Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

How Foolish can a Person Be?

And Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go." (Exodus 5:2 NKJV)

Ten Times?

Pharaohs were considered to be gods by their subjects at the time when Moses confronted this ruler of Egypt about freeing the Israelites.  Apparently, they might not have seen themselves as gods, but the people did.  They were intercessors between the pagan gods and the people.  So, when Pharaoh says that he doesn’t know the Lord, he is saying that he was not a worshiper of the Lord. This was by choice.  He did not want to be intimate in any way with the Lord.  This sets the stage for the battle between paganism and the worship of Jehovah.  Sometimes this one who didn’t know the Lord hardened his own heart and sometimes the Lord hardened his heart.  The Lord hardened his heart by asking him to do that which he did not want to do.  When he decided not to submit to the Lord, technically he was hardening his own heart, but the Lord had provided the circumstances that caused Pharaoh to rebel against Him. In that sense the Lord had hardened his heart.  So, in each case, Pharaoh could have submitted to God, but he wouldn’t; and in each case, the Lord showed His power to Pharaoh which should have caused Pharaoh to repent. 

Why was Pharaoh so determined to defy God when he was destroying his own credibility with his people and he was destroying the natural resources of Egypt?  He had servants who “came to themselves” and believed Moses when some of the judgments came—but not Pharaoh.  After the final judgment where his own son was killed, he decided to let the people go and then changed his mind and began pursuing the Israelites with his army.  The result was the destruction of his army, and it appears that he died with the army in the Red Sea.  Why would a man be so foolish and so obstinate? 

Satan and Us

Satan is a defeated foe although he has not yet been bound.  He is still able to influence the people and the affairs of this world.  But why does he keep on fighting if he knows what his end will be?  Some might argue that he really doesn’t know his end but if we can read it in the Bible, I am sure that he can read it as well.  Does he think that at some point, he will have enough power to overcome God himself and that ultimately, he will be victorious?  I suspect that he knows what his end will be, but I think (and this is my opinion) he wants to destroy as much as he can that honors the Lord Jesus.  Somehow his hatred for the Lord seems to supersede his ability to reason properly.  But as a liar he convinces people that they will be “winners” if they follow him and they will be “losers” if they follow or believe in the Lord.  After all, didn’t the Lord already go to a cross instead of going to a throne?  But of course, there is this problem of the resurrection.  He must convince people that the resurrectiont is a myth in order to accomplish his deceitful hateful purposes. 

But Wait!

The Bible says that right now he is the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) which means that most people are worshiping him and not the God of the Bible.  That must be thrilling, to know that most people would rather follow him rather than the Lord.  They are following a murderer and the father of lies and their end is going to be eternal destruction.  The world is going to go through terrible trouble as well and yet he has convinced people that he is the answer to their problems.  He has convinced people that doing his will is going to bring them pleasure and happiness.  So just like Pharaoh hardened his heart, many people today are following the same route.  They see the destruction of alcohol and drugs, yet they use them.  They see that there is no war to end all wars, yet they continue to follow leaders who want to fight them.  They see that our societies are headed for disaster, but they will not do the one thing that will change things.  They will not submit to the Lord.

There is a Solution

Years ago, I concluded that I wanted to be on the winning side when it comes to the battle between the Lord and Satan.  I came to an end of myself and realized that I couldn’t save myself.  It was then that I got my eye on the Lord and off of myself.  I believed on the Lord Jesus.  There are those who think that I am crazy for believing the promises of a book that is obviously “only a book.”  They think I am foolish for believing in a man that I have not seen with my natural eyes.  They don’t understand why I have faith in a man whose followers are often martyred and who generally make choices that don’t make sense in a natural way.  And frankly, I think the people who think like Pharaoh did are the foolish ones..  Why not submit to the Lord? Why chance utter destruction?  I think those who have decided that the Bible is a myth, that heaven and hell are not real, and that salvation is not necessary are the ones that are crazy.  There is nothing to gain and everything to lose.  Pharaoh proved that.

Bruce Collins

Meditation for the week of January 25, 2010

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>