Last night, I was reading through Exodus when I again came across the passage where God says to Moses, "... I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen ..." (Exodus 7:3-4). And I thought, why would God demand Pharaoh to let His people go, while at the same time hardening the Pharaoh's heart so that the Pharaoh will not let His people go? Of course the surrounding passages tell us that God does this so that (1) He can judge Pharaoh and Egypt (v. 4), (2) so that He can display His power to the people against false gods (v. 5), and (3) so that Egypt will not just let them go, but drive them out, "favorably disposed ... so that when you leave you will not go empty handed" (v. 5, 3:21). God's judgment on Pharaoh was not without cause. Pharaoh enslaved the Israelite people, and on top of that, he challenged the Lord by saying, "who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" (5:2).Sadly, this rejection of God persists today. Paul writes about "men who suppresses the truth by their wickedness" (Ro 1:18), who "exchanged the glory of the immortal God" for false objects of worship" (v. 22). Some of them are even professing believers but they live as though "having a form of godliness but denying its power" (2 Timothy 3:5). And because of man's deliberate disobedience, God "gives him over" to the consequences of his actions, a downward spiral of moral depravity and destruction (Ro 1:21-32). This is what happens when we deliberately rebel against God.
Is there still hope for restoration and reconciliation? A resounding yes!
I remember Ptr. Joey Bonifacio's illustration about this. He compares disobedience to missing a highway exit. If we do not make an exit soon i.e., repent and correct our ways, sin will take us farther from God. And while we desire to make a U-turn when we want to, the next exit will be a few more kilometers away. We have to face the consequences and restoration will take longer than if we turned back when we had the chance. someone said, "sin will take us farther than we want to go, keep us longer than we want to stay, and cost us more than we want to pay." The writer of Hebrews warns us more than once, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts ..." (Hebrews 3:7, 15, 4:7). Every person is on an equal playing field, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ..." (Ro 3:12) and everyone has a shot of being right with God. "But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (6:23).
Bottom line: Our deliberate disobedience results in depravity and destruction.
The Opposite Man
And then this morning, I was reading through the gospel of Matthew and God showed me the opposite of a person who rebels against God.
Matthew describes Joseph the carpenter as a righteous man, Mary's husband and one who would become Jesus' "step father" (Matthew 1:19). It doesn't elaborate what made him righteous other than the product of his righteousness: (1) he was merciful towards Mary. He "did not want her to expose her to public disgrace" for her "prenup pregnancy" when he had the right to do so (v. 19). And (2) when God directed him through dreams (v. 20, 2:13, 19, 22) to do His bidding, Joseph faithfully obeyed (1:24, 2:14, 21, 23).The Bible tells us that we are made righteous or right before God today by faith in Jesus Christ: "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Romans 3:22). And in keeping with His righteousness that bears fruit, we can see God's hand at work in Joseph's life.
While Pharaoh's deliberate disobedience pushed him further away from God, Joseph's obedience led him closer to God. And if God can give a person over to the consequences of his sin, God can all the more keep a righteous person from wandering away from God's plan. In this simple yet pivotal act of "divine restraint" God kept Joseph from missing out God's plan for his life:
"But after [Joseph] had considered [divorcing his wife], an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:20).
The more we pursue God, the more we come to a place where we can see God's plan for our lives. I read someone wrote this, "God’s will is more like a sunrise than a sunburst. Out of the darkness and chaos of life, God’s will rises slowly over the horizon. It’s not so much that we see the sun. It’s that by the sun we see everything else." David writes, "The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him" (Psalm 37:23). Just as the "mighty hand" of the Lord was at work against Pharaoh that brought salvation to the the Israelites (Exodus 6:1), it was the same hand that guided Joseph to fulfill the purpose God had for him in His story of salvation, and it is this mighty hand of God that will guide us when we walk in congruence to His will.
We can rejoice because we have a Savior in Christ who demonstrated what it means to obey the Lord: "For just as through the disobedience of of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). Through Christ we are forgiven, and we are empowered to live a life "worthy of the calling [we] have received" (Ephesians 4:1).
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