Renegotiating after delivery
This week's verses are Exodus 8:1-15:
These verses take place during Moses' divinely inspired negotiation with Pharaoh to release his people from slavery. Each round of negotiation accompanies a show of power to get the point across to Pharaoh that a very powerful being would like his obedience. But at the end of each round, Pharaoh talks himself out of it. Each show of power becomes more impressive and threatening than the previous ones, from tiny annoyances up to a pandemic in the end.
In this case, the show of power is more on the "tiny annoyances" end of the spectrum. Egypt would be plagued with croaking frogs everywhere. Have you ever had wild animals trying to get into your tent while you were camping? Or mice or rats or cockroaches in your house? Ever had a bat get in and fly at your head? Imagine that times ten, everywhere, without a place you can go to escape. Annoying!
Even Pharaoh has had enough, and promises Moses and his people their freedom if he'll just make it stop. At the time, Pharaoh was probably the most powerful man in the world, just to give some perspective. And the Hebrew labor force was a major part of his economy, so it's not like he was voting on some UN resolution or something. This was a decision with a real cost to him and his people. The plague of frogs must have been absolutely unbearable!
In the end, though, Pharaoh backs out on his deal once the frogs are gone. Where is he going to find cheap brick-makers if the Hebrews don't come back? And didn't his magicians do something similar with the whole frog thing? Maybe Moses was just a really good magician, and not speaking for some kind of all-powerful God after all? Piece by piece he dismantled his whole commitment.
How many times do we pray for God to do something and make promises to him, only to "come to our senses" when the prayer is answered. "Well, it could have been the medicine just finally started working." "Maybe it was just a coincidence I found that hundred dollar bill just in time." "Yeah I got the job, but now that I think about it, maybe there was just something they liked on my resumé." Once we discover that we have been delivered of our problem, piece by piece we dismantle our commitment to honoring God.
We hear people in desperate conditions say things like "I don't know what to do! If my boy survives the night, I'll become a Christian because the doctors say he won't make it and only a miracle could save him." And then the next day, when their boy is fine, they find some "magic" that explains what happened and never give God a second thought. Until the next crisis. But why do we do that?
Pharaoh already had a solid worldview he'd built up without God. He was the most powerful person on earth, with the best magicians at his disposal. To accept Moses' truth, that there was an all-powerful God who wanted a foolishly huge sacrifice from him? It was too much to swallow. It was easier to harden his heart and explain it all away as magic and "besides, I call the shots around here anyway, not that mouthy foreigner."
Are we willing to see God when he intervenes in our lives, and make the sacrifices necessary to do what he wants of us? Or do we harden our hearts and explain it all away once we get what we asked him for? Pharaoh wanted the worldview where he was in charge and everything was under his control or could be explained by "magic" (or science in our case), and he and his people suffered greatly as a result.
Read through the plagues in Exodus again on your own, and instead of seeing them as a kind of fairy tale, imagine yourself in Pharaoh's shoes, as a non-believer, trying to cope with all of these things going on. How stubborn would you have to be after awhile to still be denying that something was going on with all of those miracles? In the New Testament Jesus complains about some of the places he went and performed miracles, and people explained them all away without seeing what was happening. They're not encouraging words.
So there's two things here we can take from these verses: First, we have to be open to the miraculous and be comfortable accepting that something beyond our power can happen. Otherwise we'll just explain it away in order not to be threatened by its power. And that's a dangerous thing to have happen.
And second, if the miracle happens after you have prayed for exactly that thing to happen, do what God wants of you! Don't take delivery of his miraculous gift and then try to renegotiate what you talked about! Give praise where praise is due, and render obedience where obedience is required.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will come up on you and your people and all your officials.’”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.’”
So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.”
Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.”
“Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.
Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God. The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”
After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.
These verses take place during Moses' divinely inspired negotiation with Pharaoh to release his people from slavery. Each round of negotiation accompanies a show of power to get the point across to Pharaoh that a very powerful being would like his obedience. But at the end of each round, Pharaoh talks himself out of it. Each show of power becomes more impressive and threatening than the previous ones, from tiny annoyances up to a pandemic in the end.
In this case, the show of power is more on the "tiny annoyances" end of the spectrum. Egypt would be plagued with croaking frogs everywhere. Have you ever had wild animals trying to get into your tent while you were camping? Or mice or rats or cockroaches in your house? Ever had a bat get in and fly at your head? Imagine that times ten, everywhere, without a place you can go to escape. Annoying!
Even Pharaoh has had enough, and promises Moses and his people their freedom if he'll just make it stop. At the time, Pharaoh was probably the most powerful man in the world, just to give some perspective. And the Hebrew labor force was a major part of his economy, so it's not like he was voting on some UN resolution or something. This was a decision with a real cost to him and his people. The plague of frogs must have been absolutely unbearable!
In the end, though, Pharaoh backs out on his deal once the frogs are gone. Where is he going to find cheap brick-makers if the Hebrews don't come back? And didn't his magicians do something similar with the whole frog thing? Maybe Moses was just a really good magician, and not speaking for some kind of all-powerful God after all? Piece by piece he dismantled his whole commitment.
How many times do we pray for God to do something and make promises to him, only to "come to our senses" when the prayer is answered. "Well, it could have been the medicine just finally started working." "Maybe it was just a coincidence I found that hundred dollar bill just in time." "Yeah I got the job, but now that I think about it, maybe there was just something they liked on my resumé." Once we discover that we have been delivered of our problem, piece by piece we dismantle our commitment to honoring God.
We hear people in desperate conditions say things like "I don't know what to do! If my boy survives the night, I'll become a Christian because the doctors say he won't make it and only a miracle could save him." And then the next day, when their boy is fine, they find some "magic" that explains what happened and never give God a second thought. Until the next crisis. But why do we do that?
Pharaoh already had a solid worldview he'd built up without God. He was the most powerful person on earth, with the best magicians at his disposal. To accept Moses' truth, that there was an all-powerful God who wanted a foolishly huge sacrifice from him? It was too much to swallow. It was easier to harden his heart and explain it all away as magic and "besides, I call the shots around here anyway, not that mouthy foreigner."
Are we willing to see God when he intervenes in our lives, and make the sacrifices necessary to do what he wants of us? Or do we harden our hearts and explain it all away once we get what we asked him for? Pharaoh wanted the worldview where he was in charge and everything was under his control or could be explained by "magic" (or science in our case), and he and his people suffered greatly as a result.
Read through the plagues in Exodus again on your own, and instead of seeing them as a kind of fairy tale, imagine yourself in Pharaoh's shoes, as a non-believer, trying to cope with all of these things going on. How stubborn would you have to be after awhile to still be denying that something was going on with all of those miracles? In the New Testament Jesus complains about some of the places he went and performed miracles, and people explained them all away without seeing what was happening. They're not encouraging words.
So there's two things here we can take from these verses: First, we have to be open to the miraculous and be comfortable accepting that something beyond our power can happen. Otherwise we'll just explain it away in order not to be threatened by its power. And that's a dangerous thing to have happen.
And second, if the miracle happens after you have prayed for exactly that thing to happen, do what God wants of you! Don't take delivery of his miraculous gift and then try to renegotiate what you talked about! Give praise where praise is due, and render obedience where obedience is required.
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