Day 32: Exodus 7-9

Welcome to five -minute Bible your daily guide for your daily reading today's February the first and we'll be covering

Exodus 7 through 9 Now today's reading moves us fully into the open conflict between Yahweh The true king overall and the

Pharaoh who is the serpentine imposter in the flesh and that war will happen in ten successive divine initiated plagues that will leave

Pharaoh and Egypt utterly Decimated and all of that plays out in Exodus 7 through 9 where the beginning of the plagues are recorded and what began as Pharaoh's Resistance to God now becomes overt judgment from God.

The Lord is no longer merely requesting obedience He is revealing who he truly is who actually rules the world and who doesn't now

Exodus 7 opens with Moses and Aaron standing before Pharaoh is God's representatives and the

Confrontation begins and it begins symbolically when Aaron's staff becomes a serpent that swallows the serpents of Egypt this is significant because Pharaoh actually wore the image of a cobra on his headpiece as a symbol of his own divine authority

Identifying himself with wadjet the Egyptian serpent goddess of kingship It seems that the serpent of old the devil who tempted

Adam and Eve has convinced yet another race of people that he is king and that his symbol of serpent and his and that his

Serpentine symbol is the symbol of God instead of the one true God himself now

God immediately declares in this that your power is Counterfeit Pharaoh and the plagues are going to expose you each of them striking at one of your

Egyptian false gods and the last one being One of the most prominent of them all now in plague number one the

Nile the lifeblood of the Egyptians is turned to blood Humiliating hop tea the god of the river in the source of life in plague number two

The frogs overrun the land mocking hackett the perverted goddess of fertility who bore the frogs head in plague number three the gnats rise from the dust rendering the priests ceremonially unclean and Exposing the impotence of their false god

Geb the god of the earth and the dust in plague number four swarms of flies follow attacking

Egypt sense of order and challenging Kepri the god of creation and rebirth in plague number five the livestock die striking at Hathor the false god of cattle and Apis the sacred bull then in plague number six the boils afflict the

Egyptian bodies shaming Sekhmet the pagan goddess of healing And finally today we will finish out with plague number seven where hail falls from the sky fire and ice together shattering the authority of Newt the sky goddess and shoe the

God over the air and as these plagues Intensify God is drawing a clear distinction between Israel and Egypt Israel is spared

Egypt is crushed and that's because God has called for himself Israel to be his one true people his elect nation in Egypt in bowing down to these pagan idols and by and by Persecuting his own people have put themselves in the crosshairs of God's wrath

Pharaoh in the scene vacillates between false repentance and renewed rebellion hardening his own heart each time

Relief comes even as God hardens his heart as well by the end of chapter 9 Egypt's gods lie exposed

Pharaoh stands humiliated and the cost of resisting the Lord is Undeniable now as you read today,

I want you to ask the following question. What happens when we continue to resist God? Even after he is exposed the false gods that we trust

Exodus 7 through 9 shows us that rejected truth does not fade it often hardens

See the central pattern in Exodus 7 through 9 is judgment through exposure. God doesn't merely punish

Egypt He exposes them. He dismantles their worldview. He he leaves them lying naked in their shame

Every plague is stripping away a false source of eternal security that they're holding on to Pharaoh's problem is not ignorance

It's allegiance He refuses in his shame to yield his throne to God and this confronts us

Directly because we may not worship the Nile gods or the sky goddesses But we cling to our own idols control and comfort and security and pride and while God is patient He is persistent in exposing them and when mercy is resisted

Judgment often comes in the form of a hardened heart Exodus teaches us that Neutrality between us and God is an illusion

We're either going to bow down to him and obey him and worship him or we're going to harden in our idolatry and all of this unmistakably

Points forward to Jesus and not just in theme it establishes the pattern of his victory

Pharaoh presents himself as the serpent king fueled by serpent power crowned with the image of wadjet

Claiming divine authority over life and land and people and the Lord responds by publicly humiliating that claim the staff serpent of Moses Swallows the serpent of Egypt announcing what the plagues will soon prove the seed of the woman is again gonna crush the head of the serpent

Just as God had promised from the very beginning But where Exodus exposes false gods through judgment

Christ overthrows them through sacrifice Pharaoh hardens his heart and demands that others suffer to preserve his rule

Jesus humbles himself and suffers so that his enemies might be redeemed Pharaoh multiplies death in order to secure his power

Christ absorbs death in order to destroy it The plagues reveal a

God who rules creation Absolutely, and the cross reveals a God who uses his power to save Every plague dismantles a lie about who rules the world at the cross

Every lie is finally silenced the gods of Egypt have been exposed as powerless

The rumors of this age have been disarmed the serpent who once crowned Pharaoh is crushed underneath the feet of Jesus and the same

Lord Who judged Egypt now reigns as king not merely over the rivers and skies but over?

everything sin death and the grave included Exodus shows us what judgment looks like when

God confronts rebellion Christ shows us what mercy looks like when God confronts his rebels and wins them to himself

So as you read Exodus 7 through 9 today watch how patiently God warns before he overwhelms

Pharaoh has seen enough to repent but he refuses and tomorrow the plagues are going to Intensify moving towards the final blow that will break the back of Egypt and their stranglehold on Israel forever

And with that read your Bible carefully Devotionally and joyfully and may the Lord use his word to sanctify you completely and we will continue our journey tomorrow.