Don't Be Pharaoh

But again the magicians of Egypt used their magic, and they, too, turned water into blood. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hard. He refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had predicted. [Exodus 7.22]

With only a little study of magic and magicians, it becomes obvious that the craft requires rigorous study. Whether this study is of occult or illusion, there is much study involved. One might conclude that magicians were somewhat educated individuals who, as we see today (whether involving occult or illusion), hold tightly to secrets among their own.

It occurred to me today that education, in many ways, secretly relies on itself to confirm itself.

I don't really know why all this matters except that Pharaoh was mislead by his educated magicians. Yes, it can be argued that Pharaoh's heart was hard toward God anyway, but his magicians further supported his resistance.

Here is the interesting thing about Pharaoh's magicians: they simply mimicked the miracles Moses and Aaron performed - they did not produce any unique miracles of their own. Their mimicking of miracles, produced the same results as Moses' miracles themselves to some degree. These similar results were then the basis for Pharaoh's supposition that Moses' claims were of no great significance. Pharaoh rationalized that the magicians' ability to reproduce (at least) similar results supported his predisposition to neither believe in nor fear God.

This has great application to us today. With all our academic advancement explaining how everything works down to the tiniest atom, people, who are predisposed to reject God, find all the confirmation they need to support their rebellion. When the origins of life itself and the universe are considered, only wild imaginations are presented with the "big secret" being not to discuss the fact that such origins go against everything science bases its trustworthiness upon - to duplicate the results in a controlled environment.

Hmm. Science mimics, in a laboratory, everything God did with words. ...Well everything to a degree. Like Pharaoh's magicians, science can only explain and duplicate observable facts in their present existence and  function. Science cannot, in a controlled environment, duplicate the origin of those facts.

The point remains however that if we choose to reject God, science will support us 99%. The other 1% is that, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Don't be Pharaoh.

Father, I know it takes faith to be in the 1%. I say it here and will do my best to live it in the world - that I believe in Jesus. I believe Pharaoh's story gives us all clear warning to not to be deceived by the 99%, but to genuinely be the 1% ("the few," as Jesus described it) who enter that narrow gate...