Defeating The Plagues Series

DEFEATING THE PLAGUES OF LIFE

Moses had before him a daunting task. He was God’s messenger to confront Pharaoh and implore him to release the Children of Israel from slavery. Not an easy task. The Pharaoh was not known for being or benevolent with people who told him how to run Egypt or what to do with those under his rule. Without God’s protection, such an activity most certainly meant execution or imprisonment.

But God was with Moses.

And He promised Moses that before it was over, Pharaoh would know that it was God’s authority that ruled Moses.

One way He would accomplish this was through the plagues.

You remember the story, don’t you?

Moses would go to Pharaoh and, speaking for God, say "Let my people go!"

And Pharaoh, with his heart hardened, would refuse.

And God would send a plague upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian people.

The water became blood. Frogs overran the nation, then lice, then flies. Livestock were killed. Boils broke out on the people. Hail wiped out their crops and what was left was eaten by locusts. And then finally, darkness covered the nation.

We could look at these plagues and see that God knows how to get our attention.

But here is the sad part. It almost didn’t work for Pharaoh. It took ten times before Pharaoh began to understand that God meant business.

But it’s also important to realize that Moses did not relish these plagues. He was given a job to do by God and he did it. He only asked God to use the plagues to help him accomplish his divinely appointed goal. We see no pride or arrogance in him and he certainly didn’t use the plagues to draw the attention to himself. He simply called down God’s judgment until Pharaoh broke and released the Hebrew people.

How many times does God give us something to do that seems almost impossible to accomplish? It’s probably nothing compared to what Moses was given but to us, it’s scary.

Yet we have to understand that God is not sadistic. He does not give us tasks that we cannot accomplish. He plans for us to succeed. He walks with us. He never plans for us to walk alone. That’s why the Bible says that with Him, all things are possible. It is His desire to take our lives and use them to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks for His glory.

But God will not work without us.

See, here is the thing.

He does not have to use us.

He is God. With a word, He spoke the world into existence and created man.

He does not need us.

So it is awesome that He uses us to carry out His plan.

But understand, when things fail, it is not God’s fault.

It’s our fault.

We go into something thinking of ourselves and allowing the weaknesses of the world to influence us and we end up doing anything but what God had set out for us to do.

I want to take a few moments to look at Moses and see some parts of his attitude that helped make him a success in what God told him to do and allowed him to be an instrument of obedience.

First of all, Moses was patient.

He knew what God had planned. He knew ever since the encounter with the burning bush that the Children of Israel would be free. But I’m quiet sure that he had no idea he would have to approach the Egyptian ruler 10 different times.

How easy it would have been to give up? How easy it would have been to walk away.. to say that life is short...it’s time to go.

We do, don’t we?

We pray for someone and when we don’t see immediate results, we give up saying that it’s not worth it.

We witness to someone and keep getting rejected (they’re not really rejecting us... they are rejecting Jesus). And we finally give up, saying it’s not going to happen.

A church member is backslidden and we pray for him and confront him in love and he doesn’t respond, and then we give up.

God tells us that He is going to provide us a new job or calling us into vocational ministry but it doesn’t happen quick enough for us. So we turn away from that calling and we give up.

We’re an impatient people.

But here is the thing:God is always patient with us.

And we are commanded to be like Him.

So we must be patient as well.

Secondly, Moses was consistent.

Don’t you imagine that Pharaoh got to the point that he could set his watch (or sundial or whatever) by Moses? He had to figure out real quick that Moses was not going to quit.