Notice here (9:13-17) that God tells Pharaoh that He could have erased the existence of the entire nation of Egypt if He had wanted to do that! In other words, God is telling Pharaoh: “You haven’t seen nothing yet!” God is being merciful to Pharaoh and the Egyptians be slowly increasing the destructive effects of the plagues.
THE PLAGUES SERVED A PURPOSE:
We see in our text, verse 14, that God wants to show His power. Back in 5:2, Pharaoh had said that He did not know Jehovah God. Now, he has had a class in true theology and He knows more about God than he thought he would. There is no God like Jehovah God in all the earth.
Another purpose of the plagues was to show that God deserves universal praise. Again, notice in verse 16. For other references to these plagues, consider Deut. 6:21-22; Psalm 78:47-48; Exodus 15:14-15; Joshua 9:9; 1 Samuel 4:7-8. When the apostle Paul was looking for an illustration of the sovereignty of God, in Romans 9:16-17, Paul quoted Exodus 9:16. So if you preach Christ, at some point, you will preach about the plagues God brought on Egypt!
A third purpose of the plagues is given in verse 29. “…there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.” God is God over every square inch of land on this planet! His plagues proved to Pharaoh that Jehovah God was God over the land of Egypt!
The resurrection of Jesus Christ has proven yet again the same three points we see in this text. God is all-powerful. God deserves universal praise. And God has authority over every thing in our lives from birth to death.
GOD EXTENDS GRACE TO PHARAOH – 9:18-21:
There are two responses to God, and only two: You either believe what He says and obey what He says – all He says – or you trust in your own wisdom and do what you want to do.
The magicians recognized in the plague of the gnats the “finger of God” (Exo. 8:19). Eventually, some of the Egyptians will leave Egypt with Israel after the last plague: 12:38. It is interesting that God, through Isaiah, predicted that some Egyptians would eventually join the people of God (19:19-25). When the kingdom was established in Acts 2:10, there were Jews there from Egypt. Later, a large number of Christians are found in Egypt.
The beginning of their salvation is seen in verse 20: they “fear the word of the Lord.” They feared God enough to do what His prophet said to do!
THE WORST HAILSTORM EVER – 9:22-25:
It comes as no surprise that most Egyptians chose not to obey God. They clung to their false theology and it cost them. Instead of “fearing” the word of the Lord, they “paid no regard for” the word of the Lord (9:21). They ignored the word of the Lord because, verse 30 says, they did not fear Jehovah God. In fact, in verse 34, Moses writes that Pharaoh and his servants hardened their hearts. Our response to God always starts in our hearts.
Notice the effects of the land of Egypt: 9:31-32.
The only way to be safe in the plague of hail on Egypt, the only way for the Christians in the first century to be safe from the “hail” God would symbolically bring over the Roman Empire (Rev. 16:16-17) was to trust God – or Jesus Christ – and do what He says to do.
PHARAOH “SOFTENS” HIS HEART AGAIN:
You know, just because someone acknowledges he or she is sinful, does not mean that he or she will be saved. Even repentance itself does not guarantee salvation in the NT times. After the destruction of the hail, Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and notice what he confessed: 9:27-28. For the third time (8:8, 28), Pharaoh asks Moses to pray for him. These are all good, spiritual disciplines: acknowledging his sins, confessing the righteousness of God, and praying.
If we truly repent, John says that man needs to bring forth “fruit worthy of repentance” (Matt. 3:8), then there is a noticeable difference in our behavior. Repentance begins in the mind, and then it leads to changed behavior. We have to repent as well, before we can become Christians and before we can glorify God in our lives. The word “repent” or “repentance” is found 52 times in the NT. Now, we might, and probably will, sin after we become Christians. But the change of mind about living a sinful life has to at least come before we are immersed into Christ. We have to give our minds to Christ before we are forgiven of our sins.
The lesson we need to draw from this particular is plague is that repentance involves more than just saying, “I’m a sinner,” and asking for prayer. It involves a change of mind and a change of behavior.
Paul Holland
