God and Pharaoh

Sermon Transcript

Let us pray. We bow before Thee, our Father, and we give Thee glory and praise in Christ's name. We do praise Thee for Thy blood, the cleansing power of that blood, that it breaks the power of canceled sin, that it speaks for us within the veil, and it cries mercy for us day by day.

And we thank Thee that it is there for You to plead as our great High Priest and Mediator unto the Father, as You pray for us, that our faith fails not. And we praise Thee that we have an intercessor within the veil, one within the veil and one within us, the Holy Spirit within us to pray with groans which cannot be uttered, and the Lord of glory to pray within the veil for us that our faith fails not. O Lord, how many times have we heard people say, I'm glad You're praying for me, but oh how much more blessed it is to know, Lord Jesus, that You pray for us.

And we bow before Thee tonight in praise and in thanksgiving for this. Our Father, we look to Thee for the word tonight that Thou hast given, Thou alone can speak it to our hearts. We pray that Thou wilt show forth Thy mighty power and Thy mighty grace tonight even as You did this morning, that You will be with us and we will see Thy glory even as the Israelites saw Thy glory on the other side of the Red Sea when Thou didst deliver them from the bondage of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh.

Our Lord, may we see Thy hand in our lives day by day. May we see Thy providential hand in the affairs of this world and of this nation. May we see Thy hand of providence in all that's going on today and trust Thee that Thou art working all things after the counsel of Thine own will.

And truly You said in Thy word that all things work together for good to them who love the Lord who are called according to Thy purpose. And not only the individual things that touch our lives, whether they be little or small, but yet the overall picture of the whole world, all of these things have a bearing upon our life, upon our dwelling, upon our living. And we thank Thee for it.

May we see Thy hand in it all, and especially to see Thy glorious attributes being worked out right before our very eyes as Thou art working day and night. Thou dost never sleep nor slumber, and we praise Thee and thank Thee for it. Father, give us eyes to see with, eyes to look beyond the very mundane things of everyday life, and to look and see You ruling and overruling all things for Thy glory and for our good.

For it is in Christ's name that we pray, Amen. It struck me very forcibly as I was reading through the book of Exodus, all of the things that God did for His people in Egypt. There were three verses of Scripture that came to my mind that the Lord would not let me get away from as I began to meditate upon them.

And of course, the words of Brother Paul in Romans chapter nine, where he said in verse 17, For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised up thee, that I may show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. He was quoting from Exodus nine, where we read these words in verse 15, For now I will stretch out my hand, that I might smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

As yet exalted thyself against my people, thou wilt not let them go. And then when God had brought the children of Israel across the Red Sea, and they had seen the Egyptians dead in the Red Sea, we have this verse of Scripture in Exodus 14.31. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and His servant Moses. This deliverance of Israel out of Egyptian bondage was spoken of time and time again in Psalms, throughout the prophets, and the prophet Isaiah wrote and said, verse 11 of chapter 63 of Isaiah, And he remembered the days of all Moses and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he that put his Holy Spirit within him, that led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name? That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble.

As a beast doth down the valley of the Spirit of the Lord cause him to rest, so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a glorious name. You will notice in all of this, these verses that we have read, that we are told that the Lord did all of this for His glory, and that the people saw His glory. He said He raised up Pharaoh for this purpose, that He might show forth His power, that His glory may be known to all the inhabitants of the earth.

And the Lord writes chapter after chapter through the hand of Moses, telling us of His deeds there in the land of Egypt. Spends chapter after chapter showing how He delivered them by blood and by power. And then He shows us the great deliverance at the Red Sea, when by His power He parted the water and the children of Israel went forth on dry ground, onto the other side into the wilderness, into the wilderness of Sinai, and the Egyptians went down into the waters trying to follow them to get them back, and God closed the waters in upon them to show forth His mighty power.

I got to thinking and meditating upon God raising this one man up, that He might show in him His power. And not only His power, but all of His other glorious attributes. How much came out of this one man's life and God raising him up as He did.

And all the things that God worked out to glorify Himself, to manifest His glorious attributes, not only to the Egyptians and to His people, but to all the nations of the earth. For all the nations of the earth heard of the glory of the God of the Israelites. And God was glorified in all that was done.

Now beloved, if we look around us today, and look at everything that touches our lives, God is bringing to pass the events that we see today, that we saw ten years ago. He's bringing them to pass. He might be glorified in all that men do and say.

Because God is glorified either in His mercy or His judgment. In every one of His glorious attributes, His glory is manifested. And I see it so vividly in the life of this man.

I would that we would watch the providential hand of God and how He moves and how He leads. You cannot put God into a mold. You cannot declare what God is going to do.

All the books that have been written in the last two decades, especially in the 70s and 80s, and everybody trying to interpret prophecy in the light of Israel going back to the land or the nation of Israel being established in the land of Palestine again in 1948, and how men have worked through the scriptures and taken scriptures to prove every kind of viewpoint that they could come up with, that God was going to do such and such in such and such a way because He was soon coming and this was going to happen in the future and that was going to happen in the future. And they had it all figured out that one generation would not go by from 1948 before the Lord would come. Because they took that verse of scripture in Matthew 24 where it says that this generation shall not pass away before all these things come to pass.

And of course they had the wrong time element. That happened in AD 70 and not in something in the future. And God said that that generation would not pass away before all these things would come to pass.

And they have had Europe divided and they just knew that when East Germany was made, divided from West Germany, this was a sign of the fall in place of all the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel. But all of these things fell apart in their own face and right before their own eyes. As I heard one man say, he became a multimillionaire with the books that he wrote on all of this stuff.

When he was quizzed on a talk show one time, somebody asked the question when they rang in, what are you going to do if it's not right? If you're all wrong? He had no answer. But in print he put, well at least I made a lot of money. And he did.

We cannot put God in a mold. All we know that God is on the throne and God is working after the counsel of His own will. He raised up Pharaoh to show forth His own power.

Read at one setting, Exodus 5 through verse, through chapter 14 and see God's dealings and see the wisdom of God in all that He put into operation by raising this one man up that He might show forth His glory. So many things came to pass in God's plan and in God's purpose by raising this one man up that He might show forth His glory. So do not despise the leadings of the Lord.

Do not despise the providence of God. We know not what God is going to do. We do know that all things work together for good to them who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose, and whether they be small or large things that touch our lives, they are from God.

And whether they be things out yonder, even in the raising up of these nations into Europe and bringing them out from under communistic control, it is of the Lord. And all this is working in our lives if we would only watch it. I have said all along, communism was not our enemy.

Sin was our enemy. Sin is the plague of our hearts. God would let it go as far as He wanted to go and that would be the end of it.

And God would raise up and do what He wanted to do. Well the first meeting of Moses with Pharaoh is found in Exodus chapter 5 verse 1. And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, let my people go that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.

And then the contest was on between this monarch of the earth of the greatest nation that existed at that time and the Lord God of glory. It was a battle between the gods of Egypt and the true and living God. Egypt never came out from underneath God's judgment as a nation to be reckoned with among the nations of the earth after that.

They never regained their power nor their prestige when God got through with them and His judgment fell upon them. When God is through with a nation, God brings it down in judgment. When God is through with a people, He brings them down in judgment.

He will raise them up to bring to pass all that He has purposed to do. But I want you to notice, after the first six plagues was when we find that verse of Scripture in Exodus 9, for now I will stretch out my hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, 9, 15, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. And God declared it.

I'll cut you off. For He said, In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Six plagues had already gone by.

And God showed us in those six plagues His power and authority over His people. And His own creation. He showed it to the Egyptians.

He showed it to the Israelites. He brought the frogs by the millions in the first plague. He brought the lice in the second plague.

He brought the flies in the third plague. He brought the murine upon the cattle, a devastating disease upon them in the fourth plague. He brought boils upon man and upon beasts in the fifth plague.

And then He brought tail. And then in between these plagues, He made this statement that He had raised up Pharaoh to show forth His power and that He might be declared, His name might be declared throughout all the earth. Now when the two spies went in to Jericho, and they were talking to Rahab the hearted on top of the wall, Rahab the hearted made the statement that the whole, all the nations of this earth are fearful of the Israelites because of what God did in Egypt.

And what God has done for them in the land of Palestine. The fear of God is upon their hearts. They cannot stand.

Now how did God show forth His power? You know, we can't fight against God. We can't win against God. I like the words of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5, when they wanted to put to death the apostles for preaching in the name of the Lord Jesus.

He took them aside and He said, listen brother. He said, don't you remember what happened to this man and this man when they rose up and they thought they were somebody? He said, look, if this be of man, you'll fail just like that. But if this be of God, you better watch out, for you'll be found fighting against God.

Beloved, you can't win fighting against God. God's purpose is going to be carried out. My desire is to go along with His purpose.

My desire is to go along with what God is doing. I don't want to be found fighting God's purpose in what He plans to do. I want to be found walking in His will and walking in His way.

He showed His power in all of the plagues that He brought upon Egypt. All He had to do was speak the word and the three days of intense darkness where man could not see His hand before His face came upon Him. All He had to do was speak the word and the death angel went and took the life of every firstborn in Egypt except in Goshen where the children of Israel were among man and among beasts.

God is able. We don't have to lift a hand. As we saw last Sunday night in 2 Chronicles 20, you need not fight in this battle, for the battle is the Lord's.

He will show forth His power and His mighty authority over all His creation. One of the greatest stories and victories is when the Spanish Almada came against Europe, against England back in the 16th century. If they would have prevailed, England would have been filled with Catholicism as Spain was and has been and is this very day.

And they came and would have wiped out the few little ships that England had. They came. There was no way that they could possibly keep from succeeding in what they planned on doing.

And the night they were to attack, and they were all in the English Channel, God came in His mighty force of power and already destroyed them in the sea. Why something of this happened just in our day? When the British Army was in Dunkirk and they would have gone across the English Channel there in 1939, 1940, the German fighters would have wiped them out. The little boats that came across to get them.

But God set the fog and the fighters could not go up. And they could not strafe them until they had all came safely across the English Channel. God shows His power.

And I believe tonight if you and I would look back in our lives, we could see the hand, the providential hand of God in undertaking for us under all sorts of circumstances when we surely should have been gone and surely should have been dead if it had not been for the hand of God. And I look back and see how long suffering and patience God was with me if it had not been for Him undertaking I would have been in hell. He preserved and watched over by His power until He could bring me to Christ.

And then to see His hand since then to uphold and to keep by His almighty power. So God showed forth His power then in all that He did. Do we not see the power of God when they got to the Red Sea? There was no power in Moses' rock.

There was no power in Moses' arm. There was no power in Moses' word. But there was power in the Almighty that He would cause an east wind to blow and He would cause Him to go across on dry ground.

See the power of God. Read this and see the mighty power of God, Jehovah God undertaking for His people. And then see the faith that He gave Moses to continue to go on.

To believe God. Boldly walk into the very presence of Pharaoh and say, the Lord said, let my people go. See the faith that God gave Moses to trust Him.

See the patience that God exercised in not destroying Pharaoh when Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey His voice? See the power of God and the patience of God in waiting and the long-suffering of God waiting in our behalf even as He waits now that He might be gracious. See all of this in these verses, these chapters, as you read it. See the justice of God.

Finally we see the downfall of this proud monarch who dared to harden his heart against God. We see God bringing him down. We see him destroyed and all of his men in the Red Sea.

He had the males. He had all the males. He had the males killed.

He sent out the edict to have the male children killed when they were born of the Israelitist women. And so God destroyed the firstborn of all Egypt. He destroyed the babies.

So God destroyed him and all of his choice army in the Red Sea. God will show forth His power against this slaughter of our babies in the age in which we are living now. God will rise up.

God's wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind and God's justice will come. You wait and see what God will do. All that blood is going to be required at somebody's hands and God will see that it is.

I see in all of these chapters the very truthfulness and faithfulness of God's Word unto Abraham because God had said to Abraham 430 years before this that He said your people will be in Egypt for 430 years but then they will come out and I will bring them out. And I like what the children of God said. The Word of God said concerning the children of Israel when they came out that when they came out in the self same day that they came out it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, Exodus 12, 41, and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years even the self same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

That's the faithfulness of God and the truthfulness of God to His covenant that He makes. Look at it in your Bible, Exodus 40, 12 and 40. Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years and it came to pass at the end of 430 years even the self same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went forth from the land of Egypt.

And this is what God had promised to Abraham. He said, Abram, He said, your seed shall be down in Egyptian bondage but I'm going to bring them out. When I bring them out I will bring them out with power and great glory.

And He said, for in the fourth generation they shall come forth again for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. He said, I'll bring them out. And then another promise that God fulfilled that we find here in this portion, when Joseph came to die as recorded in Genesis chapter 50, verse 25, and Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you and ye shall carry my bones from hence.

Don't leave me here when you go out. Exodus 13, verse 19, Exodus 13, 19, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him for he had straightly sworn the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you. The truthfulness and faithfulness of God in fulfilling His Word, we can reckon with that.

God is not going to lie. God will not lie to us. God will bring to pass that which He has spoken and we can reckon on it that He's going to do it.

He will not put us to shame. You can reckon with this. So I see here that this attribute of our living God, His truthfulness and His faithfulness in all of this, that God did exactly what He promised He would do.

And then the mercy of God was shown in all of this. When God had brought them out by blood, He was fixing to deliver them by power, they were there at the Red Sea, wilderness on each side, the Red Sea before them, and the army of Pharaoh, the Egyptians in the back of them, and they cried unto the Lord and God sent them a word. He sent a cloud back there that stood between them all night long and the people of God.

But He sent them a word in Exodus 14, 13, and Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you today. For the Egyptians whom you have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.

The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. The mercy of God in giving a word of encouragement. Brethren, though we walk softly, and though we walk quietly, and though we walk full of fear and trembling at times, God says, Walk on.

Don't turn back. Walk on. I am in control of the situation.

The problem that you have today, ye shall see no more. And God will undertake for us. Beloved, I would rather do anything in the world than take up a hand against God's anointed people.

Yes, I would. To take up a hand against God's anointed people. His people.

Because He shall stand for them and He shall show mercy unto them. Can you see in all of this the grace of God? And a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ and blood redemption? When before the slaying of the firstborn, He told Moses to tell the children of Israel in the land of Goshen, for each one of them to take a lamb, a male of the first year, and put it up on the tenth day of the month. And on the fourteenth day of the month they were to take it and slay it.

And they were to catch the blood in a basin. And they were to take chisholm, and there was a bunch of grass that grew everywhere, and take that and dip it in there and sprinkle it upon the doorpost of their home. And they were to roast that lamb and go on the inside and wait with their shoes upon their feet and their staff in their hands, because God was coming through the land that night.

And He says, When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Perhaps they had not been a sacrifice in the land for a long time. It was an abomination to sacrifice in the land.

But now they were going to sacrifice. And God shows forth His grace in providing a sacrifice. As He told, as Abraham told Isaac when Isaac asked him, Father, on Mount Moriah, here is the wood and here is the fire, but where is the offering? And Abraham said to his son Isaac, God shall provide Himself an offering.

See God providing an offering for those Israelites that night. See God manifesting His grace toward them and His goodness toward them in sparing them. He said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

And it is when God sees the blood that He passes over us. See in all of this the difference. All of these come out of God raising up Pharaoh to show forth His power that He might be glorified.

See God putting a difference between His people and the people of the world. For not a plague fell upon Goshen. Not one of them fell upon His people.

And especially the plague of the last night. And God puts a difference between His people and the people of the world. He knows those that are His.

The foundation of God's stand is sure have in this seal that God knows those. But the point I would like to point out to you, to draw all of this to a close tonight is this. That this God is the same God that lives today.

Even though it's been thousands of years since God showed forth that power, yet God shows forth the same, keeping us today as He did them. You don't believe that, do you? I do. Why do you think that we keep going here? If God didn't show forth His power and moving hearts here, we wouldn't have to go there and yawn to send money in to support this thing.

Do you think we could carry on what we're carrying on? Of course not. And people are literally amazed at what's carried on, what's here, by the grace of God. It is the power of God that moves hearts, that He might provide for that which He called this little group to do.

The same God. The same God is on the throne today. That God is our God, and that God shall be our God forever.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He did great things then, He does great things now. God's power is not limited.

God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all we ask or think by the power that worketh in us. We think that we might be defeated because men turn against us. But God can move hearts.

He can cause the ravens to feed His prophet against their nature. He can cause man to do what he wants to do against his nature and be fulfilling the purposes of God and Him not knowing it. Read this, these chapters 5-14 with this in mind.

See all that came out of this, of God raising up this one man to show forth His power and to show forth His glory. And He might be exalted among the nations of the earth and wherever the word of God has gone throughout the centuries and the millenniums, this glorious God of Egypt to deliver His people and the march of the Israelites through the wilderness for forty years and God taking care of them by His power is still spoken of and read of today and rejoiced in today. Can you imagine God causing a body to get by on a little wafer? That's all they had to eat was a little wafer.

And all the nourishment and nutriments and everything that was needed for the body to thrive on was found in what God had provided for them in that little thing that came down from heaven six days a week and double the amount on the sixth that they might carry it over into the seventh. He showed forth His power and God is able to do it today. Will you do this? Will you read these chapters? Will you meditate upon them? Will you mark these things, the power of God? How He got Himself glory? And then will you look and see in your own life how He does the same thing today even though we call it small things yet God undertakes to do the same thing for us today.

The same power that held them holds us. The same power that provided for them provides for us and we should praise Him and give Him thanks and give Him glory. I hope God has given you something out of this tonight that will bless your heart and cause you to think and to meditate.