Angelic Conflict part 129: Human history – Exo 6; 7; 9; 1Co 1:26-31; Eze 3:11; Mat 5:45; Isa 29:13-16.Title: Angelic Conflict part 129: Human history – Exo 6; 7; 9; 1Co 1:26-31; Eze 3:11; Mat 5:45; Isa 29:13-16.
Conflict amongst a group of people: Moses and the Exodus. Moses will be used by God to make a people (Hebrew) into a nation (Israel).
Moses passed over the treasure of Egypt, visual riches, for the hidden treasure of Christ, unseen riches, Heb 11:24-28.
Everyone’s conscience has priorities, and no matter how hard you try to fight it, you will end up thinking, speaking, and doing according to your priorities. If you are going to change then your priorities must change.
Priorities change by means of the word of God:
Rom 12:2: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Moses’ decision to leave Egypt after he murdered an Egyptian guard led him into the wilderness of Midian, where he married the priest’s daughter, had children, and kept sheep. He would remain in the wilderness for 40 years.
When the wilderness is over, Moses is ready, though he doesn’t think so.
We’re ready to be used by God when He says so, not when we say so, and we don’t actually have to agree with Him.
After meeting God in the burning bush and arguing with God about not being the guy for the job, God convinces Moses to go back with his brother Aaron and God gives Moses 3 miracles to perform in order to convince the Hebrews, now 400 years since Joseph, and about 100 years in slavery, to go to the place that God had promised them.
Pharaoh refuses and decides to make the Jews gather their own straw for bricks while maintaining the same quota of bricks. The people grumble against Moses and God reassures Moses.
Pharaoh Amenhotep II is a worshipper of false gods, many false gods, and the monotheistic Jews are an insult to him and through satanic influence Pharaoh will greatly oppose God’s people.
One area of opposition to the people of God is from people who are enveloped in false religions.
The Egyptians are polytheistic pagans who worship many hundreds of gods, each of which is said to be responsible for a particular aspect of the earth, animals, and men.
These false deities are demons who work under the guidance of satan in order to gain the trust of mankind.
This is not just an ancient world phenomenon. There is nothing new under the sun. The names have changed and this paganism has been refined to suit a more technological and modern world, but the scripture says that this is a NT phenomenon as well.
Satan accomplished part of his goal in getting man to separate from God at the fall, but he failed in the remainder of his goal to get man to join to himself. His solution to this unfortunate reality of man choosing his own independence was religion. Religion attaches man to falsehood and therefore doctrines of demons without man actually knowing that satan is the author and therefore the recipient of their worship.
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.
Moses is still apprehensive, afraid, and has already admitted defeat to himself. God’s word confirms to us that God will work through us and even in spite of us by means of divine power.
Exo 6:28 Now it came about on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,
Exo 6:29 that the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "I am the Lord; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I speak to you."
Exo 6:30 But Moses said before the Lord, "Behold, I am unskilled in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me?"
How many times have you said to yourself, “I can’t do it,” before you even try of begin. When God calls you are ready, and it is not dependent upon you, your talent, IQ, human skills, or anything to do with the flesh.
Divine power shines brightest in the people of 1Co 1:26-31.
1Co 1:26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;
These are not wise, mighty, or noble “according to the flesh.”
So many people have PhDs of worldly and fleshly things. One doesn’t have to have a diploma on the wall to be an expert in things according to the flesh.
1Co 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
1Co 1:28 and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are,
1Co 1:29 that no man should boast before God.
1Co 1:30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
1Co 1:31 that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."
Exo 7:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, "See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.
Interestingly, on a side not, during the Tribulation satan will have a beast, who makes himself out to be God, and a false prophet.
“I make you as God” – I will empower you to speak My word and perform My miracles.
Aaron as prophet will represent Moses and at times speak for him.
Exo 7:2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land.
Exo 7:3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.
Exo 7:4 When Pharaoh will not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt, and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments.
Exo 7:5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst."
Exo 7:6 So Moses and Aaron did it; as the Lord commanded them, thus they did.
Confidence to do the will of God is derived from repetition (inculcation) of all that God will do with you as His useful vessel.
Exo 7:7 And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
Each plague in Egypt is an assertion of the Sovereignty of God over false deities that are said to be responsible for each area.
Ten plagues are brought upon Egypt: 1.Nile turned to blood. 2. Frogs covered the land. 3. Gnats plague man and beast. 4. Swarms of flies cover the land. 5. Plague on animals (not Israel’s). 6. Plague of boils (not on Israel). 7. Very heavy hail. 8. Locusts devour the land. 9. A deep darkness that could be felt. 10. Death of first born son.
Each plague was an assertion of the sovereignty of Yahweh over the deity (or deities) responsible for the area of nature particularly under attack.
Pharaoh will ask his priests/magicians to duplicate these miracles and through some kind of hocus pocus they are able to duplicate: They were able to make staffs into serpents but Aaron’s serpent ate theirs. They were able to turn water into blood (or make it red). They were able to lure frogs out of the Nile. But they could not get rid of the frogs. Then they attempted to duplicate the gnats and could not.
Using tricks, satan attempts to duplicate God’s power, but these are ineffectual and insufficient.
The plagues must be understood for what they were—unique but genuinely historical outpourings of the wrath of a sovereign God who wished to show not only Egypt but his own people that he is the Lord of all of heaven and earth, one well able to redeem his people from the onerous slavery they knew under Pharaoh and to make them, by covenant, his own servant people.
In each of the first five plagues the text states that Pharaoh hardened his heart. In each of the last five it states that God hardened his heart.
The hyper-Calvinist jumps out of his predetermined closet with a big grin on his face, however, his predetermined or preconceived notion is unwarranted.
After the first five refusals, Pharaoh is at the place of no return. Each subsequent plague will only harden him more.
In the face of such power, for Pharaoh to reject God, is for him to further his own faith in his false gods and black magic. No other person in history has seen such a display, but if they did and were of his caliber, the same result of deep hardness of heart would result.
Thus Pharaoh would not bend his self-will to the will of God, even after he had discerned the omnipotent finger of God.
Pharaoh chose this and not God. It is God’s will that all men be saved. God did not make robots, but man, in His image, with personality and free will that they may live with Him in a beautiful response of love, trust, and humility, without which there cannot be anything like a relationship. And yet, so many become like this man with hardened self-wills that refuse to bend and chose a cold and lonely independence unto death rather a moment of warm submission unto life.
He would not withdraw his haughty refusal, notwithstanding the fact that he was obliged to acknowledge that it was sin against Jehovah.
Exo 9:27 Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones.
Exo 9:28 Make supplication to the Lord, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail; and I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer."
Exo 9:29 And Moses said to him, "As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease, and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the Lord's.
Exo 9:30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God."
Exo 9:31 (Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.
Exo 9:32 But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they ripen late.)
Exo 9:33 So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread out his hands to the Lord; and the thunder and the hail ceased, and rain no longer poured on the earth.
Exo 9:34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
Exo 9:35 And Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he did not let the sons of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.
Looked at from this side, the hardening was a fruit of self-will, high-mindedness, and pride which flow from fallen man.
Freedom of will is innate in man and carries the possibility of perpetual obstinate attitude towards the Creator even until death or a recognized dependence on the Creator and Savior unto life.
There can be no conscience if there is no free-will, so that would not only eliminate the power to do evil but also the power to do good.
As the freedom of the will has its fixed limits in the unconditional dependence of the finite creature upon the infinite Creator, so the sinner may resist the will of God as long as he lives. But such resistance plunges him into destruction, and is followed inevitably by death and damnation if he never believes in Christ as his Savior.
Every man is completely fallen and in dire need of God’s salvation. No man will ever scoff at Christ until the end and not be judged unto destruction. |