For forty years I led you through the desert … yet your sandals did not wear out." Duet. 29:5
“But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
A death plague on the livestock, festering boils on the people, a thunderous hailstorm. And still Pharoah refused to acknowledge the LORD.
Doesn’t he realize he can’t win? That rebellion against the LORD only leads to destruction?
The Nile and all the waters of Egypt were turned to blood. Then the frogs. Then the gnats. Then the flies. But still Pharoah hardened his heart.
It is interesting that the magicians could not conjure up the gnats. They could turn staffs into snakes; they could turn water into blood; they could produce frogs out of thin air. But not gnats. What’s the difference? Are gnats harder to come up with than frogs or snakes?
It is as if the LORD said to the magicians, the sorcerers and the demonic forces behind them, “This far and no further.” Isn’t this exactly what the Almighty said to Satan, when Satan requested permission to destroy Job, the servant of God?
I’m not sure how the Egyptian magicians and sorcerers were able to duplicate some of the signs and wonders performed by Moses and Aaron. Satan was able to drastically affect Job’s circumstances, albeit under God’s supervision. One thing is for sure – God’s power was magnified when Moses’ snake swallowed up the other snakes divined by the sorcerers!
“…this same Moses and Aaron.”
God uses ordinary people. After all, these two men weren’t super heroes. Just the two sons of Amram and Jochebed, descendants of Levi, son of Jacob.
God is the playwright. Each of us has a different part to play, but we’re all in the script.
The Lord had warned Moses that Pharoah’s heart would be hard, and that he would not let the people go “unless [my] mighty hand compels him”. And yet Moses, perhaps shaken by the harshness of Pharoah’s response, asks the Lord, “Is this why you sent me?”
The foot soldiers in the Lord’s army have no ability (of their own) except availability. And like foot soldiers, they are not to concern themselves with the overall strategy of the war – the generals do that. No, the job of the foot soldier is to trust and obey.
“But Moses said, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.’ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses.”
The greatest (really the only) ability we sinful humans have is availability.
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
The Triune God. Abraham is the father of many nations, but especially the father of the faithful. Isaac is the sacrifice, or would have been had not the angel intervened. Jacob wrestled with the angel of God on Mt. Peniel. He endured difficult circumstances, yet through them all did not forget the promises of God. Perhaps in some way Jacob pictures the Holy Spirit.
God is the great I AM, and yet, as he told Moses, he is also “the God of your father. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
“God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.”
Jacob’s descendants were made slaves in Egypt, and they were in bondage for generations — 400 years! God himself had foretold this to Abraham centuries before.
“God heard their groaning.” Not, as it were, for the first time. But now, in the fullness of time, it was time to act.
The midwives lied to their Egyptian masters to protect the Hebrew boy babies. Nevertheless, “God was kind to the midwives.”
God alone is Judge.
“Joseph threw himself on his father, and wept over him and kissed him.”
Joseph did. His brothers felt too much shame and guilt (and fear of what Joseph do to them now that their father was gone) to express much emotion.
But Joseph spoke kindly to them, and assured them of his love. God is out to bless his people. Ironically, God used Joseph – the one they had wronged – to communicate that message.
