Will you notice what this strange text says. Without the least equivocation it says that God raised this man Pharaoh up that He might show forth His power in him. And that purpose He accomplished. This ghastly piece of royal rottenness has not been thrown upon this shore by the hand of man. As we look at him we see in him a monument of the power of God. And strange to say, he is not a monument of God's power to save and to keep and to utilize, but of God's power to thwart and to disappoint and to wreck and to utterly destroy. And in his destruction God tells us that He has achieved His purpose. You will agree with me that this is an amazing statement. The teaching seems to be that God has raised this man up that He might glorify Himself by making a complete and utter wreck of him. I wonder if that can be true. We agree, I suppose, all of us who believe the Bible, that God has a plan for every life. All nature tells of a planning God. All revelation teaches it also. We have the message direct from the lips of the Lord, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." But in admitting that God plans every life, can we believe that He plans for some to go wrong and for others to go right? Can we believe that He plans for one to become a Judas and the other a St. John? Is it the purpose of God that one shall develop into a Moses and the other right at his side shall grow up into a miserable and distorted wreck that we call Pharaoh? In other words, is Judas as much a part of the plan of God as John? If so we are of all men most miserable because we have a wicked God. But we know that such is not the case. God never planned that any man should go wrong. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He is the eternal lover. He loved Moses, but He loved Pharaoh no less. And Judas was as dear to God's heart as John. And whatever failure they made of their lives, and whatever failure you and I make of our lives, we do not make because God forces us to do so. In whatever way we go wrong, we do not do so because God planned that we should. We do it because of our own willfulness and wicked rebellion against God. In other words, though God plans your life and mine, He cannot in the very nature of things, force us to enter into His plan. You who are fathers and mothers realize that. Many parents have made beautiful plans for their children only to have those plans despised. Our children are not ourselves. They have independent wills. They have the capacity for entering into our purposes for them and thus bringing us joy unspeakable. They have also the capacity for despising those purposes and breaking our hearts.