“Raised Up for GOD'S Glory” – FBC Morning Light (1/30/2025)

Well, a good morning to you. I'd like to encourage you for your journey ahead today with a few thoughts from Exodus chapters 9 and 10, and particularly one verse in chapter 9 verse 16.

But before we look at that verse, we need to kind of go back and get a little background to where we are at this point in this chapter.

Back in chapter 7, as the Lord is beginning to, is about to send all these different plagues on Egypt.

He tells Moses ahead of time, he says, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna send these plagues, but I want you to know

Pharaoh's not gonna let you, he's not gonna let you go, not initially. I am going to harden

Pharaoh's heart. Did you hear that? The Lord says, I am going to harden Pharaoh's heart.

Yeah, back in chapter 7. He says in verse 2, you shall speak all that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall tell

Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

And then as you read the different plagues as they're unleashed, at the end of each one, most of the time it says

Pharaoh, Pharaoh's heart grew hard, or Pharaoh hardened his heart, like in chapter 7 verse 13, it says

Pharaoh's heart grew hard when, you know, Aaron threw down his staff and it became a serpent and so forth.

And then the first plague is that water being turned to blood, and it says that, verse 22,

Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them as the Lord had said. Pharaoh's, how did his heart grow hard?

What did the Lord say? I will harden Pharaoh's heart. Well then the frogs come on the land, and in verse 15, when

Pharaoh saw that there was relief from the frogs, he hardened his heart and he did not heed them.

Same with the plague of the lice. Pharaoh's heart grew hard, he did not heed them, and when the flies came, verse 32 of chapter 8,

Pharaoh hardened his heart and he would not let the people go. Then come the disease on the livestock in chapter 9, and in verse 7 it says the heart of Pharaoh became hard and he did not let the people go.

And his heart gets hard, his heart is hardened, and then comes the next plague.

Next plague is the plague of boils, and verse 12 says the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh did not heed them just as the

Lord had spoken to Moses. So, which is it? Is Pharaoh hardening his own heart, or is the

Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart? And the answer is yes, Pharaoh is hardening his heart because the

Lord has hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why would God do this? Why would God do this? Why didn't

God make him have a compliant heart? A heart that, upon the first expression of God's power, why didn't

Pharaoh's heart melt and say, okay, you can go? Go. Well, we get an answer to that, we get some insight into that question in verse 16 of chapter 9, when the

Lord is warning of the plague of hail that's coming upon the next plague that's coming upon Egypt, and he says

Moses stands before him, Aaron and Moses stand before Pharaoh, and they say to him, let my people go that they may serve me, for at this time

I will send all my plagues to your very heart. Now they're going to attack you personally, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.

Now, he says, if I had stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth.

But, he says, indeed, for this purpose I have raised you up.

Here's why you have the position you have, Pharaoh. Here's why you are in power, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth.

Here's a thing. For the last several thousand years, the name of the

Lord has been proclaimed throughout all the earth on the basis of these plagues that he sent upon Egypt.

And the Lord says to Pharaoh, I've put you in the position as the

Pharaoh over the land of Egypt, and I've put you in this position where you have the authority to let my people go, or to try to not let them go.

I've put you in that position for this purpose, so that I might demonstrate my power upon you in these plagues.

That's why the Lord kept hardening Pharaoh's heart, so that God might make it absolutely clear who indeed is the one with sovereign, omnipotent authority, and that is the

Lord God of the Bible. He is the sovereign, omnipotent authority, and the way he demonstrated it here in the book of Exodus is by hardening

Pharaoh's heart so that he could send plague after plague after plague, until finally it became so abundantly clear that this

God, this God of the Hebrews, is the God with whom you cannot fight.

And so he is even to this day. I think it would be helpful for us to remember that those, the people who are in positions of power and authority, are not there simply because they were elected to that position, or they were appointed by some court or whatever, but they are there by divine appointment.

And some cases, God has them there so that God might show that he is

God. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your sovereign authority, for your omnipotence, and that you put people in positions of power and authority, not for their glory, but ultimately for yours.

Help us to keep that perspective in mind as we navigate through these days ahead. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.