So Moses meets Aaron and the two of them speak to the Israelite elders, who believe their words and signs and worship the Lord. They then go to speak to Pharaoh, asking that he allow the Israelites to journey into the desert for the three days to hold a festival to God. Pharaoh refuses, declaring that he does not know the Lord and will not obey Him. Even when Moses threatens him with plagues, he will not listen. Instead, he orders his slave drivers to make the Hebrew slaves find their own straw but stil produce the same number of bricks, increasing their workload and their misery. They appeal to Pharaoh, but he will not listen, so the Hebrew people start to turn against Moses and Aaron, blaming them for their worsened situation. We too can find ourselves in similar situations. Often when we try to serve God, the Devil attacks and tries to make life harder for us, but it is only a sign that he is threatened. It seems reasonable to assume that Pharaoh punished the Israelites because he was scared that Moses would spark a rebellion, and in the same way the Devil only attacks us when we interfere with his plans. If he's bothering us, we must be doing something right.
Moses challenges God, asking why He has made things worse for His people. God simply repeats His promises and reminds Moses of what He did for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses seems satisfied by this because he doesn't question God further but goes and takes His message to the people, who are not so convinced. It's difficult to blame them - things were pretty grim - but God has proved over and over again that He is true to His word, and so when things appear to be going wrong and we find it hard to believe God's taking care of it, we can look back and see that He has always kept His promises before, and so we can trust that He will always keep them in the future.
Next comes a family record of Moses and Aaron. It strikes me while reading these genealogical lists that there are so many people about whom we know nothing except their family. So many people who are known only as the father or mother of someone else. So many people who may not have done anything of note except that because of them someone else lived, someone who maybe did change the world. Being a parent is an important responsibilty.
God then tells Moses once again to speak to Pharaoh. The doubt of the Israelites has shaken his confidence though, and once again he questions his ability to speak to Pharaoh. This time God tells him that He has made him like God to Pharaoh. That doesn't mean that he is equal to God or that he is a god, it just means that he is standing in for God. God can't come down and talk to Pharaoh himself, so He has put Moses in His place. He wants to use us in the same way. I once heard a story from Soul in the City. A group of teenagers had done some gardeing for an old man, and at the end of the day he told one of the organisers "I never knew Jesus looked like that". Would people say the same of us? I know I would love for someone to say that of me.
God also says that He will harden Pharaoh's heart so that He will not listen. I find this very difficult, because that would mean that "the mighty acts of judgement" that follow as result of Pharaoh's hard heart are God's will rather than a last resort. Would God really deny Pharaoh the chance to act honourably and punish Egypt without giving them the chance to redeem themselves? Was judgement inevitable and Moses' demands and threats just a set up so that Pharaoh would know the punishment was from God? Does it change how we see God if this is the case? Hopefully the rest of the story will resolve a few of those questions.
Anyway, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and to prove that they are messengers from God, Aaron throws his staff before Pharaoh and it turns into a snake. Pharaoh then summons his wise men and magicians and they each do the same thing, because magic is more than just myth. There really are dark powers at work, powers that are outside of and opposed to God, and these powers are evil. The truth is that evil is real, and it shouldn't be ignored or dismissed because then it can keep on with his work without being challenged. We need to recognise evil and stand against it, but we have no cause to fear. When the Egyptian sorcerers turned their staffs into snakes, Aaron's snake simply devoured theirs. God is stronger than all the other powers at work in this world, and so we do not need to be afraid.
I'll end there for now because chapter seven continues with the first plague, and I want to deal with the plagues together tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment