Exodus 10:1–20Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles this morning to Exodus, where we have arrived in chapter 10 and get to see God now using locusts to eat up the rest of the stuff he hasn't destroyed yet. You know, because God is good all the time, and all the time... It's kind of an ironic statement. It's kind of what I've been thinking as i've read this. It's kind of like, as I read through our first 20 verses, God is good. God is good. It's amazing, because in his sovereignty he's destroying, yet that does not take away the fact that God is good. For me, that's the biggest takeaway today. I don't know why, because we could have applied that thought to the rest of the plagues, but it just now hit me that in God's sovereign will he does things that do not seem good to us, but his character is not determined by your interpretation of it.
His goodness is what it is, and he gets to declare who he is because he's God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:21
And I think that's the thing.
And so how does that help us today? I want to... Let's see if we can't encourage you today, right? I mean, the Bible does the encouraging. The Holy Spirit applies that appropriately to those that are his. But let me try to encourage your hearts this morning. You might be facing something in your life that does not seem good, but know that God is good. That's the promise we can take to the bank. How many times in your life can you
Introduction
Look back five years, 10 years back? You can look at some of the difficult things you have navigated, and you could say, "That was for my good." You would also say, "Yeah, I don't want to live through that again." I wouldn't change that thing, because that thing changed me, but I wouldn't want to live... I wouldn't want to do it again, you know what I mean? I can think of many things in my life that have been like that. Very shaping things in my life, situations that have shaped me into who I am. I grew a lot from those things, but man, I wouldn't want to endure them again. Isn't it amazing, though, that some people walk out of situations where there's an opportunity created for it to be a shaping force in our lives, and then some people just bear down and never change? Isn't that amazing? And it is amazing, because there are areas of our life where each of us are guilty of that. It's just, no matter how hard it gets, you're just stubborn in that one area. You just are. I mean, you can look at Pharaoh and say, "That guy's a lunatic." Can you think of an area of your life where lunacy is your reality, and you just kind of keep bearing down? No matter how much God tries to pull you from that, you're holding on to this, and God's trying to pull you up to that, and you feel you're getting stretched apart, and your arms are getting pulled off your body, and you will just keep holding on to that one thing, because you're going to have what you want.
I think that we can relate more to Pharaoh than we might like to admit.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:56
And the reality is God will pull you apart in the process, because he's going somewhere and he's doing something, and if you don't let go, he'll rip you apart, because his will is paramount. So that's the way it is, and we should take inventory of the fact that God will get what he wants, even if you are a casualty in the process. That's crazy. What kind of loving God does that? I don't know, but the word says he's good. A good God does that. Okay, so let's read. I'm going to do it this way today: I'm not going to read the whole 20 verses. I'm going to break it up into sections, because I think it makes it more bite-sized and easier for us to digest. While you're looking, we're going to look at verses 1 through 6. We spent the last week in the Dominican, and we have several techs that are from seven, eight different countries: Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, Puerto Rico. I mean, there's lots, blah. There's tons of places, and there were a lot of our Latin techs, and so they flew in. This last year they've done 43 Bible translation events. Each event is two weeks long, so that's somewhere in the neighborhood of... I can't do math so good... 86 weeks' worth of translation events in the last year. In one year. And so basically they have been in the air flying all over the place, and they have been doing that for nothing, to be faithful to God. And it is pretty amazing to see what they've been doing. And I spent the last week just really speaking into their hearts, trying to help them understand the reality of what I think we as a church have been trying to understand ourselves, which is that there are no great men of God. It was funny. I said that phrase. I said, "There are no great men of God. There are only weak, pitiful, pathetic men." And then I said, "There are no great women of God. There are only weak, pitiful, pathetic women of God." And the room erupted, not in laughter, but in "Oh my goodness, no!" No one said that when I said men. Everybody agreed.
But I said it of the women, and the women bucked up, and the guys went in trepidation. I thought that was kind of funny. But then I began to ask the question: how come it's okay for us to think little of men, but how dare we think little of women? Who instilled that in your hearts? And not just why are men scared of women, that's first, but why do women think so much of themselves? Kind of sounds like Pharaoh, doesn't it? Thinking so much of yourself, so much. And I've spent the last year, and I know it's not a popular thing, trying to help us understand that we're not so special, but it's disheartened many. And so as I was sharing that with them and trying to help them understand that God best utilizes you and we best trust him when we magnify the Lord... Okay, now notice this. If you were to take a magnifying glass and you were to magnify the Lord, notice what you do to yourself: you shrink. Why is it that we want to create a reality inside the life of the church where we magnify him and we keep ourselves magnified? Why is it that we want to preach the gospel, make him large, and keep ourselves large? There is no such reality.
If your heart's desire is to magnify him, then the natural reality is that you would shrink self, and the shrinking of self is just a natural outflow of magnifying him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:44
So this is what the gospel does. Now notice, the apostle Paul is the master at this, because he spends the first part of Romans really just laying out, "You're a filthy, rotten sinner, and there's no hope for you." Real encouraging message, right? But notice that then becomes the foundation by which we hope in the mercies of God. Now, the mercies of God don't become the thing we hope in when we don't think we need his mercies. So you cannot then magnify the mercies of God. That isn't something that is magnified in your heart, that you're grateful for, that's large to you, because you are great. Okay, so what is humbling of self? It's magnifying him. If you're great, if you think of yourself as great, that makes you prideful. That means you're not humble. How do you get there? You've spent your life magnifying you and not him. Are you with me? And what we have done then is we have painted such a narrative in the life of the church. We think that's good. We so want to encourage the hearts of men and women because of the state we see them in, the struggle we see them in life.
We want to encourage their hearts. What we end up doing is we end up fostering an environment that makes them God, that makes them continue in a path of being a God denier and a self-elevator. Why is it that we, in our culture... I was talking to... We had a couple there. The husband is one of our techs for Tech Advance. His wife works in... I'm going to preach on Scripture, I'm going to... His wife works in the hospital, and she began to give examples about what they're not allowed to do. They're actually not allowed in the hospital to give proper care and instruction to people because they don't want to offend them. Doctors are actually told to let people die of diseases rather than offend them with truth. Sound familiar? And if you think this kind of behavior is only in our world... Because we have become so petty in life, we're so worried in our culture about being offensive to people with truth that we will allow people to destroy their lives rather than tell them the truth. And then we will pay for it, and we will help them on the path to destruction. We'll do it. We don't just do it in hospitals. We don't just do it in culture. We don't just do it in politics. We do it in the life of the church.
We will help make people feel comfortable on the way to hell, and it's a problem.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:10
And the way out is by being truthful about where people are at. But if you're truthful about where people are at and what their real problem is, which is a sin problem, that's offensive. And honestly, most people won't stick around in a church like that.
They'll go find a church that will blow smoke wherever they want the smoke blown. Are you with me? That's about as nice as I can say it. And there's plenty of places they can go find it, but oftentimes, not all the time, that's not the gospel. The gospel is the opposite of that. I don't even have to be somebody that's crotchety. Just open the Word, and it spends most of its time telling you ain't so much. You're not so special. And what is it doing? Is it trying to make you little? No, it's trying to make him magnified, and the natural outflow of magnifying the Lord is shrinking you. "You must become more so that he can be more." That's not what it says. You must become what? Less, so that he can become more. That's the gospel. "I thought Pastor should make me feel like I'm more." That's not what it says. That's not what it says anywhere. Okay, so I was talking about this, and then I apologized to the guys, because they don't know me. And I kind of have some trepidation because of some things I've experienced in the last three years regarding people being irritated with the gospel, not at me. And I said, "I apologize, not to be a downer, but this is just the gospel," you know, making apologies for the gospel and such. One person caught me after and said, "Why are you apologizing for truth? Why apologize for truth? Who cares what people think, and who cares how it makes them feel?" You know? And so that's the reality. And truth comes to us, and this is where we're going to go in verses 1 through 6. Truth comes to people, and they respond to truth a multitude of ways. How do you respond? Are you like Pharaoh? Do you bear down and continue in your ways? Do you so flatter yourself with your opinion of yourself that you're incapable of seeing God as bigger than you? So it says here, point one: a warning to Pharaoh and a warning to us.
Point 1A warning to Pharaoh and a warning to us
That's the way I would phrase this first section. Here we see in verses 1 through 6 a warning to Pharaoh, and I believe we see a warning to us. "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them...'" So what is the point of the hardening? To show the signs. "...And that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them." Now don't let that be lost on you. That's the section you kind of skip over, blah, all right? But notice the reason for the signs is that this might be a testimony to your sons and to your grandsons. Notice that God always does something not just for your immediate, but he does something for the generations to come. In other words, if you are only living for you now, you are aborting the blessings for your sons and your grandsons, because God doesn't do stuff just for you now. He does stuff for you now to bless generations to come. And most of us just want to get ours now, and so we don't go along with what God wants. Most of us spend most of our time celebrating us, so that we can't even give glory to God for what he's done for multiple generations to come. Most of us haven't spent a good amount of time sharing with our children what the Lord has done for us. How will the sons and the grandsons know unless you tell what the Lord has done? You can't tell what the Lord has done if you spend all the time talking about how awesome you are. I mean, just go have...
Just go have dinner. I'm guilty. I don't know about you, but I'm guilty of this, and I catch myself bragging on myself. Only me? Now I'm feeling uncomfortable, because all y'all look at me like, "Well, he's a loser," you know what I mean? And you go to the table, and it's small little things. Somebody's talking about something in their life, and you have something that's similar to that, and you want to tell that story. And so you say, "Oh yeah, that happened to me," and then instead of leaning into the story, you want to tell about you. Now, is that bad? Not necessarily. But what happens is... Why can't you just be an appreciator of someone else's story, right? We want to share about who we are. Men, when they introduce themselves: "Hello, I'm Shawn gray. I do this. This is what I do for a living." We're marking what we do, and we attach our value to it. Are you with me? And we talk about our accomplishments, the things we can do, our skill sets. When we talk to our wives... Track with me now. I'm speaking from experience. I'm not hating on a brother or sister in here. I'm just saying this is the reality of human nature. But it's important for us to be honest about the reality of our struggle of self-glorification, because every time we self-glorify, we rob a date night of an opportunity of glorifying the Lord in our date. Track with me here. So there are many things that Brook and I do a lot together, but there are many things that I do separate from Brook, and sometimes I like to share with her the awesome things I have done in the week. Track with me. This is human nature, right? I'm not hating. This is human nature. And I've caught myself sometimes when we go on a date night, talking about all the awesome things I have done, and then I catch myself and I'm like, "How much of this conversation has been me talking about the awesome things I have done this week?" And then I think the way that I'm going to remedy that is to ask her, "What have you done this week?" And then we get through the whole night of me bragging on self, creating opportunity for her to brag on herself, and then we go home not talking about the Lord. Are you with me? And it's a problem, because we have a difficulty creating space to glorify God, because we're too busy glorifying self. Just listen to yourself at lunch today. Just listen. Listen to how much people talk about them. Just listen. Now no one's going to talk. Everybody's going to be eating. It's going to be the quietest lunch you've ever had. Why am I saying that? So you can feel terrible about yourself? Absolutely not. It isn't that you shouldn't love yourself, I mean, care about yourself and all of that. It is: could it be that self has become so big that God has become invisible?
When was the last time you broke bread with your kids and you celebrated the goodness of God?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:56
When was the last time that happened? What good is it for God to perform these signs if these people don't tell their sons and grandsons about what God did, because they're too busy talking about them at lunch? Come on now. Are you with me today? I mean, that's part of the good news. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. That ain't in my notes anyway. And so, "So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?"'" Hey, that's a good question that I think the Lord might be asking us through the Holy Spirit and his Word today. "How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land." Oh man, that's a lot. "And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day." Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh. So we talked about that: "that you may tell in the hearing of your sons and your sons' sons the mighty things I've done in Egypt." Listen, God's work was not only for the sake of the generation of Moses and Pharaoh. It was also for your sons and your sons' sons. God does mighty works among us so that we can encourage generations to come, but we cannot encourage the next generation if we're too busy bragging on us. You know why young people today are leaving church by the droves, and they don't hope in the Lord but they hope in themselves? Because we taught them to do that. We taught them where their hope came from by how much we talk about where our hope comes from, which is us. Are you with me? So this isn't a smack of the hand. This is a warning horn of a potential shipwreck in a dark and stormy world. It is a beacon of light that helps us change our path quickly as parents and as people of the Lord. It's an opportunity to help the next generation by glorying in God. "How long will you refuse to humble yourself," God says, "before me?" Getting to
Point 2Pride is self-fixation; humility looks to God
The heart of the matter: God warned Pharaoh to humble himself, or the worst plague of locusts ever seen would come on Egypt. Listen, pride was at the heart of pharaoh's problem. He simply didn't want to give in to God. I wrote this, and you can do what you want with this: I believe pride is self-fixation. Okay? You might attribute it to a multitude of things. It's somebody that walks with their nose up in the air, or it is somebody who can never take direction, or it's somebody who... You know what pride can be. Whether you think a lot of yourself, "I'm awesome," or little of yourself, "I'm nobody," you can still be prideful. Track with me here.
Now, humility is not found in thinking little of yourself, because whether you think much of yourself or little of yourself, you're thinking of yourself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:10
That's what pride is. It's self-fixation. "Oh, well, I just think I'm a terrible person, no good, terrible, very bad person." That's pride. It's self-fixation. "I'm an awesome person. I'm the best in the whole world. Everybody else is a terrible person. I am the best thing since sliced bread," and all that junk. That's just as prideful as thinking little of yourself, because you always think of yourself. That's the problem. There are people that represent both sides of this today sitting in this room. There are people who have a low self-esteem, and that low self-esteem is fixated on self all the time. You wake up in the morning, you look at yourself in the mirror: "I don't like what I see." And you go through the day: "I don't like the way I look. I don't like the way God made me. I don't like the way I feel. I don't like my life. I don't like my marriage. I don't like my job. I don't like that I don't have skills. I don't like that I'm made this way. I don't like my personality. I don't like..." It's amazing how much you think about yourself, isn't it? That's not humility. That's pride. Then the arrogant person who thinks they're all that and a bag of chips, right? That person stands out to us. We're annoyed by that person. It's amazing we're not annoyed by the other, the downy person. Not Downy as in, like, the cleaner. I'm just saying, like, the down person. No one's hating on that person and calling them prideful, but ultimately it's a sin issue. So how do we deal with a sin issue? "Sin? You mean... Is that the way you deal with people that are down?"
You call their sin out. How do you know if you need a Savior if you don't know you're a sinner? The issue here is pride. Pride. Now, we see Pharaoh being the arrogant, over-the-top, "I'm god of the world." But so is the person that's down. They're god of the world too, because all they worship is at the feet of self. Are you with me? "Man, why you always busting our chops?" I'm not. The Bible is. It's crazy.
Pride is self-fixation. Humility is fixation on something greater than you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:54
It's my opinion anyway. This is my interpretation. I'm not necessarily thinking you're going to find this out there anywhere. It's just my opinion. Humility is fixation on something greater than you. This is why David tells us to magnify the Lord.
Magnifying the Lord is the shrinking of self.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:18
Okay? How do we become less self- fixated? I believe we see ourselves for who we truly are, and that enables us to see God in the light of his great mercies. And the reality is his mercies are all we need, right? His mercies. If he gives you nothing else, his mercies are all we need. Some of you would be like, "And a pay raise," you know what I mean? "And new hair in this spot and these spots." I mean, seriously, I would not hate it. God, I mean, if you want to throw a guy a bone, I'd love to have some luscious locks again, you know what I mean? But that's not what I need. All I need is his mercy. Now, how do you get there? You realize you need his mercies. How do you realize you need his mercies? You see yourself as you are. Who are we? The Bible says you're a sinner, completely undone by sin, a slave to it, with no hope to choose good. But God's mercies save you from you. That's good news. His mercies are all we need. Paul says this, and Brook mentioned this in her little talk this week, and so I'll rob it from her, and she robbed it from the Bible. So we're robbing it from the Bible ultimately, but I'm robbing it from Brook. Paul says... We recently studied this... "I appeal to you, brothers..." Here he's an apostle: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." And Brook went on to talk about the importance of: what is it that moves us to a place where we would present our bodies as a living sacrifice to this magnitude, as our holy service? How do we get that? Because we understand his mercies. Okay? That's really it. That's really it. How do we understand? And I believe in the church today we don't have people that are living sacrifices in the church, because we don't understand his mercies, because we're too busy flattering people with how awesome they are.
And you can't know the mercies of God if you don't think you need them.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:12
His mercies. Notice his mercies. Notice they keep coming, and there's a lot of them coming for all your problems. Okay? Paul's going to tell these people to give their life away. He needs something of motivation. If I were to tell someone, "Look, you need to give your life away," they'd probably ask, "Why, and what for?" And Paul says here, "By the mercies of God." That's what Brook was saying. I love that. I never really even thought of it that way. Because of God's mercy demonstrated to you through Jesus Christ, give your life away. You say, "But what are these mercies?" Now, the reality is his mercies are enough. You don't need any more motivation, because if you need more motivation other than his mercies, you're actually lost. You're not found. Your hope is not in Christ and what Christ provided on the cross, which is mercy. Your hope is in something else the church has offered. I'm just going to be bold and say it: if you need more motivation than his mercies, you need to question your salvation. If you need me to tell you that if you serve God you'll get a Mercedes, you're lost. If you need me to tell you that if you serve God he'll heal your body and fix every one of your little problems, if you need that, you're lost, because you're hoping in something that God never promised. Sometimes he does, but he never promised. You're hoping in something other than him. Sound familiar to the Exodus story? Because they created idols and worshiped gods that would give them what they wanted, and they were not God. Notice what God does to the gods that they create that give people what they want. Just get some perspective on this and really put it in your modern context here and really do some evaluation. I understand we want to be encouraged, but be encouraged by the mercies of God, not by all this other temporal stuff that's not promised us. As a matter of fact, he doesn't want you to hope in the things this life offers. He says it all turns to ash, and it's rubble, and it's junk, and it's a dung pile. That's what the gospel says. Why are we hoping in dung piles and not his mercies, which are new every morning? P.S., for eternity. For eternity.
If Jesus is not enough to motivate you for godly living, you don't know Jesus at all.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:10
So let's keep it simple: Christ and Christ alone. No one else. No one else. I have need of nothing else. It is well with my soul to have Jesus. Now, I have two boys, a younger son who's about to turn 22 real soon and an older son who's 24. I want them to put their life in God's hands. That's my heart, man. It's my heart's desire. Now, I can't force it. I can't browbeat them with my pastoral title and theological prowess, beat them into submission and brainwash them into the kingdom. It doesn't work that way. They have to choose this day whom they will serve. And it's my hope that they will put their life at God's disposal: "Here I am, Lord. Speak to your servant. What do you want from me?" That's all. That's what I want from them. That's all that really matters. And as a matter of fact, when you're on your deathbed, and everyone's going to be there, when you're on your deathbed, the only thing that is going to be running through your mind is, did you put your life at God's disposal? You're not going to be worried about your bills. You're not going to be worried about anything else. You're going to be worried about your relationship with God.
I mean, I want to tell you something right now. This is important. I often have people come to me and they say, "Man, the Christian life is just so complicated. It's just so complicated." And I'm kind of like, "No, it's really not." And they'll say, "Yes, it's really complicated." I'm like, "No, it's not." And then I win, because I'm the pastor. Not really. But it's not that complicated. "Well, but there are so many decisions you have to make, and so many things you have to do, and you might have to mind your p's and q's, and there's so many things you have to know." And I'm like, it's not that complicated. God already made all the decisions. You got the same problem that I do and everyone else does. You got the same problem Pastor Bruce does. You got the same problem Ebony does. You got the same problem Brook does. You got the same problem Kirk does. You got the same problem Samantha does.
We all got the same problem: are you going to obey or not? It's that simple.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 37:13
Are you going to put your life in God's hands for his disposal or not? Let me tell you won't want to do it if you're big and he's small. You won't want to do it. Neither did Pharaoh, because he did not magnify the Lord; he magnified self. Track with me today. There's a cancer in the church. There's a cancer in the church. Are you going to put your life at God's disposal, Christ first? What if we asked the question, "Lord, what do you want me to do today? What do you want me to see? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to hear? How do you want me to spend what you've given to me? How do you want me to do everything you want me to do? How do
Point 3God accepts no compliance with qualifications
You want me to live?" What if those were the questions that mark our lives? Then in 7 through 11 we see compliance with qualifications. How many of you have ever put forth that you're compliant, but you always throw out the small clause through your prayer, qualifications for your compliance? "Well, I'll do that if you do this, God." I mean, I remember being a young man sitting in a deer stand and saying, "God, if you send a 14-point buck through here, and I shoot it, and I down it, then I will..." Some of you want me to list it, but that's my business. That's not your business. How many of you have ever done that? It's promised compliance with qualifications. Let's read it. "Then pharaoh's servants said to him, 'How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God. Do you not yet understand that egypt is ruined?' So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, 'Go, serve the LORD your God. But which ones are to go?' Moses said, 'We will go with our young and our old...'" Young and old, that's everyone: men, women, boys, girls, everybody. "'We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the LORD.' But he said to them, 'The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No! Go, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you are asking.' And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence." Did you catch it? Compliance with a qualification. It's amazing what we do in the church, because we really don't want to comply, but we want to present ourselves as if we are. So what we will do is we will do just enough to look like we're complying to appease ourselves, and our compliance with qualification becomes a penance box for us to appease what we know we're doing that's wrong, but also look before men like we're doing what's right, and also sometimes fool ourselves into thinking we're actually doing what's right. But God will take no compliance with qualifications.
You will fully comply, or you ain't compliant.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:04
You know what happens when you do a compliance with a qualification? You look like you're doing what he says, but you have some subclause in there where you're not really fully doing what he says. He sends the locusts to destroy everything, specifically the thing you put your hope in that caused the compliance with qualification in the first place. He comes at that thing that causes you to look like you're complying with the qualification. You created that because you wanted to keep something. God sends a locust to destroy that thing you wanted to keep with your fake compliance. That's fantastic, right? It's crazy. God's coming at it, because he will have no other gods before him. Are you with me today? All of us are like, "Preach, brother! He'll have no other gods before him! Preach, brother!" And everybody loves that, until he comes after the god you didn't know you had, that the fake compliance came from. Everybody's like, "Yeah, God's the best! God's the best!"
And then he destroys that thing that you made God. Sometimes you see... Sometimes you're not dealing with the devil. "Well, the devil's really been on me this week." Sometimes you got something that feels like the devil when it's actually God destroying the thing you love, and you're trying to pray the devil off you, and you got God on you. Are you with me today? Don't get it convoluted.
God ain't scared to mess up what you love if what you love has become God and he is no longer your God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:49
He's jealous. He comes at it, even if it's you. Be careful to not make you your God, because he'll come at you. He's been known to take men out. "Okay, that's too much." You're like, "Shawn, that's Old Testament. What about the new Testament?" I don't have time, guys. Y'all, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Don't create some version of God that's different in the New Testament than he is in the Old Testament. And P.S., in case you didn't know, I'll say this, I've said it a bunch of times: when God was sending down hellfire on Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus was lighting the hellfire. He was lighting the tar balls. They were all there, because they're one.
It wasn't like Jesus was like, "Oh dang, don't do this, God. Well, whenever I die on the cross, you'll stop doing this stuff. I'll fix your meanie britches eventually." Anyway. Pharaoh offered a compromise in Exodus 8:25–26, suggesting that they could have a day to sacrifice to the Lord while still in Egypt. Moses rejected the compromise, because it's not true compliance. If God gives you something to do, there's no subtle way to do it halfway to get off the hook. You will do it all the way, exactly like he said, or you're not doing it at all. So do yourself a favor and just be a hell-raiser, because doing it halfway is just as bad as not doing it at all. Doing it halfway is just as bad as being a total hell-raiser in complete rebellion to God. He sees them the same. It's important. Moses rejected it, and God rejected it. God would not make this bargain. He didn't make it with Pharaoh, and he won't make it with you, because he didn't need to. This time and every time, God holds all the negotiation leverage, contrary to what you might think by the way you pray. He holds all the negotiation leverage. It isn't like, "Oh God..." And he was like, "Oh, that prayer was so astute and so amazing. I had an epiphany, and now I'm going to be more godly and loving and caring and helpful because of your prayer." Give me a break.
Your prayer doesn't change things; it changes you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:04
That's why people don't pray very long, because subconsciously they know it. They may not be able to write it down on a notebook paper that prayer changes them, but that's why they don't labor in prayer, because the more you labor in prayer, the more you change, the more he chips and chisels and works on your heart. You just want him to change things, and he works on changing you, and that's painful. And so we go, "Lord, thank you, I'm done. Get me out of the fire," right? What Pharaoh wanted is what many of us want in the flesh: a way to give in to God without fully submitting to him. Sometimes we look for a way to bargain with God as an equal instead of submitting to him as Creator and
Point 4God destroys the hope we misdirect
Lord. Okay, three: hope misdirected and the destruction of it. And I'm out of time, so I'm going to do these last two real quick. "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts...'" I don't know why I'm holding my belt like this, but now I just realized I'm doing it, and I want to go... I don't... Yes, I have issues. Anyway. Okay, so, good night. "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.' So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again, for they covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt."
God is not scared to let you live in a destitute state to get you to glorify him in the midst of your destitute state.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:17
How destitute do you have to become for you to cry out to him? That's the question, isn't it? Now, when we look at Pharaoh, we're like, "Get a clue, man. Get a clue." But it's amazing the hell people will endure, and the destitute state people will live in, and still not trust the Lord. It ate every herb in the land and all the fruit of the trees. God showed himself greater than the Egyptian god Osiris. This god was thought to be the protector of crops. One god seems good: it protects. The true God seems bad: he destroys. Who's God? Are you with me today? And that's the question we're faced with today: who's God? That's the issue we wrestle with when we watch Instagram videos. We have a tendency to trust in gods that appease our hearts, but the reality is the true God is the destroyer here, not the protector. He's Jehovah Jireh, our protector, until he isn't. Are you with me? People that are his, he protects. People that are not, he don't. Are you with me today? Here's one that'll blow your mind: sometimes people are his, and he don't protect. Be careful to not make it prescriptive, because of every one of the apostles except for John. Are you with me? "Well, where's Jehovah Jireh the protector there?" What about the people having tires put on them and gasoline poured on them, and they're lit on fire for believing God? Where's Jehovah Jireh the protector there? Where is he? Where is Jehovah Jireh our protector with the people that are starving to death around the world? Where is he? See, could it be that we serve Osiris? Could it be we serve the same god as the Pharaohs? We've created a version of God based on a Scripture that we've read, that he protects us, and we've said, "This God always protects those that are his." Could it be we fashioned a god to our liking? Because sometimes he doesn't step in when someone's having their head chopped off for believing in Christ. Sometimes he doesn't stop the machete. Can we just be honest for a moment? Can we just be honest? I know this is blowing your mind, and some of you are thinking of Scripture right now. You're trying... "I'm going to prove him wrong." You know, try. Please do. Please do. Let's have a conversation.
He's more interested in protecting your eternal destiny, not your temporal one.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 52:34
So if we're talking about eternal, he's Jehovah Jireh, your provider and your protector. He's provided all you need by his mercies, which are new every day. But your life is not guaranteed. Your food is not guaranteed. Your livelihood is not guaranteed. Your health is not guaranteed. Should we pray that he heals us? Yes. Does he heal people? Yes. Does he not sometimes? Yes. Don't create an Osiris because
Point 5False repentance only wants to avoid consequences
It makes you uncomfortable that God doesn't operate like you want him to, because if he did, that'd make you God, not him. Point four: false repentance. Like all of us haven't done this. Verses 16 through 20: "Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, 'I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you. Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the LORD your God only to remove this death from me.' So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the LORD. And the LORD turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea." Huh. This is foreshadowing. Who else goes in there? It's foreshadowing. "...Which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left..." Who does this remind you of in the coming chapters? Pharaoh and all his army. "But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go." Pharaoh said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you." Pharaoh actually did the same thing in Exodus 9:27–28. He said the words of repentance, but he did not follow through with the actions. His heart was only hardened more after God relented and showed mercy. Isn't it amazing that the mercies of God save some and harden others? It's like what the sun does to clay versus wax: it melts and softens one and hardens another. Okay, so Samantha, I'll pick on samantha. She works with clay, and I just found this out because I went into the coffee shop, and then I saw her Instagram, and she makes mugs. Thank you. Yeah, I forgot what they were called. Mugs. And so she has a kiln, right? What is the temperature? It gets to like 3,000 degrees hot, right? That's hot. So she puts the... If I'm wrong, just do a Facebook post and say, "Shawn's stupid. He don't know what he's talking about. Here's the real stuff." Okay, so she puts them in there, and it hardens it even more, right? Solidifies it. There's a coating on it or something like that, which is called something, which I don't know what it is. We don't have time for me to be educated right now. And it hardens that. That prevents the pores from picking up stuff and ruining the clay, right? So it hardens it. Put a couple candles in there, run that sucker to 3,000, let's see what happens. Notice what is not changing: the kiln. The kiln never changes. It isn't like God with one is being mean and with the other is being helpful. No, he never changes. I hope this helps your heart. But the substance of the object is either hardened or softened. Hearts are either hardened or softened based on the nature of how they're created and the substance of their creation. I hope this helps your heart, because you don't get to blame God for it. You kind of do, but you kind of don't. The reality is, when you come into his presence, you're either hardened or softened, and your makeup determines that. Who determines your makeup? So here's where it goes back to God. God determines your makeup. God, at the beginning, he reached down into the dirt. He took the dirt, he blew life into it, and he made it into creation. He determined what dirt would become. Are you with me?
So there is a determining nature to how God fashioned you. He fashioned each one, vessels for mercy and vessels for destruction. But notice that his nature never changes. His nature only reveals the hearts of men, because they come in contact with him, the same way a kiln does. Okay, all right. He said, "I've sinned,"
But he didn't repent. And I'm going to close with this. This is a manipulation technique. By the way, manipulation is revelatory of what an individual thinks of themselves and the person they're attempting to manipulate. You know how much we try to manipulate God with our false repentance, that God would send a reprieve because, "Oh God, I'm sorry"? You know, it reveals that you think little of God. You think that he can be manipulated by your false repentance. Really, it's a battle of wants and wills. It really shows that you think God's stupid enough to be manipulated. And then, last and finally, once again comes the easy confession of sin and a shallow repentance that springs only from a desire to avert consequences, but not to give yourself to the Lord. No one wants consequences. No one wants consequences. At least Pharaoh was trying to admit that it was his fault. At least he didn't blame somebody else. So that's a step further than half of us go. Are you with me? So before you get up in his grill about the fact that it was a false repentance, most of us just spend our whole life blaming everybody else for our problems. So at least he's further than you are. Are you with me? I mean, I don't know if I'm... I'm guilty of that. But the reality is we just need to face it, man. We just need to face the fact we got problems, and it is our problems that open us up to his mercies, not our greatness. Okay? So don't feel bad about
Your problems. Your problems are a gateway to his mercies.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:00:38
Your problems are a gateway to his mercies. It's time to get real about them.
55:08
49:20
54:12
51:05
39:27
1:02:21
1:05:55
1:08:37
1:14:26
56:32
48:06
1:00:59Now playing
50:25
59:35
40:20
49:20
45:24
47:29