Instead of making up a story for you this morning, I’d like to borrow some history and turn it into a parable. We shall come back to this, but Paul points out that Israel was ignorantly zealous for their idea of God. And as a result, when Jesus of Nazareth came to them, they couldn’t see that He was their Messiah. Furthermore, they rejected His message of salvation by grace through faith, because they considered themselves to be above that kind of deliverance. In fact, they had convinced themselves that they really didn’t need deliverance at all. They were so full of themselves that they considered themselves to be pure and righteous enough not to need God’s mercy and grace.
But of course, the Egyptians had their own particular sins, along with an army of gods. Some of those gods approved and even encouraged various sins – or so the people wanted to believe. And as a result their priests were among the most respected and protected people in her society. When Joseph was taxing the people in preparation for the 7 years of famine, the priests were exempt. When everyone ran out of cash, the people gave their lands and animals to the crown, but not the priests. Those priests had the ear of the King, and some were among his most important counselors. They spoke with great authority about morals, society and the nature of their gods. And they had plenty of gods of which to speak, especially considering the fact they had several religions. There was Osiris – the chief god, and Isis – his wife. There was Ra – the sun god, and Khent-amenti – the jackal-headed, lord of the dead. There was Khepera and Atmu, Nut and Geb, Shu and Tefnut. Then many people worshiped various animals – from cats to crocodiles. Some worshiped their dead ancestors and others venerated their king. I can’t say that it was universal, but it was common for ancient civilizations, like Egypt, to be filled to overflowing with religion and false gods. And needless to say, many people were zealous, to the point of fanaticism, about their religion.
Despite this over-abundance of false gods and religious emotion, Jehovah was in the midst of Egypt. Because He the one true and living true God, He is omnipresent. He is in the Heaven above and in the earth beneath; in Jerusalem and Egypt all at the same time. In one sense He is in the heart of the child of God and in another sense He is in the heart of everyone. Jehovah may have been actually worshiped in only a few places in Egyptian the province of Goshen, but He filled the Palace of Pharaoh, and the Temple of Ra, as much as he filled the house of Aaron. And not only was the Lord present throughout Egypt, but He was the defacto Lord of Egypt. For example, with less effort than we might blink an eye, the Lord turned the massive Nile River into a stream of blood. Not only did He call an army of frogs out of the river, and bred a billion flies in the stench of the decay, but He called in locusts from the desert, and they obeyed as if they were the Lord’s personal angels. Even more miraculously He transformed dust into lice, just as He later transformed water into wine. Jehovah was the true governor, in absolute control over Egypt, and He abundantly proved that fact.
As I hope you all remember, the Lord ordered ten plagues to induce Pharaoh to let Israel emigrate to Canaan. With each successive disaster, the nation was reduced in wealth, health and spirit. Their river was turned into a stinking cesspool. Their homes were turned into infested and infected dung hills. Their fields were turned into wastelands, and their animals were turned into living skeletons, and many died. Then the people of Egypt themselves were painfully ill as well. Finally came the knockout punch – the death of the thousands of the nation’s finest young men. Eventually, under great political, economic and spiritual pressure, Pharaoh gave Israel permission to leave. But for reasons about which we can only guess, instead of moving east and north, Israel marched south. They became wedged between a small range of mountains and the Red Sea.
At that point, I believe that Pharaoh had three options. First, he could have passively let Israel continue on their way home, by whatever route they chose. In other words, he could have simply obeyed God. Second, he could have even further softened and given himself over completely to the Lord. He could have repented of his sin and all his former transgressions, submitting to Jehovah. He could have become a proselyte, even a convert to Christ. But he chose a third option, to defy God and to attack Israel.
And now we approach the point: Why didn’t Pharaoh submit to the Lord? It is a somewhat complicated question with lots of ways to answer. The most direct reply is that Pharaoh had an indurate (in-de-rat) heart – a stubborn, hard heart. In some verses, as we saw in Romans 9, we are told that God GAVE him that hard heart. Exodus 4:21 – “And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.” Then again in other verses we are told that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Exodus 9:34 – “And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.” This hard heart is the most direct answer to the question of “why,” but we can extend our answer. For example, we can say that he suffered from a zeal for religion, but not according to true knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish his own righteousness, he did not submit himself unto the righteousness of God.
It has been often said that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. This week there was an 8-year-old boy who killed himself with an Uzi automatic weapon at a gun show in Massachuset. The father of this child had been teaching his son how to use weapons, but obviously there are limitations to what kids can learn and do. Anyone can pull a trigger, and some can even release locking mechanisms. But now that little boy is dead, and criminal charges are pending. A little knowledge may be worse than no knowledge at all. In the case of Pharaoh, there were many things that he knew about the Lord. For example, he was fully convinced that there was a spirit world and a god, or gods, who ruled there. He believed that there is life after death – even his own heart and religion taught him that. But he should have been convinced of his own frail mortality as he saw his son die at the command of Jehovah. He had also been instructed by Moses about some of the decrees of Jehovah. He should have known that God has an elect people, and that Egyptians were not among that number. There was probably a lot of spiritual truth that he possessed. But he had also been taught to believe that he was basically self-sufficient. Particularly as king, he felt that he was bound to no man; he was sovereign; he was independent. And even if he chose to acknowledge Osiris, Isis and Ra, he chose not to acknowledge Jehovah.
So where did this indurate, hard heart of his lead him? Paul uses a word in Romans 10:2 which is not translated in that verse, but is rather transliterated as “zeal.” But sometimes “zelos” (dzay’-los) is translated – as “envy,” “indignation,” “jealousy” and “emulation.” Strong defines the word as “excitement of mind, ardour, and fervour of spirit; Zeal, ardour in embracing, pursuing, defending anything; The fierceness of indignation, punitive zeal; An envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy.” Nearly all of these words could be applied to Pharaoh as he lead his army towards entrapped Israel. He was pursuing with the fiercest indignation and a heart filled with punitive zeal – a desire to punish. His pride had been bruised by the Lord; he was angry. His self-righteousness and his personal religion had been crushed by the judgment of God, but rather than acknowledge and submit to the Lord, he was retaliating in the only way that he knew how.
With Israel apparently trapped and with no place to go, Pharaoh mounted his chariot and pushed his army. But of course, the Lord had foretold Moses that this would happen. To say that the Lord was prepared for this is almost blasphemous, because omnipotence doesn’t need to prepare for anything. As you know, the Lord moved his pillar of cloud and fire to stand between Israel and the Egyptians. And then with Israel whimpering and whining behind him, Moses was ordered to raise his arms, with the rod of his God-given authority, over the Red Sea. The waters of the sea parted, and the mud solidified, making a path as smooth as a modern highway. As God held the Egyptians at bay, Israel walked through the sea even without mud clinging to their toes. Then the Lord withdrew His hand, releasing Pharaoh and his army. Blinded with wrath, they pursued Israel into the Valley of Water – the Valley of Death. But it was a disastrous move. First, the wheels of their chariots – the wheels of their pride, their self-righteousness, and their wrath fell off, getting bogged down in the quickly softening mud of the sea floor. And then with Israel safely on the opposite shore, the Lord ordered that the waters return to their natural depth and former condition. Pharaoh and his men drowned apparently without a single survivor.
But when the fulness of time was come and God sent forth His Son, His only begotten Son, they rejected Him. The Lord Jesus spoke a parable about this very thing: A certain man had beautiful, productive vineyard, which he rented out to a chosen group of caretakers. When it was time to collect the rent and receive the owner’s share of the profits, his tenants rebelled. Eventually the owner sent his own son, but those wicked husbandmen, took and killed the young man. For a multitude of reasons, Israel did not want the Lord to rule over them. They were filled with personal pride, wicked self-righteousness, greedy covetousness, and terrible sin.
And yet this was in spite the fact that they were zealous about their degenerated religion. Like the Egyptians they had their idols and a god whom they had recreated to look just like themselves. They had redefined sin so many times that they no longer even had to use that word. Sure, they could quote whole chapters of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and they could sing half the Psalms from memory. But they were ignorant of the righteousness of God, which those scriptures clearly taught. And with that lack, they refused, or they neglected, to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. That is – they refused to submit themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is righteousness personified. As I say, when He came to them, they didn’t recognize Who He was.
In fact, their zeal drove them faster and faster down a very slippery slope. In their zeal, they blindly, foolishly, and illegally charged and tried the Son of God for blasphemy. In their zeal, they begged the Romans to crucify Him. In their zeal, since they couldn’t attack God the Father directly, they attacked the Son who was readily available. And yet, what they did, they did in the Name of God – they did in zeal for the Lord – or so they thought.
But the wheels have come off their self-righteousness and their sinful-chariots. God showed to the Jews of that generation that they were a bunch of fools, when He sent the Romans to overthrow their nation. And except for a few exceptions by the grace of God, every member of that generation realized at the moment they died, that the wheels of their false religion had long since come off. The flood of judgment waters roared over them like the bursting of a dam, and there wasn’t a thing that could be done at that point.
We are as much the self-righteous creatures for whom Paul was praying as were the Israelites. We need to know that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (but only) to every one that believeth.” We have nothing to offer God to please Him. You and I have no righteousness, no righteous works, no righteous theology. We are sinners as much as Pharaoh or Judas, even though our sins may appear to be different.
There is only one means of deliverance from these sins – the righteousness of Christ. In His absolute perfection, righteousness and sinlessness, Christ Jesus, died on the cross. And now, as the Lord graciously begins to show us His righteousness, those who repent of their sin, trusting Christ experience the saving grace of God. The Lord has opened a channel through a sea blood-red with judgment for sin, and all who will humbly and trusting God enter that path, will reach the other side. Zeal for religion, and even zeal for God is not what saves sinners like us. We need the righteousness of Jesus Christ; we need the justification of God. And for that we need to repent of our sins and to trust the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.