Conclusion

                Take a step back and see how the pharaoh represents every heart at one time or another. We look at a story that can be read quickly and don’t understand such stubbornness and hardness of heart. This part of God’s word represents so many things to us as believers. We are fortunate enough to look back at the transgressions of many and learn from them if we are willing. We are no better than Pharaoh when we turn away from the light God shines for us in Jesus, to guide us to His path for us. I see a pharaoh that sees his error and starts to move toward God, then stubbornly turns away the way we do when we forget that ‘our way’ leads us to worldly satisfaction and not heavenly sanctification. God will use trials (plagues) in our lives to bring us closer to Him, into reliance on Him. He will takes away our provision for ourselves (Plagues 1,3,4,5,7,8) and show us that He is the only provision we need. He will cast out and destroy idols (Plague 2) that we place above Him and refuse to separate ourselves from. God is a jealous God who wants our eyes set on Him. God will take away our health (Plague 6) to bring us to desperation, as we cannot fix it on our own. He will let us lead ourselves into darkness and sin (Plague 9) so that we come to realize that we need His light to illuminate our path. Finally He will send upon us more than we can bear without Him (Plague 10). In this moment we can only exist with His power and not our own. It’s in this realization that we accept His sacrificial lamb (Jesus Christ) to be our sin, and to wash us clean with His blood so that the final judgment of God, on this condemned world, will ‘Passover’ those who are saved. We should learn to rely on God unlike the Egyptians whose hardened hearts left them decimated and without hope. Know that you have the chance to know and be a child of the true God who triumphed over the false power of Egypt’s gods.