Presented to Alberni Valley Ministries, Port Alberni BC, 14 October 2018 and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 29 June 2014 by Captain Michael Ramsay.
This is the 2018 version. To read the 2014 version, click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2014/06/exodus-78-13-cane-snake.html
The Lord said to Moses and
Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you,
‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down
before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”
So
Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw
his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also
did the same things by their secret arts: each one threw down his staff and it
became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s
heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.
There are a number of items and ideas that jump out at one
as we read through this sign that God performs for Pharaoh through Moses and
Aaron.
1) We notice that not only can God do this
sign but so can wise men, sorcerers and even Egyptian magicians. They can all
turn their staffs into snakes.
2) Aaron’s staff snake eats and swallows the
others
3) Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he won’t
let them go.
First let us get a bit of an image in our mind of the scene
painted before us in Exodus 7:8-13. Aaron and Moses are coming into Pharaoh’s
palace.[3] This must be like an old homecoming of sorts for Moses. It would be
like a High School Reunion. Apparently our MP, Gord Johns, and I graduated from
MT Doug in Victoria. I don’t recall ever meeting him before I moved here and
though I may have gone to my 10th Grade 12 Grad reunion I know I didn’t go to
my 20th, 25th, or 30th or any others. I do know that many people tell stories
about what happens when they do go to reunions. They notice who has lost hair
and they notice who has gained weight; they notice who has children and who has
even grandchildren; they notice who has become rich or famous; they notice who
is divorced or never married. They also notice how much the school has changed
or remained the same. Anyone here every gone to a school reunion? Think of your
old school and your old friends; when you see them the old stories and feelings
come flooding back.
Moses in our story today is returning to a palace that he
would have spent some time in and around – at least as a teenager or young
adult (Exodus 2:5-10) - and a pharaoh who is probably in some way related to
him: a step or foster brother or cousin, someone he may have even known as a
teenager or a young man, or this pharaoh may even be the child or grandchild of
someone he may have grown up with. Moses in our story today is eighty years old
and his brother Aaron is eighty-three (Exodus 7:7). It has been a long time
since he left the Egyptian District Secondary School (had their been one, of
course!). Picture yourself as an 80 year-old returning to your high school for
the first time or visiting the old family home that you haven’t seen since
before you got married. This is what it may have been like for Moses as he
stands before Pharaoh - who is probably a relative of his foster mom or a
step-relative of some kind who he hasn’t seen since he was a young man. Now
Moses is eighty, standing in the halls of this building he once knew so well,
talking to types people he used to know so well and challenging these people
like maybe he used to do sixty or seventy years ago in this very building. This
is the scene before us today: an 80 year-old at a school and/or a family
reunion.
Now this 80 year-old Moses and his 83 year-old brother throw
his cane –that’s what a staff is – this octogenarian throws his cane to the
ground, it turns into a snake and then – I guess – while this snake is moving
along the ground, Pharaoh sends messengers out to find wise men, sorcerers, and
even some magicians. I doubt they were all in the palace. They probably weren’t
even all in the city. Pharaoh’s men would have had to go find them. I don’t
know what they did in the interim whether Moses and Aaron picked up the snake
staff and waited outside or whether they all just stood there and looked at
this snake. At any rate these wise men, sorcerers and even magicians finally
arrive and this brings us to our first observation for today:
1) Not only can
God, Moses and Aaron do this sign but also all these wise men, sorcerers and
even the Egyptian magicians. They all turn their staffs into snakes.
Does anybody else find this interesting? I can’t turn a
staff into a snake. Now some people have suggested that all of these wise men,
sorcerers, and magicians somehow hypnotised some snakes so that they would
stand rigid for a long time and disguised them as canes and then as soon as
they throw them to the ground they snap out of it and wriggle along the
floor.[4] That would be a neat trick – unlikely – but a neat trick nonetheless.
Now some other people have suggested that all of these wise men, sorcerers, and
magicians had somehow simply done a slight of hand merely creating the illusion
of making the staff a snake but there is a problem or two with that idea as
well: the main one being that the Bible doesn’t pretend that they were tricking.[5]
It simply says that they could do this just like Moses and Aaron could do this.
And as you read through the other sign that Moses and Aaron perform for Pharaoh
at the commencement of the plagues – turning the Nile to blood – the magicians
can do that too and even the subsequent plague; the Bible records that the
magicians – on command - conjured up frogs to further devastate their own
lands. This seems to be more than a slight of hand. At any rate,
Observation 1: this turning of an eighty year-old gentleman’s
cane into a snake doesn’t seem to impress everyone and it appears that anyone
in this field of work was able to do this same thing. [6]
In the end, this miracle, this sign, seems to be something
that the magicians, the politicians (the officials) and Pharaoh himself can
simply write off as an insignificant trick that many people can do. And this
brings us to observation #2.
2) Aaron’s snake staff swallows up the others.
Again let us picture this scene together. This could
possibly be a very packed room with Pharaoh, his officials and possibly a whole
bunch of wise men, sorcerers and even magicians here (cf. 2 Timothy 3:8).[7] It
may even be like us in this room today. Imagine that Pharaoh is sitting or
standing up by me here. Imagine that these two men in their 80’s throw this
staff on the ground in front of us here and it becomes a snake and then either
one-by-one or all-at-once the person beside you and everyone around you - these
many wise men, sorcerers and even magicians - they throw their canes on the
ground and there are all of a sudden all these snakes crawling everywhere. This
is what it would be like.
Now imagine that this snake up here sees all of the others
down there and one-by-one goes and fights and eats those 20, 30, 40, 10 or
however many other snakes there are sliding around on the ground.[8] That is
the visual image of this first sign for Pharaoh. We’ve been in a snake pit or
two before (they have this amazing one in Manitoba) I can’t say that I would
necessarily be so eager to watch these duals.
Picture this further with me. When Pharaoh and everyone see
that anyone in the room can seemingly throw her cane on the ground and have it
become a snake, they are probably thinking that it is no big deal and maybe
they are feeling a little bit smug too. Pharaoh probably thinks that Moses
thought that he had come up with this impressive feat so he calls together this
room full of people to show Moses up: “Look Moses. What’s the big deal? You
thought you could convince us to do what you want by doing this? We can all do
it!” Now we can imagine Pharaoh or one of his officials or a magician, a
sorcerer or two start giggling or laughing to themselves that someone dares
make demands of Pharaoh when he can’t do anything more special than any of the
rest of the wise men, sorcerers or even magicians. How can Moses think he is so
special? They are possibly enjoying the humour of the moment when someone
notices – and then the next person sees – and then someone else watches as
Aaron’s rod, Moses’ staff, this older gentleman’s snake cane is not only
attacking but is actually eating, swallowing up all of the other snake canes.
Can you picture that?
You can picture how the mood would change in a moment,
right? One minute they are enjoying their illusion of victory probably laughing
in celebration; the next they are shocked, embarrassed and maybe even the
object of scorn themselves as their canes are eaten by Moses’ or Aaron’s staff.
In one moment, they believe they have proved they are superior, in the next
minute God shows them that He has defeated them. Their defeat has been
swallowed up in His victory.
3) Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he wouldn’t let them
go.
Now we can understand how Pharaoh would not be so happy,
seeing defeat snatched from the jaws of victory in this way as the work of his
magicians, sorcerers, and wise men is gobbled up before his very eyes. You can
understand how he would be more than a little upset. Now this upsettedness is
further exasperated. Have you ever seen those Egyptian headdresses? Picture
King Tut – he’s a famous pharaoh. What does his headdress – his hat – what does
it look like?
– A Snake, a Cobra. Pharaoh has just not only seen all these
snakes eaten by the staff of this guy who was run out of the kingdom decades
ago but he has also seen this powerful symbol of his family, this powerful
symbol of himself, and this powerful symbol of his whole country mocked and
devoured before his eyes. It would be like if we went to visit any president of
the United States and suddenly chopped up and burned an American flag right in
front of him; what would he do? At the very least he would have us arrested; if
we did it in a very public fashion like Moses and Aaron did here, they would
probably do even worse to us. Just ask Noriega, Wikileaks, or others who have
spent decades without charge in an American prison or elsewhere for threatening
to embarrass today’s equivalent of Pharaoh, the US President - regardless of
party.[9]
Pharaoh has just been shown up and Pharaoh’s heart is hard
and it is going to get hardened either again or even further many times until
he finally does concede God’s victory. At this stage however Pharaoh hasn’t
learned his lesson but what lessons can we learn from this first sign, the sign
of the staff that turned into a snake and devoured Pharaohs’?
I think it is this: Pharaoh thought that he was master of
his own destiny. Pharaoh probably didn’t care too much about the disparate
religious beliefs represented before him in our pericope today. He thought
anything that either God could do or that people thought that God could do,
Pharaoh seemed confident that he could find someone else who could do the very
same thing. He probably saw the miraculous as mundane and explainable, at least
he saw them as duplicate-able. He then errs by trying to copy the work of God,
instead of submitting to God.
Pharaoh tried to do in his own strength what can only really
be accomplished in God’s strength. In Pharaoh’s time of trouble, the LORD
wanted Pharaoh to turn to Him but he trusted in himself and turned to magicians
rather than turning to God.
How many times in our own lives when we are faced with a
crisis like Pharaoh was, do we act exactly the same way? Do we really believe
that God is the one who can deliver us? Do we acknowledge the signs He is doing
right in front of our eyes, right now, in our lives, or do we try to conjure up
snakes of our own fancy? When we can’t pay the bills do we go to God in prayer
and meditation and reading our Bible to see how He is transforming us like
Aaron’s staff or do we try to make our own snakes and answers? Do we try to
make our own miracles by trying find money on our own, or borrowing money, or
gambling, or taking out a loan, or selling something, or conjuring up any other
magician’s snake instead of seeking God? If something tragic happens in our
lives, if something desperate happens in our lives, do we follow the signs of
God’s snake cane or do we try to do the work of God all on our own?
Make no mistake my friends, if we oppose God, working
against Him by trying to do things on our own instead of seeking Him, those
snakes of self-reliance will be shown to be as useless as Pharaoh’s magicians’
snakes - but there is good news and the good news is this: Jesus, the Son of
God Himself, provides a very real deliverance from whatever problems we face in
this world. Numbers 21:4-9 records that when Moses lifted up a bronze snake in
the dessert, all who cast their eyes upon him, even those who were dying were
saved and John 3:14 records, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the
wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up;” Jesus is like Moses’ bronze
snake in that – even today - any of us who cast our eyes upon him will be saved
for now and forever,
So I encourage all of us today, to cast aside all those
inferior magicians’ snakes of our text today. They can’t save us and they will
not survive. Let us not miss the sign; instead let us look upon Jesus, who was
lifted up, lived, died, and raised again. Let us look upon Jesus and let us
live for now and forever more in his loving embrace.
Let us pray
More articles, sermons, and papers at
---
[1] Cf. Peter Enns, Exodus, (TNAC: Zondervan: Grand Rapids,
Mi., 2000), 195.
[2] Captain Michael Ramsay, Dr. Was: Daily Rations with a
Smile, (Sheepspeak: Vancouver, 2005). Available on-line at
www.drwas.blogspot.ca
[3] But cf. Peter Enns, Exodus, (TNAC: Zondervan: Grand
Rapids, Mi., 2000), 194.
[4] Peter Enns, Exodus, (TNAC: Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Mi.,
2000),198.
[5] Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, (OTL:
Westminister Jihn Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2004), 152.
[6] Cf. Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis
CD-ROM:Exodus/Exposition of Exodus/I. Divine Redemption (1:1-18:27)/D. Judgment
and Salvation Through the Plagues (7:6-11:10)/1. Presenting the signs of divine
authority (7:6-13), Book Version: 4.0.2
[7] Cf. Donald Guthrie, Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction
and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1990 (Tyndale New
Testament Commentaries 14), S. 176
[8] R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary.
Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1973 (Tyndale Old Testament
Commentaries 2), S. 95
[9] Cf. Walter Brueggemann, The Book of Exodus, (NIB I:
Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994), 740
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