What is the Final Authority. (Matthew 7: 1-13)
Why do some people never come to know or accept Jesus? The answer of course is that it depends on a whole bunch of things, it depends on what that person has said, what that person has done, what that person’s background is, so no one-size-fits-all is the answer in winning people to Christ. The Apostle Peter elsewhere wrote that we should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. So on some occasions we should try XY and Z, that would be in line with the first Peter 3where he said this. Let me suppose you’ve done that but you’ve done everything you need to do make it interesting, let’s suppose you have a flawless presentation of the gospel that met that person where he or she is and they still don’t respond, what happens then, what do you do next, and that’s the question I would like to address tonight. There is a page from the life of Moses that demonstrates some things we can learn from that in talking to people about the Lord.
1 So the Lord said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. 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. 3 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. 4 But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. 5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” 6 Then Moses and Aaron did so; just as the Lord commanded them, so they did. 7 And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.
(Exodus 7: 1)
That’s the first stage in this drama but let me pause at this point and just take a good look at, let’s call it act one. In this passage the Lord simply gives Moses a Commission but to really appreciate what’s happening here you need to back up and look at chapter 6 verse 30.
And Moses said before the Lord behold, I am of uncircumcised lips and shall pharaoh heed me.
We visited this situation now several times and have seen over and over again Moses keeps making objections as to why he can’t do what the Lord told him to do, and at the end of chapter six he says again look, I really don’t have the ability to speak I’m not a eleguent speaker and pharaoh isn’t going to listen to me. What makes you think he’s going to pay attention to me. So, that’s the backdrop to what happens next. The Lord then comes to Moses, and he commissions him to go and do the very thing he told him to do in the first place. He says in verse one, see, I have made you like God to Pharoah.
I think the explanation is in the next verse. You shall speak all things I command you so you’re going as my representative, it’s gonna be as if I am speaking to pharaoh. I’m going to use you and you’re going to deliver the message and actually I’m gonna let your brother do it also but you’re the representative and you’re going to be like God to him. This is like a president sending an ambassador to a country and delivering a message and that ambassador is as the president not that he has that position but that he has that authority to represent the president, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. This we’ve seen before, Moses kept objecting that he didn’t have the ability to speak well so God said alright I’m gonna let Aaron do the speaking for you.
So, God is strengthening Moses a little by saying you are going to be as God, but your brother shall tell pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. So, although Moses is the one who has the authority, Aaron’s going to actually be the one that talks when they get there. However, remember God has commissioned Moses and he doesn’t take the authority off of Moses he doesn’t relinquish the Commission he’s just reaffirming the Commission and supporting it through Aaron and after he does that, then the Lord says that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Moses must have thought, “you want me to go to pharaoh and tell him let the children of Israel leave Egypt and go to the wilderness, right, but then you are going to harden his heart and he won’t allow it. Why then am I doing this, it doesn’t make sense”.
I think that’s a perfectly legitimate question, and of course to us it brings up all kinds of things like, what is God doing hardening somebody’s heart. This is not the first time we’ve seen this, earlier in the book I spent quite a bit of time explaining the hardening of the heart, so let me say again the simple short answer is this. The answer is this the same sun that melts ice hardens clay so all the Lord is saying here is I want you to go and shine the light of my message to pharaoh, but I just want you to know ahead of time he’s made out of clay and it’s gonna harden him, it’s not gonna soften him and he isn’t going to respond. It’s not that the Lord in isolation does this it’s Pharaoh by his own freewill refusing to listen to the Lord that causes the hardening of the heart. Pharoah had no interest in the things of God, and it just hardened him all the more to hear the message again. So, the Lord says, I’m just going to shine more light towards him and multiply the motivation to respond by signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, but I’m telling you up front Pharoah is not going to listen. I’m going to give him some more opportunities and I’m going to demonstrate my supernatural power and and by that I mean I’m gonna do miracles as a sign to authentic the message as being from the one God most high.
Virtually everybody concludes, and I think rightly, that this is a reference to the plagues that come later in the book of Exodus and the point of all of those plagues is that God is sovereign over pharaoh and all the gods of Egypt. When we get to the plagues, I will explain that in much more detail, but the point is this is a reference to of plagues, but he says in verse four that Pharaoh will not heed them. In the end he adds, I’m going to judge Egypt there’s going to come a point when he’s not going to hear me and 10 plagues will give him ten more opportunities to respond, but he says up front he's not gonna do it, so eventually he will have to judge Egypt. “I am going to judge Egypt and I’m going to bring my children out of Egypt” and then and only then shall the Egyptians know that I am the Lord.
This is a very important verse in the book of exodus, the purpose of all these vents is to get to the point where the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. Now they were pagans they were idol worshippers they were polytheists, they had many gods, as we shall see, and he says but when I get done, they’re going to know I am the Lord and there is only one true and all-powerful God.
One commentator has put it like this, “these verses introduce the purpose of the plagues the purposes is first and foremost was so that the Egyptians would know who the Lord is”. Here the Lord says This is why I’m doing it and that’s why I say, this verse is a critical verse in the book of Exodus because this is the first time he says it, but he says it over and over again. However the other main purpose of the plagues was to deliver the children out of the land of Egypt, that one is obvious, and the third purpose was to judge the Egyptians.What we refer to as the 10 plagues were actually judgments designed to authenticate Moses as God’s messenger and his message as God’s message. The ultimate purpose was to reveal the greatness of the power and authority of God to the Egyptians in order to ultimately bring pharaoh and the Egyptians into subjection to God. God here clearly says that. This is why I’m gonna do this, and there are multiple purposes in what he’s about to do. Two more verses in this section, six and seven say that Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded, they did exactly what the Lord told them to do.
That’s very important, it said several times in this message, they did exactly what the Lord told them to do and then adds the information that Moses was 80 years old and Aaron was 83 years old when they went in and spoke to pharaoh. It took them a while to get to where they needed to be, but they got there in the end. Moses had spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s court thinking he was somebody, 40 years in the desert learning he was nobody, and will now have 40 years showing what God can do. That’s the first act in this drama the second is verses 8 to 10.
8 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 9 “When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Show a miracle for yourselves,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and let it become a serpent.’ ” 10 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did so, just as the Lord commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
(Exodus 7: 8-10)
Alright, act one, scene one, he went into Pharoah, and it didn’t work. Now in Act one, scene two, he goes in and Pharaoh must have asked how do I know you’re from God, show me a miracle and this is the time he doesn’t throw down the rod for it to become a snake, the Hebrew word this time can be serpent or even dragon, by the way another good possible translation is crocodile, but anyway, serpent is as good as, any at any rate that inanimate object becomes a living threatening creature.
But what I want you to notice is their obedience it at last tells us, they did so just as the Lord commanded. Let me ask you a question, if you do just as the Lord commanded does it always work out the way you think it might? Answer, not necessarily. The text says you may win him to the Lord, so here they did exactly what they were supposed to do and it didn’t work, as a matter of fact that takes us to phase three 3, and there is now a counter miracle, so let’s pick it up at verse 11.
11 But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. 12 For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. 13 And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said.
(Exodus 7: 11-13)
Pharaoh’s sorcerers duplicated the miracles of Aaron and Moses, does that strike you as odd, how do you explain that. Can unsaved people do those kinds of miracles, is that even remotely possible? An answer to that is found in II Thessalonians chapter two and the answer is a little surprising.
9 The coming of the lawless one (The Antichrist) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
(II Thessalonians 2: 9-12 )
This is a mind-boggling passage, he says the Antichrist is coming and he is going to do it with signs and wonders, so unsaved people can do supernatural things, unsaved people can do miraculous things, unsaved people can do such miraculous supernatural things that it causes wonder and awe, the only problem is it’s done to support the Antichrist’s agenda and that’s a lie. What we glean from this passage is God allows Satan to do some seemingly supernatural things, and I do not doubt that what that’s what happened on this occasion. How in the world do you counter that well Aaron’s serpent swallowed up their serpents, so they we’re showing the superiority of God over pharaoh’s gods, so in this case it’s miraculous.
I think in our case this applies when somebody objected to the truth of the claims of Christ and we gave them the reason for the hope that is in us and they didn’t accept it, and when we gave them good reasons and they didn’t accept it then their hearts too become hardened. Sometimes people just look right at the truth and say, no thanks, and that is exactly what Pharoah did here. Hiss heart is getting harder and harder, and because of that it gets more and more difficult for him to concede. Moses and Aaron were obedient, and their miracles were greater than pharaoh, but even though they obeyed Pharaoh’s heart grew harder. obey
I think this is a wonderful passage to teach us several very very Important spiritual truths. They did all they could do and that’s very important. When you do all you can do you can do no more. All we can do sometimes is simply give them the message and pray people will receive it. You have a superior message, you have joy they don’t have your joy, you can have peace in the face of hardship. You have security, they don’t have that assurance. That’s all you can do, sometimes all you can do does not work. For somebody that really wants to see people come to the Lord this is hard to swallow sometimes but let me tell you there are a couple of lessons here that I learned the hard way and this is one. I am going to turn to the gospel of Luke chapter , and in it there is an account of someone called Lazarus.
This is a story, it is not a parable, sometimes it gets called a parable, but in this case a person is named, Lazarus, which means this is no parable. Jesus never mentions anybody’s name in a parable, so that means this is not a parable. You may know the story, he was a rich man who lived a lavish lifestyle and there was a poor man who begged at his table and both died. The poor man, the beggar is carried off by angels and the rich man also died and went to Hades and while being tormented there, he has an interesting conversation. Listen to verse 25.
25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ 27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’
(Like 16: 25- 31 )
Isn’t that interesting, there are people who will not hear what the scripture has to say and even if you raised somebody from the dead and it wouldn’t convince them. Does that sound familiar, we just went past Easter and what did we celebrate, somebody being raised from the dead, and did that persuade anyone today who wasn’t a Christian already, not that many I suspect. That’s my point, there are some people that just are not going to get it. In this case we have got lots more to cover in the book of exodus, and we will see that Moses and Aaron went back again and again and it's a very fascinating story, one of the most famous stories in all of the Bible in fact, but we will come back to that in future episodes.
What I simply want to say is there comes a point when there’s nothing else you can do, there comes a point when you’ve done all you can do and there’s nothing else you can do including talking.
Sometimes you simply have to let them go. Now let me tell you that I found this a very hard lesson for me to learn because when I first became a Christian, I thought this is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and everybody needs to get this. Sometimes I would almost argue with people, and then one day I found this Mark chapter 10, and we are told now as Jesus was going down the road and a rich young ruler came out to meet him and asked, “Good teacher what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life”, and Jesus said, “Why do you call me good no one is good but God”. This ruler comes and says, good teacher, what must I do and Jesus said why do you call me good there’s only one good that’s God.
There are two observations to be made here, number one is he started right where the man was and number two he used that to tell him something about himself and God. There’s only one good that’s God, so what is he checking is is this guy recognizing that he is God.
Then Jesus says, “You know the commands”, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honour your father and mother. As Paul would later put it, he’s using the law lawfully, but notice he only quotes the first part of the 10 commandments that deals with our relationship to one another. You are you calling me good, you know who I am, let me ask this do you know who you are. I’m God but do you know you’re a Sinner. He answers Jesus and says, “Teacher all these if I kept from my youth”, are you kidding me, you mean you never disobeyed your parents, you never lied one single time. Yet it then says, Jesus looking at him loved him and said to him, alright, one thing you lack, go and give to the poor all you have and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come take up your cross and follow me. He is telling him he’s got to give away everything to get to heaven and it also adds that the disciples were were shocked too just like you are and you. What this man really was saying, I’m rich therefore I’m in, and I just want you to confirm that I’m in, and the Lord said get rid of it all because you are trusting in that to enable you enter into the Kingdom of God. It’s not that the rich young ruler had wealth, it’s that the wealth had him. He was trusting in it, and the Lord said get rid of it.
This might today be like telling somebody that thinks because they are involved at a church that that means there going to get to heaven. If that is the case, you need to get rid of church membership, or wrong thinking. Believing, I’ve done good things that’s going to give me a crack at forgiveness and heaven. It says on that occasion the rich young ruler and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
He did exactly what pharaoh does here, he remained hard hearted. What I’m saying today is there will come a point when you’ve done all you can do, obediently, just as the Lord told you to do it and there are some people that are not going to respond and there comes the time you just have to let them go. Continue to pray and live a godly life before them, it just means there comes a time when you don't need to say anything else because their heart Is hard.