The Intricacies of God's Love and the Call to Righteousness

Discover how the ancient story of Moses, Pharaoh, and the Israelites offers timeless insights into divine discipline and human resistance. Join us as we venture into the heart of this biblical narrative to uncover the powerful dynamics of God's holiness, righteousness, and sovereignty. Our exploration reveals the intricate balance between grace and correction, paralleling the progression of a parent's love for their child. We delve into the complexities of obedience to God and the challenging questions that arise when divine intentions seem inscrutable. As our conversation unfolds, we illuminate the justness of God's actions, inviting you to consider how discipline, though stern, can guide us toward righteousness and transformation.

In this episode, we confront the stark reality of ignoring God's warnings through the cautionary tale of Pharaoh's hardened heart. The conversation examines the paradox of salvation as a free gift that demands our active obedience and transformation. We contemplate the reasons behind our own hesitations when it comes to spiritual change—be it fear, pride, or simple rebellion—and discuss the high cost of defying divine guidance. As we journey through these age-old stories, we're encouraged to embrace the transformative power of God's love, understanding that true encounters with the divine require us to choose change and align with a holiness that refines and renews.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:03

Let Israel go. Then they said the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord, our God, and he may strike us with plagues, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword. But the king of Egypt said Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to work. Then Pharaoh said look, the people of the land are now numerous and you are stopping them from working. That same day, pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people that you are no longer to supply with straw for making bricks. Let them go and gather their own straw, but instead require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don't reduce the quota. They are lazy. That is why they are crying out. Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the work harder for the people so they keep working and pay no attention to lies. Then the slave drivers and the overseers want out instead of the people. This is what Pharaoh says I will not give to use for straw. The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw and Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed. Pharaoh said you are lazy that, yet we are told make bricks. Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Pharaoh said Lazy, that's what you are lazy. That is why you keep saying let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must reduce your full quota of bricks.

Speaker 1: 3:03

The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told you are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day. When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them and they said may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Moses returned to the Lord and said why, lord, have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me?

Speaker 1: 3:31

So Moses goes to, pharaoh, does what he's supposed to, and the response is not what he had hoped. Pharaoh does not care who their God is, he even says it. Who is this Lord? And why should I obey him? And instead, what he does is. He takes what's happening to the Israelites and he actually makes their oppression worse. And then their natural response is why are you doing this to us? And then they finally run into Moses and Aaron and they start asking questions why? Why are you doing this to us? Why in the world is this happening? And part of that conversation comes from the fact that what they might not have realized and what they haven't seen yet is what Moses has been told and what Aaron understands is that God has every intention of setting them free from this bondage that they're in, but there's an obstacle in the way.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Pharaoh is a problem. He refuses to set them free, he refuses to heed God's warning, he refuses to acknowledge God at all. Instead, he would rather worship himself, he would rather worship their gods. And instead of addressing God and acknowledging that there is a God, he even asked and I said it already that the question why in asked him I said it already the question why in the world would I obey him?

Speaker 1: 5:34

And it's interesting because whenever we get to the Old Testament, a lot of times especially people who are non-believers they look at the God of the Old Testament and they start to question his motives. You know how can a loving and graceful God do this? And I'm going to tell you. The simple answer is because, yes, he's loving and graceful, but he's also holy and sovereign. We talked about this in week one. God is holy. And if you believe God is holy, that means that he's righteous. And if God is righteous, it means that he's perfect. And if you believe that and you adhere to that, then you realize that you and I have no right to question the motives of God, because he will never answer to us, because he will never answer to us, but we will always answer to him. And it goes back to this idea of a loving, graceful, merciful.

Speaker 1: 6:42

God is also a God who embraces discipline, because discipline is necessary for transformation. It's not discipline out of spite, it's not discipline to be mean, but it's because God knows that there are better things for us. And even in his interaction with Pharaoh, he gives Pharaoh the opportunity to do the right thing, not once, but ten different times. And this is why, when people talk about how is it possible that the God of the Old Testament, why is he so violent? Why is he so? You know, why would he do that? But if you really pay attention, you realize there's a whole lot of grace that comes before the discipline. Right, the book of Ezekiel is full of it. Israel has failed to live up to the standards that God has set in order for them to be his people. It's been a century, if not more, of this disobedience, and God finally brings in correction.

Speaker 1: 7:49

I have three boys. Three boys. I can tell you, when discipline starts, my demeanor at the beginning is a whole lot calmer than it is at the end, because I start to offer them correction in a loving way and I try to gently remind them that let's not do this. And then they ignore me. And then I remind them again, again in a loving way, and they ignore me. And then six, seven, eight more times I've had enough. Like, there's the dad. I've been told that I have a dad voice and I and I listen, I, I embrace that thing because I think it's glorious. Uh, when, when I used to help out at the, the christian center, a couple years ago, my dad voice was impeccable, because it's before I even had kids. I would speak and 100 kids would stop talking. Like that's wrong, right, but it takes me time to get there because I want to see my kids. I want to give them the opportunity to respond correctly. And they don't. And then you have to be a parent and you have to address accordingly and you have to bring discipline that brings transformation, because if you don't, they will continue to do the wrong thing over and over because they're kids. I don't expect my kids will continue to do the wrong thing over and over because they're kids. I don't expect my kids to act like 20-somethings. I get that they're kids, but I'm responsible as their parent to offer them correction because I know what's better for them.

Speaker 1: 9:31

And so God approaches the God of the Old Testament, approaches his people and he even approaches the Pharaoh, in the same way that I'm going to give you every opportunity to do the right thing. And so God brings about ten plagues to show that he's serious. First he turns water into blood, which doesn't seem like a big deal until you think about how nasty that probably would have smelled. Then he brings about frogs I can't even imagine just frogs everywhere. He brings about lice, he brings about flies, he plagues their livestock, then we get the boils and he gets the hail and he gets the locusts and then the sky turns dark. And if you pay attention. All of these moments, all of these plagues that you see get worse as they come, and in the response every single time, if you continue to read the story of Exodus is Pharaoh responds kind of in a moment, you know, the plagues happen and he almost has a change of heart and then he kind of backtracks and he takes back what he said and he makes the work even harder. And so God has approached him so many times. All he wants him to do is let his people go. That's all he's asking for, and God had to keep disciplining.

Speaker 1: 11:03

And then we get to the last plague the death of the firstborn son. You know, when we talk about the God of the Old Testament, there's parts of him that we have to wrestle with, and I think that that's okay. But I also think that comes from the fact that you and I aren't holy, we're not perfect. But the final plague is he kills the death of the firstborn. And if you read continue to read the narrative Exodus, god protects the children of Israel. They sacrifice lambs and they put blood over their doors. By the way, this is where Passover comes from. Their celebration of Passover, they put the blood on their doors and, as the angel of death passed over and took the firstborn son of all the families. All of the families except the Israelites were harmed. And in this moment that this happens, this discipline, this transformation in Pharaoh, happens because Pharaoh is untouchable. According to him, the death of his son is the most traumatic thing in the world, and it's hard. It's hard for you and I sometimes to process that. But once again, had Pharaoh chosen to respond to God differently, in one of the other nine ways, it might have never gotten that far. And so eventually Pharaoh does let the people go. They go for a while and then he chases them. As he's chasing them, they pass the Red Sea, as the Red Sea opens up, and the Israelites pass through, pharaoh and his army chase after them and closes around them, eventually taking his life.

Speaker 1: 13:03

So the epic drama of the Exodus. We find that the proud leader of Egypt has someone who reflects and, like I said earlier to me, he's a warning of what happens when someone chooses to ignore God. And we've been talking this whole series that God's purpose in making us is to give us a heart of flesh. He talks about this with the Israelites and reminds them that I want you to have a heart after me. But the Pharaoh of Egypt continues to ignore God. He hardens his own heart. His heart eventually gets hardened by God, but his response to God is this callous condition of a heart that doesn't care what God has to say, because the only person he cares about is himself. And because of this continual rebellion against the God of creation, the consequences cost him his life. When you go through the book of Ezekiel, as God is bringing on discipline, he says through Ezekiel do I enjoy seeing man die? No, I want to see him live. I want to see their hearts be changed. I want to see them live. I want to see their hearts be changed. I want to see them know me.

Speaker 1: 14:44

And Pharaoh refused to listen to God. Exodus 8.15 says. But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. Exodus 8.32,. But this time also, pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go. Exodus 9.34,. When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again. He and his officials hardened their hearts. What happened to Pharaoh is a direct response to the way he chose to react to God. He ignored him. He continued to ignore him and the consequences were his life.

Speaker 1: 15:35

I think when we talk about the God of the Old Testament, we have a hard time with that, because you and I, if we're honest, we want to continue to be disobedient but still have everything God has to offer us. My kids don't want to listen to me, but they still want to be able to do what they can do. They don't want stuff taken away from them. They don't want to spend time out. They want to do whatever they want and not have a single person in the world tell them they can't do it. And you and I are the same way. We want everything God has to offer, as long as it doesn't require us to give him anything in the process, as long as it doesn't require you and I to change our hearts, change our minds, be transformed. We want everything God has to offer, including eternity, but we don't want it to cost us a thing.

Speaker 1: 16:49

One of the most popular things, the idea that's floating around churches today and they always talk about you know, salvation is free and listen. I agree with that. I believe that Christ paid the ultimate price. I believe that I don't have to make the sacrifice that he did. But I also think that that statement is loaded, because a lot of times, when we come to Jesus and we give our life to him, we have this expectation that there's nothing else required of us, that we're okay to just continue to live our life and not change a thing. I see this. I see this when people choose to give their life to Jesus and they make a decision and they do confession, they do baptism, and then you never see them again. They disappear, fall off the face of the earth. I see people who have been in the church for 30, 40, 50 years and they're still the same person they were before they met Jesus, because they have no desire to change who they are, because they don't believe transformation is necessary. And I'm telling you I don't believe that's biblically sound.

Speaker 1: 18:04

The God of the Old Testament makes it clear that if you follow me, you will do as I say, because I am holy and because I love you and I know what's best for you. You and I are rebellious at our core and we don't want to hear it. Pharaoh chose to ignore God over and over and over. I believe it's possible to quiet the voice of God in our life, to quiet the voice of God in our lives. As someone who is a Christian, as someone who has made a commitment to live for him, I believe that if you ignore him long enough, you stop hearing what he is trying to do. If you walk away enough, if you keep ignoring the discipline, the correction, the transformation because he is a loving father who has no desire to force his will on us I believe you can quiet that still small voice in your life. I think God calls us to be intentional with that voice, the things that he hears, the transformation that he offers. Discipline is one of those ways.

Speaker 1: 19:36

When we are being disciplined in our life, the question should not be why are you doing this, god, in the sense of how could you do this to me? But the question should be why do I need this? What, in my life, is keeping me from being holy as you are? Holy? Because if you truly have an encounter with the God of all creation, if you truly submit your life to Jesus and I've said this before and I'll say it until I die Jesus will always meet you where you are, but he loves you too much to leave you there, because God is a good father. He knows what you need. He knows what it is to have a good life and he wants that for you. But he's not going to force you to do it.

Speaker 1: 20:39

As my kids get older, they're probably going to make stupid choices. I know it Because I was there. I'm still there sometimes. I remember being a teenager. I don't know how my mom doesn't have gray hair, because I have gray hair for some of the stuff that I did when I was younger, but I remember. I remember that rebellious nature and I remember when I first became a Christian, when I was 15 years old, and God was calling me to give up some stuff and I was like no, listen, god, I can have you and I can have those things. I'm telling you right now it doesn't work. You cannot be in the world and living for God at the same time. It'll never happen. It's not about what you want. It's about what's good for you, and God knows what's good for you.

Speaker 1: 21:36

God is not a genie. He's not a genie that we can just call on when life is difficult, because things are hard and we need someone to help us, and then, the moment that we find relief, we walk away like we don't need him until the next crisis arises. We see this right in the life of Pharaoh. Every time a plague happened, pharaoh had a response and then, when it went away, he went back to his ways. That's what he did. We are not supposed to treat God like a genie.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Through Ezekiel and throughout the Old Testament, throughout the entirety of Scripture, god establishes himself as holy, sovereign and righteous, the perfect one, the alpha, the omega, the beginning, the end. He is everything we could ever need, and when we choose to follow him, we are committing to a life that's committed to following him and his ways. He's not there just to fix our problems. He's there to fix us. He's there to deal with sin. He's there to discipline. He's there to transform. He's there to help us be everything that we're supposed to be.

Speaker 1: 22:49

If we let him, you can ignore him. You can ignore the discipline he's bringing into your life. You can tell me that he's an unloving God, that he hates people, that he just wants to destroy them and I'm telling you right now Scripture has never shown me that or you can embrace him as a father who wants nothing but the best for you, who knows everything that's right and perfect and good, and everything he asks you to do is, for your benefit, to live a life that is holy. Or you can ignore him, like Pharaoh did, and you can keep God in your back pocket for when life's tough. You can keep a relationship with him and make sure it stays as shallow as possible, by only calling on him when you need him. Or you can embrace him fully as the one who knows everything, as the creator of you and the creator of this world.

Speaker 1: 24:15

You can embrace him as a loving father and sit at his feet and say what do you need me to do? What is my purpose? Why am I here, god? What in my life do I need to overcome my purpose? Why am I here, god? What in my life do I need to overcome? What things do I need to get rid of to make me more like you and a whole lot less like me? To me, pharaoh's a warning. Pharaoh's a warning of a man who chose the latter, that he chose to disobey God. He chose to ignore me. He chose to continue on his own path, his own self-righteousness, and it cost him his life. And it cost him his life A man who was given multiple chances to do the right thing, to have a change of heart, to be transformed, and he refused to do it because he thought that he knew better than God.

Speaker 1: 25:42

I spend so much of my day trying to understand why so many people would rather live a life that's going to lead to death than embracing a God who not only transforms them but will offer them a life forever. I spend so much of my day looking at myself. It's not just people, but it's me. I have to look in the mirror and things that I struggle with and things that I still am trying to get over and give up. I have to look in the mirror and things that I struggle with and things that I still am trying to get over and give up I have to battle. There's things in my life that I know God is working on, that I'm trying to get through and that I haven't quite completely given to him. Why in the world do I keep holding on to those things that are not good for me? Why do I insist on doing the wrong thing? Why, when my Father in Heaven offers correction, why am I content just stomping my feet and pouting about it Instead of just realizing that, really, because he loves me, that everything he's trying to do in my life. Every transformation is because he loves me, because I'm a son of the Most High.

Speaker 1: 27:16

Why do we find ourselves refusing to let God transform us? Is it too hard? Are we really that self-righteous? Are we really that rebellious? Do we really think that the things that God is asking us to do are going to hurt us? You were going to hurt us. Having a heart of flesh is a choice. How I choose to respond to God is a choice. How I let him change me is a choice. I can't imagine letting anyone else in my life bring transformation into my life more than him. I can't. But I struggle with the fact that why do we fight it so hard?

Speaker 1: 28:30

Pharaoh did that. Pharaoh did everything he could to make sure that God wasn't going to tell him how to live his life and eventually it cost him his. But that's not what God wants. He wants to see people change. He wants to see people live. He wants to see people embrace everything that he wants them to be. He wants the best for his creation and he proved that through the sacrifice of Jesus. He took care of the biggest problem, the biggest hurdle, which was sin, which keeps us from him. He took care of that. So then, when we step into a relationship with him, that we can be transformed and we can be holy as he is holy, but you have to let him do it. I believe you can silence God in your life. I don't know why you would want that.