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Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Wednesday, 8 January 2025:
Exodus 10:2, 3 – “…that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson… that you may know that I am the Lord…. How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?”
God demands humility and submission from all as the Sovereign Lord. He is patient, but not passive. All sin (all sin) is rebellion against God that comes from a shocking pride that prioritized the desires of the individual over the commands of the Almighty. God cannot and will not tolerate sin.
Exodus 10:7 — Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?
In his stubbornness and refusal to obey God, Pharaoh ruined Egypt. The consequences of sin not only affect the sinner but also those around the sinner. Sin’s collateral damage is always much greater than anyone understands at the time the sin is committed. One of the reasons God hates sin is because it is the antithesis of love and hurts the innocent.
Exodus 10:11 – No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.
God does not negotiate or compromise with people. Partial obedience is disobedience.
Exodus 10:16-18, 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….” But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.
Many pray to God for relief from the wrong heart and with the wrong motives, desiring only God’s mercy rather than God Himself, changed circumstances rather than changed character. God knows the heart and can see through the self-centered, unrepentant prayer.
Exodus 10:28, 29 – Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” Moses said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.”
Dismissing the truth doesn’t change the truth.
The saga that began when Adam and Eve defied God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil continues, the challenge to God’s sovereignty, the battle between the kingdom of man and the Kingdom of God. Today, God uses Pharaoh’s pride and stubbornness to glorify Himself and to demonstrate His ultimate power and authority. God demonstrates His justice but also His patience and mercy – “…by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.” Those who feared God and listened to His word, even the Egyptians, were spared terrible pain and suffering (an example of common grace), but those who didn’t obey God’s word received the consequences of their complacency.
Meanwhile, Pharaoh demonstrates the difference between being “sorry” and being truly repentant, having a changed heart. There is a big difference between having regret due to consequences and having heartfelt regret over sinfulness which produces genuine character change. For example, you might regret speeding right after you get a ticket, but if you don’t regret being a speeder and have a changed ‘spirit’ towards speeding, you will speed again, perhaps just a bit more cautiously for a while. True repentance requires a love for God and others over a love for self, a desire to serve Him over self, a heart which yearns for “Thy will be done” over “My will be done.” Often, we go to God with self-centered sorrow which seeks “another chance” to serve self.
When Pharaoh was punished by God, he was quick to say, “I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I [am]… wrong.” Because his heart had not really changed, he continued in his ways and his consequences only grew worse – God was glorified nonetheless. Likewise, everyone will glorify God, either in a positive way or a negative way. God desires that He be glorified in a positive way as people abide in Jesus and naturally bear the fruit of love. In Pharaoh’s case, as has been the case for so many others, he simply refused to repent and finally refused to even hear God’s word anymore – “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again….” The Bible says to our generation, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:3-5)
How many empty promises have people made to the Lord in shallow sorrow – “Lord, if you get me through this, I promise, I will never do it again….” Do you know someone who seems to say things like this over and over again? Perhaps you have or still do. Repentance brings life, while worldly grief only leads to shame, depression, frustration, bitterness, destruction, and death. Repentance draws you to God, while worldly grief draws you farther away. Both Peter and Judas denied Jesus, albeit in different ways. Peter had a repentant spirit that led Him to spend his life glorifying God. Judas’ worldly grief led him to commit suicide.
- 2 Corinthians 7:10 — For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
Do you find yourself regretting the same decisions and mistakes over and over again? The problem is not what you are doing, the problem is why you are doing it – your desires are not God’s desires, your heart is not aligned with His heart. As the old pastors says, “The heart of man’s problems is the problem with man’s heart.” Pray that God will give you a repentant heart, godly grief rather than worldly grief. In your continual failures, draw closer to God, not further away. He knows the truth of your condition better than you do and loves you more than even you do.
- 1 John 1:9 — If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
- Ezekiel 18:31; 36:26 — Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit…. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
- Psalm 51:17 — The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
- Hebrews 7:25; 10:22 — Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them…. let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
- James 4:8 — Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 8 January 2025: Pray that God will continue, where needed, to replace your worldly grief and sorrow with genuine repentance.
“Repentance out of mere fear is really sorrow for the consequences of sin, sorrow over the danger of sin — it bends the will away from sin, but the heart still clings. But repentance out of conviction over mercy is really sorrow over sin, sorrow over the grievousness of sin — it melts the heart away from sin. It makes the sin itself disgusting to us, so it loses its attractive power over us. We say, ‘this disgusting thing is an affront to the one who died for me. I’m continuing to stab him with it!’” (Tim Keller)
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 