The ultimate risk

Cow – milk.  Sheep – wool.  Las Vegas – gambling.  Canary Islands – beach and palms. 


Pharaoh ................. foolish stubbornness with disaterous consequences.


Every single time we go to the British Museum, we are stopped in our tracks by the high and lifted up sculptured head of Rameses II.   He’s the son of Seti and therefore likely to be the ruler that Moses confronted, in Jehovah's Name.

Rameses II – the Mummy – dead.

Pharaoh  refuses over and over, and over and over, to humble himself before God. Eighteen times Exodus refers to the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart so that he does not let the people go.


The God who dealt with Pharaoh is the God of justice and mercy, who deals with us, today.

To harden our hearts and refuse to listen to the God of the Bible

is the ultimate risk we take with our eternal destinies.

Matthew 16:26 “²⁶ And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

^{John 3:16} For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Mark 15 verse 6  Jesus is entering the last stage of going to the cross:  His closest mates are dozing off while He is in deepest distress.  Isolated, on His own, in the hands of proud and cruel and jealous authorities. The Roman soldiers are pushing and kicking Jesus around.  The disgrace of being spat upon, whipped, flogged, shredded.  Long, spikey thorns pushed into His head.  Hammered to a cross:  hands, feet, metal nails -the ultimate spectacle.  Think of  Who is hanging there.  The King of the universe is hanging there – for us. Jesus is hanging there bearing the sin of the world.

The King of the universe, with no sin of His own:  He is on the cross for us, taking God’s judgement for us.

It's only in willing spiritual blindness that it's possible to dismiss Jesus, God's Son and such love.

Hebrews 3 “As it is said, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

Our living God is, in the words of this modern Christian song,


Faithful One so unchanging
Ageless One You’re my rock of peace
Lord of all I depend on You
I call out to You, again and again
I call out to You, again and again

You are my rock in times of trouble
You lift me up when I fall down
All through the storm
Your love is the anchor
My hope is in You alone.

He loves me because He will, because of His grace.

How hideous and a total dangerous risk to reject such love and such a Saviour.