FBC Morning Light – January 30, 2023

Well, good Monday morning to you. How are you doing on this first day of the new week and almost the last day of the first month of 2023? January has just flown by, and it's a winter month, so I don't mind that too much myself.

Pharaoh’s Temporary Repentance Under the Plagues

Well, anyway, on this Monday morning we're reading in the book of Exodus, in chapters 9 and 10, and we see in this passage a truth that you've probably seen illustrated perhaps in your own life and maybe in the lives of others.

I can remember many, many years ago when I was a youth pastor, taking our young people to a Christian camp, and on one particular night of this week of camp, the preacher in the service made a really hard case against listening to rock music, and he challenged the young people to make the commitment, come forward at the end of the service, make the commitment that they were going to go home after camp was over, they were going to throw away all of their rock music CDs and cassettes.

It tells you how old this was, right? They were not going to listen to that kind of music again. I remember after that incident, there was a young lady who had come along with camp. She was in and out of church, she wasn't real faithful, but she had come to camp.

My wife and I were talking to her after that service, just trying to figure out where she was spiritually, and talked about that particular message. She said, I won't do those things. I won't do this thing at the end of the service where I promised to do it.

I've done this too many times. I make this promise, I make this commitment, and then I go home, or the thing's over, and a couple days later I'm right back to where I was. I'll just go right back to listening to it again.

What she expresses is the same thing that we see in Exodus chapter 9, but with Pharaoh. Lord's been sending his plagues upon Egypt, and he's come to this one plague of the thundering and the hail, and it has been a devastating attack of hail.

Finally, Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron, and he says to them, I have sinned this time. Now, there have been a whole bunch of other plagues that have already hit Egypt, but Pharaoh comes to this place where he says, I have sinned this time.

He says, the Lord is righteous, and my people and I are wicked. He comes to this acknowledgment in the middle of this catastrophic, destructive hailstorm, and then he says, and treat the Lord with me that there be no more mighty thundering and hail, for it is enough.

Then here's the commitment, I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer. That's exactly what Moses and Aaron have been telling Pharaoh to do, to let the people go. He finally comes to this place of making a commitment and saying, I will let the people go.

Just entreat the Lord for me that this thundering, this hail stops, and he is right, I'm wrong, he's right, we're wrong, we're the sinners, he's righteous, but please, make this hail go away, and I will let you go.

So, sure enough, Moses goes out, it says in verse 29 of Exodus 9, he says he goes out of the city, and he prays to the Lord that the hail stops, and the hail stops, and then you come to the end of the chapter, and verse 34 says, and when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail, the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more, and he hardened his heart, he and his servants.

So, the heart of Pharaoh was hard, neither would he let the children of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses. So, here's another case of that very kind of thing. Under duress, a commitment is made, and I would suggest that back in that camp experience, I just know, just from my experience as a youth pastor, and now years and years later of experience in the ministry, it's easy to make decisions, spiritual commitments, in a time and a moment of emotional duress, and that particular speaker was putting the screws to the young people, and he was really doing a good job of emotional manipulation, as unfortunately too many of those kind of speakers do, and a lot of young people made the commitment, but I know that when they went back home, very, very few actually followed through, went to their CD collection or their cassette tape collection, and tossed it in the garbage.

I just know that. Why? Because I know how they lived afterwards, and I know what they listened to after the fact, so it's just the way it is. It's just like Pharaoh. When a spiritual commitment is made in a moment of emotional duress, in a time of great affliction, and a promise is made, the likelihood is, when the affliction is passed, the commitment will be forgotten.

It'll be reneged upon, and it may very well be, just like this young lady, that the heart will be even harder the next time such efforts are made, to try to get her, strong-arm her, to make a decision.

She won't do it. She won't do it. How about in your own life? Have you had that experience where, in a time of great conviction and great trouble, great affliction perhaps, you made some strong commitment?

How did you follow through on that, or did you? Maybe that's something you need to go back and revisit, and reconsider your reneging on the commitment that you've made. Well, some food for thought today.

Prayer for Genuine Conviction and Faithful Repentance

Our Father in Heaven, we do thank you for genuine spirit conviction, and we thank you that your Spirit does not let us rest when we have sin in our life, and we need to repent, and we need to turn from it.

Father, I pray that when the affliction, the conviction is passed, we won't forget. We won't forget the commitments that we've made in that time of duress. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

Closing Blessing

Well, listen, have a good rest of your Monday, wonderful start to your new week. God bless.