January 29: Of God’s Love for Pharaoh

Exodus 7:25-9:35

Matthew 19:13-30

Psalm 24:1-10

Proverbs 6:1-5

Did God love Pharaoh and the Egyptians?  Or was every plague He wrought solely because He loved the Israelites?  I believe the answer is clear and unequivocal YES.  One hundred percent YES our God loved Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  

While do I believe this?  Because I think if God really just wanted to set the Israelites free, He could have unleashed the angel of death on every Egyptian - not just the first born.  And He didn't have to go through all the other plagues - the frogs, the gnats, the locusts, the blackness…none of them.  Angel of death, every Egyptian, from A to Z, and the Israelites would have been free. 

Why, then, all the plagues, all the suffering?  What did God want?  I believe He wanted of Pharaoh what He wants from all of us - to acknowledge Him, to set ourselves aside, and obey Him.  Had Pharaoh simply let the Israelites go - and worship, ostensibly - it wouldn't have been necessary for God to even turn the water to blood in the very first instance.  

So on one hand, it is fair to say that all this happened because Pharaoh was stubborn.  Curiously enough, on the other hand, it is equally fair to say all this happened because God's love was more persistent than Pharaoh's pigheadedness.  He just kept calling and calling, louder and louder.  Pharaoh reportedly did not die in the Red Sea.  If, indeed, he didn't, I bet he wished he'd listened to and obeyed God sooner.   

Father, sometimes in our lives, it is one thing after another, one trial after the next, one hardship on the heels of the former.  When this happens, remind us that, as with each of the plagues, You will have permitted everything that happens to us, out of Your persistent love. Not to punish us, but to call us to acknowledge you in ways we have yet to learn.  And please - help us to learn more quickly than Pharaoh.