"Oh, Mary don't you weep!" (listening to Mike Farris' Salvation In Lights album).
Someone once said, "God's ways are not our ways" or vice-versa. This is apparent in the Exodus story. God tells Moses what to do, but doesn't share more details until later. The other details include the prediction that Pharaoh will not let the people go right away. God will harden his heart. This had to be frustrating for Moses and the Israelites.
We obviously want God's help, but we want it now most of the time. It's cool, though, that God shares more of this information to Moses as things unfold.
"See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay My hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, My people the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out My hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."
Wow, it's apparent that even this plan to rescue "God's people" that He is interested in the Egyptians, too. God's plan of turning the world to Himself is seen all throughout Scripture. I wonder how many Egyptians turned to God after the Exodus took place. I wonder if their generations still follow Him today.
Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 when they spoke to Pharaoh. That's interesting, as I would've guessed Aaron to be Moses' junior. Not the case.
Moses and Aaron obeyed God and saw two of His signs take place: the staff turned into a serpent and back; and the Nile turning to blood, killing all the fish and making a terrible stink. Pharaoh's magicians pulled off the same tricks (though the serpent from Aaron's staff ate all their snakes) and thus Pharaoh the unbeliever seemingly had reason to doubt. This is scary stuff. If God speaks and we don't believe it, we may trust in our reason and thus miss God. It's cool that God's persistent. He reached out to Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron several times before He brought his most terrible judgment upon him.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at May 14, 2007 09:20 AM