Show these My signs.
How God hardened Pharaoh’s heart
I. By a manifestation of rich mercy, which ought to have melted the heart of the king.
II. By a manifestation of great power, which ought to have subdued the heart of the king.
III. By a manifestation of severe justice, which might have rebuked the heart of the king.
IV. By sending His servants to influence the heart of the king to the right. God did not harden Pharaoh’s heart by a sovereign decree, so that he could not obey His command; but by ministries appropriate to salvation, calculated to induce obedience--the constant neglect of which was the efficient cause of this sad moral result.
Lessons:
1. That man has the ability to resist the saving ministries of heaven.
2. That when man resists the saving ministries of heaven he becomes hard in heart.
3. That hardness of heart is itself a natural judgment from God.
4. That hardness of heart will finally work its own ruin. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
God sends His minister to hardened souls
1. Often.
2. Mercifully.
3. Uselessly.
4. Significantly.
5. Disastrously. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Hardened sinners
1. In companies.
2. Patterns of judgments.
3. Tokens of indignation.
4. The cause of plagues.
5. The curse of the world.
6. Still followed by the minister of God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The signs of God to the generations of the future
I. That God is supreme over the kingdom of nature. Science places the natural universe under the command of man. This is the Divine ordination. But man’s power over nature is derived; God’s is underived and independent. Hence--
1. He can inflict pain on the wicked.
2. He can protect the good from harm.
3. He can send famine or plenty.
II. That God is supreme over the cunning and power of the devil. The magicians of Egypt were agents of the devil. They were inspired by him in their opposition to Moses and Aaron. They were aided by his cunning. Their defeat was his defeat also.
1. God can deliver men from the power of the devil.
2. God can destroy the works of the devil.
3. God can frustrate the designs of the devil.
Teach this blessed truth and glorious fact to the youthful: that the good agencies of the universe are more potent than the bad. This will lead youthhood to confide in God.
III. That goodness is happiness, and that conflict with God is the misery of man. Lessons:
1. That in the lives of individuals we have signs of God.
2. That all the signs of God in human life are to be carefully noted and taught to the young.
3. That all the signs of life are evidence of the Divine supremacy. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The ministry of sin
God makes Pharaoh “to stand” for the benefit of Israel, and in them for the benefit of humanity. It was for Pharaoh in the first instance to resist Divine light and grace, and oppress Israel; it was then for God to economise the tyrant and his wrath. The conduct of the Egyptian king served--
I. To reveal God. “That ye may know how that I am the Lord.” Pharaoh’s perverseness revealed all the more fully--
1. The Divine love.
2. The Divine righteousness.
3. The Divine power.
II. To further the interests of Israel. God overrules sin to high and happy issues. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Transmitting the knowledge of the true God
I. Jehovah made himself known to the Israelites in Egypt as the only true God by signs. His wondrous acts revealed His supremacy. Christ is the fullest revelation of the true God.
II. That this knowledge is to be transmitted from generation to generation. Parental influence the most potent in telling of God’s acts. No lips teach like the lips of loving authority. Some parents neglect this solemn duty. Ever ready to speak about worldly enterprises, the acts of great men, their own; but they are silent about God’s. Such neglect is ruinous to their children and dishonouring to God.
III. In the transmission of the knowledge, of the true God is the hope of the world. Wherever the knowledge of the true God prevails, righteousness and peace are found. Idolatry has ever been the bane of mankind. A false conception of God debases. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
By signs
1. Showing the woe of sin.
2. The folly of human malice.
3. The justice of God.
4. The safety of the Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The signs
1. Their nature.
2. Their locality.
3. Their design. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The Divine supremacy
1. Rejected by the proud.
2. Received by the good.
3. Revealed by the works of God.
4. To be acknowledged by all. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The plagues
So, allowing all that may be called romantic, supernatural, to fall off from this story of the plagues, there remains all that God wanted to remain--three things:--First, the assertion of the Divine right in life. God cannot be turned out of His own creation; He must assert His claim, and urge it, and redeem it. The second thing that remains is the incontestable fact of human opposition to Divine voices. Divine voices call to right, to purity, to nobleness, to love, to brotherhood; and every day we resist these voices, and assert rebellious claims. The third thing that remains is the inevitable issue. We cannot fight God and win. “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Why smite with feeble fist the infinite granite of the infinite strength? Who will lose? The certain result will be the overthrow of the sinner: the drowning of every Pharaoh who hardens himself against the Divine will and voice. Now that I come to think of it, have not all these plagues followed my own obstinacy and hardness of heart in relation to things Divine? We speak of the plagues of Egypt as though they began and ended in that distant land, and we regard them now as part of an exciting historical romance. I will think otherwise of them. The local incident and the local colour maybe dispensed with, but the supreme fact in my own consciousness is that God always follows my obstinacy with plagues. Dangers are rightly used when they move us to bolder prayer; losses are turned into gains when they lift our lives in an upward direction; disease is the beginning of health when it leads the sufferer to the Father’s house. Pharaoh had his plagues, many and awful; and every life has its penal or chastening visitations, which for the present are full of agony and bitterness, but which may be so used as to become the beginning of new liberties and brighter joys. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God’s judgements
Lay a book open before a child, or one that cannot read; he may stare and gaze upon it, but he can make no use of it at all, because he understandeth nothing in it; yet bring it to one that can read, and understandeth the language that is written in it, he will read you many stories and instructions out of it; it is dumb and silent to the one, but speaketh to, and talketh with, the other. In like manner it is with God’s judgments, as St. Augustine well applies it; all sorts of men see them, but few are able aright to read them or to understand them what they say; every judgment of God is a real sermon of reformation and repentance. (J. Spencer.)