Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Father, As we prepare to receive Your Holy Word, we ask that you would give us eyes that we may see, ears that we may hear, and hearts that we might believe and obey.

In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

I.

The Reading

A reading from Exodus 7:1-7, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.

This is God’s Word:

Say Amen

If you receive this word by faith as the word of God and not the word of men, would you Say Amen?

Amen.

II.

The Exhortation

God, the only God, is knowable.

God wants to be known.

He has revealed Himself through His witnesses and Word; through His worship and His works.

God not only wants to be known, but God will be known by all people.

Revelation 1:7 says of Jesus —

God will be known by all — one way, or the other.

You will know God.

No scenario exists, in which a person will live, and die, and never see and never know God, in this life, or in the life to come.

It’s impossible to not know God.

All will see Him.

All will know Him.

The question is —

How will a person know God?

If a person will not receive God’s Witnesses —

the witness of Creation or the witness of Christians who go and speak the truth of the Gospel, then how will a person know God?

If a person will not receive God’s Word —

the spoken word, the written word, the living word of Christ — the means of faith, then how will a person know God?

If a person will not receive God’s Worship —

the word visible, lived out in God’s people who submit to Him and follow Him and obey Him and glorify Him with every area of their lives, then how will a person know God?

That leaves only one way to know God:

God’s Works.

And that is a fearful and fateful way to know God, if you have refused His worship, His word, and His witnesses in favor of knowing God through His works alone.

For listen again, to how God works in this text, toward Pharaoh and Egypt:

The LORD said to Moses:

How will the Egyptians know that “I am the LORD?”

Answer: I will lay my hand on Egypt... (v.4).

How will the Egyptians know that “I am the LORD?”

Answer: By great acts of judgment (v.4).

How will the Egyptians know that “I am the LORD?”

Answer: When I stretch out my hand against Egypt... (v.5).

A person or a people, who reject God’s witnesses, God’s word, and God’s worship — will know God still, but will know God through God’s works against them.

They will know God as God rejects them, through great acts of judgment.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said this way —

“Everyone will meet Jesus.

Will you meet Him as Savior?

Or will you meet Him as Judge?

How will you meet the Lord?”

Moses has been on his own journey of getting to know this God, the LORD, who has called Him.

Moses has asked many questions of God.

He’s wrestled with doubt, and discouragement.

But Moses believes God, and this is evident because Moses obeys God.

This is a significant statement of faith in this text, because Moses and Aaron obeyed God, when God told them they would be rejected.

God told Moses and Aaron, up front, that Pharoah would not listen to them.

And more than that, God told them why Pharoah would not listen:

God Himself, would harden Pharaoh’s heart.

The multiplied signs and wonders of God in the land of Egypt are also called “great acts of judgment.”

God would use Moses and Aaron as ministers of God’s judgment upon Pharoah and Egypt.

Is that anyone’s ambition for “retirement years”?

To be used of God as ministers of God’s judgment against a king and a nation?

Moses is eighty years old.

Aaron is eighty-three years old.

And they “did so; they did just as the LORD commanded them” (Ex 7:6-8).

That’s an exhortation for every season of life.

Verse 6 —

Faith is for every season of life.

Obedience is for every season of life.

Knowing God is for every season of life.

Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the LORD commanded them.

Even when what God asked of them, would not be received by Pharoah.

Even when what God asked of them, would take awhile — there would be 10 judgments against Egypt.

Even when what God asked of them, would require them to be patient as God is patient, and endure by faith for a future victory.

Moses and Aaron did so, they did just as the LORD commanded them.

And this response is the opposite of Pharaoh’s, who did NOT so.

Pharaoh did NOT do what what the LORD commanded him.

Pharaoh rebelled.

Pharaoh will not listen.

Pharaoh refuses to obey, because Pharaoh does not know the LORD.

Pharaoh will eventually know the LORD — but not to his salvation, but rather to his judgment.

Whether these works of God that will be performed in Egypt are known as miracles or judgments depends on which side of faith a person is on.

Rejecting God’s grace for a season, rejecting faith, rejecting obedience, rejecting God’s revelation of Himself, can lead to something disastrous — to judgment.

That’s the focus of Exodus 7.

The Scriptures exhort us in this way, too —

Sin deceives and damages the heart.

It hardens the heart.

Every sin has a consequence.

Every sin leaves a mark.

It is true, that God’s grace is greater than all our sin, but for the heart that rejects God’s grace, the heart hardens, and hardens more with every sin.

Is it possible for someone who does not know the Lord to repent and believe on his/her deathbed?

Are “deathbed conversions” possible?

Yes, they are possible.

Hear me, they are possible!

But they are not probable.

Why?

If a person has rejected the light of God and the knowledge of God for so long, and says “I’ll wait until the end when it matters,” “I’ll wait until I need to,” then they have forgotten one thing — their heart hardens as they wait and reject Lord.

Their heart hardens and callouses so that in that day, they are not likely to want to trust the Lord.

They have grown accustomed to not trusting Him.

They are not likely in that last day, to be willing to receive the truth.

God will work His saving power in Egypt, in the sight of all, through ten plagues.