The Story of God: The Dangers of Refusing God
August 21, 2018
Defiant! Here is the definition of a person who is defiant: A defiant person boldly refuses to obey authority. A defiant person resists authority, is obstinate, uncooperative, noncompliant and recalcitrant. In fact, to be recalcitrant means you have a stubborn resistance to authority. You fight authority. You refuse to listen. No amount of argument will change your mind – even if you are proven wrong you will stand your ground.
Sound familiar? Ever had to deal with someone who is defiant? Ever had to deal with someone who boldly resists your authority? My guess is that we’ve all experienced defiance in some ways. Maybe you experienced it when you were raising children. Yours was that kid who just refused to obey; who would sit in the middle of the grocery isle and just pitch a fit. Did you have one of those? Or maybe it was a rebellious teenager who refused to listen to you, obey you, and fought you tooth and nail until she got her way? Or maybe you witnessed defiance in the work place. And you learned pretty quickly that defiance will get you fired. In fact, when we see someone boldly resisting authority today it is never a pretty sight.
And yet, that’s where we find ourselves in the story of God today. For if you’ve been with us through our study of Exodus, we’ve met the one of the most obstinate and recalcitrant figures to ever defy God. We know him by his title only. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt: An oppressive tyrant who is so dead set against obeying God, so dead set against letting God’s people go, that he refuses to listen to anything God says. And because of his stubborn resistance to God’s Word, God is now ready to put Pharaoh in his place. After twice refusing to listen to God, God is going to show Pharaoh who’s the boss. And as He does, by striking Egypt with the first plague – the plague of blood, God wants to teach us something about the dangers of resisting God.
So, if you brought a Bible with you today, let me encourage you to open it to Exodus 7:14-24,where we’re going to learn why it is so important for us to have ears to hear and hearts that are willing to obey His Word. For this passage serves as a warning to anyone who refuses to listen to God. So let’s dig in.
The first reason it is so important for us to have ears to hear and hearts willing to obey His Word is found in verses 14-16. And that reason is this: God’s Will Never Changes Then the Lord said to Moses,“Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. Then say to him, ‘The Lord, theGod of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.“Exodus 7:14-16
You can hear it in God’s description of Pharaoh. He says his heart is unyielding. It’s resistant. It is not open to God. So Pharaoh defies God. He will not let his people go. Yet, God commands Moses to go to Pharaoh for a third time with the same message. But this time the setting is different. Moses isn’t to go the palace, but to the river.
Why the Nile? Here’s why: It was Pharaoh’s custom to go to the Nile every morning. The Bible does not tell us why Pharaoh went down to the Nile every morning. Perhaps he went there to bathe, like his daughters, or he enjoyed taking an early morning swim. But it is more likely that he went there to worship to the gods of the Nile. So here’s why God sent Moses to confront Pharaoh at the Nile: God is going to show Pharaoh who is worthy of worship.
You see God sends Moses to give Pharaoh the same message as before. His message hasn’t changed. He wants Pharaoh to let His people go, so they may worship Him in the wilderness. The actual word Moses uses is the word “serve.” This word “serve” is the same word that was used in chapter one to describe Israel’s slavery to the Egyptians (1:14), but the Israelites were not made to serve Pharaoh – they were made to serve the living God.
That’s God’s will. And God’s will never changes. He desires His people serve Him. His will is that we serve Him – that everything about our lives would bring glory to Him. This is central to the story of God. When God called Abraham and promised to make him into a great nation, it was so his offspring would become a blessing to the world. We are his offspring through our faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our King. We are His subjects. When we serve Him by blessing others, God is glorified. That’s God’s Will and God’s will never changes. That’s why God calls us into His story.
When Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” he was talking about how we glorify God. He said, “A town built on a hillcannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16 When we bless others – when we shine as lights in the world, we glorify the Father. That’s how we worship Him. Our worship is not about coming to sing a few songs, pray a few prayers, listen to His Word. No we worship God best when we become vessels of grace in the world. This is God’s will for us. His will never changes. That’s why we must compliant hearts not defiant hearts.
We need to hear this truth now, just as much as Pharaoh heard it then. You were created to bring glory to God. That means, Your goal in life is to bring glory to God with everything you say, everything you think, and in everything you do. Is that your goal in life? Is living to bring God praise the ambition of your heart? If it is, then you’ll cultivate ears to hear and hearts willing to obey His Word. But if this doesn’t describe you, if you resist God’s will, if you refuse to listen, then you are really no different than Pharaoh.
For Pharaoh REFUSED to listen to God. He wasn’t interested in giving God glory. He wanted ALL the glory for himself. He had no interest in giving the God of the Hebrews what He wanted. He was not going to let God’s people go. They were “his” servants. So he defied God. After all, he figured he didn’t need their God. He had his own gods – the gods of Egypt; and they were good enough for him. But God wasn’t about to leave Pharaoh to his man-made gods. That leads us to the second reason it is so important for us to have open ears and soft hearts to God.
What’s that reason? God Will Have No Rivals 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 in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.’” Exodus 7:17-18
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 vessels of wood and stone.” Exodus 7:19
God is about to show Pharaoh who He is. And He is going to reveal Himself by striking a death-blow against the river idols of Egypt – thus showing Pharaoh that his so-called “life giving gods” have no power. In fact, Pharaoh worshiped at least three gods who were associated with the Nile. One was the great Osiris,the god of the Nile, who was depicted with the river running through his bloodstream. Another was Nu,the god of life in the river. But the most important god was Hapi, the god of the flood. Hapi was a fertility god who was portrayed as a bearded man with female breasts and a pregnant stomach. Each year, Hapi was celebrated with the flooding of the Nile, because this flooding gave new birth to Egypt and nursed its strength. When the Nile flooded, new fertile sediment was deposited throughout Egypt and the Egyptians prospered by the renewal of this fertile soil. So Egyptians praised Hapi as “the giver of life,” as the one “who causes the whole land to live through his provisions.”
And so they sang his praises. This is one of their worship songs: “Hail to your countenance, Hapi, Who goes up from the land, who comes to deliver Egypt… Who brings food, who is abundant of provisions, Who creates every sort of good thing… Who fills Upper and Lower Egypt… Everything that has come into being is through his power.” But God will have no rivals. This is why God sent Moses to confront Pharaoh at the River. He is now going to show Pharaoh who truly holds the power of life. And so we read, Moses and Aaron did justas 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 into 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. Exodus 7:20-22
How catastrophic was this first plague? With one single blow God gave Egypt a water and food shortage, a transportation shutdown, an economic disaster, and a spiritual crisis. He did it all by turning the river into blood, making the object of their worship a thing of horror.
Now to get a feel for the impact on Egypt, imagine what life in the United States would be like if the stock market collapsed, the price of gas rose to forty dollars a gallon, the supply of drinking water was contaminated, and grocery stores ran out of food. What would happen? There would be widespread panic, violence in the streets, death and destruction in every city. So this was a powerful blow against the gods of Egypt.
So what was the point of this plague? To show that there is only One God who is the giver of life and every good thing. There is only One God who is worthy of our worship – Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews. With one blow, God rendered Pharaoh’s gods powerless. God will have no rivals! But now let me ask: Do we put anything or anyone in the place of God? Do we worship idols like Egypt did? Do we trust in counterfeit gods – the idols of our own making?
Listen to what Timothy Keller say us worshiping counterfeit gods: “A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.” He goes on to say: “An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry. “An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts,“If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship. Do you put anything or anyone in the place of God? God will have no rivals. He will not share His glory with another. This is what He says,“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Isaiah 42:8
I don’t know about you, but when I look closely at where I get my significance and security I am convicted that I live in a world with many idols – all wanting me to trust in them rather than trust in God. So I need this message as much as any: God will have no rivals!
So what happened next? Now we see The Dangers of Refusing God 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. Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. Exodus 7:22-24 Here is what happens when you refuse to listen to God, when you defy God and go your own way:
First,when you refuse to listen to God, you play into the devil’s hand. The evil one opposes God and wants you to find a way to discredit God. That’s what Pharaoh does here. He sends for his magicians again. But again, all they can do is an imitation of God’s miracle. In fact, by doing this, they make matters worse. Somehow they actually found some uncontaminated water and ruined it to prove a point. But if they were truly powerful, they might have tried turning the blood back to water. But they didn’t. The point here is, that Pharaoh is determined to show that he doesn’t need God. And that’s the lie that the evil one has been spreading from the beginning: You can do this yourself. You don’t need God. And that’s a dangerous place to be.
Second, when you refuse to listen to God, you’re turning your back on God. What a picture of Pharaoh’s defiance. God has brought a crisis of major proportion on Egypt, and he won’t even consider for a moment that God is all-powerful; “he did not take even this to heart.” He just ignored the evidence of God’s superiority, turned his back on Moses and Aaron, and retreated to his place of power – his palace. This is a picture of full-blown rebellion against God. The Bible describes this kind of rebellion in this way: But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away. Jeremiah 5:23 That’s defiance against God.
And then there’s this indictment from God that perfectly describes Pharaoh’s actions: Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return… None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. Jeremiah 8:5-6 That’s Pharaoh. His own arrogant rebellion will not allow him to listen to God. He clings to his deceit. He clings to his false gods, believing he has the answers. And that’s a dangerous place to be. But its not just a dangerous place for Pharaoh. He doesn’t even consider the consequences of his actions for his people. And that’s the final thing we see here:
When you refuse to listen to God, the consequences for others can be devastating. People cannot survive long without water – seven days at most. So now all of Egypt is in a panic. They are digging along the Nile for water. Now, its not just Pharaoh who is experiencing the blow of God’s plague – every Egyptian is dealing with a physical and spiritual crisis. And it was Pharaoh’s rebellious and hard heart that has brought this crisis to his people. And that’s just the thing with sin. It doesn’t just affect the sinner. Its consequences can affect your family, your community and even your country.
These are the dangers of refusing to listen to God. So let me ask you: How’s your heart this morning? Is it open and willing to hear and obey God? Or is it in rebellion? Are you compliant or defiant?
If it is open and willing to hear and obey God, be thankful. Be thankful that you have a great and mighty God. Worship Him alone and draw near to Him daily so you can hear His Word and live to bring Him glory.
But if it is not; if you still find yourself resisting His Word;if you’ve put something or someone in God’s place; if you realize that you have turned away from God and turned to something else for your security or satisfaction in life… then turn to Him. He is the God of life. He’s already proven His love for you by giving you His Son to die for you. Turn to Him and trust in Him.
There is only One God worthy of our worship. And He will have no rivals.
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