Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Power, Patience, and Finality The sequence of the plagues nears its end
00:06with a demonstration of absolute power over all the power of the enemy a needed and salutary
00:12truth for today's Shirley.
00:14Egypt had a god for every eventuality.
00:18For example, Sennahem was invoked to protect the land from the ravages of pests.
00:23Until, of course, Yahweh, without a buy your leave, wills the locusts to fill the land
00:28in the eighth plague.
00:30He sends them, and Pharaoh recognizes that Yahweh alone can remove them.
00:35Things go even a step higher.
00:38The Egyptian god Amanre their chief deity, the personification of the sun and their ruler
00:43of the sequence of day and night is first blotted out by Yahweh's locusts.
00:48Then his characteristic activity as the light-bringer is annulled by Yahweh's darkness in the ninth
00:53plague.
00:55Whether the object of worship concerned is a lesser object of worship or the greatest
00:59is of no significance.
01:02The Lord on high is mightier.
01:04But his is always a power working by mercy, like an old prayer says, he declares his almighty
01:10power most chiefly by showing mercy and pity.
01:14We could easily overlook the four in verse 1 God in reality is saying.
01:18Tell Pharaoh the truth because I have hardened his heart.
01:22The only way to break through the hard heart is the declaration of the truth.
01:27And right to the end the Lord is still pleading with Pharaoh.
01:31These two great truths are not at odds, nor are they competitors for attention.
01:36They are both always present and active.
01:39But while power knows no end, patience does.
01:43As the parable of the tenants says, last of all he sent his son.
01:48At Exodus 9 verse 11 the magicians had had enough.
01:51At 10 colon 7 Pharaoh's courtiers threw in their towel.
01:56At Exodus 10 verse 28 Pharaoh finally breaks off negotiations, siding with his hard heart,
02:02and receiving from Moses' lips the sentence of death, I will never see your face again.
02:08But even against the obdurate king, Yahweh's power prevails for Pharaoh is compelled himself
02:13to contribute beasts for Yahweh's worship.
02:17We should never cease to pray for those who seem to be the chief public enemies of the
02:21gospel that they may be saved.
02:24God is powerful and just.