Duel of the Snakes

Good morning.

Passage of Scripture is from Exodus chapter 7, verses 1 through 13.

Exodus 7:1–13

And the Lord said to Moses, See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.

You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel out of his land.

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.

Then I will lay my hand on Egypt, and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.

When I stretch out my hand against Egypt, and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

Moses and Aaron did so, they did just as the Lord commanded them.

Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, When Pharaoh says to you, Prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded.

Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.

For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents.

But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

Still Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Denver.

We've got uh a big day for our church.

Later this afternoon at 3 30, we'll be gathering back together for our organization service, which is our officially as a church body being brought into the PCA, which will be a very exciting and uh joyful time.

It's uh the service should be about an hour.

There'll be um uh other folks from the Rocky Mountain Presbytery, um, other pastors and elders coming in who will uh uh preach a word of encouragement for our church.

Uh we'll sing together, we'll take vows as elders, and uh you'll also take a vow as a church.

And then we're going to have a big celebration uh with uh barbecue that's being smoked perhaps as we speak.

And uh I don't know, is that true?

It is true.

And uh there's um uh yeah, just like all sorts of food and drinks and uh a big party outside.

Uh we've received a beautiful day for the celebration, so I think it will just be a really great afternoon to gather all together.

Plus, like the truly reformed folks have a morning service service and an evening service.

So now today we are we are truly reformed.

Uh so uh yeah, thanks thanks again for for joining us this morning.

Uh and we'll continue through the book of Exodus, and we're arriving at that threshold of the plagues.

And this morning we get our first wizard duel.

So let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your loving kindness, for your preservation of your church, for your right judgment, Lord, that we see on display in our story today.

Father, we pray that you would give us your wisdom to understand your word, that the strangeness that we see of serpents becoming a staff and the magicians of Egypt standing up in defiance of your prophets, the hardness of Pharaoh's heart.

Lord, let us receive the warning that you give to Pharaoh for our own hearts this morning, so that we might see your judgment as good, and come under it with the provision that you offer us in Jesus Christ.

Father, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So today's text really does unfold in two parts.

The first part is Moses and Aaron receiving what amounts to their final encouragement from the Lord before the events of the plagues really start.

And then with this encouragement, they go before Pharaoh and they perform this miracle before Pharaoh of taking their staff and casting it down and it becoming a serpent, and then the magicians are able to perform the same thing.

And so we see the encouragement of them, and then we see this initial engagement with Pharaoh that really acts as like a type of all that is to come for Pharaoh with the plagues that will unfold through the rest of the story leading up to the Exodus.

And so there's this encouragement, and then there's this proof of what's going to happen that's given to Pharaoh.

But Pharaoh is unable to receive it.

He's unable to look at this clear evidence that is given by Moses and Aaron.

And instead, when he sees it, his heart is just further hardened.

And so we're exploring today what is the purpose of that.

What does it take to convince our hearts that God is the Lord, that he is the one who has the right judgment and that he ought to submit to.

It's really, in a sense, like a competition of judgments.

And we see how Pharaoh, how God prepares the hearts of Moses and Aaron to be able to receive the right judgment of the Lord.

And how he demonstrates, God demonstrates his right judgment before Pharaoh, but because of Pharaoh's hardness of heart, he is not able to see it.

And so he leads his life by a wrong judgment of the same evidence.

This really is, in a sense, about judgment.

Now we don't really like judgment.

We don't like to judge each other.

Well, you know, it's a double-edged sword.

We like to, we don't like to be judged, and we consider it a value to like not judge, but but judgment is essential because we're we're always making judgments.

There's there's no way that you can even do something as simple as like look out into a room and focus on the right things in the room unless you're making judgments about things.

Otherwise, it would just be a blur of random information that you're perceiving.

I know this because I I I'm I'm always making judgments, you're always making judgments, and the things that you see, the world that you take in, and your ability to take in the world is based upon those judgments.

I coached my son's soccer team.

I coach the team that my son is on.

Like Coach Prime.

And I don't know anything about soccer.

I know nothing about soccer.

The I'm the assistant coach, and the coach that I coach with, he knows things about soccer.

And so he sees all these things that are happening.

When I'm watching it and and my son is playing, I'm supposed to be coaching the team.

But when I'm watching the game, I'm just like looking, I'm just looking at my son the whole time.

And you're, I'm, I should, you know, and I try and like compensate by like looking at the other kids, but but I'm I realize that just the way that I'm shaped and my affections for him and my my hope for him and care for him, it it trains, that judgment trains just how I see the game.

And I know all of the parents on the sidelines are doing the same thing.

They're all looking at my son because he's the best.

So their judgment is training in that right way.

You know, we we need to realize this: that that is the way that you are experiencing the world.

You're experiencing the world through the lens of your judgments.

But there is a right judgment.

And that right judgment belongs to the Lord.

And so when our judgments are in disagreement with the judgment that the Lord shows to us, that He's revealed to us in the world, then the truth is we're living outside of reality.

And it's not a matter of just being shown the right proof or being shown the right evidence that would allow us to receive the judgment of the Lord.

It's a matter of our posture of heart towards the Lord.

My posture of heart towards my son means that I'm just seeing him when he plays soccer.

Your posture of heart towards the Lord determines whether or not you're able to see and discern the clear work and warnings that he is doing right in front of you.

And we see that laid out in sort of a in a negative picture in the story today with Pharaoh.

So let's get context for this first part of our story.

In Exodus 6, 28 through 30.

On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, the Lord said to Moses, I am the Lord, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you.

But Moses said to the Lord, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips.

How will Pharaoh listen to me?

That's the second time we've heard that phrase.

And that's actually the phrase that bookends the genealogy that we looked at last week.

Last week we we moved through this seemingly strange genealogy, which hopefully feels a bit less strange after last week's sermon.

And that was bookended in this typical Hebrew structure of saying a phrase and then and then putting some information and then saying that same phrase but in a reverse order at the end of it.

And so that for the second time we hear Moses say, I am of uncircumcised lips.

How will Pharaoh listen to me?

So Moses' disposition towards going back into Pharaoh is I'm not the one who can do this.

I don't have lips that are pure.

I am not set apart.

Circumcision is about being set apart and marked by the Lord.

I am not set apart.

I'm just I'm just this sort of whoever I am.

I'm Moses.

This seem I'm sure he felt very ordinary to himself.

I am not capable of going before Pharaoh and retrieving the people of God.

So that's the question that remains that Moses poses to God.

This is where our text picks up today.

How is it that God answers that question to Moses?

You see, this is in a sense about Moses' judgment of himself.

And it's in disagreement with God's judgment.

And so God is going to say, I'm going to offer you a right judgment of your role in this story.

And if you receive the Lord's right judgment, you'll be able to participate in the story.

So the Lord said to Moses in Exodus 7, verse 1 through 2, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.

Exodus 7:1–2

So listen to Moses' judgment, where he is in the story.

I can't go before Pharaoh, I am of uncircumcised lips.

That's Moses reading the data, looking out through his own eyes.

God says, I've made you like God to Pharaoh.

Now Moses could easily have said, Well, last time I was in Pharaoh's court, I relayed to him the word that you had given to me, and he doubled down on his slavery of the Hebrews, and he only made life harder for them.

So I'm not seeing the effectiveness of how I am like God to Pharaoh.

But whose judgment will win?

Whose judgment has the final say of what role in this story Moses will play?

That's the decision that Moses has before him.

So he has made Moses like God to Pharaoh.

This should be an incredible encouragement to Moses.

You know, if he trusts the Lord of what he is calling him to do, and he trusts that the Lord's judgment of him is the true one that will be effective, then he will be able to confidently move in to what the Lord is calling him to.

But lest Moses think, you know, he is God, God relays in verse 2, you shall speak all that I command you.

The words are the commands of the Lord.

The authority is the word of God.

That is why Moses is able to be like God to Pharaoh.

It's because he's being sent in with the word of God, by the authority of God.

And your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of the land.

This is a deeply encouraging word that should stand in stark contrast to Moses' own assessment of where he was in the story.

But then with this encouragement, God lays out for him the rely the reality of what he ought to expect before Pharaoh.

In verse 3, he says, 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.

So now Moses has this sort of strange dynamic.

You will be like God to Pharaoh, and when you go speak to Pharaoh, he won't listen.

So go get up as much speed as you possibly can to run through this tunnel, which is actually a brick wall with a painting of a tunnel on it.

This is a strange command of the Lord.

I've made you like God to this man.

Go in, I will harden his heart, so that your words will not be effective in changing his mind to release the Egyptians.

You're going to go speak to this man, and it will just harden him further.

Isaiah is given the same sort of instruction in Isaiah 6 when he's caught up to the throne room of God in this glorious image that we're shown in Scripture of Isaiah himself standing in the very throne room of God with the seraphim flying around and the train of the Lord's robe filling the temple.

The angels of the Lord shouting, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

His response is, Isaiah's response is, I am a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips.

See, it's the same sort of interaction, same disposition that Moses has.

And then the Lord sends a seraphim, cleanses his lips, offers the same sort of reassurance, although in a more pragmatic way, of a burning hot coal touched to your mouth from an angel with tongs.

And there's there's uh and then he says that he will follow the Lord as Moses will hear.

And then he's he's told, he's instructed by God, go and speak to this people, so that by hearing they will not hear, by seeing they will not see, lest they would turn and be saved.

So he said, Go proclaim the word to this people, and their hearts won't receive it.

That's a tough ministry.

Go and proclaim the word of the Lord, and what this will demonstrate plainly is the hardness of the hearts of these people.

And that's what Moses is commanded to do here.

Go and speak to Pharaoh, and it will plainly demonstrate the hardness of his heart, but this is part of the Lord's plan.

Because what the Lord is making plain is the superiority of the Lord's judgment over Pharaoh's judgment.

And the way that that will be plain is by a contest over ten plagues, in which the judgment of the Lord is laid bare for all to see, and the judgment of Pharaoh will likewise be laid bare for all to see, and it will be plain for anyone who has eyes that the judgment of the Lord was right, that the Lord is the true God here, He is the one with the true judgment, He is the one who speaks with the authority of heaven and earth.

God exp explains this.

He says to Moses in verse 4 through 5, Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

So you can hear the very narrative that will unfold, and how the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, which looks like it stands in plain opposition to the very Word of God, is actually accomplishing the very purpose that God has for his people.

Because he is raising up Pharaoh, demonstrating the plainness of his hardness of heart towards the Word of God.

And then he will rescue his people by judgment against Pharaoh.

The mechanism by which God will rescue the people of Egypt, the people of Israel, is judgment against Pharaoh.

And so he raises him up, he hardens his heart so that his judgment might be apparent for all to see.

And we might be able to look and understand the Lord is God.

It is evident because his word stood, his judgments proved true, and Pharaoh's did not.

So Moses and Aaron, by this encouragement and by the understanding of precisely what it is that they're coming to do to raise up Pharaoh in the hardness of his heart, but that they should not be discouraged by that, because they'll understand that it is through the hardness of Pharaoh's heart that the judgment against Egypt will be manifest, and that by that judgment against Egypt, the people of Israel will be saved.

And so this is the prophetic role that they are called to, which is one of, in a sense, by their immediate experience of failure, their immediate experience of rejection, by them being the ones who are positioning themselves uniquely to almost come under the hardness of Pharaoh, the tyranny of Pharaoh, that they trust that the Lord through this will deliver.

That it is by moving into that hardness, that difficulty for the Lord, that He will deliver out of that.

So they are able to move now in hope.

And think of what this means.

It's almost like this like Judo move, or you know, how I think Judo works move.

When they see now, when they move into this and they understand the judgment of God and they understand their place in the story, when they see their proclamation of the word of God only over and over again, hardening Pharaoh's heart, they would know it's working.

It's working.

But they could only trust that if they understood because God willed.

Deliver.

You can't hold fast to that type of persistent rejection.

If you think that if they thought that they would deliver the Egyptians by their cunning or by their appeasement of the wickedness, they are being positioned, God is positioning them in a way where their only hope of deliverance is God himself and his right judgment at the right time, making itself known.

So in verse 6, it says Moses and Aaron did so.

They did just as the Lord commanded them.

And this is really the last time throughout the plagues that we see Moses and Aaron offer this sort of complaint to the Lord.

They move in now with the encouragement of the Lord and his right judgment.

So, what is this first interaction that they head into?

It's a it's a a duel between Pharaoh's power and between the power of God given to Moses and Aaron.

So Exodus 7, verses 8 through 9.

Exodus 7:8–9

Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, When Pharaoh says to you, prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.

They've done this before, the same sign.

But remember, the last time that they gave this sign, it was not before Pharaoh, it was before the Israelites.

And it was meant to convince the Israelites that they were truly sent by God.

So now they are taking the same sign that was given to the Israelites and laying it down before Pharaoh, that same meaning that attends the sign.

So the Lord knows exactly what will come.

That Pharaoh will request a miracle.

He will request a demonstration of their authority and power.

And this makes sense because they showed up and they said, We are speaking on behalf of God.

To which a right thing that Pharaoh might say is, can you give me something?

So he requests a miracle.

And the miracle that they're instructed to give is something like a proto-plague.

It's the it's all of the plagues, all of what will happen in all the plagues that are to come is demonstrated to Pharaoh here.

And it's also a, well, I'll get to this later, but it's a bookend with the Exodus.

This plague has this clear reference to the Exodus itself, so that Pharaoh, if he had eyes to see through this event, would plainly be able to see the right judgment of God.

Now, this casting down the snake is perfectly attuned to the Egyptian story.

I'll read it what what happens.

In verse 10, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded.

Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

Now that image of the staff being cast down and becoming a serpent, this is so well attuned to the Egyptian framework.

So the Egyptian creation myth assumes that there are pre-existent, meaning uncreated, primordial waters.

That's what exists at the beginning.

An uncreated primordial water.

Now, if you've got a creation myth and it doesn't have primordial waters, ah, not for me.

We understand that there's something about birth comes from the waters.

Our creation story has primordial waters.

They aren't pre-existent to the Lord, but they are pre-existent to the formation of creation, that the Holy Spirit hovers over these sort of chaotic, unformed, primordial waters.

Even our own secular creation myth, like probably your science textbook growing up, had a picture of a creature crawling out of the water to finally evolve onto walking on land.

That's why that creation myth is so sticky and just like it takes root because it draws on these same images of there's this chaotic world, and then from this chaos, order is drawn from.

And so the the secular Dar Darwinian creation myth has those very same images in it.

It's not very different from the way the creation myth of ancient Egypt would have felt.

I think when we our our own myths, our own culture's myths feel uh totally transparent to us.

It's like they aren't really myths.

And so it's helpful to recognize them because for to the Egyptian, this doesn't feel like like when we go back and like look at ancient Egypt, it's like Indiana Jones stuff, or like they they they're so their experience of the world was so different from our own, and they believed these strange things because they were these these uh ancient peoples and these sort of fools in the way that they experienced the world.

And then we'd ask them, like, where do you think things came from?

And it's like, well, there were these chaotic waters, and then order emerged out of the waters.

And we'd be like, that's so silly.

And then we open our textbook, and it's like, here's this whale that's walking out of the chaotic waters, which is different than yours.

Um if we can uh if we can gain a little bit more proximity, um shrug off a bit of our snobbery towards the ancient Egyptians.

There is now there what enters into the uh the story then is there's these primordial waters and then the god Re.

Um R-E.

I think it's pronounced Ray, but I'd all uh haven't you all heard it pronounced Ra?

Yeah, so did I, because of Sun Ra, who I think is actually just a jazz musician.

But we uh uh so I think uh Re-E, I'm gonna go with Re, because seems like how I pronounce those letters, is self-created.

He's he's their their chief god, he's the god of the sun, and he self-creates himself into this chaotic environment, and then he subdues eight other gods that are chaotic, and he brings them into order.

So, Pharaoh is the personal manifestation of the sun god.

And the sun, the sun god, is the one that holds the world in order.

Now, of course that's what Pharaoh is, because he is the one who holds Egypt in its perfect order.

Just as the sun is utter is absolutely predictable, it's reliable, and it brings order to the world, seasonality to the world, and it holds all things together.

It gives power, it gives under, it gives the light of understanding.

By it we are able to see.

And it shows us the patterns, even the seasonal patterns, and particularly for the Egyptians, the pattern of the flooding of the Nile.

All of their life is structured around these patterns that are built into the world.

And they they say, this order, when we attune ourselves to this order that we see in the world, then we are able to gain real power and move in it.

And so the depth with which you're able to reach into the chaos and then draw order out of it, is the amount of power that you're able to have in the world.

That's almost like the definition of power.

And so Pharaoh is, of course, the manifestation of this.

And Egypt is what brings order to this chaotic world.

Pharaoh is that source of order.

And so the sign, then, they're given, initially, at least, is almost like an inverse of the order to chaos.

The staff is the sign of order.

Pharaoh carried a staff, which was the sign of his order, that is, his power that is able to be extended into the world, which is plainly what a staff is.

It is the extension of your power into the world.

And so it is also the sign of Pharaoh's power in the world.

And they take this staff and they lay it down, and it becomes the chaos of a serpent.

And a serpent is chaos because you can't understand a serpent.

Serpents throughout history are always agents of chaos and destruction.

And of course, you know our own story, the Bible, the serpent in the tree.

How what would you say?

Good or bad?

Yeah.

So we see that there's this symbol of chaos, and it's indiscernible where they're move well, where they'll move next.

But Solomon writes in the Proverbs, in Proverbs 30, 18 through 19, he says, Three things are too wonderful for me, four I do not understand.

The way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin.

These are things that are I I cannot understand.

And they're there all of them are these images of the waters and chaotic potential and order, and the then there's this there's this manifestation of something that's you can't quite put your finger on, what it is, how it, how it happens, how this plays together.

And the serpent on a rock is an image of that.

It can't be understood.

You can't grasp it or understand it.

It doesn't have light shown on it.

The light of your understanding.

And so the serpent is this image of chaos.

And so they go before Pharaoh and they lay down their staff, and it becomes this chaotic serpent on the ground.

Now, this is also attuned to the Egyptians because this is a sort of demonstration of power that takes place in Egyptian myths.

We actually have a copy of a papyrus, the Westcar papyrus, which is an ancient Egyptian story which describes a magician turning a lump of clay into a crocodile when he tosses it into the water.

Now that's the same image as a snake.

In meaning, it's the same image as a snake.

Because there's chaotic waters, and there's what is a crocodile if you're an Egyptian?

It's this hidden danger that you can't control, that's right at the border of where you, this thing of where you need to live.

And their side, the sign of power that this magician is able to do in their story is throw this ordered wax into chaos, in danger.

So, what how does Pharaoh respond?

You have to, Moses and Aaron are 80 and 83, and they walk into the court of Pharaoh with a staff, and they lay it down, and it turns into a serpent.

This like I just uh if you don't know why when you see a wizard duel in a movie, you don't think that's weird, and instead you think, of course.

It's because that's what this is.

This is a this is a competition of power, of power in realms that are beyond our understanding.

And so Pharaoh brings in his own magicians.

In verse 11, then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts.

Isn't that bizarre?

Why is it that Pharaoh's heart was not immediately transformed when he saw the staff turn into a serpent before him?

Because he could call his own magicians.

And like Moses instructed Aaron to cast it down, Pharaoh is able to instruct his own prophets to cast down their staff, and it becomes a serpent.

So at this point, we're tied.

So here's the question, right?

Our question is, what's going on there?

I get, I get why Moses could do it, but why could Pharaoh's magicians do it?

Does anybody have is that the question?

Like what's going on?

Is that it?

Can we do that?

Listen to it's usually best to just take the text for what it says, usually best.

It's the Bible.

The magicians of Egypt also did the same.

How?

By their secret arts.

By their their the way that they had cultivated power in the world.

Look, the world is very weird.

It's very weird.

We think of this.

We don't we don't think that there's a real category of secret art.

But I want you.

Sam Altman, the open AI guy, he's still wait, does he still work there?

He's good.

He does.

Okay.

So there's this guy, and he's making artificial intelligence.

Now, when you're making artificial intelligence, uh, what what is it that you how how does that work?

Like how, when, when have you made the intelligence?

When has it moved from this chaotic thing that's indiscernible, and it's finally crossed this certain threshold into a place where it's no longer chaos, it's just order.

Do we understand that process?

Do we know, do we, is it, is it making in the way that you make like a car?

Is it making in the way that you make like a like a shovel?

It seems different, right?

It's something more like it's a power and an extension of power, but it's something more like summoning.

I think that that's a more helpful frame for what we're doing.

Because it's not as though you make it and you know when you've made it.

You make it and then you discover.

You discover whether or not it's been made.

So can staffs turn into snakes?

How exactly could that happen?

Is that the is the question how exactly could that happen?

I don't I don't know.

Can humans make other intelligences?

How exactly could that happen?

Other species of intelligences?

All I'm saying is we encounter ancient strangeness.

And we think we live in a world that has no strangeness.

But we are always extending our power in ways that we don't totally understand.

Ways that we don't totally grasp.

But there's a narrative to this story.

And you can hear it in the shift in language because this is not the end of the snake duel.

It's not just a who can take the staff and turn it into a snake.

There's something new that happens here.

Exodus 7, verse 12.

Exodus 7:12

For each man cast down his staff and they became serpents.

But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

Did you hear?

So they both became become serpents.

Wouldn't you expect it to say, but Aaron's serpent swallowed up their serpents?

I I read this so many times and didn't, I my mind just filled in serpent.

Aaron's serpent swallowed up their serpents.

When you picture this story, that's what you picture, but the language shifts here.

To Aaron's staff swallows, swallows up their staffs.

Okay, so the serpents are chaos, right?

The staff is order.

This is ultimately a competition of whose order stands.

And it is the Lord's order which will swallow up Pharaoh's order.

It is the staff which ultimately is triumphant in this battle.

And so, what is the picture that Pharaoh could plainly see?

We are all equally able, Pharaoh might say, all of us in this room are equally able to multiply the chaos.

And that is a type of power, the ability to multiply a chaos.

But what they've shown here is that out of that chaos, they are able to bring a triumphant order, one which will swallow up our own.

And if he had eyes to see, he would see that this is what would be laid out in all the plagues that were to come.

Now, this is a bookend because this story is right before all the plagues begin.

And then in the final, after the Passover, which is the final plague, and then after the Exodus, we get once again this verb swallowed.

It bookends the whole plague story.

And it's when the armies of Pharaoh are swallowed up by the earth, when the waters wash over them, and they are taken away forever.

So Pharaoh could see in this event all that was coming for him.

Still, in verse 13, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said.

Pharaoh and this example, this is the warning of Pharaoh.

And this is sort of the pattern of what it, what Pharaoh's power is like.

Pharaoh sees his power, and he sees that it is effective to accomplish incredible wonders.

Wonders like casting a staff down and it becoming a serpent.

It's able to accomplish these incredible wonders.

But he's not able to see that his power is not able to create the order.

He can only multiply his own chaos.

He can't make it order again.

He can multiply the death.

He can't cause resurrection.

This story stands as a warning for us that our hearts would not be like Pharaoh's heart.

That we would not be so seduced by our own tools and tactics, by our own powers and capabilities.

But instead, we might see that there is one who has an order that is beyond all.

And insofar as we stand against him, we will be raised up in judgment, and the hardness of our heart will ultimately condemn us before him.

But this one who has the greatest order, who is the one who is truly all powerful, he provides a way of escape from his right judgment.

The way of escape from his right judgment is a trust in his grace.

Because there is one who comes who came to crush the serpent, which plunges us into death and chaos.

But he crushes the serpent.

This is the strange thing of Jesus.

In Numbers, when they're wandering through the wilderness, a plague of serpents comes on the prideful Israelites.

And the way that the Lord provides for them to be rescued is to take a bronze serpent and raise it up on a staff, that by looking to it they might be saved.

A serpent and a staff.

The story of Scripture begins with a tree, like a staff, with a serpent in it.

The hope of our salvation is found in this same image.

Jesus is raised up as though he were a serpent onto the staff so that we might look on him and be saved.

Now, why would he be treated like a serpent?

He is not the chaos.

He is not the sin.

Well, he became sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we, the one in whose hearts we are all predisposed to have the serpent reign in, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

The way that we are saved by the judgment of the Lord is by the grace of the Lord, which is shown to us in Jesus Christ.

That's why the Israelites will be saved.

If you harden your heart towards the image of the staff and the serpent, and what that means for God's judgment on you and the requirement of your grace, of his grace for your survival, then you will be destroyed like Pharaoh.

But if you come under it to trust in the grace of the Lord, seeing the authority and the power, that there is only one who can hold both the serpent and the snake together, and that is God.

These two, these are images of contradiction, writhing and structured.

But the Lord holds them in his grace towards us, his justice and his mercy.

Don't harden your heart toward our hope of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Are there any questions today?

Can you speak to the interaction between God's sovereignty and Pharaoh's agency here?

Is this like a clay potter situation?

This is like a clay potter situation.

Uh because uh Paul uses that very example in Romans 9 to describe, uh, to finally describe what's happening with Pharaoh's heart.

But I think that uh with the uh the clay potter situation is uh when when Paul describes when Paul is addressing the question of how can we be punished for sin if God is the one hardening our heart, then he gets to this final answer where he says, Who are you, O clay, to speak back to the potter?

Which is an unsatisfying answer and one that forces you into the question to just continue wrestling with it until you come out thinking alongside Paul, God is God, he lives in the heavens, he does as he pleases, I'm his creature.

But we can't separate this Romans 9 clay potter understanding from what Paul clearly articulates in Romans 1.

And in Romans 1, he describes that all of us have been given more than enough evidence to know that God deserves our full honor.

Because in all that has been made, he has plainly revealed his eternal power and divine nature.

So that what proof is there of God?

All of this, all of this is proof of God.

And then we go up and we come up with a competing myth.

And we say, but have you considered primordial waters?

That we emerge that for the first time ever, you know, order emerged from a chaotic complexity into order because there was enough time.

If I only had more time.

God clearly makes known that we we are ordered by him.

But our hearts suppress the truth.

So God is hardening Pharaoh's heart because the ways of the king are like a river in the Lord's hands, such are the heart of kings.

He can guide them wherever he wants.

And he does.

And so he hardens Pharaoh's heart.

You know, this is an act of the Lord, but it is not like a it is not a taking over of Pharaoh's, you could understand it as it is not a taking over of Pharaoh's will, because Pharaoh is not out of agreement with what the Lord is doing.

Pharaoh is not like, I would love to follow you, God, but please don't hard and then, you know, frozen carbonite.

He is instead in perfect agreement with what the Lord is doing in his heart.

Because he has absolutely suppressed the truth that his eyes plainly attest to every day.

I am not the source of order.

God is the source of order.

So uh hopefully that speaks to that dynamic that we'll see throughout the scripture.