“But the Lord replied to Moses, ‘Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: because of a strong hand he will let them go, and because of a strong hand he will drive them from his land.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’m sure I’ve used this illustration before somewhere, but one of my favorite types of magic tricks are the ones when the magician seems to make a mistake or have something go wrong with the trick. The best versions of these have you totally buying into the drama of the moment only to leave you absolutely astounded when they pull off an even more impressive trick than it had looked like they were going to do in the beginning. After Moses’ first encounter with Pharaoh makes it look like God’s plans were going to be a total bust, God offers Moses a bit of reassurance. Let’s talk about what’s going on here and what it means for us.

Yesterday we were staring failure in the face alongside Moses and Aaron. They did what God told them to do, and Pharaoh responded exactly like God had told them he would. Except in the frustration of the moment, they evidently lost sight of the sneak-peak God had given them and could only see the broken pieces of their original hopes lying in a mess all around them. What’s more, the rest of the Israelites didn’t even begin to share the vision God had given them. All they knew was that because of these two meddling busybodies their lives were suddenly exponentially harder than they had been before. Everything was wrong.

If you’ll remember back a few weeks, though, when God first gave Moses that sneak-peak of how things were going to go, He said something then that comes back into play here. In Exodus 3:19 God said, “However, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand.” And God was right (because, of course He was). At least, He was right about Pharaoh’s intentions. When Moses and Aaron made their request, Pharaoh basically scoffed at the notion that the obviously weak and powerless God of the Hebrews would make a request of him, one of the great gods of the powerful Egyptian people. As a god himself, he clearly had a stronger hand than this God his slaves wanted to go and worship. And he responded by demonstrating the strength of his hand. He squeezed the people even more tightly than he had been squeezing them before. The God of the Hebrews was clearly nothing and no one of consequence.

And the thing is: All of the human players involved agreed with Pharaoh. All of them. Even Moses. Now, yes, Moses had committed himself to this path, and to his credit he intended to walk it to its conclusion, but he didn’t have anything like the kind of faith that gave him a clear view of the vision God had of the situation. After all, at the end of chapter 5 we left Moses whining to God once again over being chosen for all of this instead of God’s choosing someone else.

I’m reminded of a great scene from late in the first season of Ted Lasso. Rebecca is with Ted in his local pub and her ex-husband comes in and begins to give her a hard time. Later on in the scene, after Ted has been his usual happy, goofy self and Rupert is feeling rather smug in his arrogance over having managed to gain back some ownership rights of the team, Rupert challenges him to a game of darts. Rupert is a skilled dart player, but Ted is better. And in the end, Ted not only defeats him, but utterly humiliates him in front of the entire pub. Making the scene even more satisfying is Ted’s relating a story about how it used to bother him when people would underestimate him. Then he realized that the real problem was with them, not him. After that, he could forgive them for their faults and have a healthy confidence in himself and what he could do.

Everyone in this entire story was underestimating God. But that was okay. He wasn’t bothered by it. I mean, in the sense that their underestimations were a direct result of their sinful hearts, He was utterly enraged by it, but it didn’t pose any kind of a meaningful threat to Him. He knew (and knows) who He was. He knew what His power was. He knew that He was the only God there is. He was perfectly content to leave Pharaoh riding confident and smug on the high horse of his arrogance and presumed power for the time being. He was content with this because now that Pharaoh had made his play in response to God’s request, God was going to make His own. And, contrary to what someone might say before stepping up to a big challenge around where I live, He wasn’t even going to have to get somebody else to hold His beer for Him.

“Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: because of a…” And what does He say here? Remember what He said before about Pharaoh’s not letting the Israelites go even under force from a strong hand. God now says just the opposite. Because of “a strong hand he will let them go, and because of a strong hand he will drive them from his land.” There was not a human ruler with a strong enough hand to force Pharaoh to do anything he didn’t want to do. But God’s hand was stronger.

Just as Pharaoh had squeezed the people of Israel to punish them for even considering changing their situation, God was about to squeeze Pharaoh. And when He squeezed Pharaoh and the whole nation of Egypt, they were all going to see just who it was they were dealing with. They were going to be utterly humiliated at the hands of this God of the Israelites they thought was nothing. Word of their defeat would spread far and wide such that more than 40 years later and in another part of the world the whispers of what the God of the Israelites did to the Egyptians would spark fear in the hearts of their enemies. God would squeeze hard enough that the Egyptians wouldn’t merely let the Israelites go, they were going to drive them out.

Friends, this same God has our backs just as He had theirs. The world still underestimates Him. It still underestimates those who follow Him. But their estimate of us doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change reality. God is still who He is, and we can have confidence in that. Now, this is no excuse for arrogance on our part as if we had anything to do with His power. Nor can we defy His character to advance His kingdom and presume on His help. But we can with humble confidence and gentle boldness steadily move forward to advance His kingdom, proclaiming the Gospel as we go, loving with the love of Jesus everywhere we turn. And when the world pushes back with all the ferocity it can muster, we can simply sit back and let God put on a show. Now, that show may not come at the time of our choosing. But it will come. Of that we can be perfectly sure. So, when it seems like following God’s lead has made a mess, just wait. He’s still in charge, and He will show His power when the time is right.

P.S. Just for fun, here’s a clip of that whole scene from Ted Lasso. Enjoy.