FBT Daily Devotional: Exodus 10

FBT Daily Devotional

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So this morning we're going over chapter 10 of Exodus. Since we left off on Friday, we have we kind of missed one, two, three plagues, and Pharaoh is still being Pharaoh. So I want to take a maybe a different look at this because as I was reading through this, um, in my spirit, I started to read this as a story of intercession and also God's mercy. Now we obviously know how the story ends up. Most people do just from, especially if you saw the Prince of Egypt. But looking at this, it's interesting to me how many chances Pharaoh got to get this right. Um, and how at every turn, until it was too late, um, when he asked the Lord to take away whatever type of you know ailment or strife or whatever have you was going on in the land, his wish was, you know, received, it was accepted until it was too late. Um, so I want to start us off somewhere else that I typically tend to do. I want to take us to Romans 1 really quickly, and then we're gonna jump back here just to give a little bit of New Testament twist onto something that, you know, we story that we may be familiar with, but I'm like I said, so I know a lot of us, we a lot of, or at least specifically for me, you know, we kind of skim past these this Old Testament stuff, but you know, as we're learning, we we should see why um that we should not. But um we're I'm just gonna start off with God's anger at sin, and that is in Romans chapter 18. We're starting off. Um, and if we as we read through it, um one of our current topics is gonna sound pretty familiar. But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful and wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. That sounds like someone we know right now. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and the sky. Through everything God had made, they can see his invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they couldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks, and they began to stink up foolish ideas about what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious ever-living God, they worship idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandons them to do whatever their shameful hearts desired. And if we skip down to verse 28, since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. So as we're reading through Exodus, um, one thing as I was doing my research, um, it came to my attention that earlier on, I guess with maybe like the first five or so plagues, it uh the Bible just states that Pharaoh's heart was hard or it became hard. But it doesn't necessarily explicitly say that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart until we get towards the end, these last, these last few. So um, as we constantly talk about, there is a certain posture and a certain mind state in a start, a certain part that we have to approach the Lord with, or we could end up not being too different than Pharaoh. Um, like, yes, he is communicating basically directly with God through Moses, and he is seeing things and hearing things and feeling things and smelling things and et cetera. But there can be circumstances in our own lives where we can be looking around and feeling things and smelling things and stepping through stuff and feeling things squish under our feet, whether our spiritual feet, our literal feet, or just figuratively, where we're not reading the writing on the wall. We're not taking in what's actually going on. Um, as we've been talking about as we went through Genesis, these are stories technically or figuratively about us and the human condition. So, you know, as we can look through this story, we can say, wow, he wouldn't, you know, he why why would he not grasp that? Why would he not, you know, at this point, you know, turn around? But sometimes we can take the mercy of the Lord or the ability of, you know, people to intercede on our behalf, and we can take for granted that mercy. We can take for granted that there's going to be another chance and another chance and another chance. And as we see, um, or that we will see at the end of this story, it um you can come and run come into a situation where you run out of that mercy. So just uh go jumping back to chapter 10, I just want to start off here um just from the very beginning. And this is titled The Plague of Locusts. And um, as we're aware, you know, um, if we imagine God as a baseball pitcher, he has a certain type of pitches that he has in his repertoire. And um, as we saw in chapter 9, um the hail is a part of it, the locusts are also a part of it. Then the Lord said to Moses, return to Pharaoh and make your demands again. I have made him and his officials stubborn, so I can display my miraculous signs among them. I've done this, I've also done this so you can tell your children and grandchildren about how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how the signs I displayed among them, and so you will know I am the Lord. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says, How long will you refuse to submit to me? Let my people go, so they can worship me. If you refuse, watch out, for tomorrow I will bring a swarm of locusts on this country, and they will cover the land so you won't be able to see the ground. They will devour what little is left of your crops after the hailstorm, including the trees growing from the fields. They will overrun your palaces and homes of your officials and all the houses of Egypt. Never in the history of Egypt have your ancestors seen a plague like this one. And with that, Moses turned and left Pharaoh. Pharaoh's officials now came Pharaoh's Pharaoh's officials now came to Pharaoh and appealed to him. How long will you let this man hold us hostage? Let the men go and worship the Lord. Don't you realize that Egypt lies in ruins? So at this point, everyone around him is aware of what's going on. Everyone around him kind of sees that where all of this is headed. They, you know, because uh one thing that uh Minister Stephanie mentioned um the other day, it's not like when the frogs, you know, plague was over, it's not like the frogs disappeared. They had to deal with the frogs. So, you know, when we sin, when we're going through different times of our hearts being hard hard, you know, that stuff doesn't necessarily get swept away. We are under a new covenant, so you know, our you know, the actual action or the actual, you know, sin itself, God may turn his eyes to it, but we still have to deal with the natural effect. So they're still dealing with this natural effect. But at this point, because Pharaoh's gone so far down this road and his pride has, you know, just taken over his heart, he's not in a position to even acknowledge what's going on. So he gets to this point um where he's basically trying to bargain with the Lord, where we've all we all have been, you know, where we like, oh, I'll I'll do a little bit of this, I'll do a little bit of that. And it turns out that it's just not good enough. He turned once once again, once the the actual pain, once the actual um, you know, ailment is over, he turns back to his own his own way. He turns back to his own way. So Moses left Pharaoh's court and pleaded with the Lord. The Lord responded by shifting the wind, and the strongest wind blew the locusts into the Red Sea. Not a single locust remained in all of Egypt, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart again, so he refused to let the people go. So then now we're shifting into the plague of darkness. Um, so once again, we're we're experiencing another plague. And this time, when um, you know, when Moses comes to Pharaoh, it's uh there's a different turn to it. There's a different um tone that we end off at. Um and I'll go ahead and read that last chapter, and then we'll let that load the last verses and we'll head on to breakout rooms. Finally, Pharaoh called for Moses. Go and worship the Lord, he said, but leave your flocks and herds here. You may even take your little ones with you. So he's still trying to bargain with the Lord. He knows what is expected of him, but he's still trying to add his little two cents in. He's still trying to win this tug of war with the Lord, which he obviously at this point knows that he cannot win. No, Moses said, You must provide us with animals for sacrifice and burn offerings to the Lord our God. Our livestock must go with us too. Not a hoof can be left behind. We must choose our sacrifices for the Lord our God from among these animals, and we won't know how we are to worship the Lord until we get there. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart once more, and he would not let them go. Get out of here, Pharaoh shouted at Moses. I'm warning you. So he at this point now he's warning God via warning Moses. So he's really too far gone at this point. Never come back to see me. The day you see my face, you will die. Very well, Moses replied. I will never see your face again. And with that, we can go to breakout.