Gooding, David: 6 - Movement II: The Plagues

So now, as I said, taking courage in both hands, I am bold to put before you how I tend myself at this stage in life to think about the plagues of Egypt. But I am sincere in saying I welcome your correction and contribution. I would dearly love to be able to stand up in however a hostile audience and preach this living part of God's living word and make apparent the force of its evidential value. I'm looking, therefore, for what those plagues were meant to do, what they were meant to prove, what they were meant to demonstrate, and how they were designed to fulfill their purpose. So we come back to the, um, uh, o- o- original situation. Look at verse eight of chapter seven. This is God briefing Moses and Aaron. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, Show a wonder for you, then thou shalt say unto Aaron, Take thy rod and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it become a serpent. 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. Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents, but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had spoken. With that, we are introduced to the atmosphere of ancient Egypt, and we see at once that the call for Moses to, uh, cast out, to do a miracle, to do a sign, came from Pharaoh himself. Here was a Pharaoh confronted with Moses demanding in the name of the Lord that he let the Israelites go. Pharaoh, with his mindset and his attitude to affairs, uh, asks, I will invite Moses and Aaron to do a sign for them. What sign can you do, gentlemen? He is thinking, obviously, in this form, that he has a lot of very clever men at his disposal. You can call them sorcerers, you can call them musicians, magicians, you can call them wise men, and that's getting dangerously near the university lecturers and professors, and you can call them magicians, if you will. These were men, according to their day, who had developed all kinds of powers that they could use. That is the very essential nature of a magician. He has learned how to manipulate the powers of the universe himself. And he can do a sign for himself. He has the power to do it. He has the learning to do it. He has the mystique. He has the technique. He knows the secrets, he can do this marvelous magic. I don't say it disrespectfully when I talk about modern scientists as the equivalent of the ancient magicians. I pray their forgiveness upon an innocent arts man. He meant no harm. You will say, but the power of the scientist lies precisely in that, and the very good power it is, isn't it? None of the hocus pocus and demonism about scientists, to be sure. Uh, but they have learned the secrets of how the world works right down to the atom and its nucleus and so forth, and they can do it if they want to. They can set out off a hydrogen bomb or an ordinary bomb. They can do magnificent things and hurtle space probes through space and bring them down by the laws of gravity within five hundred miles of the Atlantic and hurl them round by the same force of gravity off to visit Jupiter or wherever it is they have to deliver their visiting cards later on. You'll see. The scientist can do it because he has understood the secrets. And these early magicians may have been a lot of hocus pocus, but there was something real about them, wasn't there? They had found out some secrets, perhaps unlawfully. All gentlemen, pray remember the warnings of the New Testament, that there shall come a great world figure, and he shall do wonders and signs, devilishly impressive, because he shall understand secrets of nature in a way that the very devil himself has given him to understand. This was the way then that Pharaoh would have thought. He's thinking in terms of magicians, powerful, wise men who can themselves do these impressive feats of power. And Moses is to go in and talk to that man, and perhaps you see at once what Moses must not do. He doesn't go in to compete with the wise men of Egypt. He's not another wise man, able to manipulate the powers of the, uh, of the universe. Message he's got to get over is, granted that your wise men have these powers and can do these wonders. I know they can, nobody denies it. But I come to you in the name of the living God. There are certain things that God does that your wise men can do. Nobody is disputing it. Put it the other way around, there are certain things that, uh, that, uh, uh, the wise men can do, and that Moses will presently appear to do. That isn't the point at issue. The point at issue is the source and who's doing it. Is Moses going in, using his own powers to do it? Or is there tr- is it true that Moses isn't doing anything in particular, but speaking a word? And it's the living God behind him that's doing it. That is the issue. And transposed into modern terms, the issue is not, are there certain things that God can do, uh, uh, do that nowadays scientists can do? Of course, there are abundant things. Uh, it used to be said in my day, of course, that, uh, yes, science can do some wonderful things, but God has put a limit on them, and certain things it can't do. We'll see about that in a moment. And therefore, notice what God says in the earlier paragraph in chapter seven to Moses. When Moses is complaining that he can't speak very well and Pharaoh won't listen to him, verse, chapter seven, verse one: and the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his hand. Now, in an earlier passage, God had said to Moses that he would be a God, so to speak, like God to Aaron. Aaron would supply Moses with a mouth. This is chapter four sixteen. And Moses should be to Aaron as God. Now, the similar thing with Pharaoh here. God is setting up a model. So that when these things happen, Moses shall represent God. Aaron shall represent himself and Moses. And thus the thing will be done. Moses, you'll say, here will take the place of God then. Let's put Moses here, representing God. And Moses, in the sight of Pharaoh, will speak to Aaron and do what, uh, Moses tells him, and then the miracle will happen. To demonstrate to Pharaoh, perhaps he he he wasn't all that sharp, Pharaoh, eh eh, to demonstrate to Pharaoh what the issue is at stake. When Moses subsequently does the signs, it is not Moses' power that does it. He isn't a magician, he isn't a qualified scientist, he's an ordinary fellow. He just does what the living God tells him to do. And it is God that performs the miracle, not Moses. So let it be demonstrated here, it isn't Moses that takes his rod in this first series. His rod isn't used. It's not even the rod of God. It's Aaron takes his own rod, Aaron's rod. And when the great work has to be done, Moses just speaks to Aaron. Aaron does what he's told, and the miracle happens, setting up an analogy that this is the issue at stake. Now, subsequently, when Moses will do it, he's saying, look, I'm not claiming any powers for myself. It's God that's doing it. He tells me. I do what he says, and this is what happens. So they came, you'll see, uh, and as you notice, in this first division of three, it is Aaron that actually wields the rod. But perhaps I ought to pause to point out that the nine plagues are grouped in three series of three, by a very simple, uh, device. The first plague, God tells Moses to rise up in the morning early and go and stand in front of Pharaoh, station himself in front of Pharaoh early in the morning. That phrase isn't used again with number two and three. it's used again with number four, Station yourself before Pharaoh and early in the morning too, then it doesn't occur again in, uh, five and six. but it occurs again once more in seven. Eh, let's notice now that in the preface to all this, as we have earlier said, when Pharaoh asked for a sign, Moses was to cast down his rod. He became a serpent, but then Pharaoh made the point that his magicians could do the same thing, and so they did. It is true that when they cast down their rods and they became serpents, Moses' rod swallowed all the other serpents. We'll say, but Pharaoh's heart was hardened. I don't know what explanation he gave. He said there was a, uh, uh, technical deficiency in the stuff he got from Japan or something, and uh, and uh, and therefore, uh, for the moment, uh, they had the technical advantage over him. That's all there was, but that was a mere nothing. So it's a question, therefore, of, uh, this question of magicians. And is Moses another magician, a superior magician, or what is the situation? No, he's not a superior magician. Just an ordinary man and doing the work, the the the word of God. That question of magicians, therefore, is to come again here, isn't it? The magicians did the same thing and caused the water to turn into blood. It's coming here. The magicians did the same thing and brought up the frog. Ah. So then here the, in three, the magicians could not. And they said, Your Majesty, in our opinion, this is, now notice what they say, this is the finger of God. Not that Moses is a better magician than we are, but this is the finger of God. Even so, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he wouldn't listen. And he who had started out trying to demonstrate that his magicians were as good as Moses and company, now when his own magicians own themselves defeated, and that this is the finger of God. Pharaoh is not prepared to listen to the evidence that he himself has demanded. And hence come for more play. They likewise reach their climax. Here, the magicians could not stand. So thematically, we seem to be on the right track. God showing through Moses that Mo- not Moses is a better magician, but to distinguish the action of God from the things that magicians can normally do. So in this lot then, it's Aaron. In this second series, in the first two, it's not either Aaron or Moses, but God dispenses on the first two occasions with both Aaron and Moses and acts directly. And even on the third occasion, number six, Moses doesn't have to lift up his rod, nor Aaron either. What God tells them to do is to take the dust from the furnaces, fling it up to high heaven, and the plague results. The rod isn't here used. Now here, it's Moses. Let's just go back over that just a moment then and think. Moses calls upon Pharaoh to let the people go. He refuses, and the river is turned to blood. Pharaoh is not impressed because his own magicians, they do the same thing. Verse twenty two: they did the same thing in like manner with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had spoken. So what? God, through Moses, had turned the river to blood, and the life in it had died. God isn't at any pains to try and show that magicians can't do the same thing. Poor souls, of course they can. Hm. They can the scientists and technologists of our own day, don't they, that we know now to our cost. The balance of nature is very finely wrought. No part of God's case that man can't ruin it and kill rivers so that they're dead and the very fish can't survive. If the magicians can affect the same result, well, God isn't prepared to, isn't disposed to deny it. Who said they couldn't? But it would be a c- a a a a muddled argument that says that just because man can do it, that when it happens, it's always man that's done it. If it isn't Litotes, gentlemen, God can do things that man can do. Isn't it extraordinary? One day God, uh, one day God did. One day God will do it again. So says the book of the Revelation. Men can pollute their rivers, disturb the balance of creation. One day God will do it. In protest to the oceans of blood that evil men, and indeed evil religious men, have shed upon this earth in their persecution of the righteous, one day in response to it, God will cause nature to revolt under men's hands and the very rivers and the seas shall be turned to blood. To say the scientists can do it is to miss the point sublimely. The Pharaoh was threatened, uh, with the frogs, you'll see, in the second one. The frogs came up in such multitude. Hm. The Egyptians magicians could do that as well. Well, that's nothing to be wondered at. Who denies it? We have observed, have we not, uh, agriculturists doing similar things. They don't like the birds that come and get the apples, so they develop their insecticides and kill off all the birds, and then there's a vast plague of spiders, red spiders, that proceed to ruin the apple crop anyway. Cycle of nature, the ch- food chain is very delicately balanced, isn't it? Uh, it is altogether credible that the old magicians, by their techniques, could disturb the cycle of nature, and the frogs came up in vast multitudes and made a plague and pest of themselves. But Moses was saying that this time, this thing came from God, for God, if you please, can also do what men can do. Extraordinary. How would Pharaoh know it? Said Pharaoh, entreat the Lord that he take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go that they may sacrifice unto the Lord. Well, said Moses, um, ah, I yield you the precedence, Pharaoh. Uh, I won't decide when it shall be. Now you decide when the plague of frogs shall cease, Pharaoh. Well, h- h- how do you do that? Well, Pharaoh, you see, uh, uh, you could pray to the living God, couldn't you? Well, Pharaoh wasn't given to that much, so Moses volunteered to conduct the experiment for him. You could start praying, your majesty. Now, let the experiment be fair. You set the time. When would you like the, the, the frogs to cease so that you could have evidence that this wasn't your magicians at work? God was doing it in answer to your prayer. Try praying, sir. Because what we're now wanting to distinguish is whether it's God at work or magicians at work. They both can do it. And Pharaoh asked Moses to pray for him, and that Mo- Pharaoh, uh, uh, so Pharaoh asked Moses to pray for him and sets the time. And Pharaoh pr- and Moses prays, and at the hour concerned, the frogs disappear. And with an answer to his own prayer, in front of his eyes. In the experiment that he himself has engaged in, he rejects the evidence and persists in his foolish hardness of heart. You will notice another feature about this three series of three. One and two, each time there is a warning given. In the third, on each occasion, no warning is given. God just acts. And to build up, of course, they are gradually getting more serious, aren't they? First, hear the warnings, then the clear evidence that Pharaoh himself has asked for, the experiment that he himself has conducted, and when he rejects that without warning, the third. And the lights came up, and the magicians tried to do it, but this time they couldn't. And told the Pharaoh, your majesty, this is the finger of God. Not this is Moses superior to us, nor Aaron either. This is the finger of God. And his heart was hardened, and he wouldn't listen. Now, I used to be taught by those who knew better that here, of course, was the line that God himself had put down. Men will be allowed to do all sorts of wonderful things, my superiors told me, but when it comes to the creation of life, man will never be able to do it. And if the text is to be taken literally, uh, the dust was turned into the lice or mosquitoes or whatever. Here is the creation of life, and man will never be able to do it. It may be so, if in strict terminology you mean the creation of life out of nothing. But here is not said that they created life out of nothing. The, the, the dust turned into the mosquitoes or lice. There is an ominous verse in the book of the Revelation in chapter thirteen that says when the great world figure comes, Satan's final, uh, uh, agent, the man of sin, the beast, his minister of disinformation will suggest to the people that they make an image and that they fall down and worship it. And in the language of the Revelation, he was able to give life, or breath at least, to the image. I think you may dismiss it if you please as figurative language. Perhaps we shouldn't be wise to dismiss it altogether. The question of how far God will let science go and what powers he will allow man to get his hands on, I think we are wiser to leave open. The medicals can do some marvelous things already, can't they? One endocrinologist was telling me recently how they can take things out of plants and develop them till they become human antibodies. How far will God let men go? And anyway, you'll say, look, ha ha, ho ho, here, ha ha, you're now saying, are you, that the magicians could do this, and the magicians could do that, and then the magicians couldn't do this, and that must be God. Is that not the old, old argument of the God of the gaps dished up once more? That because the magicians couldn't do it in that far day, that was meant to be God, but of course we could do it in our day, and so exit God, and we've no need any longer of that hypothesis. Well, it's a fair kind of an argument, isn't it? But you're not done with the plagues yet, gentlemen. You're not done yet with God's presentation of the evidence. Go and tell them that I am the Lord, and that I am not an absentee landlord either. I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And now, if the point has been made even to the thick head of Master Pharaoh, that it isn't Moses doing it. It's not Moses being a clever magician, it is God doing it. And his own magicians have recognized it for the time being. Now you notice that God pushes Aaron and Moses aside, and he himself does the next lot. Without any throwing down of rods or anything of the sort, God does it. But this time you'll notice that there is a, a, a, a, a change in the nature of the evidence. It is not only that marvelous things happen, but in each of these occasions, a distinction made between the Egyptians and the Israelites. Three times over, the discrimination is made. Terrible things happen in Egypt, but not in among the Israelites. To make the point that God is the Lord in the midst of the earth, explicitly so said. Granted that these may be physical phenomena, that isn't the point. The point is that God is in the midst of the earth, pushing the phenomena that way and that way, and And making making distinction distinction bet- between the Egyptians and the Israelites. And of course, it seems to my poor brain that there is an addition to the evidence here. We've had the evidence of prayer, of Pharaoh's own prayer to God and God's answer. We now have the evidence of this three times over repeated discrimination. What power has so curiously discriminated between Israel and, uh, the Egyptians? Moses is claiming it is the power of God. Pharaoh then tries to bargain with God, and I mustn't weary you by going through all those details, and goes back on his own bargain. Now you must begin to see what the term hardening means, Haro hardening his heart. Given one piece of evidence that is clear, if you reject it, it will set up an attitude in your mind that will lead you, if you're not careful, to reject the next bit of evidence. Every decision we take confirms, emphasizes, and strengthens the attitude that led to the first decision. And it is an awesome thing to watch a man before evidence, and he determined at the first to reject it, and now it's multiplying, and each time he rejects it, his own heart is hardened, of course. You say, how can I know there's a God? Moses says, well, pray, fair old man, pray, ask, ask for some evidence. Would you like to set the time for the thing to happen? Yes, he says, tomorrow, ten o'clock. Righto, I'll pray. And the evidence is given, and he hardens his heart. Who's doing the hardening? This is an awesome thing. One day, men will harden their heart so it can no longer be moved, and they will go down to hell. Why isn't God in a hurry to to destroy Pharaoh? No, in his mercy, he will paint him out and hold him up before the whole world as an example of what happens to a human being when faced with the evidence, he starts hardening his heart. It ceases to be simply an intellectual exercise and now becomes a moral one. From being intellectually perverse, the man descends to being morally perverse, doesn't he? He makes a bargain with God, and when God keeps his part of the bargain, Pharaoh acts deceitfully and goes back on his promise. The man is becoming morally perverse. And it seems to me that the second lot may be more than just a God discriminating. There might be even a hint in this last thing, mightn't there, of God's moral reaction. For whereas God simply does the plague in four and five, in six he tells Moses and Aaron not to take their rods, but to take handfuls of the ashes out of the furnaces and fling them to high heaven. Why four? Well, it might be simply staged theatricals or something to make it more impressive. The learned commentator Cassuto suggested that the ashes came from furnaces which were part of the brick kiln furnaces. Nobody can prove it. Egyptians made a lot of their bricks by other methods, but it is seemed to be that they did also use brick kilns for the hardening of some of their bricks. And if that were so, what a powerful gesture this is. The Lord in the midst of the earth putting a difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians. And the final thing here, when Pharaoh has hardened his heart once more and refuses to let the Israelites go, going back on his agreements. Suppose it is the ashes of the brick kilns where the oppressed Israelites were kept under the whip of the taskmaster, making their bricks, and God tells Aaron and Moses to fill their hands with the ashes and fling them to high heaven. What a gesture. What will he- how will heaven react to the flinging up of those ashes? It's like, if my German friends will forgive me for being an old man and remembering things of the past, what if somebody had stood in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and taken ashes out of the furnaces and flung them to high heaven? What would it mean? And what will God do? It is not now an intellectual problem anymore. We've had the intellectual side of the evidence. This is the moral side of the evidence. And if a man is now becoming so morally perverse that he can't even keep his own agreements and goes back on his word... then what will heaven say to the way Pharaoh has re- oppressed the Israelites? What will God say to the lashes of the taskmaster in the brick kilns of Egypt? It's a moral question, gentlemen. And to that point, here the magicians cannot any longer stand that out of the question, anyway. Um, and the God hardened the man's heart. The first time it is explicitly and undeniably and unquestionably said that the Lord hardened his heart. Why not destroy him at once? God now intervenes to explain. I could have cut you off, he says. Go and tell Pharaoh that. Well, he could have done it as a matter of power. He could have done it morally, couldn't he? For Pharaoh had been urged to deliver Israel, and God had the right to ask it, and Pharaoh had refused. God had not at once proceeded to cut the man off, for Pharaoh demanded evidence that could convince him, and God patiently had given him a whole series of evidence. So now God, at this point, you've never before had the right to cut him off, and could have done. I'm going to make you stand, says God. What for? That I may, that thou mayest know, uh, that there is none like me in all the earth, and secondly, for in this very, in very deed for this cause have I made thee to stand, for to show thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. God has his honor to consider. And whereas this unscrupulous tyrant has ground down the Israelites, tortured and bullied them and enslaved them till their cries come up before God. God is his own name, to consider. What would you have God do to Pharaoh? Have him just ruffle his curly hair, well, he didn't have much, did he, Pharaoh, and pat his bald patch and say, you've been a naughty boy, but never mind. Then would the world think of God, his justice and his moral standard. And if there be no justice in this universe, gentlemen, we may quit talking about salvation. It's irrelevant. God must make his power known and his name known. So when Pharaoh has at last deserved his punishment, there is no doubt about it. Now God will take the man and further deal with him to make him an object lesson to the whole world. He becomes now a vessel of wrath. Notice that when that happens, Dorsey chapter seven, a very terrible plague of hail is announced. But because now God is going to visit his plague on Pharaoh's heart, God in his mercy warns the ordinary Egyptians and tells them how they may escape the judgment. And everybody who feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cattle flee into their houses, and he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field. Oh, what a merciful exhibition of how the gospel works, even now when judgment is sure and Pharaoh is going to be destroyed. The first step in that direction, God preaches the gospel to the Egyptians. There is a way of escape if you will listen to the word. Look what happened to Pharaoh when his heart was hardened by the Lord. You'll see. Uh, Pharaoh sent, verse twenty seven of chapter nine, 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. Entreat the Lord to remove the plague. The plague was. Verse thirty four: And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his servants. They are terrible words. For when the plague came, Pharaoh began to show a spark of a conscience, you might think. His moral sense is awakening. He is at last admitting that his attitude and actions are sinful, that he and his people are wicked. He's now can see it, it is sin as the plague is upon him and ask for the removal of the plague. When the plague is removed, though he can see it is sin, he continues in his sin. The horror of it. There is a point beyond which a man will go when God finally hardens his heart. That doesn't mean that he's relieved of all moral sense thereafter. Some of the tortures of hell itself will be a moral conscience, aware that their attitude is sin, and God is just, and persisting in sin. The next was even worse, wasn't it? For when the next plague came, you'll see, uh, verse sixteen of chapter ten, then 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, and he entreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death only. Moses went out and entreated the Lord, and the Lord in his mercy listened to Pharaoh's prayer once more, and the plague was removed. But his heart was hardened. But this time he not only sees it's sin, but what he's objecting to is the result of sin, the hard consequence of death. He asked for the consequence to be removed, but when it's removed, he cannot repent. The lost will say if God relieved them of their torments, would they not be saved? No, gentlemen. Well, they wouldn't. Perhaps it is true to say they couldn't any longer repent. And when that happened, now without warning, once more without any preliminary warning, God intervenes directly and sends upon Egypt a darkness that could be felt. It was physical, but who can resist seeing in that literal physical darkness a symbol, an emblem of a greater darkness? The man had started by asking for evidence of the reality of God, and given the evidence, persistently rejecting it, he has now gone beyond hope, he is hardened. He cannot even follow the yielding of his own moral conscience. He cannot repent, and he sinks into darkness that cannot be felt. That is a stern message to learn from the Old Testament. But gentlemen, I am persuaded it is not mere ancient history. What happened to Pharaoh is set before us by God's own mercy to be an example of what happens to every man and woman who, being given clear evidence and beyond all doubt and with their eyes open, reject the evidence for the truth of God. They shall go down into eternal darkness. He was a vessel of wrath. We'll say, was he not foreordained to be a vessel of wrath? Who prepared the vessels of wrath? And who decides who shall be a vessel of mercy? Let us ponder again those lovely words of Paul. Vessels of mercy that God hath for prepared, vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Could anybody be a vessel of mercy? Or if you're a vessel of wrath, have you got to stick with the role that God has given you? A vessel of mercy is someone who is shown mercy by God, that he himself might be an example to all others. And Paul, who wrote those words in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter nine, shows us what it means to be a vessel of mercy by relating his own conversion in first Timothy chapter one verse Fifteen. Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long suffering, for an example of them which should hereafter believe on him unto eternal life. So Paul was not merely forgiven himself. God showed Paul mercy. Yes, it does, Paul, observe what he was at when he showed mercy to me. You'll see I was the very chief of sinners, the very worst specimen you could get lay your hands on. For I was not a drunken sot, I was a high-powered Pharisee, and with all the wealth of religious experience in Judaism, I persecuted God incarnate and persecuted his people. A worse rebel against God you wouldn't find. Yes, says God, I chose Paul on purpose. I thought I'd take the worst rebel I could get my hands on, you'll see. Because I wanted to make him, not only to forgive the man, I wanted to make the man a- an example. Example of what? Of, of how willing I am to save, says God. And so he saved Paul as an example of all those that should hereafter believe. If God would save Paul, the chief of sinners, there isn't anybody that God wouldn't save. For there is no distinction. There is no favoritism or acceptance of persons with God. You want to know God's attitude, look at Paul, the worst sinner saved, to be an exhibition to all the world of God's willingness to save. And in Romans chapter nine, Paul laments the fact that Israel could have been vessels of mercy, and why weren't they vessels of mercy, and whose fault it was it that the Israelite, Israel of his day were not vessels of mercy? I'll tell you, says Paul, they sought after righteousness. But you'll see, seeking after righteousness, they insisted that they were to gain this righteousness by their works, and they would not submit to a righteousness which is by faith. Well now, gentlemen, if you insist on seeking your righteousness by works, you might succeed up to a point, but you'll never succeed in being a vessel of mercy, will you? You'd be an exhibition of how salvation could be won by works, and of course it can't be done. But the Israel of Paul's, they insisted that they could do it and insisted on trying to earn salvation by their works. And so long as a man or woman insists on trying to earn salvation by works, one thing they will never be. And that is a vessel to exhibit God's mercy. How can you become a vessel of God's mercy? By being an outrageous sinner like Paul is one way of doing it, but don't do that. Be much milder, for we're all sinners, and be prepared to accept salvation totally by God's grace. All the magnificence of God of holding out the exhib- exhibit of Paul, the chief of sinners, now say to be an encouragement to every other sinner on the face of the earth, that God is prepared to save men by grace. But if you won't have grace, what will you have? God made Pharaoh a vessel of law. For when Pharaoh hardened his heart, God at last fixed him in the position he himself had chosen. Did it not out of spite? Through his exhibition held up in the pages of Holy Scripture to the world at large, not only Rahab, but multitudes of men and women have been warned, and being warned, have repented and believed and have been saved. We must therefore thank God for the hardening of Pharaoh's