Who do you cry out to in your pain?

There is no reason why the mighty Pharaoh of Egypt should obey the command of some desert deity, the god of a debased slave people.

You see Pharaoh knew some things about gods. They talk a lot, that is, their priests talk a lot, always trying to get Pharaoh to do something: build this, outlaw that, subsidize something else.

But the deities themselves never did anything. They stood there on the wall, forever lifeless. Pharaoh’s denial of Moses request may not have felt really abnormal, … 

… except Pharaoh wasn’t dealing with a god on a wall, he was dealing with the only true living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

-Mike Williams, Far As the Curse Is Found

Plagues 1-3:   River

• Nile river turned into blood
• Frogs & gnats fill the land

Plagues 4-6: Land

• Flies multiply

  Infections plague livestock

•  

  Boils on humans & livestock

Plagues 7-9: Crops

• Hail & locusts devour crops
• Darkness covers the land

Faith is an action taken on evidence, driven by conviction.

The evidence was the demonstrated trustworthiness of the Lord’s word, verified in the nine acts, and the resulting conviction was holding fast to that trustworthiness and believe that the Lord was able to do what he said he would, that his promises would stand.

The essence of faith is the trust that obeys, and this was the point to which Israel came in Exodus 12.

Knowing unmistakably how great was the power of the enemy, equally aware of their own weakness and helplessness, yet ready to pit all on bare obedience to the command and promise of God.

Israel must take a stand. Self-declared as the people under the blood of the lamb.

Exodus,  J.A. Motyer

Why is God the real G.O.A.T?

He can break any chain.

How God Breaks Chains

1.People cry out and he hears.

2.A power struggle ensues (which can take time).

3.Those who long for freedom buy into a curious death.

Political Chains

The Hebrews were not a free people. They found themselves in Egypt as the descendants of people who had migrated there as famine refugees and found a welcome. But under the current government, they were being oppressed as an ethnic minority and viewed with suspicion and state-generated fear.

Economic Chains

The Hebrews were being exploited as a source of cheap labor for the economic benefit of their host nation – in construction projects and agriculture (things haven’t changed much). They were not enjoying the fruit of their own work but suffering the harsh slavery of working for a hostile state.

Social Chains

The policy of the state progressed from economic exploitation to outright genocidal fury. The interference in the family life of the Hebrews, by the government mandate to all citizens of Egypt to make sure that newborn Hebrew boys were killed at birth, must have inspired fear in every pregnant mother and despair among the whole community whose very survival into the next generation was threatened.

Spiritual Chains

While the Hebrews were under slavery to Pharaoh, the self-asserting member of the gods of Egypt, they were not free to worship their true God and Lord. This explains Yahweh’s insistence, ‘Let my people go that they may worship me (that is, not Pharaoh).

Israel's problem in Egypt was not just that they were in slavery and needed to be liberated, but that they were being forced to serve the wrong master. The point of the exodus was not merely the gift of freedom, but to bring Israel back to their true Lord and to enter into covenant relationship with him.

If our mission is to be informed by God’s mission to his people, then our commitment to mission must demonstrate the same broad totality of concern for human need that he demonstrated in what he did for Israel.

- Chris Wright, Mission of God