True Repentance

Exodus 9:27-34 -  Then Pharaoh sent, and called Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "I have sinned this time; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.  Entreat the LORD; for there has been enough of this thunder and hail; I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer." Moses said to him, "As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD; the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, that you may know that the earth is the LORD's.  But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God." (The flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.  But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they are late in coming up.)  So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and stretched out his hands to the LORD; and the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured upon the earth.  But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 

Pharaoh had to admit it…the God of Moses had clearly shown that he was the most powerful. He made the ‘Egyptian’ cattle sick…covered the ‘Egyptian’ people with horrid boils…..and sent hail so big it would kill anything it hit within the cities of ‘Egypt’, while lightning and flashed across the sky, and thunder roared in every ear. As he watched Moses stretch out his hands and follow Yahweh’s instructions to bring these calamities…. His heart was melted just enough to believe in the existence of a very powerful God. He knew the only way to stop the plague of hail was to ask Moses to entreat the Lord to vanish it from the land.

His repentance was short lived…for as soon as he saw that all hope was not gone…and the Lord had not destroyed everything…he recanted once again. His ‘repentance’ was meaningless…it lasted just long enough to get what he wanted from Moses…respite from the last of the seven plagues God had sent to show his power in Egypt. Maybe Hapi… the God of the river Nile was just sleeping.  Maybe Hathor…the goddess of the cow was punishing him for not being a harsh enough ruler.  Maybe he just needed to work harder to gain the favor of Ra...the sun god and chief of all the ‘Egyptian’ gods he worshiped.

We’ve all been there…so beat down by life…so desperate for some move of God that we start making those empty promises.  We see the worst scenario…and we get on our knees and admit to God we were so wrong…and we make the promise to go back to church….to clean up the sin we know is in our life…if he will just fix this one thing in our life.  We thank him with sincere tears of faith…and make that vow to get it right this time. It lasts a good month or two…before life starts to be manageable again…and we think we can make it on our own again. And we slowly start to stop the daily prayers…and we skip a few days of reading the bible...and pretty soon we have justified not going to church to worship and praise God for that big favor we ask for.  The trek back to our old life happened so gradually that we don’t even notice that we have slipped…Satan…  tricking us into letting go of God’s hand….Satan smiling and bragging to God that he has us back in his control once more.

There are 3 more plagues coming in the next chapters….life is going to get hard again for Pharaoh…even end in death! God promised to lead his people out of Egypt…and he will do what it takes to prove to Pharaoh that he is in control.  And God will keep chasing us until he melts our hearts in true repentance that brings about salvation…as spoken of in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” ….and in 2 Peter 2:20-21, “ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.  It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.”

Father…what a clear message you bring to my heart this morning. Help me to be truly repentant of all my sins and never slide backwards into them again. Give me the strength and knowledge to fight off Satan’s tricks once and for all…so they cannot interfere with the task you have planned for me to do. Help me to stay obedient to your word and place more of it inside my heart…to recall when life gets hard again.  Help me to recall your words of strength and wisdom to carry me through the valleys of life. Amen.