15th April 2024

15th April 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 9:13-35)


Message (Alan Burke) 


We’ve been flying through these plagues which and as we come to the seventh plague, the plague of Hail the Egyptians were once more confronted with how there is only one God and this time it comes with a plague of hail. Hail doesn’t sound all that miraculous, we’ve all been pelted at some state by a few hail stones but this plague was nothing like what we have experienced, this plague left total destruction on the land of Egypt and just as before the Lord makes a distinction between his people and the Egyptians in the coming judgement. 


Once more Moses is to go to Pharaoh and ask for the very same thing that Pharaoh would let the people go so that they may worship the Lord, that they may serve the Lord. Pharaoh is again warned about the consequences of refusal and the consequences make the first six plages look like nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Why was the Lord doing this? Well it was so that the people would know that he is the Lord, this was the reason that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart because if it was all over with just the first plague, Pharaoh had have let the people go then it would be easy to dismiss who the Lord God is. 


The Egyptians who were polytheistic and had multiple gods were hedging their bets and the Lord was showing his Lordship over all their false gods, there was no room for a pantheon of gods, there is only one living and true God who makes himself known. If the Lord had desired to wipe the Egyptians out so that his people could worship and serve him he could have but he wanted the Egyptians to know who he is. It was for this very reason the Lord had raised Pharaoh up for this very purposes. All that had unfolded was according to God’s plan and purposes so that his name would be proclaimed in all the earth. 


Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were. This was not a mere natural occurrence, this was the hand of the Almighty.


Once more Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, he said to them that he had sinned, he asked that they would pray for he and his people were in the wrong. We might think great he’s finally getting it the penny is dropping but no, Pharaoh may have been overcome but his remorse for his sin was only caused by the consequences of his sin, his repentance wasn’t true repentance, for no sooner had the plague ended than Pharaoh changed his mind again, Moses even told Pharaoh "But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God.”


Nothing had changed in the heart of Pharaoh, he refused to let the Israelites go to worship, to serve the Lord the one and only God. While he should have known by this stage that he was only going to cause himself more pain, that every time he is confronted with how the Lord is greater than he is he was resolute, stubborn, he was unwilling to let the people go. 


While the Pharaoh and the people believed he was a god among his people and people would prostate themselves as they came before him yet he was a sinner, his knowledge of that sin did not mean that he was repentant of it because as soon as the prayer of Moses was answered he went right back to business as usual. Pharaoh may have hated the consequences of his sin but did not hate the sin. This is one of those things that we need to understand, because in our lives the issue is not the consequences of our sin it is the sin itself, it is the sin that we should hate, it is the sin that we should be repenting of not the consequences. And as we repent of that sin cry out for the Lord to be merciful. The Lord is merciful on sinners who come to him in repentance, who hate not only the consequences of sin but their own sin, he is merciful on all who repent because Jesus took the consequences of our sin on himself so that we might be saved. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q13 Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God. (Gen. 3:6–8,13, Eccl. 7:29)
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