Exodus 5—10

The enemy of every child of God is not a person, but Satan. It is very difficult for we who have finite minds to comprehend fully how a spirit being operates. It is hard enough to come to grips with a Being who is pure light and pure truth and pure love, but trying to fathom a being of pure darkness and pure evil is just beyond our capabilities as mere mortals.

In the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, we see in typical fashion how the god of this world works in connection with the people of God. Satan looks at us as no mere irritant; we are a danger and a threat to his kingdom. And his goal is to blind the minds, break the hearts and ultimately ruin the lives of those who oppose him.

Let’s examine the similarities between Satan and Pharaoh. Like Satan—

1. His hatred knows no bounds.

Satan hates God and he hates those who love God. Genesis 3:15 makes this pronouncement:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.

“Enmity” is hatred; Satan hates you and me and he seeks to destroy us. No doubt Lucifer had great disregard for God before pronouncement, but now, as part of God’s curse upon him, he now hates, in the strongest possible way, God and all those connected to Him. But he likes to make us think he wants to make peace with us, but he cannot. Satan cannot possibly have any positive feeling toward you at all. Consider the hatred of Pharaoh—

• He denied the Lord, Exodus 5:2.

Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.

Satan, of course knows who God is, but will not obey Him in any way. Pharaoh’s words dripped with arrogance. The evidence of the Lord was all around him, yet in his arrogance, he didn’t see it. Satan blinds the eyes of people to they are ignorant about the Lord and His ways. Even believers are susceptible to these tricks of Satan. Ephesians 2:2—

[I]n time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. (KJV)

• He despised the message, Exodus 5:9.

Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.

The word “lies” is translated “pack of lies” in the RSV and refers to the Word of the Lord to the children of Israel. The god of this age is expert at manipulating the thoughts of people so they find the Word of God unbelievable or they consider it antiquated or “not for them.” Yet, the Bible is powerful, it changes lives because it is the word of the Living God. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 1:18—

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

When the devil can get man to depreciate the Word of God, he knows he has won.

• He makes life hard, Exodus 5:17, 18.

Imagine, being force to make bricks without straw. This is truly evil. But this is what the devil does to people; he promises the world yet delivers only pain. As the songwriter wrote concerning this—

He came to me with his passion and gold,

I bought it for a while,

It nearly cost me my soul.

But Jesus said if we needed rest, to go to Him; that He is the one and only source of true rest and peace. The devil makes bad bargains.

• He never changes. How many chances did the Pharaoh have to change his mind, to repent? In his case, the professions of repentance were many, but the tears of repentance never came. Pharaoh’s heart, like Satan’s before him, became a heart of stone: unmovable, unchanged, and unchangeable. The devil can’t get any better, he can’t improve, and the Pharaoh he will die in the act of persecuting the redeemed of the Lord (Rev. 20:10).

2. His ways are cunning

To be sure, the Christian is not and should not be unaware of Satan’s bag of tricks. If the devil can’t succeed using obvious tactics of open scorn, fear, and oppression, then he will try more subtle means. Think about this—

• “Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land.” (Ex. 8:25). Pharaoh offered Israel a measure of freedom to sacrifice to God if they kept within the land under his rule. In other words, Satan tells us today, “Be Christians if you want to, but do it my way.” How many of us worship God then compromise our worship by the sin we allow to flourish in our lives? Oh yes, the devil will allow us to worship God but only if we remain as his slaves. Yet Jesus made it crystal clear: a man cannot serve two masters; he will love one and hate the other (Matthew 6:24).
• “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the LORD your God in the desert, but you must not go very far.” (Ex. 8:28). In other words, Pharaoh wanted to keep an eye on the Israelites. Sadly, too many Christians today try to live out their Christian lives with one eye on Egypt. Remember what happened to Lot’s wife! The dividing line between the Christian life and the life of the world should be as emphatic as death and resurrection (Romans 6:8)—

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He died to this world; the world no longer had any claims on Him. At His death, Jesus was no longer bound to the laws of this world. We are reckoned dead with Christ; the world no longer has any claim on us! Like Jesus, we can live above the “laws” of this world; we are not bound to sin. We are not bound to misery and failure. But, are you a Christian like those walk that fine line; close enough to the world to enjoy some of it, yet far enough away to feel like you’re safe, like you are “all right?” You cannot escape the corruption of this world. As one commentator said, “There is no getting within sight of Canaan until we get beyond the sight of Egypt.”

• “Have only the men go; and worship the LORD.” (Ex. 10:11). In other words, “Save yourselves! Leave your wives and your children behind.” Entire separation is what the devil, and what Pharaoh, fears. He knew they would not go too far away or remain away if they left their families in Egypt. Such half-hearted commitment never does Satan much damage. Unfortunately, such half-hearted commitment doesn’t do the Kingdom of God much good either.
• “Go, worship the LORD. Even your women and children may go with you; only leave your flocks and herds behind.” (Ex. 10:24). The problem was, to leave their flocks behind meant to worship their God without sacrifice! When the devil cannot stop you outright from going out of his domain and out of his sight, how does he try to hinder your worship and service? The Israelites could not serve the Lord in an acceptable fashion without personal sacrifice. And neither can we. Our God is a jealous God, and He demands complete obedience, dedication and consecration from those who serve Him.
  

How are you doing on that? James 4:7-10 says this–

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

If we want to be able to “resist the devil” as James says we can, there are certain things we need to do first. First, we must submit to God. This means we must obey His Word and His will for us. Most of us, though, think we can stand up to the devil and resist Him while we are living a half-hearted Christian life. No wonder we can’t do it! Second, we must learn to approach God, “come near to God.” As we take the initiative and approach God, the promise is He will come to us. But all to often we want to “feel His presence” before we seek to approach Him. We get it backwards. Third, we must make sure our hearts are clean of sin and our minds are set on God. We can’t be double-minded if we expect to have victory of the devil. Connected to this is a sense of sin; we need to be aware of the sin in our lives and deal with it. James says to “grieve, mourn and wail” over our sins. In other words, we must take them seriously, as seriously as God does. And finally, we need to come to the place in our lives where we recognize that we can’t resist the devil on our own; that we need the Lord’s help. And James’ promise is definite: he will lift you up.