(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, now, my sermon for this evening is actually a very simple concept, so I don't know how long it's going to take to get through the material tonight. Probably not very long. We're going to be focusing in on Pharaoh, and the title of my sermon is called Don't Be a Pharaoh. Now one of the things you'll notice when you read through Exodus here, especially these early chapters where Moses and Aaron are approaching Pharaohs, if you know the whole story, Moses of course is a man who's chosen of God to lead the children of Israel free. They've been captive, they've been brought into bondage, they're slaves, and God hears their cry, and he has respect under the children of Israel, and he sends Moses basically as his chosen servant to just bring the freedom, bring them into the promised land, to make good on the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the course of this, Moses goes and he sees the burning bush, and that's where God speaks to him, and then he's saying, you know, who am I going to say that sent me, right? Like what's your name, God? And he says, I am that I am, and he goes and sends Moses to speak to Pharaoh, and Moses wanted help, so he asked and treated the Lord, and he sends Aaron with him. Moses and Aaron end up going to Pharaoh, and this is of course where we see the many plagues that God brings forth on the children of Israel, excuse me, on Egypt, because Pharaoh keeps refusing to allow them to leave. So they're saying, you know, we need to go worship the Lord, we need to go out here, three days journey, and make this sacrifice, and do all this stuff, and Pharaoh's like, no. No, not going to happen. But at first, he gets really angry or whatever, and they have so much disdain for the Hebrews, he's just like, oh, you're asking me for something, you must be lazy, you must have too much time on your hands, you want to go worship the Lord, so he makes their jobs a lot harder, and just basically just really leans on them, and says, okay, you need to, they were forced to, they're in bondage, they're slaves, and they were forced to make these bricks, right? So they're making all these bricks for their structures, for their infrastructure, whatever, maybe for the pyramids, but they're out there, they're forced labor, and he's saying, okay, in order, we're going to remove some of your materials, and you still have to make as many bricks as you were making before. Basically just putting the pressure on them and trying to completely get rid of Moses and Aaron, even from within their own people, so their own people are going to be mad at them, saying, what are you going in for, now you're making our jobs harder, right, and just trying to stop any of that from happening, and, you know, obviously Pharaoh's a real wicked person, real wicked man, but one of the things that you'll notice, as the story is impressive, and this isn't what the sermon is completely about, but I want you to do your own study, and if you haven't done this for yourself, do your own Bible study, the Bible promises Moses way early on, saying that he was going to harden Pharaoh's heart, so that, because God wanted to make known to the whole world, you know, that the Lord is God, the Lord is almighty, and the Lord's going to save with a strong arm, and it was part of God's divine intent and purpose to have this happen, but God didn't just harden Pharaoh's heart the entire time, and when you go back and look through the story, you'll see early on, Pharaoh is hardening his own heart, and just that term hardening your heart, what that means is just, he's not being very open or receptive to anything that God is saying, and even in the face of seeing miracles and seeing these plagues and seeing God working, he's just, nope, don't want to hear it, nope, not going to do it, nope, not going to let you go, you know, and it kind of doesn't matter what he's seeing, where a lot of people, you'd say, man, how can you see that and still not see that this is God working, he hardens his own heart, but then what happens, though, after enough hardening of his own heart, God starts hardening his heart, and if God hardens your heart, there's nothing you can do about that. I mean, if God's doing something and saying, you know what, I'm going to harden his heart now, and this is a story that illustrates what we believe here as the reprobate doctrine, and when someone becomes reprobate, it means they're rejected, it's people who have gone past the point of being able to be saved, and there's a lot of, and this isn't what the sermon's about, but it's important to lay this groundwork before I kind of get into the meat of what we're going to be preaching on this evening. Unfortunately, today, it's very pervasive where people will say, you know, you can get saved, no, it doesn't make you, on your deathbed, whatever, and that's true for many people, but it's not true for all. It's not true for all. There are some people who are beyond redemption, and, again, I don't want to go too far deep into this, but if you say, that doesn't make sense, we have never heard that before, Mr. Berzins, what are you talking about? Anybody could get saved at any time. Anybody that puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ gets saved no matter what. Amen and amen. But I'll tell you what, there are people, there are three groups of people, 100% for sure, you cannot deny it, that if they are found to be in any one of these three categories, they cannot be saved. It is impossible. One, anyone who blasphemes the Holy Ghost, there are no uncertain terms. The Bible says they have neither forgiveness in this world nor the world to come. That is the unforgivable sin listed in scripture, and I'm not going to go into all the details of what that's talking about, but if anybody who blasphemes the Holy Ghost, they cannot get saved. And what that means, you say, well, Pastor Berzins, what if someone commits the unforgivable sin? What if somebody does that but then they believe in Jesus? You'd have a contradiction there. And the answer to that is they can't believe on Jesus because God hardens their heart and seals them the same way that someone who's born again, someone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. So really, even if you wanted to after that, just I don't want to be saved. I mean, I don't know anyone who would not want to be saved, right? Like, no, I want to. Once he's sealed you, it's done. I mean, it's permanent. It's eternal life. It's sealed. I mean, you're born again. It's done. And that's exactly what we believe here. And many people believe that doctrine. And, and, you know, there's nothing wrong, you know, obviously, that's, it's more common or popular to understand that. But at the same token, once people become a child of the devil, is what the Bible refers to it as Jesus Christ called some people, children of the devil, when they make a rejection of the gospel, and find themselves in this category being a reprobate, they're sealed unto damnation. And that is taught in Scripture. And again, I'm not going to prove all of that this evening. One example would be people who blaspheme the Holy Ghost, they're sealed, they're done, there's no forgiveness for. Another group of people would be those who tamper with the Word of God, you could read the last chapter of the Bible, end of Revelation, Revelation chapter 22, you go near the end and the Bible says, anyone who adds to the words that are written in this book, God's going to add all the plagues unto them and anyone who removes the words from the prophecy of this book, their name is going to be removed out of the Book of Life and out of the Holy City and, you know, and in no uncertain terms saying, yeah, no salvation for you at all. And then the third group is anyone who takes the mark of the beast. The Bible says that everybody that takes the mark of the beast goes to hell. And again, these things are not debatable. There's not a lot of debate with me whether or not those things are true. You can't. So the idea of having people who are beyond redemption exists in those three categories, at least. Now, I believe there's, you know, when people basically understand the Gospel, they hear the Gospel, they've had the presentation, it's clear to them, it's not like they don't understand it, because there's, look, let's be honest, a lot of people don't get the Gospel, a lot of people can hear the Gospel and they don't understand the Gospel. Just for whatever reason, their mind's still kind of clouded, you can hear what they're saying and kind of understand, but they don't really fully get it. There's an aha moment where you're like, oh, that's what that means. Oh, that's, you know, so you mean like, I mean, Jesus just paid everything and all I got to do is trust him and he becomes my savior and you know, and it's forever and have that understanding. But then people reject that. I believe at that moment, they've made their choice. It's clear, it's evident, they've made their choice, they've rejected the Gospel, so in turn they become rejected. Now, we don't always know who those people are that reject, I mean, it's just sometimes no way of knowing who that is. And I don't think, I also don't think it's a large number of people either that fall into that category. Because most people that are unsaved either haven't heard the Gospel or haven't understood the Gospel. And that's just the vast majority of people, just, they're just out there, they're ignorant and they're unbelief and they don't know any better. But those that become reprobate are those that are beyond redemption. Pharaoh is one of these people who God has hardened his heart. He has opportunity. And basically he has this attitude, and I don't think I had this in my notes, but basically when Moses and Aaron come to him, he's like, well, who is the Lord? Who's the Lord anyways? Why should I care? Why should I have any respect unto you or to the Lord? Get back to work. And that's the attitude that Pharaoh has. He continues to have that attitude and he has opportunities. He can see and hear Moses and Aaron and he can see what they're doing and he can see the power of God, but he's always finding excuses or reasons to harden his own heart and reject it. Now, if you're born again, you don't have to worry about being a reprobate or rejected because you already have redemption. There's no way you can become beyond redemption. You already are saved. So that, in that sense, it's not going to apply to you. Anyone who's unsaved, hey, listen up to the sermon because you don't want to be like Pharaoh and getting to the point in your life where you've lost your opportunity, you get saved. But as Christians, we're going to look at some of the characteristics and maybe some of the reasons behind why Pharaoh may have rejected it when he was on his own to reject things and not to possess some of the same character traits or follow the same folly that Pharaoh did even as a believer. Even though it's not going to lead you to reprobation, you still want to avoid the pitfalls that Pharaoh had in your life. So we started off reading Exodus 7 and one of the things that Pharaoh did was he minimized God's miracles because of counterfeits, because of fakes that were out there. And what we see is that every time, everything that Aaron and Moses did was a miracle of God. All those signs that they did, they were performing miracles. God made that happen. It's legit. It was real. But then Pharaoh sees his magicians basically doing similar things or the same things, which causes him not to believe. It causes him to say, oh yeah, well, what's so miraculous about that? So look at verse number 10. The Bible says, and Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh and they did so as the Lord had commanded and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants and it became a serpent. So there's the, you know, one of the first miracles he does is he throws down his rod and it becomes a snake and that, you know, it's supernatural. There's something going on there, right? And then it says in verse 11, then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers. Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. So you've got people, and I'll tell you this much too. I do believe that there are dark powers and dark forces and witchcraft that actually, you know, if you want to call it works, where there are people who can, who can tap into supernatural powers that exist, but they're powers of devils. And that it really does have a power here on earth. Now, a lot of witchcraft and things like that is, is, is just fake and just kind of made up, but some of it is not. Some of it is real. And there's a reason why God is so serious and in his law made the commandment, you know, thou shall not suffer a witch to live. So people who are getting into the sorcerers and the witchcraft and the witchcraft and getting into that dark stuff, the occult stuff, that, that black magic stuff, he says, that's death penalty. That's right. It's a death penalty. I mean, people today could think about it as just kind of being a joke and not that big of a deal. And, you know, Hollywood's making movies, oh, Harry Potter and all this other stuff. And who cares about all this magic and it's not that big of a deal and it's just fun. Well, God cares a lot about it. He says, thou shall not suffer a witch to live. I mean, we're just approaching Halloween. And what is the, you know, one of the big icons besides the pumpkin of Halloween, you'll see everywhere, it's going to be a witch on a broom, right? Flying through the air. That doesn't sound very godly. And, you know, fools, the Bible says, fools make a mock at sin. And we ought not just be, oh, well, it's just fun. What's so fun about it? What's so fun about putting up an image of something that God says deserves to be put to death. We shouldn't be making fun or joke or light about these things because you know what, when you make light of those things, you're teaching your kids, it's not that big of a deal. When the Bible says something the exact opposite. No, this is one of the biggest deals. I mean, doing something that causes a person to lose their life and God's eyes saying that's so bad you deserve to die for it. That's pretty serious. That is not something you want your children to think, oh, it's not that big of a deal. Right? I mean, you wouldn't do the same thing about murder, would you? Oh, it's not that big of a deal to murder someone. But we desensitize the kids to murder through all the media. You know, the Bible has the death sentence on adultery, too. But what do we do with that? Minimize it. Oh, it's not that big of a deal. You're always watching the TV shows and the movies where everyone's committing adultery and having multiple marriages and doing everything else. It's just not a big deal, right? This is what you end up with. Another one of those is not suffering a witch to live. And, again, I believe the reason why God takes that so serious is because there is reality to that. It's not just someone just tricking you with, you know, it's not like these scam artists that have these, you know, they're crystal balls or whatever and you make an appointment to go see them and then they do all the research on you and then they're able to just tell you some things that makes it look like they know something special about you. How did they know that? How did they know I had a brother named John or whatever? It's because they looked you up online. They looked you up on Facebook and you got all your families tagged and whatever. And they could just make stuff up and make you think that it's real. Yeah, there's a lot of charlatans out there. But you know what? There are some people who have familiar spirits and are consulting with devils and that exists out there, too. And the Bible is real serious about that. We have a story in the Bible of King Saul doing the same thing, going to a witch and calling up Samuel for him to talk to him after Samuel had died. So, don't tell me this stuff isn't real. But this is what Pharaoh is doing. He's relying on those magicians to come and through power of darkness do this and then that makes it minimize the miracles of God. Now, it shouldn't, I mean, if anything, it should at least show you, hey, there's something miraculous going on here. And what they're saying and what they're doing isn't what these magicians are all about. There's another force at work here. There's another power at work. But he just minimizes, well, it's just not that big of a deal, like it's a parlor trick or something. And he does this multiple times. Look at verse number 20 there in Exodus chapter 7. But the funny thing is, though, about God's miracles, they always one up whatever the magicians are doing anyways. Like in this case, when they cast down their stabs and they became serpents, they became snakes. It says in verse 12, for they cast down every man's rod and they became serpents, but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. So there's always, you know, God's miracles are always better. It's always going to outperform whatever the devil can bring, whatever the devils can do there. You don't see their rod swallowing up Aaron's. Verse number 20, there's another another miracle here with the water being turned into blood. The Bible reads, Moses and Aaron did so as the Lord commanded, and he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his serpents. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river. And there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt, and the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments. Look at this, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them, as the Lord had said. So when Moses and Aaron are turned into water into blood, I mean, it affects everything. I bet you when the magicians did it, it was probably just some like a little bit of water in a cup or something, and they were able to to make that turn. But when Moses and Aaron did it, it was everything, and fish were dying because it was literally, I mean, it wasn't water anymore, so they couldn't survive, and it was making everything to stink. But when the magicians did it, when he sees, oh yeah, well I've seen that, that's not a big deal, his heart is hardened. Now, I'm going to take a broader application of this, because we're looking at things that Pharaoh was seeing and doing, and we don't want to be like Pharaoh. And there's some people that exist out there that I believe get poisoned by counterfeit Christianity. By a lot of churches out there, yeah, they claim to be Christian, but they get poisoned by these churches, you know, some bad thing happens in them, they have people turn on them, they have a bunch of hypocrites, and no, you know, and it just turns out to be this disaster of an experience. And then they use that, and they won't have nothing to do with any church, because they don't see the power of Christ. They don't see, you know, the real truth, the real gospel, the real power that can come with the Lord, and they look at all these other people that are out there, and they end up getting poisoned by that. You know, we need to be careful to fail to see God working in our own lives, and just kind of brush it off as being not that big of a deal, no matter what it may be. I mean, it can be, you know, we pray for people to be healed all the time, and we look to the Lord for healing, but then if somebody, you know, oh, they get, they have surgery or whatever, oh, I've seen that happen already before, when God is, because look, I know for a fact God has done miracles in people's lives that I know, in our lives, you know, there's times where things just simply aren't a coincidence, and it happens probably more often than a lot of people think, where God is involved in a way to have things happen a certain way, but when we fail to see God working in our life and just kind of brush it off as being not that big of a deal, we run the risk of having this attitude like Pharaoh had, and just completely dismissing what God is doing, or just explaining away God's hand at work in our life, and we want to make sure that we don't do that, and we see this, you know, I don't know how many times I've talked to people either out soul winning or whatever, and there's this whole chain of events that happens that somehow just leads us to talk to someone, and they're saying, you know, I was, I've had people say I was just praying last night and this morning that God would just show me the truth, and I want to know who He is, and I, you know, it's like, and now you're here, and people are telling me this, like, I didn't know any of that. To me, it was just seemingly random, but when you have this set of circumstances lining up, you're like, that's not random, and unfortunately, I've had people then also, even after they say that, well, I don't really know, you know, it's like, of all people, you should be receiving this. Don't dismiss what's happening here, because this is divine. This is God leading a worker to you to show you the truth, and sometimes people just dismiss it. Wow, what a weird coincidence. I'm sorry, I don't think that's a coincidence, but we gotta make sure that we're not guilty of the same thing, of misidentifying things in our life where God's working and just assuming that it's nothing. Flip over to chapter 8, if you would, we're going to look through a few more of these. We're going to see the miracle of the frogs brought up on the land of Egypt. Verse number 5 says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. So here again, we see magicians kind of mimicking or mirroring some of the things that Moses and Aaron are doing, but one of the things I find interesting here is I look at verse number 8, it says, Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, And treat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord. Why didn't he ask the magicians to make the frogs go away? They were able to make them come up, but it doesn't seem like they're able to make them go away. And there's another shortfall or shortcoming of what the devil is able to do, or these magicians are able to do with their power. He has to go to Moses and Aaron to get rid of these things. And you'll notice, too, as the miracles progress, he continues to go back to them, Hey, and treat the Lord for me. But he's failing to see God's hand really in this, and that maybe he should go, Well, maybe there's something to this. Maybe this is real. Maybe I should listen to the Lord and listen to these guys and consider making the Lord my God, too, because of everything that's going on here, that obviously the Lord is almighty and all powerful here, even just based on what you can see. Verse number 9 says, And Moses said unto Pharaoh, When shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only? So we're seeing here, he's saying, You know what? Pick a time. Pick a day. Go ahead. Just so that Pharaoh knows even further proof, it's not just some coincidence that like, Oh, yeah, you said you're gonna do it, and they just were gonna go away anyways. He's like, Go ahead and pick the time. Because it wouldn't just be random. How are you gonna pick exactly what it is? And he says, You know what? Tomorrow, verse 10, and he said, Tomorrow, and he said, Be it according to thy word, that thou mayst know that there is none like unto the Lord our God. But look at this, and this is gonna be kind of a big theme here and something to take to heart. Verse number 15 says, But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had said. Well, respite means there's relief. Respite means that, Okay, the frogs are finally gone. You know, yeah, everything was in a lot of chaos and turmoil. We have all these frogs and causing all these problems. Man, what are we gonna do? I know. Well, let's turn to these guys and turn to the Lord. And then all of a sudden, Hey, everything's fixed. Go right back to having no respect for the Lord. And you know, you're out of your trouble. The fire's over. And you completely forget about the Lord. And unfortunately, so many of us can act exactly the same way. You go to God earnestly when you're in trouble. God, I've got this problem. My hell's failing me. God, I need you. God, my loved one, my husband, my daughter. There's something going on here. I need your help. There's all these problems. I lost my job. God, please help me. And you're crying out to God. And then he answers your prayer. And then it's right back to, Yeah, I'm still not going to church. I'm still not doing anything. I'm still not reading my Bible. I'm still not praying to the Lord. When the bad times come, I'm going to go seek God. But then as soon as things level off and become okay, then it's just, Oh yeah, who is the Lord? Who cares about God? And I'll tell you what, that's a dangerous place to be in when you're going to use God as someone that you could only turn to in times of trouble. Now look, I'm not saying don't turn to God in times of trouble. I'm not saying that at all. You absolutely should be turning to God in your times of trouble. And unfortunately people have a weird belief about that too. Turn if you would to Luke chapter 17. You keep a place in Exodus. We're going to be coming back to Exodus. Luke 17. I had a friend once, like shortly after I got saved, I didn't really get plugged into a church, but I was trying to get my friends there. I was trying to tell them about Jesus and stuff. And I'd always bring it up. And that one guy was just saying like, he's like, man, I'm not going to go to God. I was like, just go to God with your problem. Like you have a problem, go to him. But he had pride. He didn't want to go to God. And he didn't want to be a hypocrite and turn to the Lord. And then like, not, and it's like, well then don't right. You shouldn't be a hypocrite, but here's the right thing to do is to turn to God. First of all, that's always the right thing to do no matter what's going on. Hey, turn to the Lord and seek his mercy and his forgiveness and see if he'll answer your prayer. Always do that. But then once you, once he answers you, respect that, acknowledge that and stay with him. So you don't keep finding yourself in all these storms and all this turmoil and having all these problems and having to turn back to the Lord every time. How about you just stay with him so you can prevent the problem from happening again and having to keep do this cycle and just show some appreciation for an answered prayer. Luke 17, we get a great example of this with the 10 lepers. Look at verse number 11 of Luke 17. The Bible reads, and it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him 10 men that were lepers, which stood afar off and they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus master have mercy on us. So they're calling on, they're going onto Jesus. It's the right thing to do. They're lepers. They're in a bad condition. They've got a serious disease and they want to be healed. So they're going and seeking out Jesus, help us at mercy on us, please heal us. We have leprosy. Verse 14, and when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. So he heals them. He answers their prayer. He hears them and they become cleansed. Now you would think that people who experience a miracle like that can at least go back to God and be like, God, thank you. Thank you for hearing my prayer. Thank you for healing me. What an awesome thing for you to do. I really appreciate that. Thank you for hearing me. But unfortunately, so many people are like the nine that they're like, oh, cool, I'm healed. Some of them were probably just thinking like, oh, wow, I guess I didn't really need to go to Jesus anyways or whatever. I just blowing it off as if it wasn't some miracle or it was going to go away on its own or whatever it is that people just come up with to not give honor and respect unto the Lord or their show so short-sighted that now it's like, oh, I need to go back about my business doing something else and forget about the Lord who saved you. Forget about the Lord who cleansed you. Forget about the Lord who answered your prayer. Verse 15 says, and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God. Why is it only one of them? And fell down on his face, had his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And if you know anything about the Samaritans were like this mix of Israelites with the heathen stuff. And they weren't looked on even as being, because they weren't full-blooded Jews. And they were just looked down as a second-class citizen, right? And the fact that even mentions that he was a Samaritan would make me believe that some of the other ones were not Samaritans, but they wouldn't even come back and give reverence unto Jesus like this man did. But I said, regardless of who they are, why is it only one person falling down and worshiping and giving glory unto God and saying thank you? Of 10 people, nine of them did not come back. Now, Jesus says in verse 17, Jesus answering said, were there not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that return to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole. So he said, didn't I heal 10 of you? He knew who he healed. Only one person returned. Now, this is an important parable, an important story to understand too, because people will scoff at the work that we do when we go out soul-winning. If you're not familiar with what soul-winning is, it's where we try to win souls to Christ, as the Bible instructs us to do, where we preach the gospel to people, we show them how to be saved, and then we go and lead them in prayer after we've thoroughly explained the gospel to them and make sure they understand what the gospel means, understand that they're making a decision to put all their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they understand those things, they're accepting Jesus Christ, and then we help them call on the Lord to be saved. And that's what we practice here. But the outsider, the scoffer might come and say, oh, 571 salvation, huh? Well, how come I don't see 571 people in your church? Well, the reason why you don't see 571 people in our church is the same reason Jesus didn't see 10 lepers that were cleansed come back just to give thanks and say glory unto God. Because that's the same attitude, well, they must not have been saved then if they're not coming to your church. Well, I guess those lepers weren't really cleansed then, were they? Because they didn't come back and give thanks. The problem is that you've got people that have no character and that can be cleansed and people that can be saved and then just go about their life as if nothing happened. And not give thanks and not do the right thing. It doesn't make them unsaved. It doesn't make the lepers not cleansed. It just means they're doing the wrong thing. They ought to get right. They're not showing any love or appreciation for what was done unto them. And all these people that we lead to Christ that don't give any regard to the Lord and they don't get themselves in church. You know what? That's a shame. It's like the nine that aren't returning back. Does that mean that Jesus didn't cleanse them though? Of course not. Because salvation isn't based on whether or not you do some good works after you get saved. It's whether or not you've received Jesus Christ. You received Jesus Christ and never go to church a day in your life. You're still saved. But it's not the right thing to do to never go to church one day in your life. But it doesn't affect your salvation one way or the other. We need to be careful. You earnestly go to God in prayer. You have some problem that you don't get caught up in just the, oh everything's fine now. Everything's back to normal. Go about my daily routine and forget about what God did for me. And forget about all the good that God has done in your life to get you to the point where you are right now. Yeah, it's real easy to turn to God when you're having problems. How about you give thanks every day you don't have problems? How about you acknowledge the Lord and not turn your back on Him when He's there for you to help you in your time of need? And you can stay like that, then your heart will remain soft with the Lord and keep you in good standing just in general with yourself as being a good child, a good son of God as you ought to be. Go back to Exodus chapter 8 verse number 16. Exodus chapter 8 verse 16. The Bible says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so, for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and became lice in man and in beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So now they finally start getting into some of the miracles that even the magicians can't do. So there's no more explanation here. Pharaoh is no more going, oh yeah, well these guys can do the same thing, so what's the big deal? Now we're starting to get into much more serious things. I mean, it was enough. He should have been able to recognize, yeah, they might be able to do one or two things, but they couldn't get rid of them. They couldn't get rid of the frogs. They couldn't undo the stuff that only God was able to undo. But now, when it comes to bringing forth life, because lice are living creatures and beings, they couldn't do that. Man cannot bring forth life. Satan can't bring forth life. Only God can bring forth life. So the magicians tried to bring forth life. They couldn't do it. So there were lice upon man, upon beast, verse 19. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. We don't know how this is being done. This could only be done by God. And they explained that to him. And Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said. Don't harden your heart when God is working. Let's flip over to chapter nine, Exodus chapter nine. And we're going to see Pharaoh behave the exact same way, like we already saw the in Luke 17, where the lepers are cleansed. You know, there's respite, there's relief. Exodus chapter nine, verse 27, we even have Pharaoh getting to the point where he's admitting that he's wicked and they're sinners, right? Verse 27 says, and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said unto them, I have sinned this time. The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. And treat the Lord for it is enough that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail, and I will let you go and you shall stay no longer. The problem that a lot of believers have is having the same type of an attitude when you've got problems going on as a result of your sin. You do something wrong. You do something wicked. And again, I'm going to say the right thing is to go to God. I'm not saying don't go to the Lord, go to the Lord, even when you've sinned, especially when you've sinned. But don't go to the Lord with this attitude of, Oh God, God, help me save me. But then even in the back of your mind, you know, as soon as I get an opportunity, I'm going to go right back to that filth wickedness, whatever sin it is that I'm doing and go right back out there. You know, it's, it's the, it's the Catholic mentality of confessing your sins of going, you know, on Sunday you go into church and you're going to go confess to some priest in a booth going, Oh God, I'm sorry. I did all this stuff. And what do I need to make right? And then on Monday, you're going right back out and doing the exact same thing. That's not going to help you any at all. And in fact, if you, if you follow a pattern and behavior like that, it's only going to harden your heart against the Lord. Anyways, God's looking for true repentance. He's looking for you to sincerely be sorry when he has to bring his judgment on you or his punishment on you to bring you low and to humble you. And when you get right with God, get right with him and, and don't just use him as, Oh, I'm saying I'm wicked. Okay. And then as soon as everything's well again, it's like, it never happened. And I'm going to go right back to my old ways. I'm gonna go right back to getting involved in whatever sin it was I was doing. And look, people have a bad habit with that. Believers have a bad habit of that when we have the flesh and the flesh could be strong, but I'll tell you what, when God is punishing you because you're getting involved in some sin that you shouldn't be getting involved in, and then you get delivered from that, don't turn right back to it again. Stay with God, continue seeking the Lord, continue seeking his face, continue seeking his word and seeking his will to stay on that path and to stay close to him. So you don't just turn right back again and slide back away from him. Verse number 34, it says, and when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart and his servants. So basically in verses 27 and 28, he's saying, oh, I'm wicked. My people are wicked and treat the Lord, make the hail stop, make all these, you know, make this stuff stop. And as soon as it stops, it goes right back to sinning more. Hardens his heart. Verse 35 says, and the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. Neither would he let the children of Israel go as the Lord had spoken by Moses. Flip over to chapter 10, verse 16, the Bible reads, and Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now, therefore, forgive I pray thee my sin only this once. How many times are you going to go, God, if you just get me out of this just this one time, I promise I'm going to serve you, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to get it right. And then God saves you out of that. And how many people will actually give heed to their oath or to their promise and do what they said they were going to do or just go right back to what they had done before. And this is a serious problem, because this is a heart problem. And this is going to cause you get further and further and further away from the Lord when you have this type of an attitude. And when you do these types of things and have this type of behavior, we're acting like Pharaoh does. Look, Pharaoh was a reprobate. Pharaoh was rejected, God ended up hardening Pharaoh's heart. Now, I'm not saying you're ever going to become a reprobate, but what I'm saying is, don't be like one. Don't have this attitude. Hey, if you get to a point where you're begging God to forgive you and just be like, please just this once, you know, show mercy on me. Don't go back then and treat the Lord with disdain and go back on what you had said and what you had promised. Look, I'll be honest with you, I've gotten to this point at least once in my life when it came to alcohol and I made a promise that I was never going to touch it again and just begged for mercy from God. You know what? God showed me mercy. You know what? I haven't gone back on that promise and I'm not going to. And we need to be careful with what we say to the Lord because our words matter. You may not think your words matter as much as God thinks your words matter. Your word matters a lot. You make a vow unto the Lord, save me and I'll do this. God holds you to that. There's no just getting out of it. You may think, oh, forget it, I just said something stupid. That's not how God views it. So you open up your mouth to the Lord, you better make sure you know what you're saying and you better treat it with respect and respect God enough that if you're going to make some vow unto Him, that you take that vow seriously and do not open up your mouth flippantly because God will require it. He'll require it. And then it's going to be, they'll probably end up even worse than whatever situation you're in to begin with, calling on God for that help. If I were to break my vow, I'd be, I'm deathly afraid of what would happen because whatever it is, it's going to be way worse than whatever judgment I was facing at the time, now would be compounded way worse. Why? Because of to whom much is given, of the same shall much be required. And God's given me a lot and God showed mercy on me and I opened up my mouth and made a vow unto God and He helped me and He showed mercy and I cannot show any disdain for the Lord disdain for the Lord by just going off and now just breaking that word. We need to be careful to have that. And I'm not saying I've never done that before either. There's been other times, you know, I'm not going to go down my litany of sins. I like talking about the ones that have worked out so far, right? And praise the Lord for that. And then those are good, you know, those are good times, but I don't want to go through any lists of things where, you know, I've struggled with because, look, we're all human, we all have that sin, but it's it's just going to lead you into a worse and worse position when you open up your mouth like that. And Pharaoh is this perfect example of someone, oh, forgive me just this one time, just get me out of this one time and I swear I'll change. I swear I'll let you go. And he doesn't and he doesn't and he doesn't and he hardens his heart and things get worse and worse and worse for Pharaoh. And that's the progression that you see. And that's why we need to be careful that we don't fall in that same pattern because things will get worse and worse and worse for you. Just like a child that keeps doing the same behavior and over and over and over again, their punishment gets worse and worse and worse because it's like, look, haven't you learned? I tried to take it easy on you the first time, I had to correct you, but now, you know, no, you're doing the same thing again. Okay, well, we're going to ramp it up a little bit. Now you're doing the same thing and okay, well, you know what, apparently that didn't work, the message didn't get through. So now we got to escalate the punishment and it'll go on and on and on. Pharaoh does this until like the entire land of Egypt is decimated by the plagues of the Lord because he just would not listen and he was stubborn and rebellious and refused to listen. And you know what, God said, fine, we're going to keep on doing this. And obviously God had other things, you know, other motivation going on. But I'll tell you what, before God hardened Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. And before it got out of control, Pharaoh had the ability, the will to be able to say, nope, I'm going to make this stop right now. And I'm actually going to turn to the Lord or at least show respect unto the Lord and let the children of Israel go. Flip over to Isaiah chapter 55, the last place I want you to look. We see that pattern with Pharaoh, we see that pattern sometimes in ourselves and in other people. But there's a very serious warning in scripture that warns us that we need to seek God while he may be found. And definitely for the unsaved, hey, you don't know what a day is going to bring. You don't know when you're going to breathe your last breath. Seek the Lord while he may be found and seek the Lord while you may be found before, you know, maybe you end up rejecting the Lord and rejecting the gospel or whatever and find yourself in condition where later on you might want to try to seek him, but you can't. Judas was a good example of that. Judas was a devil. He was a child of the devil. Jesus said he was a devil from the beginning. When he chose him to be a disciple, he knew that he was a reprobate. But here's the thing. Judas felt sorry after he betrayed Jesus, he genuinely felt sorry and repented for the actions that he had done. But you know, it is too late for him. He was just like Esau, who the Bible says, he sought repentance diligently with tears. He was trying to seek it and he couldn't find it. Couldn't find it because he was already turned to a reprobate mind. And when people get to that point, God hardens their heart and makes it impossible for them to put their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that they could get saved. And it's just impossible. It's done. He's done with you. So we need to seek the Lord while we may be found and know that you can't just keep burning God with your lies going, Oh God, help me this time. And then who is God? Every time he saves you. Isaiah 55 verse six says, seek the Lord while he may be found, call you upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. God is a gracious, merciful God and has long suffering and loving kindness, but don't take advantage of that because God will also not be mocked. The Bible says, be not deceived because God will not be mocked for whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap. Do you think you could just do all this wicked stuff and just get away with it? Look, you could do wicked things and turn to God and he may deliver you out of that, but he's also not going to be mocked. Remember that he wasn't mocked with Pharaoh and Pharaoh paid a huge price. Let's look at the example of Pharaoh for what not to be in our life and not the pattern not to follow so that we don't have the repercussions in our life of turning to the Lord but more in pretense or just more in times of trouble and then just forsaking God altogether when everything's going well. You don't want to live disaster to disaster. How about you allow one disaster to be enough and then be like that one leper that comes back and gives thanks and gratitude and then can even stay with him. Let's stay with the Lord so that we don't have to keep turning back to him. It's a lot better to be with him in his presence than it is to have to come groveling back. Be like the prodigal son that went away but then was still able to return. We should be like the other son that never went away because he had the great inheritance. He had the great reward. He was like, you know what, you've been here with me the whole time doing what's right and now you're going to get everything. Yeah, he was allowed back. We're going to show mercy and everything else and he's still a son but you're the one that's getting the great reward because you never forsook your father. We need to be like that child as a child of God who never forsakes the Lord and never has to find ourselves in a position like Pharaoh's. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your mercy and graciousness Lord and kindness and pray that you would please just help us day to day overcome our flesh and help us to walk in the spirit that we could continually turn to you Lord and never decide just not to turn back to you dear God but that we would always remember your mercies Lord but not just remember your mercies Lord. Help us to be mindful and that we would remember the story about Pharaoh and remember other scriptures Lord that would keep us from disregarding the miracles and disregarding your hand at work in our lives. Lord, help us to be able to see them for what they are and not just brush them off that we could continue to give you thanks for all that you do because you're worthy and your name is worthy to be praised. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.