This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two of week two of our look through the book of Exodus. So that
means we're in chapter seven as we're going through a chapter a day. Let me
begin today by reading for you from chapter seven verses eight to thirteen.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a
miracle,' then say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh
and it will become a snake. '" So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just
as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw the staff down in front of the Pharaoh and
his officials and it became a snake.

Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers and the Egyptian magicians also did
the same things by their secret arts. Each one threw down his staff and it
became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs and yet Pharaoh's
heart became hard and he would not listen to them just as the Lord had said.

We're looking together at barriers that come when we face the obstacles to our
growth to change in our lives. When you decide I'm going to change that habit,
I'm going to change that relationship, I'm going to change that direction in my
life, you're going to come up against some obstacles and those obstacles have
within them some very common barriers. We all face the same barriers.

One of them is intensification. It gets worse before it gets better. Another is
doubt.

We're not sure we can do this. Well, we can't on our own. We need a strength.

And a third barrier you see in these verses. The third barrier is confusion,
confusion. It doesn't seem to be working like we thought it would be working.

So then we think, well, maybe this isn't what God wanted at all. This barrier of
confusion is seen in these experiences that Moses and Aaron had here together.
They started in the slow start that they had when God began to bring these
plagues against Pharaoh.

These plagues that invited, these plagues that demanded, set my people free. And
this slow start is they throw down their staff, it becomes a snake, but then the
magicians, the sorcerers in Egypt do the same thing. At first it didn't seem
like they were any different than these sorcerers.

At first it didn't seem like things were working. And the same thing is true in
our lives. Growth seems to come slowly at first.

And we feel like this steam locomotive pulling out of the engine, very slowly
getting up to speed. And we wonder, is it working at all? This continues in the
life of Moses and Aaron.

Listen to what happens in verses 17 to 22. It begins with what the Lord says.
This is what the Lord says.

"By this you will know that I am the Lord. With the staff that is in my hand, I
will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. The fish
of the Nile will die, and the river will stink, and the Egyptians will not be
able to drink its water.

And then the Lord said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron, take your staff and stretch out
your hand over the waters of Egypt, over the streams and canals, over the ponds
and all the reservoirs, and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in
Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars. ' Moses and Aaron did just as
the Lord had commanded.

He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the
water of the Nile, and all the water was changed to blood. The fish in the Nile
died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water.
Blood was everywhere in Egypt.

But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and
Pharaoh's heart became hard. He would not listen to Moses and Aaron just as the
Lord had said. " Now it might have struck you that it was Aaron who stretched
out the staff and struck the water.

You think, "Well, that wasn't the way it was in the movie. I thought it was
Moses who did that. " Remember that Moses had told God when he met with him at
the burning bush that he just couldn't do it, and so God had said, "I'll use
Aaron.

" Aaron happens to be Moses' older brother, who often gets remembered more for
his mistakes. But here you see that God is using him in powerful ways. But here
you also see the confusion continues.

The magicians are still making it seem as if these miracles are not any miracles
at all. And here's the point for you and I. We all have magicians in our lives
when we're seeking to change.

We all have people who will tell you that you're just fooling yourself that this
could happen. We all have people who tell us, "How could you think that that
could possibly happen for you? Do you know anybody that that's happened for?

" We all have people who want to even ridicule you for what you're doing. Here's
the point about the magicians. These real magicians in the days of Moses and
those in our lives that tell us we're just fooling ourselves, magicians don't
care about you.

They care about themselves. The reason that these magicians did these things was
because they wanted to keep their job in Pharaoh's kingdom. And the reason
people in your life tell you that you're just fooling yourself or ridicule you
for what you are doing is because they've got the same problems and challenges
in their own life.

And if you can change, if God can change you, then they realize they can change
too. The excuses begin to get erased. And because of that, they ridicule you.

Because of that, they say you're foolish. Magicians don't care about you. They
care about themselves.

This barrier of, third barrier of confusion is one that we all have to face. We
break through it as we realize, "I keep holding on to the truth of God's word. "
Now before we end today, what is this that we keep reading about the hardening
of Pharaoh's heart?

In verse 13 and verse 22, we hear the same thing. Pharaoh's heart became hard.
He would not listen to Moses and Aaron just as the Lord had said.

To be hardened here means to be set like cement, unchangeable. Pharaoh's actions
and choices were determining the mold of his life. Now an aside here, by the
way, God wants you and I to have hearts of clay, moldable, not hearts of cement,
set.

Our lives being molded by him, not set by ourselves. But back to Pharaoh and
what was happening. What does it mean that his heart was hardened?

I don't believe that it means, based on who we are as human beings, that God
took away Pharaoh's free will, his ability to choose, for one instant. I do
believe that God knew that Pharaoh would never choose to follow him. And he
brought circumstances that caused him to get deeper and deeper and deeper into
trouble with every choice.

I also believe, as I read about this hardening of Pharaoh's heart, that there
are some things here that are beyond my understanding in the way that God deals
with us as men and women, as mankind. In fact, in Romans 9, as Paul talks about
this hardening of Pharaoh's heart, he comes down to the answer, who are we to
question God? Who are you to question God?

In the end, I come down to trust. I trust in the love and the justice of God. He
has shown himself trustworthy time and time again.

He has shown himself to be a loving and gracious and patient God time and time
and time again. So the idea that somehow God used Pharaoh like a puppet here and
kept him from a salvation that could have been his is entirely apart from the
God that I know, the God that reveals himself in the Bible. I also believe
something else about this look at Pharaoh's hardened heart.

I believe this should cause us to look at ourselves. A stubborn heart is a
terrible thing. And it is easy to look at Pharaoh here, to get caught up in the
theological debate and discussion here, and to forget that my heart gets
stubborn.

The pattern of a stubborn heart is the pattern of Pharaoh's life in these
chapters. You have sadness in the moment that you might face consequences. And
you might even in that moment in your stubbornness of heart say, "All right,
I'll be set free.

All right, I'll let God do this in my life. " But the moment the fear of the
consequences removed, then this obsessive need to hold on to what you wanted or
hold on to how you wanted to get it done comes back into your life. As soon as
the sadness over the bad that might happen goes away, you return to that
stubbornness of heart.

I have to have it my way. I have to prove it my way. And even as believers,
those who have already settled the question of whether you know Jesus Christ and
you're following him, settled the question of where you're going to spend your
eternity, you still struggle with a stubborn heart.

I still struggle with a stubborn heart. So for me, as I read these chapters, I
feel a sadness for Pharaoh, but I also want to look at myself and say, "God,
where is my heart stubborn? Where am I trying to hold on to something that I
know you need me to let go of?

In fact, hold on in a place where I know you want to set me free. Why am I
staying behind prison bars when you've already unlocked the door? How can you
set me free?

" Let's pray to get it. And as you pray, I want to encourage you just pray this
simple prayer today. Lord, I want to have a willing heart, not a willful heart.

Lord, I want to have a sensitive heart and not a stubborn heart. In your name, I
ask for that. Amen.

Tomorrow we're going to continue to look at the barriers we face when we come up
against our biggest obstacle.