MOSES’ LIPS, PHARAOH’S HEART, AND GOD’S HAND
I used to love watching boxing on TV, and I have noticed that the account of the plagues is structured a bit like a boxing match. First, we have something like the pre-fight press conference, and then we have ten rounds of slugging it out. The big question, of course, who is going to win? Obviously, the fight is totally one-sided.
In one corner is Pharaoh. He is the ruler of a mighty nation. The Egyptian empire is at its height. We have all seen pictures of the marvelous Egyptian structures like the Pyramids. Supposedly, many of these Pyramids were built within a ¼” square from top to bottom. In Alexandria, there was a massive library that was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, not to mention the Sphinx. (WHICH I CANNOT PRONOUNCE)
This was no backward, peasant-filled country; this was a mighty civilization. Pharaoh is its head. Pharaoh is no mere earthly king. He himself is regarded as truly divine; one of the gods. There are plenty of gods at work protecting Egypt and keeping her from harm. Who would dare to stand up against them?
Well, in the other corner we have two old gents with a stick.
Moses and Aaron are both in their eighties. They come from a nation of slaves. One has a speech impediment, and they've only got one God! How pathetic is that? That's pretty much how it must have seemed to Pharaoh, at least to start with, but actually, there's never any doubt as we read the story who's going to win. The real question is, how's God going to do it? What, then, are we to make of all this?
Very briefly, I want to look at Moses' lips, Pharaoh's heart, and God's hand.
Moses' lips
Number 1: Moses' faltering lips. Why would Pharaoh listen to Moses?
Look at the end of Exodus 6: 30 (Amplified Bible)
30 But Moses said before the Lord, “Look, I am unskilled and inept in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me and pay attention to what I say?”
Once again Moses brings up the matter of his inability to speak. He had previously brought it up in Exodus 4: 10-12. (Amplified Bible)
0 Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I am not a man of words (eloquent, fluent), neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and tongue.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, or the seeing or the blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and will teach you what you shall say.”
God will have none of it and tells Moses I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. Just as Pharaoh was considered divine and would have had prophets to speak for him; in the same way God gives Moses a prophet to show that he is speaking with all the authority of God.
Moses is not to worry about how he speaks, because he is speaking on God's authority. Those who speak for God speak as God. After this point, we never hear another complaint from Moses on this matter. Throughout the account of the plagues, he and Aaron are utterly faithful in what they say and what they do.
We're told Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them. They confronted Pharaoh time and time again, although it could easily have meant death for them. At last, Moses is convinced that what he has to say is worth hearing because it comes with the authority of God. Is what you have to say worth hearing? I'll tell you something: If you talk about Jesus more it will be worth hearing. Does that frighten you? Well, it frightened Moses too. Look how hard he fought to avoid speaking the message of God.
Eventually he got there, because in the end it was not about Moses but about God. It took him a while to get to this point. Moses spent forty years in Pharaoh's court thinking he was somebody. He spent forty years in the desert learning that he was nobody, and forty years showing what God can do with a somebody who found out he was a nobody.
It is when we get to the point of truly understanding that we are nothing without God that we can begin to speak the message of God with all the authority of God. It's not just preachers and professional evangelists whom God calls to speak for him. All of God’s people have the authority to speak for God. That's how he has chosen to speak to the world: through you and me, his people.
When we speak God's message we speak with God's authority.
Pharaoh's heart
Number 2: Pharaoh's heart. Who hardened it?
Exodus 7:3
3 And I will make Pharaoh’s heart hard and multiply My signs and My wonders (miracles) in the land of Egypt.
This, of course, is exactly what Moses feared would happen, Pharaoh would not listen to him. But it wouldn't be because of Moses' faltering lips, but because Pharaoh's heart was hard. Through the series of plagues, we read about Pharaoh's hardened heart.
After every one of the ten plagues, and the initial miracle of turning the rod into a serpent, the state of Pharaoh's heart is reported. In every case the verdict is "hardened". But how did it end up hardened? We're told on a number of occasions that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and on a number of other occasions simply that Pharaoh's heart was hard, and on a number of further occasions that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Exodus 9:34
34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, both he and his servants.
When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned. He and his officials hardened their hearts. Pharaoh's heart was hard, and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials. So, which was it? Who hardened Pharaoh's heart?
All we can say is that both are true. God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh hardened his own heart against God. Hardening a person’s heart seems like a strange activity for God.
Exodus 9:16
16 But indeed for this very reason I have allowed you to live, in order to show you My power and in order that My name may be proclaimed throughout all the earth.
God says to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
By hardening Pharaoh's heart against himself, God was able more clearly to show his power and his glory. Because of Pharaoh's hardened heart, God was able to multiply his miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt.
Look what Paul says in Romans: 9:18
18 So then, He has mercy on whom He wills (chooses), and He hardens [the heart of] whom He wills.
In short, God is completely sovereign, even over human hearts. Doesn't that make God unfair to Pharaoh? No, for two reasons.
First Pharaoh also hardened his own heart — he is completely guilty and complicit in his rejection of God. Second, it is God who defines what is fair, not us.
The lesson for us is that there will be people who will never listen to our message. Their hearts are hard, because they have made them hard themselves, and because God, for reasons of his own has hardened them.
Some people are hostile to God. Perhaps you know someone like that. All we can do is pray for these people, just as Moses pleaded for Pharaoh. God is sovereign over their hearts.
God's hand
Number 3: God's hand. What was the point of the plagues?
We're left in no doubt by the Bible's account that the plagues of Egypt are God's hands at work. Moses and Aaron are told to stretch out their hands, and their staff, but it's clear that really, it's always God's hand that's at work. But surely God's fist could have delivered a knock-out blow much earlier.
With our boxing match comparison earlier, could God not have ended this fight by knockout earlier? Well, yes, he could.
Exodus 9:13-15
13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let My people go, so that they may serve Me. 14 For this time I will send all My plagues on you [in full force,] and on your servants and on your people, so that you may know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that there is no one like Me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have put out My hand and struck you and your people with a pestilence, and you would then have been cut off (obliterated) from the earth.
God says I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But he chose instead to multiply his miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt. Why so many plagues, and why so nasty? Why prolong the agony? We're told in chapter 7 that God's purpose in the plagues is that the Egyptians may know that he is the Lord.
Exodus 7:3-5
3 And I will make Pharaoh’s heart hard, and multiply My signs and My wonders (miracles) in the land of Egypt. 4 But Pharaoh will not listen to you, and I shall lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts [like a defensive army, tribe by tribe], My people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment (the plagues). 5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.”
But the Egyptians' and the Israelites' respective experience of the Lordship of God is quite different. One experiences his hand in judgement, the other experiences his hand in salvation. Look at verse 4 again. The Lord says I will lay my hand upon Egypt with great judgements so that the Egyptians will know that God is Lord. The Lord's hand judges Egypt and saves his people.
Judgement
The Lord multiples the plagues in judgement to utterly humiliate Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Of course, he could have brought his people out without going through the whole cycle, but that might have left Egypt's pride intact. They could have dismissed a one-off plague as just a fluke, but in bringing ten plagues God made sure they knew that he is utterly in control. The plagues are each carefully designed to systemically crush the Egyptians' so-called gods and utterly humiliate Pharaoh, who was supposed to be a god himself. The Lord is not one among many gods — He is sovereign, and to deny His sovereignty is to come under His judgement.
Salvation
On the other hand, through the plagues, the Lord's hand saves his people. God spared the Israelites from the worst of the plagues., such as the boils, the hail, the anthrax, and the death of the first born. As his hand was acting to judge the Egyptians, it was acting to save the Israelites. It is an incredible picture of the coming judgement of man for rejecting God’s Son. The Son that saves some will the Son that brings about judgement for others.
Why the Israelites? Certainly not because they were good! But simply because they were his people. Again, he could have brought them out of Egypt without the plagues. But through the plagues he gives the Israelites a deeper understanding of his saving power.
Exodus 10: 2
2 and that you may recount and explain in the hearing of your son, and your grandson, what I have done [repeatedly] to make a mockery of the Egyptians—My signs [of divine power] which I have done among them—so that you may know [without any doubt] and recognize [clearly] that I am the Lord.”
In this, we see that God's hand both judges and saves in order that everyone might know that he is the Lord.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we must remember that God is still a God whose hand both judges and saves. This is not an ancient myth put here for our interest. This is a massive warning sign! It is the blare of sirens, the ringing of alarm bells. You see, the plagues point forward both to a judgement day to come for the lost, and God's saving work in Jesus Christ on the Cross. The plagues remind us that one day God's hand will come again in judgement on this world. The plagues on Egypt will seem mild in comparison.
The world is still divided into two groups:
( 1 ) The Rejectors
( 2 ) The Believers
Egyptians and Israelites; Pharaoh and Moses; the saved and the lost
Which group do you belong to?
If you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, you risk that judgement. My desire is that you confess that you are a sinner and ask Jesus to forgive you of those sins and to save you on the basis that He is the Son of God who was born, lived, died, and resurrected so that you might have eternal life.
If you have any questions about salvation, leave those questions in the comments section, or email them to me at jclendenin37@yahoo.com
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