Pharaoh – Part 1 – Suffer (Used By God) Exodus

Pharaoh thought he himself was a god. Pharaoh saw the people of Israel as his slaves, his servants. He had no respect for God. Now he and his people believed in many gods. The idea that there is a god for everything. Pharaoh also saw himself as a god in an earthly position. So imagine being Pharaoh and this guy named Moses walks into your kingdom and home and tells you that God, the God of the people of Israel demands that Pharaoh lets his people go free. Imagine for one minute, outside of your 21st-Century mindset. Imagine the times of slavery in American History, when the north was trying to free the slaves in the south. Picture the anger, bitterness, and betrayal the south had for the north. Now increase that by 100 and you can get an idea of how Pharaoh is feeling right now in Exodus 5. Pharaoh is most likely thinking, “who does this Moses think he is?” Believe it or not, God used Pharaoh and his story has a role to play when it comes to our 21st-Century Walk With God.  

In verse 2 Pharaoh makes a statement that can easily be read over and not thought about. “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let the people go.” 

Pharaoh did not know the LORD. Therefore he didn’t obey his voice. He was only obeying his own voice. He only knew himself. That was the problem with Pharaoh, he didn’t know the Lord. 

An interesting statement made by Moses and Aaron followed in Verse 3, “..that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God…” Moses and Aaron took a huge stand for God by reinstating that, “hey Pharaoh, the LORD, the one you don’t know, we know him and he is our God.” Which this statement is huge because Pharaoh is not their God, the LORD is. Moses and Aaron made it clear in this conversation. 

When is the last time that we made it clear who our God is? As we go about our normal conversations and situation that Life brings us. Do we make it clear to others which God we serve. The God of this current world or the God of Beginning and End? 

Following God came with a price to pay in exodus. Pharaoh increases the Labor requirement on the slaves and beat the Leaders for not keeping those requirements. By the end of Chapter 5, the Leaders and people are Israel are worried that they might be killed for standing for God and against Pharaoh. Today in 2021, Christians in free nations don’t worry about having to stand by God even if death is the reward, but for some reason, this creates weak Christians in free nations. Let’s re-examine our lives and start standing for God, even if it means we lose friends and gain enemies. Our free nations are falling apart because Christians don’t stand by God’s word anymore. I don’t have to go deeper, because as your reading this, you already know how to stand by God’s word, the question is, will you stand by his ways and his word or not? Moses and Aaron did and in the next part we will see how God stretched his hand out.