Showdown with Pharaoh

Pause to Consider: 

• Does it bother you when someone you love does something that you can’t seem to understand?
• Does it bother you when God does something that you can’t understand?

Exodus 7:3, But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you.

Pause to Consider: 

• What is a hard heart?
• What is its cause?
  

Ezekiel 36:26, And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Psalm 51:10, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

1. Nile turned to blood.
2. Frogs swarm up out of the Nile.  
3. Dust turns to gnats and covers all the land.
4. Flies swarm everywhere except Goshen.
5. Egyptian livestock dies while Israel’s is spared.
6. Sores cover man and beast.
7. Heavy hail like never before. 
8. Locusts cover land and eat everything that is left.  
9. Pitch darkness for three days.
10. Death of firstborn son.

Exodus 10:1-2, Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

1. That you may tell...  future generations that God deals harshly with sin.

Genesis 6:5-7, The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:11, Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

Genesis 6:13, And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

1st Peter 3:18, ...when God's patience waited in the days of Noah...

• God’s patience is not without limit or purpose.
  

2nd Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2.  That you may know...  that God is the Lord.

7:17, By this you shall know that I am the Lord.

8:10, Be it as you say so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.

8:22, ...that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.

9:14, ...so that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth.

9:16, But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you My power, so that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

9:29, ...so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.

• God goes to extreme measures to reveal Himself.
  

Hebrews 1:1-2, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.

BIG IDEA:

Ultimately, God both dealt harshly with sin and revealed Himself through the person of Jesus Christ.

Pause to Consider:  What was He teaching them?

NEXT STEP:

As His chosen people...  Find awe in His power, obey His commands, and be a blessing to the world.

Memory Verse:  Exodus 10:1-2, Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”