’
- So Moses received the messages from God, and Aaron was the one who would be pronouncing each of the judgments to Pharaoh.
- Notice in vs 3 that God says He will harden Pharaoh’s heart.
- To understand this, we have to keep in mind that God knows everything.
- That means He can see our hearts, and He knows our thoughts.
- So when He says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart”, He’s saying, “Pharaoh is going to be stubborn and he’s going to resist, and instead of trying to soften His heart, I’m going to allow his heart to get harder and harder.”
- Every plague God sent was causing Pharaoh’s heart to get harder and harder, by his own choice.
- It’s also important to realize that God didn’t force Pharaoh to have a hard heart…of course not.
- God already knew the state of his heart.
- And that’s why He tells Moses, “I’m going to multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.”
- So Pharaoh’s stubbornness against God would actually have the opposite effect than what he wanted…
- Instead of stopping God, Pharaoh’s stubbornness allowed God to display His awesome signs and wonders for all of Egypt to see.
- Vs 4 gives us a little more insight into why Egypt is about to be hit so hard by God’s judgments.
- He says, “I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my people out by great judgments…”
- At first glance, that looks like God’s doing this in order to free His people…
- Of course, that was the biggest part of this, but I believe there’s more reasons for God’s judgments.
- Look at vs 5… “The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt…”
- Just think of all the idols that Egypt had.
- They worshipped the Nile River, and crocodiles, and cats, and the Pharaoh, and the list goes on…
- They were a very pagan nation, and they were about to feel God’s wrath as their gods proved useless against the power of the One True God!
- So, with God having said this to Moses, we see Moses and Aaron in vs 6 respond by doing just as the Lord commanded them.
- Notice there are no arguments this time!
- That’s because God is the source of their boldness, and He has reminded them that He already knows everything that’s going to happen.
- They can rest assured that God is going to use them in a great and mighty way.
- Notice their age is given…
- Moses is 80 and Aaron is 83 years old…
- Why’s that important?
- It’s important because Moses writes in Psalm 90 that the average lifespan of a person is 70 years old, and if our strength endures, then we can live to 80 years old…
- Well here, he and Aaron are starting their ministry at 80 years old, a time when most of the folks their age at that time would be dying…
- That shows you that Moses truly did move forward boldly, without fear of dying during his mission…
- He understood that God, who knows everything, would decide when it was time for him to die…until then, he had work to do!
- What about you and me?
- Are there times when we need to be reminded that God already knows everything?
- Absolutely!
- One example that comes to mind is how New England is considered the be the least churched part of the country.
- The numbers go back and forth between us and Vermont on which state is actually the least churched state, but the fact of the matter is that there is a strong need for the Gospel up here.
- If you and I stopped and focused on only the negative about this situation, it would be very depressing and discouraging.
- Thoughts run through our heads, like, “Nobody wants to go to church anymore!” “Nobody wants to hear about Jesus.” “There is too many drugs and alcohol in our area, and folks want those things over Jesus…we can’t win them to Christ…”
- You get my point…it’s really easy to just focus on the negative and choose to not even bother.
- What’s the point if the situation is hopeless?
- Yet God knows everything…
- He can see people’s hearts and we can’t.
- Never does He tell us to just give up and leave people to drown in their sins…of course not!
- He tells us to share the Gospel with all the world.
- So as Christians, knowing that our Great God knows everything, we can trust that He will give us the boldness we need to keep going strong for Him in our area.
- Every interaction with folks counts…the cashier at Wal Mart, the carpenter doing work on your house, the Tammaro or Dead River guy delivering your fuel…
- There are so many opportunities for us in small town Maine to let others see Jesus through us.
- We can do so with boldness, because the God who knows everything is with us.
II.) He Can Do Anything- Vs 8-10
- A little boy was sitting on a park bench reading his bible, and as he read, he would shout " praise the Lord!"
- A local college professor came by and heard him and stopped to ask him what he was so excited about.
- The little boy told him that he was reading from the bible about the children of Israel fleeing from Pharaoh, and the Egyptian army.
- The little boy went on to tell him how God had caused the Red Sea to part, allowing the Israelites to cross.
- The professor told the little boy not to believe the bible.
- He told him that it was just a collection of fairy tales, and old fables told over the years.
- He told him that science had figured that the place where the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea was only 1 foot deep.
- The little boy dropped his head, and the professor started to walk away.
- When the professor had gotten a few feet away, he heard the little boy say, " Praise the Lord, my God is awesome!"
- The professor turned around and said " I thought I told you that the water was only 1 foot deep.
- The little boy replied “Well if it was only 1 foot deep, my God is even greater than I thought. It says here that God caused the Red Sea to come back together and it destroyed the Pharaoh, and his entire army!”
- That little boy understood that God can do anything, even when others say He can’t.
- That’s what Pharaoh and his magicians find out in this set of verses.
- Pharaoh demands to see a miracle from them.
- Why?
- It’s almost like he’s daring God to do his worst…
- He doesn’t actually believe that Moses and Aaron can do any miracles…
- It seems to just be his way of mocking them.
- But Pharaoh was in for a wake-up call because God was going to show Him What True Power is.
- Notice that the verse doesn’t say they did as Pharaoh said, though…
- It says they did as the Lord commanded.
- That’s because God was in control of this, not Pharaoh.
- So God told Moses to have Aaron throw his rod on the ground in front of Pharaoh, and it would become a serpent.
- It’s important to remember that the rod that Aaron carried didn’t have any special magic powers…
- It was just an ordinary rod, but it was the rod that God chose to use.
- He used it to show Pharaoh, Egypt, and the Israelites that He can do anything.
- Now let’s talk about Moses and Aaron for a moment.
- They’ve seen the power of God before, when God turned the rod into a serpent for the leaders of the Children of Israel.
- Now, He’s telling them to do it before Pharaoh.
- Last time they stood before Pharaoh, he drove them out and increased the workload of the Israelites.
- So it took a lot of faith in God for Moses and Aaron to go before Pharaoh once again.
- In their minds, they might have been wondering, “What if Pharaoh gets upset again and punishes our people with something worse than last time?”
- That would have been a legitimate fear because they already upset Pharaoh once and knew what he was capable of.
- Yet they were going in obedience to God, with faith, and I believe that they went knowing that God can do anything.
- So what was so great about the rod turning into a serpent?
- Well, in order to understand, we have to look at the Hebrew word used for serpent here and earlier, in Exodus 4:3, when the rod turned into a serpent as a sign for the elders of Israel.
- The Hebrew word used in Exodus 4 is “nachash” which according to Strong’s Concordance means ‘a snake’ from its hiss or ‘a serpent.’
- So there’s no question that God turned the rod into a literal serpent for Moses and the elders.
- However, the Hebrew word used here in chapter 7, can mean, “serpent, dragon, or sea monster.”
- So why the different word for ‘serpent’ here?
- Some great Bible scholars believe that this means the rod turned into a crocodile, because that was one of the gods the Egyptians worshipped, and it would be considered a river monster.
- However, I don’t think that’s the reason 2 different words are used.
- I believe in both instances the rod did turn into a literal serpent.
- However, since the word in chapter 7 seems to have more of a ‘monstrous’ image and meaning than the word used in chapter 4, I believe that the serpent in front of Pharaoh was a larger serpent, more frightening looking, more beastly and vicious.
- Think about how many different kinds of snakes there are in our world…there are snakes of all sizes and colors…
- You’ve got huge cobras and anacondas that are giant monsters, and then you’ve got tiny, harmless garden snakes, and everything in-between.
- Some snakes are venomous, others aren’t…
- So I believe the snake that appeared to Moses and the elders in chapter 4 was a smaller, harmless serpent.
- Now obviously, Moses didn’t like snakes because he ran from it, and I would have too…
- But I think it was God’s way of showing Moses and the Israelites that He was with them and they had nothing to fear.
- The snake in front of Pharaoh, on the other hand, was something to fear.
- Huge, scary looking, powerful…
- God was showing Pharaoh that He was in control, and there was reason for him to fear God, and if he didn’t let the Israelites go, he was about to face huge consequences.
- Think about it…we’ve already seen that God can turn a rod into a serpent.
- Why would it be impossible for Him to turn that same rod into a larger serpent?
- So as we can see, God can do anything, and He was showing Moses and Aaron, “I’m more powerful than Egypt.”
- So Moses and Aaron could stand in front of Pharaoh with boldness, knowing that Pharaoh was helpless before God Almighty.
- What about you and me?
- I’ll go back to the evangelism example.
- When we look at the state of Christianity in America, it’s very discouraging and it looks like there’s no hope.
- Morals and values are disappearing and what once was considered wrong and shameful is openly celebrated and praised today.
- We look closer to home and see how many unchurched folks there are in New England, and here in Maine.
- So many people hurting, and so many people who need Jesus.
- It’s awful easy for us to say, “There’s no point, people aren’t interested anymore, and we don’t want to offend people.”
- Even pastors give up in frustration.
- As a matter of fact, New England is called the Pastor’s Graveyard…
- There are pastors just giving up, quitting, and moving away at an alarming rate.
- Why? It’s because this isn’t the Bible-belt…
- We don’t have hundreds or thousands of church members, and hundreds of churches in the same city, or a church on every street corner…
- No, New England is very spiritually dark.
- So we can throw our arms up in the air and say, “I give up!”
- But you know what? That’s not going to do any good…
- No, of course not…
- We must remember that God can do anything!
- Even when it seems to be impossible, He can still do a mighty work.
- There are so many testimonies of people coming to Jesus who lived horrible lives before they met Him.
- A lot of those folks had Christian people look at them as hopeless causes…
- I just heard a story yesterday about a gentleman who was on drugs, and had prescription pills for Schizophrenia…
- One day, he turned to Jesus, and the Lord took away the Schizophrenia and his drug addiction, and today, he’s playing guitar and singing music for the Lord.
- God can do anything!
- So when you and I see the drug addict down the street, once again getting high…instead of shaking your head and thinking, “What a waste”, why not say a prayer for them?
- You don’t know how much pain they have on the inside, but God does, and He can heal them…but how will they know, unless you and I tell them?
- There are so many opportunities for us to share Christ with those who are hurting.
- We can do so with boldness because the God who can do anything is with us.
III.) He is Greater than the world- Vs 11-13
- A young boy traveling by airplane to visit his grandparents sat beside a man who happened to be a seminary professor.
- The boy was reading a Sunday school take-home paper, and the professor thought he would have some fun with the lad.
- “Young man,” said the professor, “if you can tell me something God can do, I will give you a big, shiny apple.”
- The boy thought for a moment and then replied, “Mister, if you can tell me something God can’t do, I’ll give you a whole barrel of apples!”
- That boy understood something that the professor didn’t…that God is greater than the world, and because he is, there’s nothing He can’t do.
- Here in vs 11, we find Pharaoh and his magicians attempting to out-do God, thinking they were greater than Him.
- The Apostle Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:8 tells us that their names were Jannes and Jambres, and that they withstood Moses.
- But how did they withstand him?
- Vs 11 tells us that they threw down their rods and they became serpents.
- So they were attempting to imitate what Moses just did.
- So how did they do it?
- It’s possible that it was just an illusion…
- That they were hiding snakes under their robes and threw them out under the cover of smoke and fire or something like that.
- But I believe it’s deeper than that.
- You see, these magicians and sorcerers had opened themselves up to the demonic realm…
- All the false idols they worshipped, all the magic they performed, all of it was only possible through the power of Satan and his demons…
- The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish…”
- So, this literally is a battle between the forces of evil and God Himself, and of course the forces of evil don’t stand a chance…
- Yet they try…
- So yes, I believe the rods of the magicians did turn into snakes…
- But the power Satan and his minions have is limited and is nothing compared with God’s power.
- That’s proved in the next part of this verse when it says that Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods…
- What a sight that must have been!
- God was showing Pharaoh, and Egypt that they had no power and they could not stand against Him.
- In doing so, He was also showing Satan and his demons once again that their power was nothing against God Almighty and His servants.
- God is greater than the world!
- I believe He also was giving Pharaoh and Egypt a picture of what He was about to do.
- He was literally going to consume Egypt because of their wickedness, and that was going to happen through the 10 plagues.
- At this point, Pharaoh should have realized the power of God, and repented…but he didn’t.
- The end of vs 13 says Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he did not heed them.
- God already knew Pharaoh wouldn’t budge, but at least He gave him more than one chance to surrender…
- The first time they went before him, there were no miracles…
- The second time, the miracle is not a plague, but a picture of God’s power and what He was going to do to their country.
- Both were great opportunities for him to acknowledge the power of God.
- So what about you and me?
- Are there times when we need God to show us that He is greater than the world?
- Absolutely!
- The world is becoming more and more hostile towards Christianity.
- They have used the courts to silence us time after time again…
- ‘You can’t pray here, you can’t speak about God there, you can’t say that’s a sin, you can’t witness to so and so because that’s proselytizing’, and the list goes on and on.
- I was just listening to a sermon yesterday by Robert Jeffress, and he pointed out that people who don’t believe in God are always using his name in vain, but you never find them using the Easter bunny’s name in vain, or the Santa Claus, or Buddha, or Muhammed…no, it’s always God or Jesus.
- When I worked with the Chaplains in the Army, it seemed like a guy named Mikey Weinstein from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation was always trying to silence or censor what they could say.
- He was constantly suing Chaplains, just for doing their jobs, and continues to do so today!
- Sadly, the world hates God and His Truth…
- They call Him and His followers offensive, hateful, and close-minded.
- Jesus told us in Matthew 5:10-12, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
- He also said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
- The world will try to silence us, as much as possible.
- But you and I can be bold in our faith because God is greater than the world.
- In closing, don’t be afraid to proclaim the name of Jesus to the world.
- Don’t let organizations like the ACLU, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the American Atheists, or the Council for Secular Humanism bully you into submission and silence.
- God is greater than anything the world throws at us.
- We can be bold in the most difficult of situations because God knows everything, He can do anything, and He is greater than the world.
- Remember that, next time you’re sharing Jesus with someone or you’re being persecuted for your faith.
- Let’s pray.
