13 COURAGE

The dispute, a famous war of nerves and divergent faiths between Moses and Pharaoh, begins when Moses, in God’s name, demands Israel’s release and Pharaoh denies it. In Missiological studies we call this a Power Encounter, a demonstration of the superiority of the power of God over the power of the devil. This power encounter is between the power of the great God and the power of the devil working through a proud prince. We will learn that when God judges, He will overcome. Moses repeats the demand he had made to Pharaoh, only this time it is reinforced by the miracle of turning his rod into a serpent. When Pharaoh hardens his heart, God then punishes his disobedience by a plague, the first of ten, turning water into blood. Pharaoh hardens his heart against this correction. We will see Pharaoh is an unusually very stubborn man making Moses’ job difficult, but on the other hand, giving us an opportunity to observe Moses’ courage. You too will find stubborn resistance to the gospel message you declare and God will perform miracles to vindicate you too. 

The first time Moses spoke to Pharaoh, he gave instructions only, but now he is directed to produce his credentials. It is taken for granted that Pharaoh would challenge this command and demand Moses to work a miracle as God gave Moses advance notice. Supposedly, by the performance of a miracle above the power of nature, they might prove their commission from the God of nature, who created nature and is above nature. Pharaoh will say, show a miracle, but not with any thought to be convinced, but only with the hope that none will be performed. Then he would have a basis for his unbelief. Orders are therefore given to turn the rod into a serpent, according to the God’s instructions. Moses had already had a practice session in the dessert as recorded in Exodus 4:3, “The Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.” The same rod that was to be used in other miracles is now itself the subject of a miracle to give it a reputation. Aaron cast his rod to the ground, and instantly it became a serpent as verse 10 says, “So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.” God was working, not only to move Pharaoh with wonder, but to strike a terror in him. Serpents are hurtful dreadful animals. The very sight of one, miraculously produced like this, might have softened Pharaoh’s heart into a fear of the God by whose power it was produced. This first miracle, though it was not a plague, yet amounted to the threatening of a plague. If it did not make Pharaoh feel something, it certainly should have made him fear something, or Someone. The effect of this miracle, though too plain to be denied, is softened and its persuasive power is lessened by the magicians’ imitating it as verses 11, 12 say, “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” Satan does have some real power and he uses it to keep people in captivity to him.

Maybe the snakes were produced by satan. Moses had years earlier been originally instructed in the learning of the Egyptians, and may have been suspected to have improved himself in magical arts during the forty years he was in Midian. So the magicians are sent for, to compete with him. Or maybe their rods became serpents, real serpents actually by the power of God, beyond the magician’s intention or expectation, for the further hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. When Aaron’s staff swallowed the magician’s staffs, God was all the more glorified. This might have helped to frighten Pharaoh into a compliance with the demands of Moses, that he might be freed from these dreadful unaccountable phenomena, with which he saw himself surrounded on all sides. A God of justice is giving Pharaoh a chance to change his mind. Our just God allows lying spirits to do strange things. He gives people a chance to change. This is consistent with Revelation 22:11, “Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” Your power encounter too will give people you might lead a chance to change. God gives opportunities and He will give them through you.

In this contest, Moses plainly gains the victory. The serpent into which Aaron’s rod was turned swallowed up the others, which was sufficient to have convinced Pharaoh which side was right. Great is the truth, and will prevail. The cause of God will undoubtedly triumph at last over all competition and contradiction, and will reign alone. Daniel 2:44 makes this clear, “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” But Pharaoh was not moved by this. The magicians also producing serpents made Pharaoh feel that the case between them and Moses was disputable. Overlooking the obvious superiority of the snake that devoured the others, Pharaoh rested in the mere fact that the other snakes existed. He thought that that fact alone justified his unbelief. Persons convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. The same God who created man with a free will allows men to use it.

God is punishing Pharaoh and the Egyptians, but He is also showing the folly of serving the river Nile. God wants people to acknowledge and worship the true God. So the drama moves on to the first of the ten plagues, the turning of the water into blood. It was a dreadful plague, and very grievous. The mere sight of such vast rolling streams of blood, pure blood no doubt, bright and deep red, could not but strike a horror and terror in people. Then add to that the reality of it being not water, only blood. In nature there is nothing more common than water. God has wisely and kindly ordered that something that is so needful and good for the comfort of human life should be cheap and almost everywhere readily available. But now the Egyptians must either drink blood, or die of  thirst. People then and there ate a lot of fish according to Numbers 11:5, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.” But the changing of the waters into blood was the death of the fish; it was a very real and serious pestilence. Verse 21 says, “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 is not the only place this is recorded. It was a phenomenal demonstration of the creative power of God. He can bless by turning water into wine or He can demonstrate His power and urge people to change by turning water into blood. Psalm 105:29 records it too. “He turned their waters into blood, causing their fish to die.” When another destruction of Egypt, long afterwards, is threatened, the disappointment of those that catch fish is particularly noticed, as Isaiah 19:8 warns, “The fishermen will groan and lament, all who cast hooks into the Nile; those who throw nets on the water will pine away.” Egypt was a pleasant land, but the foul stench of dead fish and blood, which by degrees would grow increasingly putrid, now made it very unpleasant. Notice the ends to which God will go to point people to Himself. He is the same today. And you are the Moses of today.

It was a righteous plague, and justly inflicted on the Egyptians. Nilus, the river of Egypt, was one of their idols. They and their land derived so much benefit from it that they served and worshipped it more than its Creator. They did not know of the true source of the Nile river far to the south at Lake Victoria, so they paid all their devotions to these streams. So God punished them and turned that river into blood which they had turned into a god. The things or creatures people idolize God justly either removes from us or turns us against them. He makes a punishment to us whatever we make a competitor with Him. They had figuratively stained that river with the blood of the Hebrews’ children, and now God made that river all bloody. God gave them blood to drink, for they were worthy of this just punishment as is repeated in Revelation 16:6, “. . . for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” Some evil people thirst for blood in the figurative sense, but in a literal sense? . . . sooner or later, they had enough of it. It was a significant plague. Egypt was greatly dependent on this river so that in smiting it they were warned of the destruction of all the productions of their country until eventually it came at last to the deaths of their firstborn in the last plague.

This plague of Egypt is alluded to in the prediction of the ruin of the enemies of the New-Testament church, Revelation 16:3, 4 say “The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died. The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.” But in Revelation the sea, as well as the rivers and fountains of water, is turned into blood; for spiritual judgments reach further, and strike deeper, than temporal judgments. The first plague Moses did was turning water into blood, but the very first miracle our Lord Jesus did was turning water into wine. The law, given by Moses, was our school-master and benefited us, but grace and truth, which, like wine, make glad the heart, came by Jesus Christ.

Throughout this part of Moses’ story we can see that God continued to confide in Moses, telling him step by step what he should do and what would happen. This surely helped Moses have courage. For example, Moses is directed to give Pharaoh warning of this plague. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go.’” This is as if to say, “. . . therefore go and try what this will do to soften it.” Verse 15 says, “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.” Moses would probably not be admitted into Pharaoh’s throne room, royal chamber, or the room of state where he gives audience to ambassadors. Therefore Moses is directed to meet Pharaoh by the river’s brink, where God foresaw he would come in the morning. Maybe this was for the pleasure of a morning’s walk or to pay his morning devotions to his river god. People will walk, every one in the name of his or her god. They will not fail to worship their god every morning. There Moses must be ready to give Pharoah a new summons to surrender, and, in the case of a refusal, to tell him of the judgment that was coming on that very river the banks of which they were now standing.

Moses gave him a warning beforehand, so Pharaoh would have no basis to say it was a chance or to attribute it to any other cause. This way it would more clear that it done by the power of the God of the Hebrews as a punishment on Pharaoh for his stubbornness. Moses is expressly ordered to take the rod with him, that Pharaoh might be alarmed at the sight of that rod which had so lately triumphed over the rods of the magicians. God tries to get the attention of people with whom He is dealing. The judgments of God are all known to Himself beforehand. He knows what He will do in wrath as well as in mercy. Every deed is determined by the sovereign God who rules in His heavens, as Isaiah 10:23 implies, “The Lord, the Lord Almighty, will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land.” Nothing happens by chance. We see that God warns before He wounds. Even in His punishments and plagues, He is just and fair. He gives time for repentance and change of heart. And He will do that for the people you lead as He uses you in your generation.

Aaron, who carried the staff, is directed to call up the plague by smiting the river with his rod, “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.”’ Moses and Aaron did just as 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.” This is done in the sight of Pharaoh and his attendants; for God’s true miracles are not counterfeit in any way. An amazing change immediately occurs. All the waters, not only in the rivers but in all their ponds, are turned into blood. We can see here the almighty power of God. What is water today may be blood tomorrow, good today, bad tomorrow.

Pharaoh tries to counter the miracle, because he resolves not to humble himself under the plague. He sends for the magicians who copy the miracle with their enchantments. Surely this was only with God’s permission or perhaps even with His creative involvement to assist in the deceit Pharaoh seems determined to believe. Could they have turned the river of blood into water again? This would have been something that would have proved their power. But, when there was such scarcity of water, to turn more of it into blood only shows that the design of the devil is to delude his followers, not to do them any real kindness. The Egyptians, in the meantime, are seeking for relief against the plague, digging around about the river for water to drink. If they found some, it was with a great deal of effort.