Let's start today by simply rereading Exodus 7:1-7:
(7:1) And Yahweh said to Moses,
"Look! I have made you God to Pharaoh,
while Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.
(2) You shall speak all that I command you,
while Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh,
and he will release the sons of Israel from his land,
(3) while I will harden the heart/mind/resolve of Pharaoh,
and I will multiply my sins and wonders in the land of Egypt,
(4) and he will not listen to you-- Pharaoh--,
and I will set my hand against Egypt,
and I will bring out my army-- my people-- the children of Israel--
from the land of Egypt with great acts of judgment/authority,
(5) so the Egyptians know/acknowledge that I [am] Yahweh--
when I stretch out my hand over Egypt,
and I bring out the sons of Israel from their midst,"
(6) and Moses did, with Aaron, just as Yahweh commanded them, thus they did.
(7) And Moses [was] 80 years old,
and Aaron [was] 83 years old.
The new stuff starts here. Verse 8:
(8) And Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
(9) "When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, 'Make for yourselves a wonder ,' say to Aaron,
"Take your staff,
and throw it before Pharaoh.
It shall become a serpent,"
Pharaoh understands that anyone can claim God spoke to them. It's not hard to claim to be a prophet. To claim to be God's spokesman. But how can anyone know whether or not it's true?
This isn't a hypothetical question, or problem. We run into the same thing all the time, when we share the gospel. When we talk about Jesus to other people, and about how we serve the one true God, how can people know that we are truth-tellers? How can they know that we are right, and everyone else is wrong?
The NT gives us maybe two different answers.
(1) God draws people to himself (John 6:44). All people are taught by God (John 6:45). So when you tell people about Jesus, you aren't starting from nothing. And you aren't working alone. God has already worked on them. And we can pray that God would do even more for people-- that He would open their hearts to the gospel (Acts 16:14).
(2) God uses healings, and signs, and wonders to verify the truthfulness of our gospel message.
1 Thess. 1:4-5 (also 1 Cor. 2:5; Acts 8:4-8):
4 For we know, brothers[b] loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
People understand that there are many so-called gods, and many religions, and many saviors. God, knowing that people wrestle with this, and are unsure what to believe, makes it easier for people to trust him by giving them signs, and wonders, and healings. These miracles are an anchor for people's faith. A firm foundation, that will keep them free from doubt and uncertainty.
So when Pharaoh challenges them to make a sign-- like something you'd whip up something in the kitchen-- we should understand that he's making a reasonable demand. If it's true, prove it.
And God, knowing how this will play out, tells Moses ahead of time which sign to start with. Aaron will throw down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it will become a serpent.
Verse 10:
(10) and Moses went, with Aaron, to Pharaoh,
and they did thus, just as Yahweh had commanded,
and Aaron threw his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants,
and it became a serpent,
(11) and he called-- also Pharaoh-- to the wise men and to the sorcerers,
and they did-- also they-- the magicians of Egypt with their occult skill likewise/thus,
(12) and each man threw his staff,
and they became serpents,
and the staff of Aaron swallowed their staffs,
(13) and the resolve/heart of Pharaoh was strong,
and he didn't listen to them,
just as Yahweh had spoken,
This is probably the best spot in the whole Bible to stop, and talk about magic, and sorcery, and the dark arts.
Magic, and sorcery, and witchcraft-- things like that-- are real. There is power in them. They work. The reason people get sucked into those things is not because they are idiots, or easily conned. They get sucked into those things because they offer benefits.
I read a story once about a guy who was heavily involved in magic and sorcery, and a young Christian woman made this challenge to him: "If you want to see real power, you should come to my church."
So the guy goes to this church, and as he sits in the seats, listening to the worship, he actually starts levitating.
Maybe, you think it's impossible. I believe the story. And two people in leadership, becoming aware of what was going on, went back to him, and commanded the demons inside of him to get out, in Jesus' name.
And they did. The man was freed, because the name of Jesus overpowered the demons.
Satan, and demons, are not without power. They can imitate God's signs and wonders. They can offer benefits to people.
But... they are not strong enough. Their power is deceptive, because it's not enough.
How do we know that?
Aaron's staff swallows their staffs. Yahweh is the More Powerful One. Yahweh is God Most High (El Elyon). Satan can imitate some of Yahweh's wonders (Rev. 19:20?). But he can't equal them.
When I read these verses, I consider them a helpful reminder, and a warning, to myself. I could let myself get sucked into dark, demonic things. I could tell myself that movies like Harry Potter are no big deal. I could tell myself that Ouija boards are safe. I could tell myself that computer games like Warcraft and Diablo (or whatever the current games are, where you go around blowing away demons and zombies) are a harmless form of entertainment. But those things are Satan rolling out the red carpet for you. They are an invitation to partner in demonic things (1 Cor. 10:20-22).
Now, let's go back, and think about Pharaoh. If you were Pharaoh, and you saw all this happen, what would you focus on?
Would you be impressed by the skill of your own sorcerers in making serpents, and decide that Moses and Aaron can be ignored?
Or would you be impressed by the power of Aaron's serpent, and change your mind?
Pharaoh focuses on the wrong thing, and his resolve stayed strong.
This brings us to Sign #2. Verse 14:
(14) And Yahweh said to Moses,
"Heavy of resolve/heart, Pharaoh [is].
He has refused to release the people.
(15) Go to Pharaoh in the morning.
LOOK! Going out toward the water [he is],
and wait to meet him upon the edge of the Jordan,
while the staff that was turned into a serpent take in your hand,
(16) and say to him,
"Yahweh the God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying,
'Release my people, that they may serve me in the wilderness,
and LOOK! You haven't listened until now.
(17) Thus has said Yahweh,
"By this you will know/acknowledge that I [am] Yahweh:
LOOK! I am striking with the staff that is in my hand upon the waters that are in the Nile, that they will turn to blood,
(18) while the fish that [are] in the Nile will die,
and the Nile will stink,
and the Egyptians will tire of drinking the water from the Nile,"
Let's pause here, and turn back to Exodus 5:1-2:
(1) And after this, Moses and Aaron came,
and they said to Pharaoh,
"Thus has said Yahweh the God of Israel:
"Release my people, so that they may hold a feast for me in the wilderness,"
(2) and Pharaoh said,
"Who is Yahweh, that I should heed his voice to release Israel?"
I don't know/acknowledge Yahweh,
and, what's more, Israel I shall not release,"
Pharaoh, up until now, hasn't acknowledged Yahweh. He hasn't recognized Yahweh's authority over him, or his people, or the Israelites. He still thinks that he, and not God, is "The Man."
This second sign is designed to change that. Let's reread verses 17-18:
(17) Thus has said Yahweh,
"By this you will know/acknowledge that I [am] Yahweh:
LOOK! I am striking with the staff that is in my hand upon the waters that are in the Nile, that they will turn to blood,
(18) while the fish that [are] in the Nile will die,
and the Nile will stink,
and the Egyptians will tire of drinking the water from the Nile,"
If you saw Moses strike the James River-- which is no Nile-- and saw it turn to blood, and you saw the fish float up to the surface dead, and you smelled the stink coming it... would you be convinced? If you turned on your faucet, and watched blood come out, would you be convinced?
Maybe today, you'd wonder if Moses is some type of chemist or biologist. Does he work at some type of evil science lab overseas? Did he smuggle out a toxin that changes water to blood, and kills fish? Is it a foreign bio-weapon?
What it is, is Yahweh. Moses calls Pharaoh to look at what he's about to do, and understand what he's about to see, and understand what this reveals about Yahweh.
Verse 19:
(19) and Yahweh said to Moses,
"Say to Aaron,
Take your staff,
and stretch out your hand upon the waters of Egypt--
upon their rivers, upon their canals, and upon their pools, and upon all their reservoirs of water--
that they will become blood,
and blood will be in all the land of Egypt-- both in wood [vessels] and in stone [vessels],"
(20) and Moses and Aaron did thus,
just as Yahweh had commanded,
and he lifted up the staff,
and he struck the waters that [were] in the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and before the eyes of servants,
and they turned-- all the waters that were in the Nile-- to blood,
(21) while the fish that were in the Nile died,
and the Nile stank,
and the Egyptians weren't able to drink the waters from the Nile,
and it became blood in all the land of Egypt,
(22) and the magicians of Egypt did thus/likewise with their sorceries,
and the resolve/heart of Pharaoh was strong,
and he didn't listen to them (=Moses and Aaron),
just as Yahweh had said,
(23) and Pharaoh turned,
and he went to his house,
and he didn't set/place his resolve to this either,
(24) and all the Egyptians dug around the Nile, water to drink,
because they weren't able to drink from the water of the Nile,
So, Moses and Aaron turn the Nile into blood. And then we read in verse 22 that the magicians are again able to imitate Moses. Using some type of dark art, or sorcery, or demonic something, they turned water to blood.
If this was Pharaoh, would this impress you?
If I was Pharaoh, I'd maybe be a tiny bit pleased by this. It'd help me to keep a strong resolve. But I'd also be a little peeved by this. I'd be far more impressed if my magicians could reverse what Moses did. A much better magician would be able to turn blood into water, and raise fish from the dead.
So once again, the magicians are able to imitate Moses, to some degree. But they don't equal him. And they can't overpower him. Moses, and Yahweh, are stronger. And their wonder, is far greater.
The other thing we start to see here, is that the Egyptians as a whole are now suffering. They've lost their water source, and they have to dig around the Nile to get water. It's no longer just about Pharaoh.
When you're a stubborn leader, and refuse to change your mind about something-- regardless of how obvious the truth is-- your people suffer. Sometimes, flip-flopping about something is the right thing to do.
------------------------------------
For an application today, I want to focus on verse 23:
(23) and Pharaoh turned,
and he went to his house,
and he didn't set/place his resolve/heart to this either,
Pharaoh is, above all else, stubborn. He's a stubborn person. And he's a stubborn leader.
At times, being stubborn, and having a strong resolve, can be a good thing. There are times when you will find yourself being attacked, or criticized, or resisted, and you are doing the right thing. You are committed to the truth, to what is right. And what you need to be, in that situation, is stubborn. Being stubborn is part of what it looks like to be a spiritual warrior.
Let's turn to Ezekiel 3:1-11 (NRSV no reason). These verses are Yahweh's commission to Ezekiel, when He sends Ezekiel to prophesy to Israel:
3 He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. 2 So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. 3 He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.
4 He said to me: Mortal, go to the house of Israel and speak my very words to them. 5 For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel— 6 not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. 7 But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.
8 See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. 9 Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. 10 He said to me: Mortal, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and hear with your ears; 11 then go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them. Say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD”; whether they hear or refuse to hear.
God knows exactly who he's sending Ezekiel to. He knows that Israel is a rebellious, stubborn house. And God makes sure that Ezekiel doesn't get eaten alive by them, like a brand new teacher in a tough high school. So what does God do for Ezekiel? You can describe it two ways. The first, would be to say that God makes Ezekiel like Pharaoh.
Or, we could say this:
God gives Ezekiel the spiritual gift of stubbornness. God gives him the "grace gift" of being stubborn, and tough, so that he will be a match for the house of Israel.
Being stubborn, by itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Stubbornness can be good, and necessary.
But with stubbornness, there are two things that we usually have to be careful about:
(1) The first, is that you have to be careful how it comes out. Unless you're Ezekiel, as a rule, stubbornness needs to come out of a heart that's humble, and gentle, and loving. And if you lose this, or don't have it, your stubbornness isn't going to do anyone else any good. It won't end up being much of a spiritual gift. Instead, you'll damage important relationships, when you didn't need to. You'll tear down this church, instead of building it up.
(2) The second possible downside to having a strong resolve, is what we see in this passage. Sometimes we're wrong. We thought we correctly assessed a situation. We thought we were doing the right thing. But we weren't. We were wrong.
And that's super awkward, when it happens. We took this strong, principled stand on something. We were confident we were right. We had a forehead of flint, or diamond, and we thought we were like Superman, bravely defending the truth.
This is especially awkward when it comes to God things, and Spiritual things. Right? Someone says something about God, or the Bible, and we "know" they're wrong. So we get hot, and defensive, and argumentative. We have a forehead of flint, and we rise up and defend God and the truth. And 2 years later, or a month later, we realize that person was right, and we were wrong. It's embarrassing. It's humbling.
One of the things we saw repeatedly in our Gospel of John study was the importance of being open-minded. Lots of people, meeting Jesus, had reservations about him. They thought he was from the wrong part of the country, and couldn't be the Messiah. They thought he was a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath. They thought he made too much of himself, and claimed too much. And they were closed-minded, and rejected Jesus.
But the ideal Israelite, in the Gospel of John, is the one who is willing to change his/her mind about Jesus (Nathaniel, in John 1:43-51; the man born blind in John 9). They were open-minded enough to new revelations from God, to let the truth overcome skepticism, and doubt. They were willing to come to Jesus, to see the truth for themselves.
When you're exposed to new truths, and they don't fit your theology/filter, be slow to reject them. Don't assume you're right.
Without trying to say that I do all of this right, what I've learned to do is accept that there are things I don't understand. There are things I'm unsure of. And I just try to leave them open, for now. I don't make a final decision. I don't reject them. I stay open to them, hoping that they will be clarified down the road. And if it's really a big deal, I'll ask God for wisdom, and understanding on it.
And the other thing I do when I'm reading the Bible, as long as I'm awkwardly talking about myself, is that I assume I don't understand it. Every time I start a new passage, I assume I'm wrong in some way. That there's lots of things I've missed, or misread. And I try to just let it speak for itself. I try to let its focus, be my focus. And then I try to believe what it says, and do what it says. [I try not to get in God's way, would be another way to put it maybe?]
So when we look at Pharaoh's strong resolve, and his unwillingness to learn new truths about God, we should stop, and look at ourselves.
It's good to be stubborn about the right things. There are hills that are worth dying for. There are times when you need to be Ezekiel. I think I have four or five things, that I'm super stubborn about. My forehead is a diamond, on those things.
But let's make sure we save our stubbornness for the right things. And let's make sure that if we are stubborn, that we are stubborn the right way-- with humility, and gentleness, and love.
And let's try to be open-minded to new truths about God-- about who He really is, and what He really wants from us. Listen to God, when He speaks to you. Be open to new truths (assuming they are "truths"). And when you see God act, in new and different ways, be open to changing how you think about him. Specifically, my guess is that God is far more good, and far more loving, than you realize. Be open to that-- and be open to God.
And in the end, what does God want?
What we see here, today, is that God wants you to acknowledge him, and serve him. Recognize who God is, and live every aspect of your life in light of that.
Translation:
(8) And Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
(9) "When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, 'Make for yourselves a wonder,' say to Aaron,
"Take your staff,
and throw it before Pharaoh.
It shall become a serpent,"
(10) and Moses went, with Aaron, to Pharaoh,
and they did thus, just as Yahweh had commanded,
and Aaron threw his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants,
and it became a serpent,
(11) and he called-- also Pharaoh-- to the wise men and to the sorcerers,
and they did-- also they-- the magicians of Egypt with their occult skill likewise/thus,
(12) and each man threw his staff,
and they became serpents,
and the staff of Aaron swallowed their staffs,
(13) and the resolve/heart of Pharaoh was strong,
and he didn't listen to them,
just as Yahweh had spoken,
(14) And Yahweh said to Moses,
"Heavy of resolve/heart, Pharaoh [is].
He has refused to release the people.
(15) Go to Pharaoh in the morning.
LOOK! Going out toward the water [he is],
and wait to meet him upon the edge of the Jordan,
while the staff that was turned into a serpent take in your hand,
(16) and say to him,
"Yahweh the God of the Hebrews sent me to you, saying,
'Release my people, that they may serve me in the wilderness,
and LOOK! You haven't listened until now.
(17) Thus has said Yahweh,
"By this you will know that I [am] Yahweh:
LOOK! I am striking with the staff that is in my hand upon the waters that are in the Nile, that they will turn to blood,
(18) while the fish that [are] in the Nile will die,
and the Nile will stink,
and the Egyptians will tire of drinking the water from the Nile,"
(19) and Yahweh said to Moses,
"Say to Aaron,
Take your staff,
and stretch out your hand upon the waters of Egypt--
upon their rivers, upon their canals, and upon their pools, and upon all their reservoirs of water--
that they will become blood,
and blood will be in all the land of Egypt-- both in wood [vessels] and in stone [vessels],"
(20) and Moses and Aaron did thus,
just as Yahweh had commanded,
and he lifted up the staff,
and he struck the waters that [were] in the Nile before the eyes of Pharaoh and before the eyes of servants,
and they turned-- all the waters that were in the Nile-- to blood,
(21) while the fish that were in the Nile died,
and the Nile stank,
and the Egyptians weren't able to drink the waters from the Nile,
and it became blood in all the land of Egypt,
(22) and the magicians of Egypt did thus/likewise with their sorceries,
and the resolve of Pharaoh was strong,
and he didn't listen to them,
just as Yahweh had said,
(23) and Pharaoh turned,
and he went to his house,
and he didn't set/place his resolve to this either,
(24) and all the Egyptians dug around the Nile, water to drink,
because they weren't able to drink from the water of the Nile,
