A Final Plague Threatened

Exodus 11:1-10

 

August 24, 2024

 

A Final Plague Threatened

The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely.   Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.”  And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.

So, Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I w                                                                   ill go out in the midst of Egypt,  and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.  There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.  But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’  And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that, I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger.  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

 

A final plague threatened, and after all the other plagues that Moses had told Pharaoh, God was going to do if he did not let the people of Israel leave.  One must wonder if Pharaoh cared about the people, not even his firstborn.  Scripture is quiet on if the word leaked out to the people of Egypt, but if it did, they as a whole are saying let the people go, we experience blood, frogs, gnats, flies, Livestock die, boils, hail, Locusts, darkness, and why should our firstborn of everything die.  Pharaoh was put there by God, and it is God who has hardened Pharaoh's heart.  It brings us back to this Scripture to what God spoke to the prophet Isaiah, found in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 

Neither you nor I would have done it this way, and that is why you are not God. Moses and Aaron knew that God was in charge, and that is what God wants you and me to understand.  Your worst fear of how this Presidential election will turn out is VP Harris or President Trump leading our nation.  One back to some semblance of our Constitution, the other to Marxism.  And just like Pharaoh God will do His will, and it will have much to do with, this Scripture that many quote, 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

A nation that hopes hangs on the word “IF” God is not referring to non-believers in Jesus, but those who have entered into a personal relationship with Him.  It was true with the people of Israel then and now, and it is true with His Church, and we are not referring to those who go by the title Christian, but those who are His children by grace and faith in the finished work of the Cross.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice