Looking at a text like this today where God sends plagues of gnats, darkness, frogs, and boils (to name a few) leads us to ask why. What is it in the character of God that leads him to do such things? For is it not true that God could have had Pharaoh let the Israelites go after Moses first spoke to him or after one plague? This is most definitely true; God can do what he desires here. So why does he have ten plagues? I believe the answer might startle us, but at the same time can become the basis for our rest and delight in God. The answer to the question is that …
God does everything that he does for his own glory. In fact, Romans 11:33-36 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” Thus, everything that exists, exists for God (“to Him are all things”). Therefore, it is reasonable (before we even look into the text that describes God’s activity in sending plagues on the Egyptians) to believe that he did this for the exaltation of himself, for the sake of his own glory. Looking into the text only verifies this conclusion. For example, look at a few quotations from the passage:
7:3 – “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.”1
7:5 – “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”
8:10 – “ … May it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the Lord out God.”
8:22 – “But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of insects will be there, in order that you may know that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the land.”
9:14 – “For this time I will send all my plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth.”
9:15-16 – “For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. But, indeed, for this cause I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power, and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth.”
9:29 – “ … As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease, and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.”
10:1-2 – “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘God to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and how I performed My signs among them; that you may know that I am the Lord.’”
11:9 – “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
God’s clear purpose in sending ten plagues – instead of none or a few – is that they might see how great he is and that his glory might be seen among them. For the Egyptians, they worshiped the Nile, the sun, the insects, the livestock, etc. In these chapters, God showed that he ruled over all of these things and that he alone is God.
In a day when the push is for everyone to acknowledge that it is okay for us to worship whatever god we want, since it all gets us to the same place, God resoundingly says, “No!” The reason we must acknowledge that the God of the Bible is the only God that is, instead of allowing men to think there are others, is because God will not acknowledge other gods. He alone is God. If the Egyptians had been in America, our television networks would be saying, their god is as good and great as yours. The plagues would have displayed otherwise. Therefore, proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. He alone is the way to the Father. And our Trinitarian God alone is God.
This is why God delights in displaying his power. He delighted in what he did in the Exodus. According to Acts 13:17, he led the Israelites out of Egypt “with an uplifted arm.” That is to say, he was showing off. God was on a mission to display how great he was. This is his goal in creation. The heavens exist to display the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). Everything that is, has its purpose in this end. We were created for God’s glory (Isaiah 43:6-7).
Therefore, the plagues were a display of God’s power that resounded in his glory, which is God’s utmost passion. That is why we read of these plagues in these chapters – God is passionate about his own glory.
That which allows God to be passionate for his glory is the fact that he is all-powerful. Exodus does not paint a picture of a God who desires to show his power but is struggling in the face of his powerful enemies to do so. Rather, it paints a picture of a God who has every ounce of power that is.
If we were to run through the verses aforementioned that showed God’s intent for the signs and wonders in Egypt, we would not find one mention of a lack of power on his part. We would find God saying, “I will do this” or “I am doing this.” God has all power to display his glory to the nations.
Pharaoh was a powerful leader who dared to oppose God. But the plagues taught Pharaoh that God holds all power, and even the power God’s enemies hold is only held because God allows it. The clear lesson to Pharaoh and the Egyptians is that God alone is all-powerful. Let’s not miss this lesson ourselves. And it is not just a lesson we find in Exodus, the rest of the Scriptures speak of God’s almightiness as well. For example:
Job 42:2 – “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”
Psalm 115:1-3 – “Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name give glory because of Your lovingkindness, because of your truth. Why should the nations say, ‘Where now is their God?’ But our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases.”
Isaiah 46:9-10 – “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other, I am God and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, say, ‘My purpose will be established and I will accomplish my good pleasure.’”
Daniel 4:34-35 – “But at the end of that period I Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever … All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing but He does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and no one can ward off his hand or say to him what have you done?”
There is no doubt in Exodus as well as in the testimony of the rest of Scripture that God holds all power and there is able and deserving of displaying his great glory.
The thing that needs to be understood (and often isn’t) in the reality of God’s passion for his glory is the fact that it does not in any way conflict with his love for his people. In fact, God’s desire to display his glory is often manifested in his love for his people. Notice Israel’s blessings in these chapters:
9:4 – “But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing will die of all that belongs to the sons of Israel.”
9:26 – “Only in the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel were, there was no hail.”
10:23 – “They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings.”
11:3 – “And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Furthermore, the man Moses himself was greatly esteemed in the land of Egypt, both in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.”
11:7 – “But against any of the sons a Israel a dog shall not even bark, whether against man or against beast, that you may understand how the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”
Ultimately Israel is delivered from slavery, plundering the Egyptians as they go. Why? I believe it falls perfectly in line with God’s commitment to his glory. The reason the Israelites were blessed in the face of the Egyptians is because the Egyptians were gathering information about the God of the Israelites by looking at them. Therefore, being blessed while the Egyptians were cursed was sending the message that the God of the Israelites is greater that the gods of the Egyptians.2
The same is true with the church. For example, we are given God’s moral guidelines because they are the most blessed way to live. And as we follow them, we are living holy; we are doing good works. But why do we get to be blessed in receiving the blessing of being able to do these things? The answer is given by Jesus in Matthew 5:16 as he says, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” We are blessed in receiving God’s commands so that he might receive glory.
This doesn’t mean that we won’t suffer, for in fact we will. Sometimes it means we will suffer more (in persecution). But it still stands that, even in those times, we can rejoice in knowing God, and this overflows to his glory (e.g. Acts 5:41).
Again, this is true of the Israelites in the Exodus and the rest of Scripture as well. For example, see how the following show God’s passion for his glory overflowing to the good of his people:
Psalm 106:6-10 – “We have sinned like our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have behaved wickedly. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; they did not remember Your abundant kindnesses, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Nevertheless, He saved them for the sake of His name, that He might make His power known. Thus he rebuked the Red Sea and it dried up; and He led them through the deeps, as through the wilderness. So he saved them from the hand of the one who hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.”
Psalm 25:11 – “For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.”
Ephesians 1:4-6, 10-12 – “ … He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved … In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
And ultimately we see this manifested in the cross. The cross was the supreme display of God’s glory (John 13:31-32) while at the same time being the supreme display of God’s love toward us (Romans 5:8-10). And ultimately our greatest good and God’s greatest glory will again meet as Christ returns to take the church to himself.
Ultimately those who despise God’s glory displayed through his Son in the cross will know God’s unending wrath in hell. This is not enjoyable to talk or think about, just as it is not enjoyable to think of Pharaoh’s firstborn dying or the entire army being drown in the sea, but it is true; God’s wrath is poured out on those who despise his glory.
When man sinned in the garden, all of mankind exalted himself as greater than God, but God will not share his glory with man (Isaiah 48:11). Also, in describing man’s sin, Paul tells us in Romans that we exchanged the glory of God for corruptible things (Romans 1:23). But God judges man accordingly.
Therefore, the message of the gospel is not, “God will help you quit being lonely if you’ll just trust him.” Rather, it is “God has allowed you a way to avoid his coming wrath through the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son. Therefore, repent and believe.” The first is wrong because it begins with man; the second displays God’s priority in all things. May we, therefore, not forget that God is at the center of all things, not us.
These are indeed some of the messages that this text in Exodus teaches us. Therefore, in light of these truths, let us
Pray for his glory to be reflected in your life. Fight for his glory to be reflected in your life. Everything you do, let it have this as its end – whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do (1 Corinthians 10:31). And in all things, pray to do them in the strength of Christ, that God might receive glory (1 Peter 4:11).
Sometimes God calls us to do something that will result in his glory being reflected, but we refuse because we doubt ourselves. However, the whole thing relies not on our ability in fulfilling what we are called to do but God’s power and passion for his glory. Therefore, trust when he calls you to do something that he will ensure the means for it because he longs to be glorified in it.
Though I know it is hard to swallow in our prideful flesh, delight in the fact that God is passionate for himself and that we are not the greatest thing in the universe. For if you delight in this fact, you will find great joy. And if you want to feel loved by God, realize that it is a much more loving thing of God to allow you to enjoy making much of him that to allow you to enjoy making much of yourself. One is eternal; the pleasures of the other will be gone in a few days.
I know the temptation in these days will be to present an attractive God to people as men everywhere are looking for something spiritual. However, don’t present God to men as less than he is. Whether they realize it or not, men are starving for the majesty of God: they are starving to behold the God of Exodus. May we proclaim him to them in these days.
Grace be with you. Amen.