Anger. You can see Pharaoh furious at the five plagues he has seen so far and now to see that they are not affecting the Israelites at all! In his anger, he remains stubborn and refuses to listen to God. How often too do we shake our fists at the heavens because we do not like an answer we have received from God? It seems sometimes that we no longer pray for God's will as much as we pray for His approval. We have determined the course we want to take already and then we go to God for His ok. When the answer comes back "no" we get angry (or go back to denial). If we were to take an honest look at our lives we would see that those times when God said "no" were some of the biggest blessings He has given us. We can be furious though and scream at the heavens about why we did not get the job we wanted. God however sees all time beloved. He sees what would have happened if you had landed that job. He sees the extra work you don't see. He sees the giving up of church because of your new found busyness. He sees the strain it would have put on your marriage and the eventual adultery leading from it. We only see what we want -- God however deals in what we need:
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. -- Philippians 4: 19 (NLT)
Now you and God might disagree about what you need but who would you rather trust? The sixth plague was the plague of festering boils and Pharaoh's heart remained hard. The seventh plague however reveals another reaction we tend to have:
So Moses left Pharaoh's court and went out of the city. When he lifted his hands to the Lord , the thunder and hail stopped, and the downpour ceased. But when Pharaoh saw that the rain, hail, and thunder had stopped, he and his officials sinned again, and Pharaoh again became stubborn. -- Exodus 9: 33-34 (NLT)
We simply sin again! No sooner than we obey because we do not like the chastisement we have finally acknowledged do we return to our vomit yet again. Right before these verses Pharaoh finally admits that he has sinned, that God is righteous and that He is not. Yet this admission was not driven by a regret of the sin but a regret of the consequence. We need to differentiate between the two very carefully. If our repentance is based upon regretting the chastisement of God and not based upon regretting the fact that we have been disobedient -- it will be short lived. If you want to know why sometimes it seems as if we are circling the same mountain year after year -- this is the reason. We live in a society that deals with the symptoms and covers up the real problem. This mindset sometimes spills over into our faith. The issue is not that God is trying to get our attention but rather WHY He is trying to get out attention. With the hailstorm behind them, the eighth plague was the plague of locusts:
Pharaoh retorted, "The Lord will certainly need to be with you if I let you take your little ones! I can see through your evil plan. Never! Only the men may go and worship the Lord , since that is what you requested." And Pharaoh threw them out of the palace. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Raise your hand over the
Still negotiating, Pharaoh now does what we all are guilty of from time to time-- he relies on his own human wisdom to try and explain away God. I see through your evil plan! Bring on the locusts! We too can fall for this trap. Well, God wouldn't want me to be unhappy! Really? God did not send His only Son to hang on a tree so we could be happy in this world beloved -- He did it so we can be saved from this world. Undeterred, God brings forth the ninth plague -- a darkness so thick no one could move for three days in all of
Finally, Pharaoh called for Moses. "Go and worship the Lord ," he said. "But leave your flocks and herds here. You may even take your little ones with you." -- Exodus 10: 24 (NLT)
