one day get checked out on that. Can you continue to remember
the other super requested prayer? D. Parks is still waiting the
next version of chemotherapy and seek the Lord's help for
him. Who else was it Sunday? I can't remember. I don't have
my list with me. uh... i'll think of it probably when
i open up the refrigerator sometime tonight i'll think of it hymn
number two hundred ninety one guide me oh thou great jehovah guide me oh thou great jehovah
pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but Thou art mighty. Hold me with Thy powerful hand. Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more. me till I want no more. Open now the crystal fountain
whence the healing stream doth flow. Let the fire and cloudy
pillar Be all my journey through. Strong deliverer, strong deliverer. Be thou still my strength and
shield. Be thou still my strength and
shield. When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside. A swelling current, land me safe
on Canaan's side. Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee. I will ever give to thee. Hymn number 227, The Cleansing
Wave. Oh, now I see the cleansing wave,
a fountain deep and wide. Jesus, my Lord, mighty to save,
points to his The cleansing stream, I see,
I see, I pungent, oh, it cleanseth me. Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth
me. It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. I rise to walk in Him's own light
Above the world and sin With heart made pure and garments
white And Christ enthroned within The cleansing stream I see, I
see I plunge and oh, it cleanses ? Praise the Lord, it cleanseth
me ? It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth me ? Amazing grace, tis Him below
? We feel the blood apply ? Jesus only, Jesus now, my Jesus now cleansing stream, I see, I see. I plunge and oh, it cleanseth
me. Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth
me. It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. If you have your Bibles, turn with
me please to Exodus chapter 7. I'm going to read the first seven
verses. I'll read it in conjunction with verse 30 of chapter 6. And
Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and
how shall Pharaoh hearken to me? And the Lord said to Moses,
See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother
shall be thy prophet. Now shall speak all that I command
thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send
the children of Israel out of the land. And I will harden Pharaoh's
heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of
Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may
lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people,
the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch
forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel
from among them. And Moses and Aaron did as the
Lord commanded them, so did they. And Moses was fourscore years
old, and Aaron was fourscore and three years old when they
spake unto Pharaoh. Let us pray. Our Father, we bless
you and thank you for your great mercy and grace. We thank you
because we know what we are by nature and what we have become
by your grace. We're thankful that we are your
children and we can approach you to come boldly to the throne
of grace to seek help for our time of need. Father, we pray
for those of our company who are sick. We pray especially
for Fred as he's going to get these Diagnosis is we pray to
you Lord you'd be with him and Arlene and also be with the doctors
as they use their skills to find out the problem. We pray Lord
for his healing and strengthening. Continue to pray for Dee Parks
and ask Lord that you administer to him, comfort him, strengthen
him in Jesus Christ. Be with him and his family, Moose
and Sandy and also CJ. and the Murrells also. Help us,
Lord, to remember each other in prayer. Pray for our shut-ins
that should be with them and watch over them. We ask, Lord,
tonight as we gather here that you might be pleased to open
up your word to us and open up our minds and hearts to receive
it and believe it. Bow us down into the dust where
we belong and lift our eyes to see the majesty of our Lord Jesus
Christ high and lifted up in a light dwelling where no man
can approach. sitting on my right hand as the
sufficient, glorious, propitious lamb of God, and put away our
sin with the sacrifice of himself. We stand in awe of your great
work, and we are thankful that you included us in it. Help us
now, Lord, to worship you. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. As I read the last verse of the
previous chapter, Moses was complaining of his insufficiency and that
Pharaoh would not hearken to him when he tells the king of
Egypt to let his people go. Now what is found in the passage
we'll consider tonight in these first, actually the first five
verses, because verses six and seven are just verses that describe
Moses and Aaron and what they are told to do. But what is found
in this passage, we'll consider this hour, is the Lord's response
to Moses. This is how he responds to Moses,
saying, I'm a man of uncircumcised lips, and how will Pharaoh hearken
unto me? And this is the Lord's answer
to him. And the things that the Lord
will do in Egypt and Pharaoh will have a profound effect,
as we read in verse five tonight. The power that God will display
will make it seem to Pharaoh that Moses is a god. and that
Aaron is a prophet or his prophet. The use of the indefinite article
a god with a lowercase god in that verse, in verse one, the use of that may be interpreted
that Pharaoh had a religious respect and fear for Moses regarding
him as one of the pantheon or the multiplicity of deities in
Egypt. Egypt had hundreds of gods and
he probably considered Moses in that lot Now, it may also
be considered that the natural bent of carnal nature is to laud
the instrument rather than the God who made and employed the
instrument. The fact is that this attitude
espoused by Pharaoh is due to God acting upon Pharaoh's mind
and heart. Pharaoh will not hear Moses because
God has hardened his heart. That is why he will not hear
him. This language is employed before uh... in an entirely different
context this language of calling moses a god and uh... and uh... and erin his prophet
back in chapter four in verse sixteen and the lord says and
he shall be thy spokesman unto the people and he shall be even
he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shall be to
him instead of god now there god is capitalized so there's
a different different uh... connotation there and a different
message In that case, in chapter 4 and verse 16, the participants
are a picture of God and the preacher He sends to declare
the gospel. For strange as it may seem, God has sent His men
to stand in His stead in this world and declare His word. He's not declaring His word anymore.
He's finished speaking and will not speak again until He ends
this whole thing. He not said anything for over
two thousand years, and He not going to say anything until He
blows that last trumpet and calls His people to Himself. He did
this once before from Malachi to Matthew. There was four hundred
years of silence. There was no prophet. There was
no one to speak for God. Why? Because God had told His
prophets what to say, and if you read Malachi, Israel stood
in a very precarious position. He said, I'm done with you. I'm
done with your sacrifice. You offer blind lambs on the
thing and polluted bread. He said, you call me a liar?
and he says your sacrifices you cover with tears and he said
I don't even know what the sacrifice is anymore. So Israel is in a
very sad state and God suddenly stops speaking to them. That's
it, they don't talk anymore. Then for about the first hundred
years after Christ was born the New Testament was written and
then God stopped speaking again. God's not speaking today. I know
men say, God told me. If God told you, He told you
in this book, He ain't told you no other way. You ain't heard
His voice any other way. This is how He speaks. Now, He's
been silent. There was no prophet. And now
in this day, since God has not spoken, He has appointed and
sent men out to preach His gospel and they, as it were, speaks
instead of God. That's a wonder when I think
of myself and what I am inside, and my wickedness, and my frailty,
and my weakness, and my inability. I feel like Moses. I'm a man
of uncircumcised and living, and who in the world will hearken
to me? I feel like that. But this is
how the Lord has worked. He said, when you send out, Aaron's
going to be your mouth, and you're going to be instead of God. You're
going to be speaking instead of God. And in 1 Corinthians
chapter 5, or excuse me, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 18, it says,
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to him by
himself, by Jesus Christ, and hath given us the ministry of
reconciliation to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
hath committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then,
we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. So this is how it works. Now when he was talking about
making Moses a god to Pharaoh, And Aaron is probably didn't
use the capital letter G. Now the word is the same. It's
actually a plural word. It's the plural of Eloah and
it's Elohim. It's the plural of the word God
and it means the mighty God, but it also can mean a prince,
a justice, a magistrate. It can mean many things, a leader,
a ruler. That term is used other than used for God, but when it's
capitalized, it means God. But to Moses, what he's saying
is that Pharaoh is going to look at you and he's going to be amazed
at you. He is going to feel a little
bit intimidated by you. You are going to be like a god
to him and Aaron is going to be your mouthpiece or your prophet.
Verses 1 and 2 are God's encouraging response to one who is assigned
a task that is too great for him. There is no doubt about
that. Go and deliver my people. What a task! Who could do something
like that? For such a weak creature the
only ground to stand upon and faithfully declare is the infallible
Word of God and have no confidence in the flesh. People have often
asked me, Why don't you give an invitation? Because I trust
the Word. I really believe the Word of
God does the business. You know, it's not me to give
people an opportunity to show out or to make some psychological
thing down front or be congratulated by people. If God does something
for you, the old yellow dog on the back porch is going to know
it. Everybody's going to know it if God does something they're
going to find out and I don't have to give you some Opportunity
to tell everybody first thing you're going to do you're going
to tell me I want to go with that creek and I want to be baptized
because I want to confess Christ that when he died I died with
him when he was buried I was buried with him and when he rose
I rose with him This word I Don't understand how it works, but
I know that it does work It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith. The infallible Word of God. Have no confidence in the
flesh. The message will work as it is
God's Word and not ours. Its design and sure conclusion
is that Pharaoh, in the end, when the appointed time comes,
will send the Lord's people out of Egypt. That's what the Lord
said. So you go talk to Him and you tell Him what I told you
and He's going to send the people out of Egypt. The general view
of religion concerning God is that He's sort of a cosmic well-wisher,
an amiable sort of fellow wanting good stuff for everybody, but
His message to Moses was decidedly not in that vein. God said, I've
made you a god to Pharaoh and he won't listen to you. He will
not hearken to you, because I have hardened his heart. Verses three
and four. I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and
my wonders in the land of Egypt, but Pharaoh shall not hearken
to you. Why? That I may lay my hand on
Egypt and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of
Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And those
speaks of the plagues that he'll send to Egypt. Now if the accomplishing
of God's will was left up to man, the hardened heart of the
deaf ear would result in utter disappointment and feelings of
failure. And I know many people who feel that way. I know many
preachers who feel like they get up and preach and nothing
happens and they just feel like a failure. It's not your job to get the
results. It's not your job to look for results. It's your job
to preach the Gospel. The results will come according
to God. Paul said that in the church at Corinth when they were
talking about who's the best preacher. they said uh... i'm of apollo's others said i'm
a paul and i'm a peter you know and some of them said i heard
christ man i'm really something i heard jesus christ and paul
said we're nothing who is paul and who is apollos we're just
guys who put seed in the ground that's all we do we stand back
it's god who gives the increase it's god who gives the increase
The Word of God will always bring about the result that it is intended
to do. The God of Scripture has designed,
according to His Word, to harden some men's hearts and to soften
others. Now, that's His Word. That's
His Word. According to His Word, He shuts
the ears of some and opens the ears of others. He shuts the
eyes of some and opens the eyes of others. And here he says of
this man who is going to hear about the God of Israel and who
is going to SEE what the God of Israel can do, but shows that
faith has nothing to do with what you see because Pharaoh
never got faith even though he saw the power of God like very
few men will ever see the power of God. Moses' message will not
be hearkened to because God has ordained the
ends he's going to multiply his signs and waters and he will
lay his hand on Egypt that there will be no there will be an unquestionable
response in the end when this comes the Lord refers to Israel
as his armies here this is an interesting phrase because they
never went to battle they're said to be about 600,000 men
in Israel at this time that makes 12 armies and 50,000 men that's
a pretty good size outfit But they never knocked an arrow,
they never drew a sword, they never hurt a spear, yet they
came out of Egypt with spoils, all the spoils of war. As these mighty armies, where
were they when the battle was fought? They were huddled in
their homes, having painted the blood on the doorposts and lintels.
They didn't see the blood. They were inside their houses,
eating that lamb that had been slain. preparing to leave but
they were inside the house this was these six hundred thousand
strong army what were they hiding in their house because it was
a fearful night that night when God came through killing the
firstborn of every household yet they took all the spoils
of war why? because the Lord fought for them
The Lord was the one who fought for him. He delivered his people.
Scripture says, It is not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the Lord. He says, The race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to the Spirit of
the Lord belongs the power. Now Moses said that Pharaoh would
not hearken to him because he was not eloquent enough. That was Moses' excuse. I'm just
not good enough at this. I'm not good at speaking. God
said that Pharaoh would not hearken to Moses because he had hardened
Pharaoh's heart. Moses said, He won't listen to
me because I ain't no good. God said, He won't listen to
you because I've hardened his heart. I've hardened his heart, which
says to me if God had desired the salvation of Pharaoh, Pharaoh
would have been saved. God could have easily softened
his heart. and broken his heart, and made
his heart contrite, but he didn't. He hardened his heart because
he got a job for Pharaoh. There ain't no unemployed man
in God's economy. Everybody's got a purpose, and
his purpose is to be raised up and to be put down. That's his
purpose, to show the might and the power of God and His electing
grace. The fact is that the hearing,
hearing, to see, and eye are specifically the domain of the
Lord, and He gives it to whomsoever He will. I thought of Isaiah
as I was listening, as I was reading about Moses and the Lord and their dialogue here
and the Lord's promise to him about hardening the heart of
the people. Think of what my Isaiah said
he saw in Isaiah chapter 6. Now, if you read the first five
chapters, Isaiah is a pretty hard prophet. He lays old Israel
out pretty good. Just read chapter 1. I mean,
he said, Woe unto you and woe unto you. He was kind of the PR man for
a king named Uzziah. And Uzziah was a great king.
God, it says of Uzziah in Scripture, God made him a great king, but
then he got proud. Decided he was going to be a
priest. He went in there, went into the
Holy of Holies with a censor. Not his job. There ain't but
one king and priest, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Those
two are always separate in Scripture. he said he's going to be a priest
so he took that censer and he went into Holy of Holies and
when he came out he was covered with leprosy and he died a leper. Now Moses was, I mean excuse
me, Isaiah was his PR man and he thought a lot of Uzziah. The
things he said about him were great. But when he saw this he
saw something. and in the sixth chapter of Isaiah
when the great mighty king came out of the holy of holies covered
in leprosy from head to toe Isaiah said in the year that king Uzziah
died I saw also the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled
the temple and when he moved the doorpost shook in the temple
and smoke filled the place I saw the Lord. I'd been looking
at Uzziah because he said the word also. In the year that Uzziah
died, I saw also the Lord. He'd been looking at Uzziah,
but now he sees the Lord. And he says, Oh my soul. He didn't
say, Woe is Israel. He said, Woe is me. I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. What
he was saying is, I'm like Uzziah. I'm like a leper. I need to cover
my mouth because my breath is such that it would offend anybody
because I'm a leper. I dwell among a people of unclean
lips. Woe is me, I am undone, he said,
I'm cut off. No hope for me, I've seen the
Lord. I've been looking at the wrong king. I've seen the right
one now. He said, all this happened when
I saw the Lord in his glory. And then the Lord said, who shall
I send to tell about this? And I said, I'll go. Here I am. Send me. I got something
to tell folks. If I'd seen something like that,
I'd want to tell it too. I'd want everybody to know what
I'd seen. And the Lord said, okay. And an angel came down
and took tongs and took fire off the altar and burnt his lips,
burnt his tongue. And Isaiah, he sent Isaiah out
and he says, go tell the people. He said, and when you tell them, it's going to close their eyes. It's going to make them fat and
satisfied and content in their own sin. Because you see, even though
you tell them, I am not going to convert them. I'm not going
to save them. That's what the Lord said. What
kind? This is a great thing I've got
to tell them. Look, I'll stir some people up. I'll get them
down the aisle. I'll make them run the back of
the pews. I'll get them going. We'll have a Holy Ghost meeting. When you tell them, you tell
them the truth of what you've seen and who the Lord is and
how great and mighty and wonderful He is, they're not going to hear
you because I'm not going to convert them. Read Isaiah chapter
6, verses 1 through 9. God had no intention of converting
them, though He sent someone to preach to them. Our Lord quoted
Isaiah 6 when He explained to His disciples that He spoke in
parables so the religious would not hear Him. That's why He said,
Look over Matthew chapter 13. The Lord has been speaking to
the men in parables. And the disciples are wondering
why He speaks telling these comparative stories that have a single message.
But you have to know what's being said in order to understand it.
And they understand it. But in verse 10, it says, The
disciples came and said to Him, Why speakest Thou in parables?
Why speakest Thou to them? He's talking about the Pharisees,
the religious people. Why speakest Thou to them in
parables? He said, Because it is given
to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but
to them it is not given. Reckon He wouldn't want them
to be saved? Don't He want everybody to be saved? Maybe Him to not.
Then He might give that message to them. For whosoever hath,
and they had the Bible, they had the prophets, they had the
oracles, they had the law, they had the ceremonies, they had
all that. He said, I'm not going to give
them faith. I'm not going to give it to them. To him, to whoever
hath, to him shall it be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not, from
him shall it be taken away. They don't have faith, and I'm
taking away the chance of them having faith. Therefore speak I unto them in
parables. Because they seeing see not, and hearing hear not,
neither do they understand that's what he told as a what happened
when he preached and in the ms fulfilled the property of isaiah
which said by hearing they shall hear and shall not understand
seeing you shall see and not perceive for this people's heart
is waxed gross and their ears are dull of hearing their eyes
they have closed less than any time they should see with their
eyes or hear with their ears and should understand with their
heart and should be converted and i should heal them But blessed
are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Moses, go tell Pharaoh who sent
you. Go tell Pharaoh who sent you.
And I'm going to harden his heart. I'm going to harden his heart,
so he will not hear you. In Revelation chapter 3 and verse
7, Our Lord said this, unto the
angel of the church of Philadelphia, that is, the pastor of the church
of Philadelphia, write, These things saith the holy, he that
is holy, and he that is true, he that hath the key of David,
he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and he that shutteth, and no
man openeth. Revelation 3, 7. Think about it. He's not going
to hear. But then we have an amazing statement in verse five
of our text. It says, And the Egyptians shall
know, they're not going to hear, Pharaoh's not going to hearken,
but the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. When I stretch
forth mine hand upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel
from them, they shall know that I am Lord by his deliverance,
by his salvation of his people. It's an amazing statement. After
the Lord has stretched out His hand and delivered the Israel
from the Egyptians, it says the Egyptians will know that He is
the Lord, and He uses Jehovah, capital L-O-R-D. Now, they will
not know Him but they will perceive and admit that he is the Lord
because what has occurred is so far outside the realm of their
understanding and the scope of their ability that there can
be no other conclusion or explanation. That's what it's going to be
like when God ends this thing. Those who have refused Him and
rejected the message of the gospel, those whose eyes have never been
opened, ears have stayed closed, they're going to be in absolute
wonder Because the LORD said in John 17, I do all this that
the world may know that God has sent me and these are mine. It
is going to be a wonder for all those in Babylon who are utterly
religious and political to stand and see who God saved, the kind
of people God saved, and how He has washed them in His blood.
and made them perfect and holy and they're dressed in white
robes and they're all riding on horses behind the Lord coming
home. And they're going to say, He's the Lord. What else can
you say? We thought He saved good people.
We thought if you did right, you'd be right. We thought you
could get right with God. We thought all these things and
these people were just a bunch of sinners, wretches everyone. God has saved them beyond our
comprehension, beyond the scope of our ability, but the only
conclusion and explanation must be salvation is by grace, unmerited
favor. Multitudes in this world today
know about this God, and they know that they need to call Him
Lord. But not everyone that says, Lord,
Lord unto me, goes to glory. Christ said in Matthew 7.21.
But most Jews know. But they refuse to acknowledge
Him as He is. Oh, they talk about God. They'll
even say, God is sovereign. I heard a man say the other day,
God is sovereign. And then they stood there for
15 minutes and begged people to come down and out. Sound like they must be sovereign.
if their salvation is up to them and not up to God. If you're
counting on them to do something, rather than God to do something,
they must be the ones that's got the power. Oh, they know
about Him, and they talk about Him. Religion talks about Him
all over the place. So-called Christianity and all of Christendom
talk about Him. They're all riled up right now,
and some are probably going to happen here pretty soon. But
religion's all riled up. I hear people talking about going
against the government and all this stuff. Well, you know, I
can understand their feelings. And they're tore up about this
progressive Christianity and that type of Christianity and
all these things that so-called Christianity is accepting that
is holy against the scriptures. But they're all for it. They're
all ready to fight. Here they go. They know about
God. But if you tell them who God
is and what He does, if you tell them What if God hardens the
heart of your children? What if God never opens their
eyes and never opens their ears? Is that okay? He's God, you know. It says in Revelation that when
He puts people in hell, and you know people who have no interest
in Christ, if you're a child of God you will praise him for
his greatness you will say hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth go and tell him Moses he's not
going to hear you because I've hardened his heart so he cannot
hear the beginnings of reprobation according to Romans chapter one
and I'll hurry Romans chapter 1. Reprobation. What is that? The
Greek word is adakimos. It means without judgment. Without judgment, not able to
know. It means condemned to. There
is no hope for a reprobate. Now some people say, well, reprobation
is only up to man. Well, yes and no. Man is responsible for his actions
before God, and the things he does lead to certain things.
Sin always has an end, and that end is always death. But there
are those who are appointed to this condemnation, those who
are ordained to it, those whose heart God has hardened, those
whose God has not opened their eyes to see or their ears to
hear, and that's just so. That's what the Scriptures say,
and what you're going to believe. Romans chapter 1, this is how
it's described. Verse 20 says, For the invisible
things of him from the creation, the invisible things of God from
creation of the world are clearly seen. We who live in the mountains
can understand that perhaps more than the flatlanders. I don't
know because I can't look at these mountains without thinking
about the Lord and His greatness. They are understood by the things
that are made. even as eternal power in God hid. That's understood. People say, God did that. It
must have been God. So that they are without excuse.
So this knowledge that they have that they say, well that has
to be God. You say, well that's good that
they say that. Well it leaves them without excuse. Because that when they knew God,
that is knew of God, or knew Him in this capacity, they glorified
Him not as God, Neither were thankful. What does that mean?
They don't believe God has done anything for them. Because if
God had done something for them, they would be thankful. They
became vain, empty in their imaginations. Remember the first word in imagination
is image. They are idolaters. Their foolish
heart was darkened even more than it was. They professed themselves
to be wise, but they became fools and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man into
birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things and it just
made a god out of everything. Do you know one of the gods of
Egypt was the scarab beetle? The scarab beetle was a god,
one of their gods. Wherefore God also gave them
up to uncleanness. Oh my, God gave them up? He said
go far. Through the lust of their own
hearts and dishonor of their own bodies between themselves.
who changed the truth of God into a lie. And now what are
they doing today? They're saying evil is good and
good is evil. And worshipped and served the creature more
than the creator. We have people today that worship
man and think man can change things like the climate. So silly. But they worship more
than the creator, they worship the creature. and the Creator
is blessed forever. Amen? And for this cause God
gave them up to vile affections, for even their women did change
the natural use of that which is against nature, like also
the men leaving the natural use of woman, burning their lusts
toward one another, men with men, working that which is unseemly,
and receiving themselves that recompense of their error, which
was meat. That is pretty clear. And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, and you'll see if you have a
martial reading, they did not like to acknowledge God. God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, a mind void of judgment,
to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy. Murderer, debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despised, disfightful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful." Now this is the most astounding word
in all of Scripture, well, not the most, but to me, this is
astounding, who KNOWING the judgment of God, KNOWING
that there is a payday knowing that someday there is going to
be a reckoning. People know this naturally. It is in their mind
and in their heart. Even carnality knows that there
is a judgment coming. How do I know this? I have sat
at the bedside of those who do not know Christ and I have listened
to them. I have listened to their fears
and listened to them try to make up for stuff. try to hopeful
that they can wish they hadn't been a certain way that that
would be all right with God knowing the judgment of God they
which commit such things they know that those who commit such
things ought to go to hell they not only do the same but they
have pleasure in them that's a hard heart That's a hard, hard heart. They will know that He is Lord,
but He has hardened their heart that they will not hearken because
His intent is to destroy them. That's His intent. God act like
that? Turn to Joshua chapter 11. Look at verse 20. For it was of the Lord to harden
their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle,
that He might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor,
but that He might destroy them as the Lord commanded Moses. In 1 Samuel chapter 2, You have
Phineas and Hockney who were cruel priests and did evil in
the sight of the Lord. And the Lord is going to kill
them. The Lord is going to kill them. Indeed. Indeed. It says in verse 25 of chapter
2 of 1 Samuel, If one man sin against another, the judge shall
judge him. But if a man sin against the Lord, he is talking about
Phineas and Hockney, who shall entreat for him? Notwithstanding,
they hearken not to the voice of their father. Why? because
the Lord would slay them. They did not listen to their
father, the prophet. Why? Because the Lord is going
to kill them. The Lord is going to kill them. They did not make
a decision. Well, they did. They decided
not to listen to their father, but that was not the decision that
condemned them because the decision that condemned them was God Almighty. He is going to kill them. He
is going to kill them. back in our text, knowing this, that
we carry a message that God may harden somebody's heart and may
soften it before we hear it, before they hear it. We don't
know what it is. What shall we do? Verse 6 of our text says,
And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded them, so did they. That's what they did, what they
do. No one was going to happen, knowing that God already had
this thing worked out. God said, Go tell him. They said,
Well, let's go. Let's go tell it. That's what
it is to preach the gospel. We go and tell it. Who are the
elect? I have no idea, but I know this. If they're the sheep, they will
hear God's voice, and they will follow Him, and they'll hear
it through this preached word. Father, bless us through our
understanding, we pray in Christ's name.