SEE I HAVE MADE YOU A gOD TO PHARAOH

IN THE DAYS OF HIS POWER SERIES.

TOPIC: SEE I HAVE MADE YOU A gOD TO PHARAOH

SERMON BY-:
Rev. Innocent Chukwudi Peace-Udochukwu President Living Fountain Ministries Int’l LIFOM

“And the LORD said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.”
Exodus 7:1

God is about to unleash his mighty acts of judgment against the gods of Egypt but Moses is sniveling again, questioning God, complaining that the plan won’t work, that he is inadequate for the task. So far he’s been a failure. God’s own people won’t even listen to him. Pharaoh will have no reason to pay any attention to what he says. Moses confesses that he is morally unqualified to speak God’s words. This is when God announces: ‘look, I have made you God to Pharaoh’. This is an amazing declaration. You have asked ‘who am I that I should go?’ You feel inadequate and incompetent and unqualified? God says ‘I will grant you to be God to Pharaoh’. Our translators have softened this by inserting the word ‘like’. But there is no ‘like’ or ‘as’ in the original. Our translators are afraid we might run with a passage like this and use it to argue that men can become gods.

The bible is clear as can be that there is only one God, one uncreated Creator, independent and sovereign over all that is.

“To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. … know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.”
Deuteronomy 4:35,39

“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.”
Isaiah 45:5-7

“For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
Isaiah 45:18

“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
1Corinthians 8:6

“One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Ephesians 4:6

These are just a few of the very clear statements in scripture plainly stating that there is only one God. The bible is monotheistic from cover to cover.

There is and can be only one supreme being. Then what do we do with a passage like this, where God says ‘I will make you God to Pharaoh’? Certainly we can’t make the leap to say that Moses suddenly became an eternal sinless independent supreme being. That is nonsense. To understand this passage correctly we need to put it in the context of the whole bible. We need to look backward and forward.
God’s Purpose in Creation
We need to look all the way back to God’s purpose in creation.

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Genesis 1:26-27

Man is unique in creation. Of no other created being is it said that they were created in his image and likeness. We were created to be a reflection of the invisible God, to put the unseen creator on display to his creation. Man was created in the God-like image of ruling – having dominion over every other created thing. We are designed to display God’s character and nature to the rest of creation.

“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”
Psalm 8: 4 -8

And the Lord said unto Moses
In answer to his objection, taken from his own meanness, and the majesty of Pharaoh, and from his want of readiness and freedom of expression: see;
take notice of, observe what I am about to say: I have made thee a god to Pharaoh;
not a god by nature, but made so; he was so by commission and office, clothed with power and authority from God to act under him in all things he should direct; not for ever, as angels are gods, but for a time; not in an ordinary way, as magistrates are gods, but in an extraordinary manner; and not to any other but to Pharaoh, being an ambassador of God to him, and as in his room and stead to, rule over him, though so great a monarch; to command him what he should do, and control him when he did wrong, and punish him for his disobedience, and inflict such plagues upon him, and do such miracles before him, as no mere man of himself, and none but God can do; and even exercise the power of life and death, as in the slaying of the firstborn, that Pharaoh should stand in as much fear of him, as if he was a deity, and apply to him to remove the plagues upon him, as if he was one: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet;
to declare the will of God revealed to him by Moses from the Lord; so that this seems to be more than to be the mouth and spokesman of Moses and interpreter and explainer of his words, or to be acting the part of an orator for him; for Moses in this affair being God’s viceregent, and furnished with a knowledge of the mind and will of God respecting it, as well as with power to work miracles, and inflict plagues, was made a god to both Pharaoh and Aaron; see ( Exodus 4:6 ) to Pharaoh in the sense before explained, and to Aaron, he being his prophet, to whom he communicated the secrets of God, and his will and pleasure, in order to make the same known to Pharaoh. Thus highly honoured was Moses to be a god to a sovereign prince, and to have Aaron to be his prophet.

We look back to God’s purpose in creating us as image-bearers of his character and nature, ruling everything entrusted to us with wisdom and love and care, and we see how we have distorted this image by our rebellion against him.

Man’s Purpose Fulfilled in Jesus
Now we need to look forward to Jesus, to see how our purpose is perfectly fulfilled and ultimately restored in the one God-man.

We all are new creations in Christ. God has restored in us the creation mandate to be his representatives to the watching world. God has reconciled us to himself through the cross of Christ, and has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation. We have been commissioned as ambassadors for Christ. You and I are to be God to the world around us. We are to be living reflections of God’s holy character and nature. We are to speak with God’s absolute authority. We are to warn of the dangers of neglecting God’s grace. We are to remove any obstacles out of the way and by our own character put the glory of God on display.

The exodus was a lesson to Moses that he could not accomplish anything in his own strength. God did not expect him to accomplish anything. God is the main actor – God will harden Pharaoh’s heart. God will multiply his signs and wonders. God will lay his hand on Egypt and bring his people out by great acts of judgment. God will stretch out his hand against Egypt. What God required of Moses was simply to ‘speak all that I command you’.

You shall speak all that I command you. Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as the LORD commanded them. Simple trust. Simple obedience. It was God’s promise that through this the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD. This is what Jesus demanded of his followers. Do not act in your own strength. Wait for the promise of the Father.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:8

The Apostle John sums up our role as ambassadors this way:

“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
1 John 4:12

By our love, and we love because he first loved us, we put the unseen God of love on display. God is making his appeal through us to the world – be reconciled to God.

SHALOM!

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