The Confrontation
To be in the US Army reserves used to be a neat arrangement. You’d have duty one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer. You’d get to do all sorts of interesting and exciting things. It was a nice change of pace from civilian life, and the extra money was good. All that was true until Iraq invaded Kuwait last August.
The reserves were called up to active duty. All of a sudden, they had to drop their regular jobs, get into their combat gear, step onto an airplane and get off in the Saudi Arabia. There, they faced day after day of hardship, danger, and discomfort in the searing heat of the desert. These weekend warriors, as they are called, suddenly found themselves very much in harm’s way, staring down the muzzles of Saddam Hussein’s tanks. Their convenient, lucrative “second job” turned out to be a life-changing and life-threatening commitment. They were in the middle of a battle zone, facing the enemy.
Many Christians want to be “weekend warriors”. They are willing to give God some of their time. They’ll serve God when it’s convenient and safe. They do not realize that the commitment to follow Christ is a commitment that will take you into the battle zone, where confrontation with Satan is the order of the day.
If you are going to follow Christ, you’d better be prepared to go to war. Because when you choose to follow Jesus, you are taking sides in a cosmic war between God and the forces of righteousness, and Satan and the forces of evil. You are in a battle. That’s why the Bible says to every Christian…
Ephesians 6:10-14 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
To be a child of God is to be a warrior. A long time ago, a missionary serving in the jungles of New Guinea wrote this letter to his friend back home. It catches precisely the fact that we are in a battle.
Man, it is great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old devil’s heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement, slander, disease. He doesn’t waste time on the lukewarm bunch. He hits good and hard when a fellow is hitting him. You can always measure the weight of your blow by the one you get back. When you’re on your back with fever and at your last ounce of strength, when some of your converts backslide, when you learn that your most promising inquirers are only fooling, when your mail gets held up, and some don’t bother to answer your letters, is that the time to put on mourning? No, sir. That’s the time to pull out the stops and shout Hallelujah! The old fellow’s getting it in the neck and hitting back. Heaven is leaning over the battlements and watching. “Will he stick with it?” they ask. And as they see who is with us, as they see the unlimited reserves, the boundless resources of God, and the impossibility of failure, how sad and disgusted they must be when we run away. But Glory to God! We’re not going to run away. We’re going to stand!
Moses had chosen to follow the Lord. He had decided to be on God’s side, not Satan’s. So God took him into the desert where for forty years, he gave him basic training. Now, Moses was ready for battle (although he didn’t think he was ready!) God was going to take him back into Egypt to confront Pharaoh. Now Moses was moving up to the front lines.
Exod. 4:19 - God prepared the way for Moses.
When we go into battle for God, God goes before us.
Moses heard God say to him
Exodus 32:34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you.
King David was able to say
Psalm 59:10 God will go before me and will let me gloat over those who slander me.
The prophet Isaiah heard God say
Isaiah 45:2 I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
And Isaiah knew that God would not only be going before the people, but behind them too!
Isaiah 52:12 But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
When Moses went into battle in Egypt, Moses took his family with him. He didn’t leave them behind, he didn’t try to shelter them and keep them out of the fight. This took real faith on his part, because I’m sure he worried about their safety.
But men, one of the best things you can do for your family is bring them along with you as you follow Jesus Christ into the battle. There’s nothing better for your kids to help them understand what this world’s all about, than to see that there’s a war on.
Exod. 4:21-23 - the outcome of the confrontation was already decided. We are on the winning side. The battle is won; we are engaged in a mopping up action.
Romans 9:17-18 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
Q. - What about Pharaoh? Was God playing fair when he hardened his heart? What if Pharaoh had really wanted to repent? If God had hardened his heart, then how could Pharaoh be held responsible for what he did? Paul anticipated this very question, because in the very next verse, he writes…
Romans 9:19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?”
The truth of the matter is to be found here in Exodus. Between chapters 4 and 11 where the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh is described, we are told fourteen times that Pharaoh’s heart was hard. How did it get that way? Well, seven times, we’re told that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and seven times we’re told that God hardened his heart. But the important thing I want to stress is that at the beginning of the confrontation, it was Pharaoh hardening his own heart, but later on, it was God hardening his heart. Out of the first ten references to Pharaoh having a hard heart, seven of those times Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The final four times, it was God hardening his heart.
This teaches us a very important lesson. God has created us with a free will and he allows us to exercise it. God respects our power to choose. He doesn’t force us. But in spiritual matters, when we choose to reject God, we set into motion spiritual forces that eventually take that choice right out of our hands.
When a man like Pharaoh chooses to harden his heart against the Lord, he may be making that choice initially, but eventually, after making that choice over and over again - after rejecting the grace of God and the Word of God over and over again, the matter is no longer in his hands. His choice becomes spiritually set in concrete. The spiritual forces of wickedness blind his eyes to the truth so that he is no longer even able to choose to obey God.
Romans 1:21-23 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
They made a choice. They chose to reject God. So look what happens to them.
Romans 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…
… and they became degraded in sin and wickedness to the point where they were no longer even sensitive or aware of God’s grace. They were totally lost because of the choice they had made.
This same thing is going to happen in the last days when the Antichrist comes.
2 Thessalonians 2:9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
They make their choice, and then they will be confirmed and solidified in their choice. This is why the Scripture makes the issue of salvation so urgent. Now is the appointed time of salvation. You cannot sit under the preaching of the Gospel and put it off and put it off and put it off without something terrifying happening to you. You may put it off one time too many, so that like Pharaoh, your heart is hardened and you’ll never become soft again to the message of salvation.
Exod. 4:24-26 - Incomplete obedience in Moses’ life.
Circumcision the sign of the covenant - a sign of separation
Moses had let slide his spiritual obligation to his family, even as he was setting out to be a servant of God to help other families. Zipporah rebuked Moses for failing in this area of spiritual leadership.
Exod. 4:27-31 - Favorable response from God’s people. Revival, but for how long? The true fruits of revival can be measured six months to a year after the fact.
e.g. Mark 4 the shallow soil. Received the word and at once sprang up with joy, but when the sun came, the plant withered because it had no root.
Exod. 5:1-5 - Confrontation with Pharaoh. Let my people go. Satan has the people of this world in bondage to sin and death.
Pharaoh’s question: Who is the Lord? Satan refuses to acknowledge God now, but one day he and every other living creature will bow down before the King of Kings. The Scripture says
Philippians 2:10-11 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Exod. 5:6-21 - Conditions actually get worse for God’s people because of Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh. In fact, the Hebrew foremen try to take their case to Pharaoh themselves (v.15). They decide to pull and end-run around Moses, who is God’s chosen leader, and take matters into their own hands. But it didn’t work. Pharaoh threw them out. And when they came out, they went straight to Moses and Aaron and said “You guys are the reason for all our troubles! Thanks to you, we stink.” Nice way to treat your spiritual leaders, isn’t it?
When some of God’s people get serious about following the Lord and they go into battle against Satan, that stirs up trouble in the church. You see, the people who are lukewarm, the people who are sitting on the fence begin to get uncomfortable. They like it when the battle is far away. They want to maintain the status quo. They don’t like it when the battle starts to rage on their own doorstep. So they start to complain. Instead of praying, they start braying. And you have trouble in the church. When you have no trouble in a church, it probably means that there’s no spiritual warfare going on anywhere close to that church.
There’s a lesson here too on the personal level. Satan does all he can to keep people in his grasp. He’s got them under his thumb, and they are his slaves, and everything is relatively peaceful. But when the grace of God comes along announcing freedom in Christ, that upsets Satan’s applecart. Satan begins to fear that he’s going to lose somebody. So he tightens the screws. And it often happens that people’s burdens get worse before they get better. Satan tries to keep them from being liberated. It is often darkest before the dawn.
We have a good friend in Montreal who became a Christian several years ago. He and his wife were a pretty average couple. He had his own business, which was going fairly well. Their marriage wasn’t spectacular, but they were getting along. Then his wife became a Christian. She gave her life to Christ.
Well, he was disgusted. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He had his religion, and that was enough for him. And we watched as he became more and more hostile to his wife and her new Christian friends. He became more and more miserable and angry. His business failed and he had to declare bankruptcy. He began to drink heavily. Their marriage began to fail, and they were on the verge of divorce. But then one day my friend decided to give in and receive Jesus, and he was saved. The anger was gone. They began to put their marriage back together again. Life didn’t become a bed of roses overnight. The wife began to have serious medical problems, which she struggles with to this day. But they are together in the Lord.
Moses was rejected by Pharaoh, an unbeliever. That he was expecting. But then Moses was rejected by his own people. That must have been a shock! But notice how Moses handled it. This time, he didn’t cut and run. He prayed. Now his prayer reflects his confusion, and his questions. But he prayed. Do you ever pray prayers of confusion and complaint. It’s okay to do so. In fact God wants us to. He put several examples of such prayers in the Bible to show us how to do it. They are found in the Psalms. God’s shoulders are big enough for us to cry on. We don’t have to wait until we have our act together to talk to God.
Because Moses prayed, He persevered.
Hebrews 11:27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
In Midian, Moses had learned not to rely on himself Now that he was back in Egypt, he was learning not to count on the loyal support of God’s people. He was standing completely alone with God. But he realized in the midst of this confrontation with Pharaoh that he was on God’s business, not his own.
He wasn’t Moses the mighty prince seeking to lead a revolution. He was Moses, the humble servant of God, the instrument of redemption.