CHAPTER 10 The title of the message is SEVEN
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM EXODUS 10. SEVEN LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
FROM EXODUS 10. One of the striking things that
we see in the book of Exodus is God deals with Pharaoh in
the land of Egypt is that judgment, judgment does not soften the
heart of the unbeliever. It doesn't soften the heart of
the unbeliever. It does the opposite. It hardens
the heart is what it does. How many times have we seen in
real life a tragedy strike someone And for a moment, the unbelievers
seem to be broken and to repent. It seems that they are sincere
about it. But once the storm passes, their
remorse is over with. They return to defiance and bitterness,
indifference. I know this, I know this from
experience and from watching these things over the years.
Trials that are not met with grace, ONLY DRIVE THE HEART FURTHER
FROM GOD, AND NOT CLOSER. That's what they do. And then
we see in God's dealing with Pharaoh the effects of PRIDE. You know, one of the things God
said He hated was a proud look. It's the number one trait of
Satan Go over to Isaiah 14, when you see pride, when you see pride,
you see the Spirit of Satan. Over in Isaiah, Isaiah 14, listen to this. In Isaiah 14, look in verse 12. HOW ART THOU FALLEN FROM HEAVEN,
O LUCIFER, THAT IS OVER MY MARGIN, O DAYSTAR? HOW ART THOU CUT DOWN
TO THE GROUND, WHICH DID WEAKEN THE NATIONS? FOR THOU HAST SAID
IN THINE HEART, I WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN, I WILL EXALT MY
THRONE ABOVE THE STARS OF GOD. I WILL SIT ALSO UPON THE MOUNT
OF THE CONGREGATION IN THE SIDES OF THE NORTH. I WILL ASCEND ABOVE
THE HEIGHTS OF THE CLOUDS. I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH."
I'll be God, I'll be God. But the Lord said there in verse
15, Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of
the pit. He was lifted up with PRIDE,
and we see this in Pharaoh. You know, the pharaohs were,
they were put on the level of deity, and they bought into their
own hype. And because of his pride, when
it says God hardened his heart, He left him to his pride. That
s all God will do, leave you to your pride, and He ll just
harden your heart. THE SCRIPTURE SAYS IN PROVERBS
16 18 PRIDE GOETH BEFORE DESTRUCTION AND A HAUGHTY SPIRIT BEFORE A
FALL. WE SEE THIS IN PHARAOH DON'T
WE? ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS WE SEE THIS IN PHARAOH. WE SEE
IN VERSE 1 HOW GOD SPEAKS THROUGH HIS PREACHER. THE PREACHER MAY
NOT LOOK LIKE MUCH, MAY NOT APPEAR He may not be, and probably not,
probably not the most educated person in the room. He should
be the most educated in the Word of God, that's for sure. But
God uses, He uses men, sinners, like passion. Men, we're like
each other. He doesn't use our education,
He uses He uses a man and it gives him
a gift to preach the gospel and the power of it is of God. It's
of God. But he speaks here again, he
sends Moses to speak to Pharaoh. This is how God speaks. It's
His chosen means of communicating the truth to all humanity. It's what I'm doing right now,
standing here preaching. I don't look like much, I know
I don't, and I'm not the sharpest tool
in this room, I know that too. Several of you have more higher
education than I have, but God chose me, and God put this clay
pot right here for you to listen to. for you to listen to. Someone asked me to go preach
to a congregation that was, I would call it an intellectual congregation. They were given to intellectualism.
And some pastor asked me, he said, I want you to go up there
and preach to them. And I told him, I said, I don't need to
preach to them. He said, you're exactly what they need. I didn't know
where to, I didn't know how to take that. But he said, you're
exactly what that congregation needs. God takes a clay pot like
me and puts me in the pulpit to preach the gospel of His glory.
I have that privilege and responsibility every week to preach the gospel
of His glory and that's how God communicates the gospel is through
His preacher. It is pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. How shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall he preach, except
he be sent? There's a whole lot of people,
a whole lot of men standing in pulpits today that are not sent
of God. God didn't send them. But here he speaks to him once
again. And if sinners persist in disobedience, like Pharaoh
here, they're going to hear God's judgment. Sooner or later, they're
going to hear God's judgment. And God gives a clear warning
in verse 4. He gives a clear warning before judgment falls
again. This is the 8th, I think this
is the 8th plague, the 8th judgment. This is so glaring how hard a
heart is, how dead a sinner is. THIS IS THE EIGHTH PLAGUE IS
COMING AND HE STILL WON'T HUMBLE HIMSELF BEFORE GOD. GOD SAID
HOW LONG DO YOU REFUSE TO HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE ME? JUDGMENT NEVER COMES WITHOUT
WARNING. NEVER COMES WITHOUT WARNING.
GOD IS A JUST GOD AND HIS WARNINGS, YOU KNOW GOD'S WARNINGS ARE AN
ACT OF MERCY. YOU KNOW THAT? He could send
judgment and not say a word to you, and we deserve it. Everybody
deserves it. If we see God as who He is and
we see ourselves for what we are, He doesn't have to send
a warning. He sent Jonah to Nineveh. That's
one of the most wicked cities on the earth at that time, but
God sent Jonah to them. God's a just God and He sends
His warning, but rejection of His Word sooner or later will
lead to the consequences of judgment. Now, I'm going to give you seven
lessons that we can learn from Exodus chapter 10. And the first
one I think is one that we meet with throughout the whole Word
of God, and that's God's sovereignty. We see God is sovereign over
all human hearts, not just some, but over all human hearts. It
says God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and He did so to fulfill His
purpose. And I tell you this, it says God hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and we don't apologize or make excuses for it. That's
just what it is. That's what it says. If God did
it, it's right, isn't it? If God hardens my heart, if He
leaves me alone because I refuse to bow to Him, I refuse to humble
myself before Him, He has every right to harden my heart. He
has every right to do it. God's the judge. Salvation is
according to God's sovereign mercy, sovereign grace. It can be no other way. HE SENT
THESE WARNINGS TIME AFTER TIME AND PHARAOH REFUSED TO BOW. HE'S GOING TO. GOD SAID EVERY
KNEE IS GOING TO BOW. EVERY TONGUE IS GOING TO CONFESS
THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER. EVERYBODY IS GOING TO BOW AND
CONFESS THAT CHRIST IS LORD WILLINGLY OR UNWILLINGLY. I THINK GOD HAS
MADE SOME OF US WILLING. scripture says thy people shall
be made willing when in the day of thy power he exercised his
power of grace and mercy on us and enabled us to willingly bow
our knees to him and our hearts to him god did that god did it this shows here God God is showing
us here over pharaoh is he's showing us this he's in control
he's over the rulers of all nations there's no one outside of the
control of god even satan lifted up with pride god said i cast
you down to hell i'll put you in hell i'll put you in chains
of darkness and that's exactly what he's done God's purpose here, His purpose
to demonstrate His power and glory through the Exodus is unfolding,
it's unfolding exactly as He wills it to unfold. It's not
just happening, He's making it happen. God never watches anything
happen, He makes everything happen. The man told me one time I ran
a business for him, he said there's three types of people, He said,
there's those who MAKE IT HAPPEN, there are those who WATCH IT
HAPPEN, and then there are those who DON'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING!
And he told me, he said, you're going to fall into one of those
three categories. GOD IS ALWAYS MAKING IT HAPPEN! And it's happening, we're witnessing
here again, we're witnessing God MAKING IT HAPPEN! Then the second thing we are
to learn, His judgment serves a greater purpose. Judgment serves
God's eternal purpose. I want you to notice back here
in verse 2. Let me read verse 1 with us so it
will flow. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh,
for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants,
that I might show these My signs before him. He is going to know
He's gonna know I'm God and I'm the only God there is. Everybody's
gonna know that sooner or later. Everybody's gonna know who God
is sooner or later. Every time I hear someone dying,
I don't care if it's a believer or unbeliever, my first thought
is they've met God. Every atheist that dies is not
an atheist anymore. There's no atheist in hell. Everybody
there believes God, but it's too late It's too late But now listen here Here's number
or verse 2 and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son and
of thy son's son What things I have wrought in Egypt? And
my signs which I have done among them that ye may know how that
I am doing you know everything God's doing he's doing for us
and It's for our good. It's for our
instructions. He's doing it for us. You see,
there's a message here for our children. Our children. God tells Moses that these events
are not just for Pharaoh. They're for future generations.
It's a message for future generations. Parents are to take these stories
of God's mighty acts and pass them on to their children. Tell
their children about it. Tell your children about the
judgments of God. It seems like the religion for
the most part today is taking that and putting it aside, and
they're just trying to tell about the good things, you know, about
Christ's healing and all these. Don't pass up God's judgments.
HE SAID TELL THEM ABOUT THE THINGS I'VE DONE TO EG. YOU TELL YOUR
SONS AND DAUGHTERS WHAT I'VE DONE TO THEM. HERE WE ARE 2025 TELLING THE
STORY AGAIN. WE'RE TELLING THE STORY OF MOSES
AND EGYPT HERE 2025. These aren't, listen, these aren't
tales, these aren't just tales, they are testimony, testimonies
of God's glory and might and power, that's what they're testimonies
to. Each miracle, each plague and every act says, I am the Lord. Says, I
am the Lord, there is none else. I'm the Lord, beside me, he said,
there's none else. Who you gonna compare me to?
Who you gonna liken me to? We've got to be faithful to say
to the next generation, Thus saith the Lord, thus saith the
Lord, and to say it with confidence, not apologetic. We don't apologize
for anything God has done, doing, or will do. We don't apologize
for it, and we don't make excuses for it. We must be faithful to say, thus
saith the Lord with confidence, knowing we speak with the authority
of God's word, and we bow to it. And we tell this to our children. Tell the children these things,
the young people, the next generation. We've had all these commencement
speeches here lately. I heard one the other day, and
I've heard two or three of them. I like to, every now and then,
just to listen to what they have to say. None of them had anything to
do with God. None that I heard had any truth
in it at all about God. Remember now thy Creator in the
days of thy youth, when the evil days come before they come on,
before old age comes on. Thirdly, Here's a third lesson,
PARTIAL OBEDIENCE IS STILL DISOBEDIENCE. PARTIAL OBEDIENCE IS STILL DISOBEDIENCE. Pharaoh tries to compromise. You know back in chapter 8, let's
go back to chapter 8, let's just look at this. In chapter 8, let
me see if I've got the two verses right, 8 to be 25. Look in verse 25. And Pharaoh
called for Moses and for Aaron and said, Go ye sacrifice to
your God in the land. And Moses said, It's not me to
do so, for we shall sacrifice the abomination. He told him
to go do it in the land. He didn't You can just do it
here. And Moses said, No, we can't.
We can't do that here. And then in verse, let me look
in verse 28. And Pharaoh said, I'll let you go that you may
sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness. Only don't
go so far away. Don't go too far away. I've had
people say, well, I went too far with this. I've heard people
say, or had someone to say to me, you go too far. When you're
talking about election, particular redemption, total depravity,
you're going a little too far. No, I'm not. That's what Pharaoh,
don't you go too far. We're only going to go as far
as the Bible goes. And then look, now go back to
chapter 10. There in verse 8, And Moses and Aaron were brought
again unto Pharaoh. And he said to them, Go serve
the Lord your God, but who are they that shall go? Who and who?
It's what it says over here in the margin. In other words, tell
me who you're going to take. Moses said, I'm going to take
everybody. I'm going to take everybody. And then Pharaoh says,
No, you said you, the men, you and the men can go, but you leave
your little ones here. God doesn't compromise. We can't
compromise. I'm telling you, there's something
to be said here. Now, as far as you and I dealing
with each other, we do have to make compromises or we couldn't
get along. Could we? We all have such different personalities.
We do make a lot of compromises. But we have to be careful. When
it comes to the gospel, we make no compromise. Zero compromise. God wouldn't make it. He would
not negotiate with God. You know what a compromise is?
You know what it means? Compromise is this, it is a settlement by
mutual concession. God's going to make concessions
with us? That's what it means. Pharaoh, trying to negotiate
with God, offered to let only certain people go. Moses insists
on the full, full obedience. Gotta take everything and everyone.
That's what God said. And He's not gonna change. God's
not gonna change. I'm the Lord, I change not. That's
why you sons of Jacob are not consumed, because I don't change.
I don't change, I don't negotiate, and I don't compromise. I'm not
God. I'm not God. You see, serving God and worshiping
God involves everything I have, you know that? It involves everything
I have, and the world cannot dictate how God is to be worshipped. God is not going to allow Pharaoh
to dictate how he's to be worshipped, because he's not just another
God. They had many gods, and it was just like, if you'll notice,
he said, you go worship the Lord YOUR God. He kept calling the Lord, the
God of Moses, the God of Israel, your God, as if He was just another
God among the many gods they worshiped. And He's not. He's the only God there is. Now
the fourth lesson we are to learn is God uses creation to display
His power and to show that all of it is His. Everything in creation,
every human being in creation, they're all mine. The earth is
the Lord, the fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein, it's
all mine. How clear has God made that?
It's mine. It's mine. He said in one place,
if I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. I own the cattle on
a thousand hills. It's all mine. But here God uses creation to
display His power through locusts and darkness. God revealed His
complete authority over the natural world. Now listen, CHALLENGING
the gods of Egypt. The gods of Egypt. THAT NO EARTHLY
POWER COULD RESIST HIS POWER! No earthly power, no one can
stand against God, no one. He proves that in verses 12-15
and verses 21-23. Listen here, Osiris, he's the
God of the afterlife, agriculture, and fertility. NEPER AND NEPRI, DEITIES OF GRAIN
AND HARVEST. GEB, GOD OF THE EARTH. Where
are they? Where are they? You worship these
gods. Pharaoh, you worship these gods.
The Egyptians worship these gods. Where are they? Why can they
not stop the locusts? Why can they not stop all this?
Why can they not stop the hell and the fire? Why can they not
do that? Because they don't exist. They
don't exist, that's why they have no power. They don't even
exist. You know, as I was reading this
and I was putting these down, I thought, how sad, how sad to
worship, to truly worship a God that doesn't even exist. It doesn't even exist. God brings these locusts in,
He destroys HE LEFT THEM SOME CROPS BEHIND! THAT WAS AN ACT
OF MERCY! HE LEFT THEM SOME FOOD! THE HELL
AND THE FIRE DIDN'T BURN IT ALL UP! BUT BECAUSE OF THE HARDNESS OF
HIS HEART, WHAT WAS THE NEXT JUDGEMENT? IT ATE UP EVERYTHING! YOU COULDN'T EVEN SEE THE EARTH!
THEY COVERED THE EARTH SO MUCH! AND GOD USED THE WIND! The wind,
the power of the wind to blow these locusts in all day and
all night in east wind. You know, it had to be hurricane
force. Had to be. Not trying to be funny, but I
had a bug get on my windshield when I was leaving a parking
lot out here. And I thought, I wonder how fast I gotta go
before he flies off. I was up to 70 miles an hour,
and he was hanging on. And I thought, well, a ticket's
not worth, you know, a $200 ticket's not worth this test here. So
I got back. It hung onto my windshield at
70 miles an hour. And I thought of that when I
read this, I thought, how, how powerful must the wind be to
have brought that many in? And then it says a mighty west
wind came in and blew them all out. And if you'll notice, I
noticed this caught my attention when he said he blew all the
locusts. If you'll notice all the, he'd been speaking about
locusts, plural. And then in verse 19, And the
LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts,
plural, and cast them into the Red Sea. There remained not one
locust, one, not one. The language of Scripture is
so particular. He said not one locust was left
in the land. God sent that west wind and took
them all out to sea. Those things like that impress
me. Those things impress me. It's
just not the big things, it's also those little things that
impress me. A bug on a windshield, I'm so impressed. And I thought,
when I did that, I'm serious, when I did that, I thought, my,
what God can make. What God can make. He can make
a bug like that hang on a windshield. It just impressed me. So God uses here, let me get
back to this, God uses the natural world that He made to bring judgment
and to prove the foolishness of worshipping gods that don't
exist. All these plagues challenged
the so-called gods of Egypt and they all failed because they
don't even exist anyway. Now the fifth thing we are to
learn is this, GOD MAKES A DISTINCTION BETWEEN HIS PEOPLE AND THE WORLD!
HE DOES! It?s all through the Word of
God! It?s just astounding to me that people I?ve talked to,
you know, people I?ve known over the years in Arminianism, and
that?s nothing but religion of works, but they have no trouble,
ZERO TROUBLE OF GOD ELECTING A NATION OVER THERE CALLED ISRAEL! THEY HAVE NO TROUBLE WITH THAT!
BUT THEN WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT GOD ELECTING A PEOPLE OUT OF
THE GENTILES, THAT THEY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT! HOW DO YOU
HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? IT'S ALL THROUGH THE WORD OF
GOD! GOD'S GONNA HAVE A PEOPLE! IF NOT, NOBODY WOULD BE SAVED! Someone said election does not
shut the door of heaven, it opens it. It's because of that sinners
are going to be in glory. That's why they're going to be
sinners in glory because God chose them and He says you're
mine, you're going to be here, you're mine. If not, nobody be
saved. You can read the scriptures,
you don't ever hear of a demon asking for mercy. And you'll
never hear a sinner ask for mercy until God has mercy on him. It
won't do it. It'll never happen. It won't
happen. God makes a distinction between
His people and the world. The Lord said in John 17, I pray
for them, I pray not for the world. Listen, while Egypt suffered
under divine judgment, darkness, He said, that may be felt for
three days. They didn't even move, they couldn't
even move because they couldn't even see. It was so dark, I can't
even imagine darkness that He says that may be felt. But Israel, look in verse 23. It says, THEY SAW NOT ONE ANOTHER,
NEITHER ROSE ANY FROM HIS PLACE FOR THREE DAYS, BUT ALL THE CHILDREN
OF ISRAEL HAD LIGHT IN THEIR DWELLINGS. You have light. You know, some of you are children
of light. You have light. You are the children
of light. God has given you an understanding. We live in a dark, dark, dark
world. I mean, this world is so dark
it may be felt. Look at the evil that goes on.
Look at all the... I can't even begin to put it
in words. Of the evil, and the sin, and
the debauchery, and the darkness. But you have light. You and I
walk in the light. He said, walk in the light. Walk
in the light. We have light to walk in. Brethren,
this is God's Word. It's the truth. And we have light
to walk in. I don't care if I might be the
most uneducated person on earth, but I have light to walk in.
I've got wisdom. I've got wisdom. I'd 10,000 times
rather have wisdom than a lot of intelligence. Wisdom is the rider. You're the
horse that could be the intelligent, but wisdom is the rider. I'd rather have wisdom. God give
me WISDOM! We also see this, God gives them
LIGHT, they have LIGHT in Israel, and we see that God protects
His covenant people, even in the midst of judgment, God protects
His children. You and I have no concept how
protected we are. Read Psalm 91 when you go home. Read Psalm 91. And then the sixth lesson we
are to learn is this. Pharaoh's repentance was superficial. Not all repentance is repentance. Pharaoh said, I have sinned in
verse 16 and 17. He said, I have sinned against
the Lord and against you. Pray for me. Pray for me. Ask God to remove this death.
And you know, Moses went out and prayed. Every time a plague
was removed, Moses prayed and asked God to remove it. But Pharaoh's repentance was
short-lived. He quickly reneged on his word
when the immediate threat was over with, when it was all gone. You know, true repentance involves
a lasting change, a change of mind, a change of attitude, a
change of conduct. That's what repentance does,
true repentance. 2 Corinthians 7 10 for godly
sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented
of but the sorrow of the world worketh death there is a sorrow
a repentance that's that's of the world you get caught you
get in trouble i'm not gonna do that again well that's not
true repentance You just got caught. I bet you'd be doing
it again if you did get caught. You'd probably do it again even
if you got caught once you get out and get away from the law. We are repeat offenders, aren't
we? Every one of us are repeat offenders. If I wasn't, I wouldn't
have got so many weapons growing up if I wasn't a repeat offender. That's why I had to get them
as much as I could. And then the seventh lesson here
is HARD HEARTS LEAD TO DESTRUCTION. Oh, so often I have, how many
times have I said here, listen, listen to me, listen. That's
not a habit. I mean to listen. I have something
to say. When I tell you to listen, it's
because I have something I believe you need to hear and take home
with you. The repeated hardening of Pharaoh's
heart shows how pride and resistance to God leads down a path of increasing
judgment and separation from God's mercy. One day God said
to Noah, Come in, and God shut the door, and nobody else went
in that hour. God shut the door. Now what can we take from this?
First of all, when God calls, when the Word goes forth, when
the Gospel goes forth, respond fully to God's call, to the Gospel. Yea, Lord, speak. Speak. And when we face trials,
we need to remember there's a purpose in it for us an eternal purpose
in it there's an eternal purpose for everything you're going to
go through today everything you've gone through and everything you're
going to go through there is an eternal purpose in it and in that in that trial God
is teaching and listen I've got something to say God's revealing
himself God's revealing Himself. And then last of all, let's be
faithful to the next generation and tell them of the mighty acts
of God. Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ who died on Calvary's
tree, and why, and for whom, where He is now. Let's tell the mighty acts of
God to the next generation. Just don't hold back anything.
Nothing. All right.