Pharaoh & the Problem of False Repentance

Today we’re going to talk about repentance.

In his book, Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel, John Owen Roberts notes:

The first word of the gospel is not “love.” It is not even “grace.” The first word of the gospel is “repent.” From Matthew through the Revelation, repentance is an urgent and indispensable theme that is kept at the very forefront of the gospel message.

He then goes on to show that repentance was the primary concern of John the Baptist’s message. He was a voice crying from the wilderness saying, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:1-3)

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight” (Matthew 3:1-3).

Not only is the word repent the dominant note in John’s message, but he made the concept of repentance absolutely clear. Repentance makes the path straight between the Lord and the repenting person. Repentance is like clearing a highway of holiness to and from God.

And not only was it John’s first word, it was also the Lord Jesus’ first word. Matthew 4:17 says that Jesus settled in Capernaum and from that time began to preach, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And not only was it both the first word of John and Jesus, but it was also the last word of Jesus. In Luke 24:45

45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem

It is impossible to be a gospel centered church, let alone a Christ centered church – without making repentance a central issue.

Now what exactly are we talking about? What is repentance? Well, we saw one definition. It is the clearing of the highway between us and God. Or as the writer of Hebrews might say, it is casting aside of every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles.

Thomas Watson suggested that repentance “...is a spiritual medicine made up of six special ingredients: 1. Sight of sin 2. Sorrow for sin 3. Confession of sin 4. Shame for sin 5. Hatred for sin 6. Turning from sin. If any one is left out, it loses its virtue.”

There’s a reason we are talking about it. We’re going to cover the 10 plagues today and observe that at various times, Pharaoh exemplified a false repentance.

Illustration: Disease

I thought I might walk you through all of the mistakes Pharaoh made.

Repent before the repercussions come. Don’t wait until your sin goes to seed
In the early stages of any sin, though the seed may’ve been planted, the consequences have not yet appeared. This is the perfect time to repent. Waiting until after the consequences appear puts you in a situation where it will be difficult to sort out your sincerity. Was Pharaoh truly sorry, or did he just want the storm to stop? The human heart is a confusing place. It is actually very difficult to sort out one’s motives.

Look at 9:13

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.”

And again in vs. 22

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and beast and every plant of the field, in the land of Egypt.” Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field. Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.

It was in these desperate circumstances that Pharaoh said the following:

Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. (9:27-28)

There is nothing obviously problematic with this statement. Matthew Henry says,

Pharaoh humbled himself to Moses. No man could have spoken better: he owns himself wrong; he owns that the Lord is righteous; and God must be justified when he speaks, though he speaks in thunder and lightning.

And yet we know that this repentance was not sufficient. As soon as the hail stopped, his heart grew hard again.

I think he thought he was sorry. But it was the hail that had him sorry. Allowing our sin to go to seed, to begin to wreak havoc on our lives puts us in the difficult position of potential self-deception. It is far better to repent before the consequences come. It is far easier to sort out our true motives.

This is one reason why we impart knowledge of God’s law to our children. When they sin, or even when they get close to sinning, we want them to feel a storm in their conscience and act on that.

If you are suffering consequences, make good use of them
Supposing you do not cut off the sin in time to forestall physical or relational consequences, and you begin to suffer external consequences, do not be in a hurry to chase them away. Don’t be like Pharaoh – who tied the terms of his repentance with the removal of the consequences.

See that in vs. 28?

“Plead with the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”

That’s a bad idea. God has brought them into your life to teach you the sinfulness of your sin. Pray to God, “please do not fix this until you fix me.”

Don’t Negotiate with God
Further back in the story, We see Pharaoh repeatedly attempting to negotiate a partial obedience with God.

The fourth plague (flies), Pharaoh tries to bargain with Yahweh. He makes a counter offer. “Offer your sacrifices here in Egypt.” Moses refuses to make that concession. Then Pharaoh counters — “ok, leave Egypt, but do not go very far away.” And then he asks Moses, “plead for me.” Moses says, ok we’ve got a deal, but do not renege. Moses pleads for Pharaoh, the flies stop, and once again when the relief comes, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.

And then again in the eighth plague, Pharaoh makes another attempt at negotiating.

He is willing to let some of the people go but not everyone.

But he said to them, “The LORD be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No! Go, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence. (10:10-11)

The ninth plague is darkness. Pharaoh concedes a little ground. Ok ok, you and all the people can go, but you have to leave your livestock behind.

Don’t do that. Go in the other direction. Build a fence around the sin.

Don’t get addicted to the benefits your sin provides
Pharaoh became dependent on a lifestyle that was made possible by his sin. So that even when he knew he was in the wrong, he found it too distasteful to lose the benefits his sin was bringing him. He was addicted to the free labor. He is afraid to lose something that only his sin made possible.

During the final plague, Pharaoh appears to have had enough. All of the first born of Egypt are dead. Pharaoh calls Moses to him at once and says, “leave…right now…all of you.”

But then we read the following in chapter 14,

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” – Ex 14:5.

And so he and his armies chased the Hebrews to the Red Sea and there met his maker. The message of Pharaoh’s story arc is clear. While true repentance leads to life, false repentance leads to death.
That’s the scariest thing about false repentance, you eventually run out of time to get it right.

Now what could Pharaoh have done to handle the problem of having grown addicted to the so-called benefits of his sin? Well he would’ve had to reconfigure the entire Egyptian economy. Building projects would’ve had to been scaled back. Egyptian workers would’ve had to pick up the slack.

This is a very important idea because there are plenty of people who are addicted to a particular fruit of their sin. This is a very common problem for people caught in various dopamine seeking sins. Also with lying.

What can be done? We must understand that repentance is not only the recognition of your own sinfulness, but also a recognition of God’s goodness and kindness.

What Pharaoh ought to have done is say, “I’ve put myself and my country in a bad situation where we have become addicted to free labor. Now we’ve got to go through some uncomfortable times of adjusting to the way we should’ve been living all along. But the same God has visited us with plagues, will visit us with blessings when we obey. He will see us through this change.”

Friends, your flesh will try to convince you that while full obedience is obviously preferable, it is just not possible in your case. You’ve gone too far down the bad road, built too many bad habits, etc…

But the same God who shows you your sin is also eager to show you his faithfulness. Choose to do things his way, knowing that he will be with you.

It is true that being rid of a particular sin will bring a certain kind of austerity into your life. You had been cheating the system, printing your own money as it were. And now you must learn to live honestly and yes, that will be harder.

Think of Paul’s injunction in Ephesians 4:28,

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Outwardly, the repentant thief’s life has gotten harder. He used to have it easy. He did not have to invest his own blood, sweat, and tears into work. He could simply steal the fruits of someone else’s labor. Now in order to repent, he has to do honest work with his own hands. Something he’s probably not used to doing. And just wait until he gets a bad boss!

In order for a thief to leave his old lifestyle, he must believe God will bless his new one. Even though he has never done an honest day’s work in his life, he must enter the workforce and trust that God will give him the humility and the energy to live in this new way.

What he is going to find is that yes, his life is harder, but his heart is sweeter. If he can keep his eyes on the Lord while his calluses develop – calluses he should’ve earned a long time ago – if he can walk in this harder pathway for a bit, God will meet him and bless him in both internal and external ways.

Summary:

So there’s a brief rundown of the inner workings of Pharaoh’s false repentance. Now you know how to avoid that disease.

Repent before the repercussions come
If they are already upon you, let them have their full work on you
Don’t try to negotiate with God - give him full obedience
Don’t get addicted to the fruit of your sin – but if you do, trust that God will help you through the withdrawals.

Conclusion:

For the past few months, as I have typed out these sermons, I have misspelled the word Pharaoh approximately 1000 times. I’m really tired of typing that word. To make matters worse, John has me feeling insecure about how I say the word. I’m kinda done with Pharaoh!

What is the purpose of this man in this story?

God is showing us two things in the life of Pharaoh. Firstly, he is showing us who we are. Or at least who we have the capacity to be.

But he is also showing us who He is.

Exodus 7:5
The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

Exodus 7:17
Thus says the LORD, “By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood.

Exodus 8:10
And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God.

Exodus 8:22
But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.

Exodus 9:14
For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.

Exodus 9:29
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, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s.

Exodus 10:2
and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

Exodus 14:4
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” And they did so.

Exodus 14:18
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

He is the LORD – there is none like him in all the earth. He is the LORD of all the earth.

This knowledge tells us why we should repent. He sees us. He cares what we do and do not do. As our creator and king, He deserves our obedience. This great God over all the earth is surely able to punish our disobedience.

But he is also willing and able to empower our obedience.

Around 1600 years ago, St. Augustine had, in his youth, developed a very promiscuous way of living. He knew the Lord was commanding sexual fidelity. But he felt like he had zero shot of obeying the Lord in that respect.

Eventually he learned to pray, “command what you will, only grant what you command.”

And the Lord did just that.

He was seeing 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 in action.

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.