God Demonstrates His Power
God Demonstrates His Power
God Makes Himself Known, Part 1 (Egypt)
This series started out as one article, but turned into a 5 part series because it got so long.
I know the God of the Bible is all powerful (Omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and always & everywhere present (omipresent). Sometimes I wonder why He allows His name to be disgraced so badly. As His creation, I will likely never know, until I reach Heaven, but I enjoy reading some of the history in the Bible that tells of times when He did make sure everyone knew He was God of the Universe and there are no other God’s besides Him.
God’s greatest miracles are described in Genesis 1-11 and include speaking everything into existence, His global flood judgement, and confusing the languages of the people at the tower of Babel. One thing the confusion of languages did was to cause the knowledge of God to start to fade because people could only tell about God to their small group that spoke their own language. The people could also no longer read their historical documents to learn about Him.
The story of God’s miraculous rescue of His chosen people, Israel, from Egypt is God making Himself known again to the people of the world.
Egyptian Plagues
After the Israelites had been living in Egypt for 400 years, much of it in slavery, God called Moses to go to Pharaoh to demand the release of the Israelites. After a little argument by Moses, God allowed Moses’s brother, Aaron, to do most of the talking while Moses performed the miracles God had empowered him to perform. It didn’t take much to convince the Israelites, but it took a lot more to convince the Pharaoh.
And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ ” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:1-2) {emphasis mine}
When Pharaoh was commanded by God, through Moses and Aaron, to let God’s people go, Pharaoh mocked God. He wasn’t used to being commanded to do anything. Pharaoh was used to being treated as not only a king, but a god. Instead of letting the Israelites go, he made their slave labor harder than it had been before causing the Israelites to complain against Moses and God, rather than Pharaoh.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land.” (Exodus 6:1)
God promised Moses and the Israelites to work great signs and to force Pharaoh to let them go.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 7:1-3) {emphasis mine}
God worked through His servants and hardened His enemies’ hearts, so that He might “multiply My signs and My wonders.” God was going to teach the Israelites, Egypt, and all of the nations around them that He is the all powerful God of all.
God’s miracles started small (turning a staff into a serpent), so at first it seemed like the priests of Egypt could duplicate God’s miracles, but then God really started to impress.
God produced a succession of miraculous judgments on Egypt and Pharaoh.
“By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, I will strike the water that is in the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned to blood. The fish that are in the Nile will die, and the Nile will become foul, and the Egyptians will find difficulty in drinking water from the Nile.” (Exodus 7:17-18)
“Let My people go, that they may serve Me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs. The Nile will swarm with frogs, which will come up and go into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and on your people, and into your ovens and into your kneading bowls.” (Exodus 8:1b-3)
Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt. (Exodus 8:17)
“Let My people go, that they may serve Me. For if you do not let My people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and on your servants and on your people and into your houses; and the houses of the Egyptians will be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they dwell. But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of flies will be there, in order that you may know that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the land.” (Exodus 8:20b-22) NOTE: This plague only affected the Egyptians. The land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, did not have the plague of the flies.
“Let My people go, that they may serve Me. For if you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them, behold, the hand of the Lord will come with a very severe pestilence on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing will die of all that belongs to the sons of Israel.” (Exodus 9:1b-4)
So they took soot from a kiln, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it toward the sky, and it became boils breaking out with sores on man and beast. The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians as well as on all the Egyptians. (Exodus 9:10-11)
“Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will send a very heavy hail, such as has not been seen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. Now therefore send, bring your livestock and whatever you have in the field to safety. Every man and beast that is found in the field and is not brought home, when the hail comes down on them, will die.” (Exodus 9:18-19) NOTE: God protected everyone, Israelite & Egyptian, who obeyed His command to bring everyone and everything in from the field. Those who refused to obey lost animal and human lives.
“Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me. For if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. They will also eat the rest of what has escaped—what is left to you from the hail—and they will eat every tree which sprouts for you out of the field.” (Exodus 10:3-5)
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.” So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings. (Exodus 10:21-23)
“Thus says the Lord, ‘About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well. Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again. But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ All these your servants will come down to me and bow themselves before me, saying, ‘Go 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.” (Exodus 11:4-8)
After the loss of Pharaoh’s first born son and heir, he had had enough and was ready to comply with God’s command.
Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead. Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and bless me also.” (Exodus 12:30-32)
At the exact time that God had planned, Pharaoh acquiesced and let God’s people go. It took Pharaoh losing his son and his heir, but he finally submitted and let them all go, but God had one more major miracle to do in order to glorify His name and teach the Israelites to trust Him.
Crossing the Red Sea
After mourning over their first born, Pharaoh and his officials realized that they had lost their slave labor. They chased after the Israelites. The Egyptians trapped the Israelites at the edge of the Red Sea and the Israelites, despite seeing all of God’s wonders, complained as they feared man more than they feared God.
But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. (Exodus 14:13-16) {emphasis mine}
God then put a cloud pillar between the Egyptians and the Israelites, so the Egyptians couldn’t see the Israelites and so there was light for the Israelites as they escaped the trap of the Egyptians.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. (Exodus 14:21-22) {emphasis mine}
God miraculously parted the waters, enabled the Israelites to cross on dry land, and then had the waters return drowning all of the Egyptian soldiers after His people had safely crossed the Red Sea. This event was such a big deal that other nations that met the Israelites were afraid because they had heard what God had done for His people.
Purpose for Israel
God had made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to make them a great nation. God’s miraculous actions to free the Israelites and take them to the promised land was not only Him working to fulfill this promise, but it was making Himself known to Israel, so that they would know the God who worked for their good.
Sadly, after seeing all of these miracles, the Israelites continued to be unfaithful. God provided mana from heaven, but they complained about not having meat. God brought quail into their camp. They complained about not having water and God brought water out of a rock. God revealed Himself to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai and they were so fearful, they asked to not see Him, but to have Moses as their intercessor. When Moses went up on the mountain to get the Ten Commandments from God, they got tired of waiting and made a molten calf to worship saying, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:4)
Could it get any worse? Oh yes, it could. When God brought them to the land He was giving them, they got scared and refused to enter. When God told them they would have to spend forty years in the wilderness because of their disbelief and disobedience, they then tried to conquer the land without God’s help and were badly defeated. It is amazing how some people refuse to be faithful to their faithful God despite all of the miracles He does for them.
I also love that God made Himself known to the gentiles (those who were not descendants of Jacob). He made Himself known to the Egyptians to the point that there may have been a corrupted form of worship of the true God in Egypt for a generation or two because they changed from worshipping a pantheon of gods to worshipping a single God before going back to their old traditions.
When the Israelites got to the promised land, the people there knew what God had done to Egypt and for Israel. They were afraid, even when the Israelites returned after their forty years wandering in the wilderness.
God had made Himself known in a special way to his chosen people, but He had made Himself known to people of many nations.
Trust Jesus.
your sister in Christ,
Christy
Check out Part 2
Bible verses are NASB (New American Standard Bible) 1995 edition unless otherwise stated
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Trust Jesus.
your sister in Christ,
Christy
Bible verses are NASB (New American Standard Bible) 1995 edition unless otherwise stated
If you don’t want to miss a post, please consider subscribing, so you know when new posts are published.
If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. I will try to reply to your questions and comments as quickly as possible. I’m sure life will sometimes get in the way, but know that your input is valuable to me. Some responses may be direct to you. I may address some with a blog post.
Join Christy’s subscriber chat