Moses and Aaron go back to Pharaoh to ask him to let their people go. During this visit they perform the sign the Lord showed Moses in Midian. Moses' shepherd staff turns into a snake.
"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.'" (Exodus 7:8-9) This is the same staff Moses had in the wilderness even though here it's referred to as Aaron's staff. The Lord instructed Moses to take the staff along with him to Egypt to perform a sign with it and Moses obeyed him. It's fitting for Aaron to carry the staff because in yesterday's passage the Lord said to Moses, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet." (Exodus 7:1) Since Moses is the one called by the Lord to deliver the people, the king can see that he is the one with the most authority between the two brothers. In that sense Moses is "like God" to Pharaoh. Moses is on a mission for God, and because this puts Moses in a position of authority, he gives the orders to Aaron and Aaron acts as a bearded prophet of old, performing signs and wonders at Moses' command just as the prophets performed signs and wonders at the Lord's command.
The Lord knew Pharaoh would demand signs and miracles. Remember what the king said when told that the God of the Israel wanted the people to go into the desert on a three-day sabbatical to worship and make sacrifices? He scornfully asked, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?" Pharaoh laughed in their faces. He doesn't believe in the God of Israel and he doesn't believe God sent Moses to ask for the peoples' freedom. When these two men appear before his throne again, the king is going to say something like, "If your God is so real and powerful, prove it! Show me something to convince me that He exists and that I should obey Him!"
Moses doesn't share with us the details of his and Aaron's conversation with the king, but things go as the Lord predicted. The king demands to see a miracle. "So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake." (Exodus 7:10)
In the desert, when the Lord first demonstrated this sign to Moses, Moses fled in fear from the snake. We would expect the king to do the same in fear and astonishment. But evidently he's as unmoved by this miracle as Yul Brynner was when he portrayed Pharaoh in "The Ten Commandments". Instead of being moved by fear and reverence for the power of the living God, Pharaoh's attitude is: "So what? You think the gods of Egypt can't do the same?" He calls in his own men---those who indulge in the dark practices of the occult---to imitate the miracle that just occurred in his court.
"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." (Exodus 7:11-12a) How do these wise men and sorcerers do this? Do they arrive at the palace with snakes hidden up their sleeves so they can perform sleight-of-hand tricks like a modern day stage magician? No, I don't think so. Their staffs undergo the same transformation as Moses' staff, but the power they use to accomplish this feat is the power of demons.
In our day it's becoming more and more common to scoff at the idea of wicked supernatural forces. But the Bible makes it clear to us that these forces are real and that they are dangerous. Later in the Old Testament the Lord will provide strict laws against dabbling in the occult. The penalty prescribed for breaking these laws is going to be death. Why? Because the danger was so real! Because an entire nation could have fallen into idolatry if such a thing weren't nipped in the bud. If demonic forces don't exist, why did the Lord Jesus Christ speak to them and cast them out of those they had afflicted? If the powers of darkness aren't as real as anything else in the seen and unseen realms, why did Jesus issue so many warnings about Satan and about hell? If spiritual wickedness doesn't exist, why are we told that in the end times the devil will put on a show of "powers, signs, and lying wonders" in order to try to deceive the whole world and turn it away from the truth? (See 2 Thessalonians 2:9-10) The Lord told us to be shrewd and on the alert because He knows (as no one else does) just how fierce the battle is for souls in the unseen realm. But at the same time He never once tells us to live in fear. He says to watch and pray, to be alert and sober minded, so we won't get caught off guard and pulled into sin and idolatry. We don't have to walk through life thinking the devil is hiding behind every tree we pass and that we are constantly in danger, for "greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4) But we are to use the wisdom available to us in the Scriptures to recognize and avoid the traps the devil sets along life's pathways. There's a difference between being alert and being afraid. There's a difference between being wise and not looking where we're going. Satan is not God's counterpart and he's no match for Him, but if we don't make ourselves familiar with the word of God and if we don't stay "prayed up", we might sometimes fall for the devil's lies and make mistakes big enough to haunt us for the rest of our lives. The Lord doesn't want that for us, so He warns us to be alert (not fearful!) and avoid a lot of unnecessary pitfalls along the way.
To prove to Pharaoh and to everyone present in his court---and to prove to us as well---that Satan is no match for God, the snake manifested by Moses' staff thrown down by Aaron has the upper hand over the snakes of the magicians of Egypt. "But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs." (Exodus 7:12b) I think this one snake literally swallows all the others, but it's important to note the symbolism here. In the Bible the phrase "to swallow up" is used to symbolize something that is being irrevocably destroyed, abolished, done away with, overthrown. When the snake that appeared by the power of God swallows up the snakes that appeared by the powers of darkness, the Lord is announcing His ability and His intention to overthrown and completely destroy the works of the devil. Satan will fall someday never to rise again. Evil will be no more. Our Lord will reign in righteousness forever and ever over a world where there will never again be sin or sorrow. Satan is a defeated foe. He always has been. Long before the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, the Lord had a plan of salvation in place for anyone willing to accept the sacrifice He planned to make for us. Because God had this plan, the devil's fate was already sealed. When the snake from Aaron's staff swallows up the snakes of the occult magicians, the Lord is making a powerful prophetic statement. Victory for the Lord is a foregone conclusion. It's a done deal. There is no match for Him. To quote the lyrics of one of my favorite contemporary songs called "What A Beautiful Name It Is," the Lord has no rival and no equal. There may be battles taking place in the unseen realm, but they are not battles where the opponents are evenly matched.
When Pharaoh sees the snakes of his magicians swallowed up, the hair on the back of his neck doesn't stand up. He doesn't get cold chills. He doesn't tremble in fear. Instead he hardens his heart even further. He doesn't believe in the God of Israel because he doesn't want to believe in Him. And I think he doesn't want to believe in Him because he doesn't want to serve Him. Serving a holy God calls for holy living on man's part, and Pharaoh isn't interested in holy living. The sight of his magician's snakes being swallowed up doesn't bring him to his knees before the living God; it only makes him angry. He doesn't want to submit to the Lord's authority (indeed, the kings of Egypt considered themselves the chief god and authority in Egypt) and he refuses once again to let the people go. "Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said." (Exodus 7:13)
No comments:
Post a Comment