exodus principles

All the people of Israel did just as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron. And on that very day the LORD brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.

Exodus 12:50-51

It took ten supernatural plagues and long confrontational conversations with the leadership of Egypt, the leading world superpower, for the stage to be set for the deliverance of Israel from slavery. This was God’s liberating power at work. But it was a deliberate story, not an unforeseen accident. God used a cast of characters that He scripted, and a series of dramatic events that His power directed, to release the powerful hold Egypt’s government held on His people.

I see two interesting principles from Israel’s exodus. First, God will take His time to produce His result. From the perspective of Moses and Aaron, God moved very deliberately. He kept telling them He would bring a specific plague, and that Pharaoh would not respond in favor of their demand. This was repeated nine times. The final plague created the feast of the Passover for the Jews and required time for them to prepare themselves for what God was going to do. By using this elaborate and long process to write a story into the memory of His people, God showed His power both to the Egyptians and to His people. The long and careful story brought glory to God as He is clearly the deliverer of His chosen nation.

The second principle: God’s power is often dismissed in unbelief. That is what Pharaoh did nine times. God displayed awesome supernatural power by Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh initially was moved by it, but once the threat of any specific plague was lifted, he dismissed it smugly... seemingly unwilling to believe anything like it could happen again.

Those same two principles apply to the gospel today. God delivered us, in Jesus, by bringing the Savior to us over centuries of careful story writing. The Old Testament shows us this. Jesus then became our Passover Lamb to save us from death. That’s the New Testament. Yet this gospel is so easily dismissed by worldly powers. We should not be surprised, We can still celebrate and worship because in Jesus we are set from from slavery to sin!