Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: As the children are being dismissed to their junior church program, let's take our Bibles this morning and open them to the book of Exodus chapter 9 and verse 33. Taking a look at verses 33 through 35 this morning, the title of our message is "The Perils of Prosperity."

As you're turning there, mentally congratulate yourself for surviving Daylight Savings Time Sunday morning. Fall is easier than spring. I like Fall Daylight Savings Time. I won't comment on Spring Daylight Savings Time.

We're continuing our verse-by-verse teaching through the book of Exodus. God in this book, the first half of the book, is redeeming a nation. He has raised up his man of the hour, Moses, the one whom he will use in this great effort. What we have been studying as of late is the plagues that God is bringing forth on Egypt through Moses.

We've seen the Nile to blood, the multiplication of frogs, gnats, flies, death of livestock, boils, and the last time we were in this, and we've had a couple of Sundays away from it because of Profcon, which you guys saw on the screen there, and also Pastor Dennis Rokser was here last week. Did you guys enjoy Pastor Dennis? Yeah, he was good stuff. Where we were studying before those brief interruptions was the hail.

We find ourselves in Exodus 9 verses 13 through 35, most of which we've covered concerning the hail judgment that has now come upon Egypt, God using Moses. What happens at the very end of this chapter, verses 33 through 35, which is what we're going to look at this morning, is Moses at Pharaoh's request, through God's power, reverses the judgment.

We see the plague ceasing in verse 35, Pharaoh's hardening in verse 34, and Pharaoh's refusal to let the children of Israel go in verse 35. Notice first of all the ceasing of the plague. Exodus chapter 9 and verse 33 says, "So Moses went out from the city from Pharaoh and spread out his hands to the Lord. And the thunder and the hail ceased and the rain no longer poured out on the earth." The operative words being he spread out his hands to the Lord.

The incredible power that we possess through intercessory prayer can really not be quantified. We have a tendency to look at ourselves as powerless in a world that's very wicked and evil. Things are out of control, and we really think we have no power to stop things. That's true in and of ourselves; outside of God's will, we have very limited power.

There is a power that we do have called intercessory prayer. This is spoken of in the book of James chapter 5 and verse 16 and following. It says, "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." Some English translations say it "availeth much."

James gives some examples in verse 17. "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours." He was just a normal guy, this guy Elijah. He put his shoes on one foot at a time, just like the rest of us. It says he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

He prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. Here's this ordinary guy able to alter meteorology through intercessory prayer, able to alter weather through intercessory prayer. Jesus in Luke chapter 18 and verse 1 says men ought not to faint, but they ought to pray.

I know that in my own personal life, carving aside that time to pray is probably the most difficult part of my Christianity. Satan would love me and he would love you to be running around with all kinds of Christian activity, things that in and of themselves aren't necessarily bad; they just are activities that consume a lot of time and energy. He'd love to get you running around doing all that stuff if it means you won't pray, because prayer is where the power is.

Moses was just a fallible human being and yet he was able to stop this plague of hail as he spread out his hands to the Lord. The power of prayer is not in the person that prays; it's in God's hand that moves. That's where the power comes from.

Yet God for whatever reason has chosen to move his hand, I wouldn't say in every case, but in many cases, through the prayers and the petitions of his people. First John chapter 5 and verse 14 says if we ask according to his will, he hears us. God is not obligated to answer prayer requests that are outside of his will. You wouldn't want a prayer request answered that's outside of his will.

There is a country western song, "Thank God for unanswered prayers." You don't want things happening in your life that are outside of his will. God doesn't grant us things that are outside of his will, but the prayer within his will has tremendous potency and tremendous power. I've noticed that when I pray within his will, the answer doesn't always come on my timetable.

When it comes, it's oftentimes bigger than anything I even prayed for to begin with. It's an amazing thing that we have, and Moses is experiencing this as he is walking with the Lord here. You'll notice that Moses could do something that Pharaoh's magicians could not do.

Pharaoh's magicians could imitate the first couple of plagues in the book of Exodus. Water to blood, Pharaoh's magicians were able to imitate that. The multiplication of frogs throughout the land of Egypt, Pharaoh's magicians were able to imitate that one. But when it got to number three here, the dirt becoming gnats—Exodus 8, verses 16 through 19—Pharaoh's magicians operating under occultic power says we can't do that one. That's the hand of God.

What made that third one different? It was a miracle that dealt with a non-living thing turning into a non-living thing. Then came the frogs; that dealt with a living thing becoming more living things. But the gnats was different because that was a non-living thing becoming a living thing. That's vertical. And only God can do that, the magicians said.

This is the hand of God, this is the finger of God. They had power to a certain point, but they couldn't turn something non-living into living. They couldn't go vertical. Even though they had a lot of power to do a lot of different things, they couldn't stop a plague. Plague number one, they imitated it. Plague number two, they imitated it. Plague number three, they tried to imitate it and didn't get very far with number three, but they could never do a U-turn. They could never do a reversal.

Moses was able to do the reversal through intercessory prayer to God. Who really had the power in this whole exchange? We have a tendency to look at people as really having the power, but Moses had the power because his power was rooted in God. I've shown you this chart many times about the different satanic or demonic miracles taking place in the Bible.

These are all the examples I could find; maybe you could find more where a miracle happens and God has nothing to do with it. Meaning that the realm of the satanic, the realm of the demonic, the realm of the fallen angelic has an awful lot of power, but it does not possess the same power as God possesses. Moses was dialed into, because of his relationship to God, he possessed the ultimate power.

You know what? You do too. The power doesn't belong to the politicians; the power doesn't belong to your cantankerous boss or someone in your life that has more popularity and more money and more resources than you have. The ultimate power is yours because you're related to God, and God is the creator.

All of these other entities are just created beings. We get so confused about this. We look at influencers and successful people and powerful people and we can kind of go into the fetal position because we're so intimidated by them. The truth of the matter is, if they understood who you serve and who you're related to, they're the ones that should be cowering, not you.

Moses moves into this role where he is taking on the Egyptian Pantheon of that time period, the whole power structure. He by himself and his brother Aaron were able to do things that this whole power structure could not do because of his relationship to the Lord. Moses had the ultimate power source at his fingertips and you have it as well.

We move away from the plague ceasing to Pharaoh's heart hardening and we pick it up there in verse 34. It says, "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." Jumping down into verse 35, "Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not let the sons of Israel go."

If you go back to verse 28, verse 27—you put those two verses together and when the pressure was on, Pharaoh said to Moses, "All right, you can go." You, the Israelites, the children of Israel can leave Egyptian bondage. The moment the pressure stopped, the moment the plague stopped, Pharaoh has a U-turn, a 180 in his mentality and he says you can't go. Which indicates to me that he never was very sincere on the front end.

He was sincere as long as the pressure was applied to him. The moment the pressure was taken away from him is the moment that his attitude changed. A lot of people are like that with God. They will seek God when they're in trouble, when they're having a problem. But the moment the problem disappears is the moment they could really care less about God.

You go to a doctor and you get that negative doctor report and the prayers pour forth from our lips. But isn't it interesting how our prayer life has a tendency to dissipate the moment the doctor says, "You know what? You're completely healthy. There's no issues whatsoever." This is what I call the perils of prosperity.

It's almost like God says to his children, "I haven't heard from you in so long and I want to hear from you. I want to have a relationship with you. But I haven't heard from you in so long because your life is just going so well. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to introduce a problem or two in your life just to hear your voice again through prayer."

If you're moving on with your life in prosperity and success and everything is going your direction, the opportunity and even the desire to seek God has a tendency to disappear. Jesus talked about this over and over again. In Matthew 19 verses 23 and 24, he said this to his disciples: "Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

In verse 24, Matthew 19, he says, "And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The rich, as far as God is concerned, are at a real disadvantage. They really have very little incentive to seek God because they're used to buying their way out of their problems.

The interesting thing about money is it can't replace God in a person's life, but it certainly is the next best alternative. If I was picking alternatives for God, I would pick power, pleasure, and prosperity. Those are some pretty good artificial substitutes. Ultimately at the end of the day, they'll come up empty.

But as long as a person is clouded with all kinds of prosperity, all kinds of success, all kinds of capacities that they have to buy their way out of their problems, God is a footnote in the lives of many people. He's an afterthought. We have a tendency to look at the rich as if they have all of the advantages. The Bible is actually saying the exact opposite; they are at a tremendous disadvantage spiritually speaking.

James, the Lord's half-brother, wrote this in his little epistle in James chapter 1 verses 9 through 11. He wrote, "But the brother in humble circumstances is to glory in his high position. And the rich man is to glory in his humiliation because like flowering grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away."

Do you have a brother, James says, who's in an adverse circumstance: financially, health, career, relational? James says that person ought to exalt in their high position because they're at a point in their life where they're actually seeking God, praying to God, making requests known to God. The rich, on the other hand, got their bills paid, got it made in the shade. Why seek God? So they're actually fading away, the book of James says, even while they go about their business. It's a different way of looking at prosperity: the perils of prosperity, the danger of prosperity.

Jesus in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 spoke to the various churches in Asia Minor. Then he got to Laodicea. He has no word of commendation for Laodicea. Every other church, he manages to say something good about them, but not Laodicea. What was the problem with Laodicea? Too much success, too much of a budget surplus. Things were just going too well. If things are going well, let's just go ahead and have Christianity without Christ. We've got things figured out, Lord. We'll check in with you when we need you.

Jesus says this to the church at Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3 verse 17, "Because you say, Laodicea, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing." That is a dangerous place to be in when you have a need before God but you don't see your need before God. You don't think you need God. Prosperity does that to people.

Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing, and you do not even know, Jesus says, that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I can't think of a harsher critique than in those words chosen by Jesus as he speaks to the church at Laodicea. Number one, you're wretched. Number two, you're miserable. Number three, you're poor. Number four, you're blind. And number five, you're naked.

The worst part of the whole thing is you don't even know that those descriptors apply to you. You think you have need of nothing, but you need everything. Your material prosperity is blinding you to your actual need. We're so resentful to God when the first sign of trouble hits. "God, how could you allow this into my life? This adverse circumstance, whatever it may be."

When you start to understand the perils of prosperity, you start to look at your troubles completely different. Thank you, Lord, for this thorn in the flesh because this is the very thing that's causing me to seek you. If I didn't have this thorn in the flesh, I would really have no incentive to pray to you.

Paul the Apostle suffered from a thorn in the flesh; nobody knows what it was. It's described in Second Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10. Paul starts looking at it as a gift. What a strange way to look at a problem. He says you've given me this thorn in the flesh because that thorn in the flesh was keeping Paul in a usable, dependent condition.

Everyone wants to know the secret of Paul's success. Modern missionaries today with all of our technological advances could not single-handedly reproduce what the Apostle Paul did in the book of Acts. Was it his education? He was certainly an educated man. Was it his natural gifting? He certainly was a naturally gifted person. Was it his training? He certainly had all that going for him. Was it his understanding of Old Testament? As a Pharisee, certainly understood that backwards and forwards.

Those things, as important as they are, were not the secret of his success. The secret of his success is given there in Second Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10: the thorn in the flesh. He asked God three times to remove it. God each time said no. Why didn't God take it away? Why doesn't everybody get healed? Why is it that Christians go through this life many times in a crippled state, either physically or emotionally, or have a very difficult time recovering from some kind of trauma that they have experienced in the past? Why is it, Lord, that the righteous suffer?

The answer, at least in Paul's case, was very clear: that's the secret of your success right there. Because if that wasn't there, you would not be in a place of dependence upon me. You'd be lifted up with pride because Paul had been caught up to the third heaven. Hasn't happened to me, not ever for that matter. When he was caught up to the third heaven and he says, "Was I in my body? Was I out of my body? I don't know. I just know I was caught up." It's something that happened to him 14 years earlier.

As he's describing that in Second Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10, he says, "I heard things that a human being is not fit to hear." In other words, I heard things that people don't know naturally. It was given to me by divine disclosure. Can you imagine the complete arrogance of that man if given privy to that kind of knowledge and insight?

The thing about God is God loved Paul too much to see him move off into independence and arrogance and self-sufficiency, so he gave him something that from best accounts was something crippling. I don't know if it was physical, I don't know if it was emotional, I don't know if it was relational. It's interesting how the devil is God's devil, and God actually used Satan to attack over and over again the Apostle Paul.

He talks there about how I buffet my body and make it my slave. But he just kept going back to the Lord. "Take it away, take it away, take it away." The Lord said, "No, no, no, no. Because I love you too much to see you wander off into independence and you have a destiny."

The destiny is the book of Acts and the 13 epistles that we read about, none of which would have happened without that thorn in the flesh. That more than any other single thing I can think about was the secret of his success. We would be just like Pharaoh without trouble. It's our human nature; we're wired that way in original sin. Pharaoh, as long as the pressure is on, he's seeking God. The moment the pressure disappears, Pharaoh could care less about God and he really could care less about the initial promise that he made.

It's interesting as you look at verse 34. It says, "But when Pharaoh saw that the wind and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart." This is a real conundrum. Exodus chapter 4 verse 21, God says of Pharaoh, "I will harden his heart." Here you don't see God hardening Pharaoh's heart; you see Pharaoh hardening his own heart. God as the hardening agent, as far as I can tell, isn't even mentioned here in these verses that we're looking at.

What an interesting interplay this is between God hardening Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardening his own heart. A great study in sovereignty versus free will. Ed Hindson writes concerning this expression "I will harden his heart": an expression to strengthen his will. The text identifies the heart as the location of the volition, man's decision-making ability. On seven occasions in the narrative, God hardens Pharaoh's heart or foretells that he will harden Pharaoh's heart.

Nine times in the text, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. Ed Hindson writes, "For the initial five plagues, the text registers Pharaoh as the agent of hardening. Not until the sixth plague does God participate in the confirmation of Pharaoh's own volitional choices." Charles Ryrie says the same thing; his numbers are a little bit different, but both men, commentators that I respect, are teaching the same interplay.

Exodus 4 verse 21, harden his heart. Ten times it said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart and ten times that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Paul uses this as an example of the inscrutable will of God and of his mercy towards men. Seven times Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God first hardened it, though the prediction that God would do it preceded it all. So in Exodus 4 verse 21, you have the prediction of God hardening Pharaoh. Then you see Pharaoh repeatedly hardening his own heart.

It's not until the sixth plague that God hardens Pharaoh's heart. This whole subject of volition, free will—a lot of theological systems today are real down on that issue. They argue that we don't really have free will. But how could we not have free will when we're made in God's image? God has free will to do what he wants. The way we are designed as image bearers of God, and by the way, the fall did not erase our image bearing status—it effaced it but never erased it. You'll see it in passages like Genesis 9 verse 6, James chapter 3 verse 9.

This image bearing status is very early revealed in the Bible on the sixth day of creation, Genesis 1:26 through 28. It's a power that we have that sometimes I wish we didn't have it. It's the capacity for choice. If a person wants to make a choice either for God or against God, you know what God does? Ultimately, he respects the choice. If he overrode the choice and canceled volition, he would be canceling how we are manufactured.

One of the greatest powers that you have as a human being, as an image bearer of God—the animals, the plant life doesn't have this power. They have the nephesh or the psyche in the sense that they're life-bearing existing entities, but they're not image bearers of God like you are. One of this amazing power that you have is the power of volition, the power to choose. If a person says to God, "No, no, no, no, no, no," over and over again, God finally says, "I respect your choice. You don't want eternal life? You don't have to have it. You want to go into eternal retribution without me? Even though I've given you opportunity after opportunity after opportunity, I'll respect your choice."

I sometimes wish with some of the choices that I've made in my life, good and bad—I sometimes wish I didn't have the choice. Be easier for me if I was just a puppet on a string. But that's to deny my humanity; that's to deny who I am. And this is what's going on with Pharaoh. Some passages say God hardened his heart, other passages say he hardened his own heart. It doesn't say God hardened his heart until, according to commentators, six times where he hardened his own heart, and God is allowing this whole thing to play out.

It's being played out right now as I speak; it's being played out all over the world. Paul writes in Romans 1 verses 18 through 20: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." There's the problem. It's not that they don't know God is there. It's obvious God exists. We can't have design without a designer. Our universe, our solar system, our cardiovascular system, muscular system, skeletal system is so fine-tuned. How can a sane person deny the existence of God?

God's existence is as plain as the nose on their face. Whether they've read a single word of the Bible or not, they know he exists. It isn't a lack of information; it isn't a lack of knowledge. The problem is people take what's obvious and they hold it down in unrighteousness. That's what upsets God. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They know better, but they resist it.

Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen and being understood through what he has made so that men are without excuse. I was listening to one of our famous atheists in a podcast scenario and he was asked the question: what are you going to do if you stand before God one day and you find out that this God that you don't think exists exists after all?

This atheist says he's going to say to God, "Why did you do such a good job concealing yourself?" I'm thinking to myself: conceal yourself? Are you living in the same universe I'm living in? God hasn't concealed himself. All God is waiting for is a step of honesty in his direction. You don't have to have all of the facts and answers and data; you just have to have a heart that says I want to know you. I know you're out there, I know there's something bigger than me. Look at the testimonies of people that pray that prayer; they start to get answers in unparalleled ways.

I ask people all of the time because people follow our ministry online—I say, "Well, how did you find us?" They many times will say something like this: "I was at the end of my rope. I was being fed a lot of nonsense by the world of religion and I want to know the truth." And across my path came your YouTube channel, podcast, sermon, and I've been listening to you for five years. You mean it's not our great marketing that gets the word out to people? No, it's just a sincerity of the heart. That's the kind of person that God responds to.

But Romans 1 is quite tragic because they suppress the truth and then you keep reading Romans 1 to the end of the chapter and you have those frightening words that say God gave them over. It says it three times: God gave them over. He gave them over, for example, to a reprobate mind. What is a reprobate mind? A mind that doesn't think the way it's supposed to, because fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. If a person won't fear the Lord, then their mind which is supposed to function properly under God can't think correctly. So God gave them over to a reprobate mind.

You know why God gave them over to a reprobate mind? Because they gave up on God. Then it says God gave them over to sexual confusion, total deviance. Why is our culture becoming so sexually deviant? Why is it that now they're talking about pedophilia as a disorder but not a crime? I've got quotes from legal professors in the New York Times Op-Ed pieces arguing that. How could you get so confused? Well, because you gave up on God and God gave you over to what you wanted.

This deviance in our culture is an outworking of it. And this is what's going on with Pharaoh. He's hardening his heart against God and God's giving Pharaoh over to what he wants to do, which I never want for my life. I pray constantly, "God, if I'm making bad choices and doing dumb stuff because that's what sin does to us—makes us stupid." I had a youth pastor that said that once. He said, "You know, you will do the dumbest things you'll ever do in your life when you're in sin." He's absolutely right. Some of the most illogical things I've ever done relate to times in my life where I'm trying to cover up sin or I'm involved in sin.

I say to the Lord quite frequently, "Lord, if I'm going in this direction, keep bothering me. Keep agitating me. Keep sending the pain signals my direction because I don't want ever get to a point where I'm obtuse to the things of God because I've been given over to what it is I want to do and you're respecting my choices." As you look at the second part of verse 34, it's not just Pharaoh that's involved in this kind of trajectory away from God; it's also his servants.

He sinned and hardened his heart, he and his servants. The Greeks even today have a phrase that says a fish rots from the head down. Show me the leadership of an organization, show me the leadership of a country, show me the leadership of a culture, and I'll be able to tell you basically where that country and culture and organization is going to be one day. Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 2 says when the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules, people groan.

I think in many ways we're doing an awful lot of groaning because we have people in all kinds of positions of authority that really don't respect God and his principles or his ways at all. Pharaoh didn't respect the principles of God, so the nation following him didn't respect the principles of God. This is why biblical leadership is such a big deal. When you go and you vote for people—I guess you're going to have the chance to do that again May 27th, there's a runoff here in Texas—when you go and you vote for people, you vote for people that respect God.

Are they honoring God with their lifestyle, are they honoring God with their principles? That ascendancy of proper leadership is what causes a nation, it says, to rejoice. The people rejoice when the righteous flourish. Ed Jones earlier talked about how we're selecting leaders for the church here, elders, deacons. I understand it's another incumbrance on your life to think that through and fill out the form and submit honest requests or submissions.

That process is so significant because Sugar Land Bible Church can't rise above its leadership. If you have good leadership, the sky's the limit. If you don't have good leadership, then you're functioning sort of with a disability. I can't tell you how many organizations and churches, even businesses that I personally am aware of that have the potential for greatness. This organization could be great, you say to yourself. What's wrong? The leadership is the problem.

A country, a nation, a church, a family—you might be saying to yourself, "Well, I'm not a leader, I'm not a president, I'm not a CEO." I'll tell you one thing: you're the head of your home. You've got people in your home under your authority. Husband, wife—we exert leadership all of the time. And whether those you represent ascend to greatness really relies on to a large extent the type of leadership—not that you're preaching, we can all preach it, but role modeling.

Role modeling godliness wherever you go, influencing people within your sphere of influence everywhere you go. And if that won't happen, then those under you can't reach their potential either. And this is the whole problem with Egypt here that this verse just stuck out to me like a sore thumb as I was preparing this message. It says Pharaoh hardened his heart and then it says he and his servants. His servants did exactly what he did.

Look at those qualifications for church leadership: First Timothy 3:1 through 13. First seven verses, elders; verses 8 through 13, deacons. And take that process seriously because it will largely determine what kind of church we are here six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. May the Lord challenge us all to the endeavor of godly leadership.

We conclude there with verse 35 with Pharaoh's hardening. It says in verse 35, "Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not let the sons of Israel go." Wait a minute now, I thought you said earlier that they could go. Didn't we read that a few Sundays back? Verse 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." What happened to that guy?

He did a U-turn. Verse 35, Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he did not let the sons of Israel go. What do you do with a guy like this? He's a liar. And what the book of Exodus is trying to show us is that people do this sort of thing. God by contrast doesn't. God is the only source that you can go to over and over and over again which cannot and will not lie to you. Functioning with the Scripture, the book of James analogizes it to looking at your image in a mirror.

The interesting thing about a mirror is it doesn't lie to you. You could be looking great and feeling great and you could have all of your t's crossed and i's dotted and the mirror will tell you thumbs up today. Now you could have a bad hair day, you could be miserable, you could have just rolled out of bed or something worse and you could look right in the mirror and the mirror won't lie to you. The mirror will tell you when you're happy, it'll tell you when you're sad.

The mirror will tell you when you're young and it's pretty good at telling you when you're old. The mirror will tell you when your hair is dark with no gray in it and then it'll tell you there's some gray there—in fact, all of it's gray. In fact, never mind that, you lost all that gray hair a long time ago. That's what a relationship with God is like. If you want the truth—remember the famous Jack Nicholson quote: you can't handle the truth? A lot of times we can't handle the truth.

We don't want to hear the truth. John 3 verses 19 through 20 says men love darkness rather than the light, for they stayed away from the light and they hated the light because their deeds were evil. The closer you get to the light, the more it tells you the truth, and truth is the best thing that could ever happen to you. Because Jesus said you'll know the truth and the truth shall set you free. You want to be set free? I want to be set free. Then it starts with the truth.

You get the truth from God. You don't get it from necessarily a pastor or a preacher, elders or deacons; we try our best here to teach the truth. But if you really want the truth, you go to God. The word of God will function just like a mirror and it will tell you the absolute truth whether you want the truth or not. God is the only one that can do that for you. Human beings obviously can't, Pharaoh being an example. God on the other hand gives you the unadulterated truth. Because he can't lie.

It's not just that he can't lie; it's impossible for him to lie. Numbers 23 verse 19 says God is not a man that he should lie. Notice God is not like a person who can lie. God can't. Well, Pastor, are you saying there are some things God can't do? Yeah, I'm telling you that right now. There are some things God can't do: God can't lie. Can God make a rock so big that he can't move it? No. Because God is always sovereign over his creation.

Titus 1 verse 2 says God who cannot lie. Hebrews 6 verse 18, which I quoted a little earlier: it is impossible for God to lie. Remember the movement Promise Keepers? We ought to be promise keepers, but the truth of the matter is there's only one of those, and that's God. People, they stay away from church, they stay away from Christians because they've had a bad experience in church. Someone lied to them. Churches are going to let you down. I've got a long list of them in my background. I'll tell you the stories sometime. Church leaders will let you down. People that are shepherding you will let you down. God never will.

Romans 3 and verse 4 says let God be found true and every man be found a liar. Notice the contrast between people and God. Second Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20 says for all the promises of God in him are yes and in him amen. If God said it, you take it right to the bank. A person said it, you might want to have some a dose of healthy skepticism. As Ronald Reagan once said, trust but verify, right? Not with God.

And that's one of the things that's being brought up here in the book of Exodus. Because as the Exodus is occurring, God is keeping a promise that he made to the patriarch Abraham going back 600 years roughly. Exodus 2 verse 24—why is this Exodus even happening? Exodus 2 verse 24: "So God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant, Hebrew word berith, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." That's Genesis 15 verse 13 and verse 16.

Where God 600 years earlier said the nation of Israel that came forth through the patriarch Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham, is going to go into bondage and they will be in bondage for 400 years. And at the end of that 400-year time period, I will bring them out of bondage with great possessions. They will plunder the Egyptians. And what God is doing here in the book of Exodus is he's keeping his word. That's why Exodus 2 verse 24 says God remembered his covenant.

I thank God that God is this way. Because if he can keep his word to the Jew, he can keep his word to you. That's his nature. The whole subject of Islam is on our minds frequently. But think of living one's life in that deception where you're doing all of these good works, thinking that in the end the good is going to outweigh the bad. And you're going to get this pass into heaven because the good outweighs the bad, because your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds.

The name Allah means deceiver. And even if you work and work and work and the good outweighs the bad, at any moment Allah can tear the carpet out from under you and you don't know if you're going to heaven or not. No wonder you've got all of these martyrdoms and things like this within Islam, flying planes into buildings, because that's sort of the guarantee that you're in. Because if you don't do that, you don't really know if the carpet's going to be torn out from under you.

Could you imagine living your whole life under that kind of deception? I can't think of a more horrific way to live. And when I look at it this way, I actually rather than being angry at Islam, which I am angry about, it just gives you a different perspective towards individual Muslims that are laboring under this deception. I praise the Lord I don't have to labor under this deception because God can't lie to me. Everything he promised that he would do for me, he's going to do.

Pharaoh, of course, is the exact opposite. Yeah, but what if I mess things up as a Christian? Then what? Well, you mess things up, but that doesn't cancel God's promises to you. Second Timothy 2 verse 13 says if we are faithless—you ever been faithless as a Christian? Disobedient, stop believing, stop doing what he told you to do? If we are faithless, he remains faithful.

Do you think any other religious or belief system on planet Earth enjoys that assurance other than what you receive from the God of the Bible? If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. If he were to renege on what he's promised to you, he would be denying his very nature. If a Muslim gets the carpet torn out from them on the day of judgment, God is honoring his nature as a deceiver.

You start to read this and you start to say, well, that's why there's such a high priority in terms of God's people telling the truth. We should be truthful people. Obviously Ephesians 4 verse 15, we are to speak the truth in love. But we ought to be honest and be truthful. What did Jesus say there in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5? "Don't swear by Jerusalem, don't swear by something greater than yourself. Don't, I swear on my mother's grave I'll do such and such." He just says let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Everything else belongs to the wicked one.

As a Christian that's growing in sanctification, my word ought to be so true that I don't have to swear on my mother's grave to get people to believe I'm going to do what I say. And it's not because I'm some wonderful righteous person; it's just I'm in a relationship with a God that can't lie. Speak the truth in love. You start to understand why God is going to take his people and put them under a legal system at Mount Sinai. And you know the commandments; one of them is thou shalt not lie.

Why would I be that way as a Christian? It's not consistent with the God who I'm in a relationship with. And even if I do mess things up and tell a bunch of lies, God remains faithful even if we are faithless, for he cannot deny himself. Pharaoh, unlike God, has done an about-face here. I think that's the contrast we're supposed to see. Pharaoh does not want to let the children of Israel go. Pharaoh is a type of Satan. Egypt is a type of the bondage that Satan has the world in.

Israel is a type of the world. Pharaoh, Satan, Egypt, bondage, Israel itself, the world. And just as God is taking his people out of Egyptian bondage, the agenda of God is to take this whole world out of the bondage that it's been in ever since the fall in Eden. Just like Pharaoh doesn't want to give up territory, neither does the devil. Because he's enjoyed ruling planet Earth illegitimately since the fall in Eden.

Satan is called the prince of this world, the God of this age, the prince and power of the air, the one that the believer wrestles with. He's a roaring lion that roams about seeking someone to devour. The whole world lies within his power. Creation itself is in a state of groaning; even our body is in a state of groaning. And yet the agenda of God is to take this whole planet out of satanic bondage, which he will do in the events of the tribulation period.

It's then that these words will be fulfilled: the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. This is why so many plagues in Exodus mirror those in the book of Revelation. And just like Pharaoh fought the process every step of the way, the devil will also. It's called spiritual warfare. But the nice thing about it is God wins. Warfare first, final victory later. One more fast reference at the end of verse 35 concerning the hardening of Pharaoh: it says, "Just as the Lord had spoken through Moses."

Pharaoh's U-turn was something that God predicted would happen. And I bring this to your attention because every time God says something, it will take place. Jesus said, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass so that when it does occur you may believe that I am he." This of course becomes our basis for our hope, which is the study of eschatology, the study of the end, the study of the final liberation of planet Earth. It will happen.

There will be cosmic conflict along the way, but it will happen because God said it would happen. Pharaoh's hardening was predicted by God; it happened. Satan's recalcitrance against releasing planet Earth will happen because God said it would happen. And yet Israel will be free because God said it would happen, and this planet will be free because God said it will happen. So the real question is, are you on the right side of history?

Don't you want to be on the winning team? You get on the right side of history by placing your personal faith in the finished work of Jesus. And we're just going to invite people now within the sound of my voice to do that. That makes you a victor. You are one. Feelings have nothing to do with it. It's not some power in and of yourself; it's who you are aligned with.

We now move into chapter 10. I would encourage you to read that for next time where we've got two more plagues to study: locusts and darkness before we hit plague number 10, the death of the firstborn. Buckle your seat belts; we're going to encounter some turbulence. Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for your truth, grateful for your word, grateful for the book of Exodus and how it speaks into our lives. Help the book of Exodus to go through us. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, amen.