DAILY READING
REFLECTION
God Saves His People
by Judy Webb
“Let My people go so that they may worship Me.” (Exodus 9b)
This may be the first call for religious freedom, and it comes from God. “Let My people go!” The story of the 10 plagues is interesting in that it seems to represent the undoing of Egyptian idols. The false gods represented as animals or nature (sun, moon, water) all fall short of their assumed claims to protect and rule. God sent the plagues to Egypt knowing that Pharaoh would not listen. Knowing that his heart was hard and unbending and that he would never “let God’s people go” willingly.
This ruler was an example of an evil leader who brings destruction to the very people he claims to love. More have followed in his footsteps: Hitler, Stalin, Mao and so on. Even now, evil walks the earth and Satan is their god.
This story is familiar to many who read scripture regularly. Every time I study a story that is recognizable to me as one I’ve heard many times; I try to find something new, a fact I had not known before. Reading from Chapter 9 this time around I notice a glaring fact worth pointing out: God made a clear distinction between the Egyptians and His people, the Israelites. The plagues only troubled Pharaoh and his people. God protected His own.
So, the 5th plague only killed Egyptian livestock, the cows, calves, horses, camels, donkeys…all incidentally were idols, gods that were worshiped by the Egyptians. This revealed just how weak these idols were, how ineffective they were against the real God of the Israelites.
God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, a statement that often confuses and confounds. "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.” (v.12)
This feels like a no-win situation, but God had a plan. The more Pharaoh hardened his heart, the more it became judicially hardened by God. It was to the point of no turning back for Pharaoh. He hardened his own heart and resisted the grace of God; and God gave him up to his hardened heart’s lusts and permitted Satan to blind him.
He had his final chance and one day, we too will be faced with the final opportunity to choose God. Let us not allow it come down to this, for ourselves or for someone we love.
PRAYER
Dear Jesus,
Give us the vision to see You as truth and salvation. We need You and we need to tell others about His story so they are not left behind at the final judgement. Your light and Your love are so powerful they truly save us from evil everyday. Come Holy Spirit! Amen.
AUTHOR BIO
JUDY WEBB
I have been a member of UALC for 26 years and have been writing devotions for this site for about 17 of them. Writing is my passion. As retired staff I still love everything about UALC and its members including my small group.
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