The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/exodus/9.htm

The First Plague – The river turned to blood.
The Second Plague – Frogs, frogs everywhere.
The Third Plague – Lice.
The Fourth Plague – Flies

Now the Lord, through Moses and Aaron, inflicts the Fifth Plague on Egypt. And He is starting to get personal. This time, He inflicts disease and on the livestock, except the livestock of the Israelites. And at the end of the day, all of Egypt’s livestock dies, but the livestock of the children of Israel, the children of God, live.

Here’s something to keep in mind; if you believe in a vengeful tyrannical God, why has He not killed the Egyptians yet? If He has the ability to kill, the Egyptian are pagan, non-believer, idol worshippers, why doesn’t an Angry God just do away with with? Because God is NOT evil, He’s NOT tyrannical, and He is NOT vengeful. THAT is what Lucifer tried to use to turn the angels away from God, and a third of them believed Lucifer.

Instead, God is a loving God, who gives us free-will to make our own choices. I’m confidence that God gave the Egyptians free-will also, they were His children just like the Israelites were. And I’m sure He was trying to work in their lives as well, they were simply non-believers, listening to what they had been taught about the duty to worship idols.

And really, there is not much of a difference today. The Israelites were God’s people. They knew about God, they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They much like the Christians of today…they knew God, they knew how they were supposed to live, but they were sinners, just like the Christians of today, and God was still trying to save them, just as He is today.

The Egyptians represent the non-believers, the atheists of the world. And He is still trying to change them, but they reject God, just like the Egyptians did. And even though they have seen signs and wonders, they still reject God.

God is a loving God. He had the ability to kill Cain when Cain was guilty of murder, but he didn’t. And now He has the ability to wipe out the Egyptians, but He doesn’t. The plagues He is sending is a message that they need to turn to God, and while the Bible doesn’t say, I believe God is hoping that they turn to Him. But God is an all-knowing God, and He knows they won’t.

And even though all of the Egyptian livestock dies, Pharaoh still refuses to release the Israeli slaves.

The sixth plague was boils. God asked Moses to take ashes and throw them into the air, and boils formed on “man and beast”, and by now, the magicians couldn’t even try to mimic the “trick” because their boils were so many and so painful.

The seventh plague was hail. And there are some very interesting words in this passage. God gave fair warning that the hail was coming, and they needed to get their servants and their livestock inside. Those that believed did so, those that did not believe, left their servants and their livestock in the field.

16But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth. God wants everyone to know of His love and to enjoy good lives. Another motive for these plagues is to show people the power of God, that He is real, to try to convert the non-believers. No different than today when there is an effort to convert everyone to Jesus Christ.

20He who feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his livestock flee to the houses. 21But he who did not regard the word of the Lord left his servants and his livestock in the field. I, myself, used to have trouble with the word “fear”. If God was such a loving God, why does the Bible say we should “fear” Him. Why do we call good people “God-fearing men”? Another definition for the word “fear” is the word “awe”. No, we should not be afraid of God, but we should be in awe of His love, His power, His ability to create something from nothing, in awe of His perfection.

So hail came down, as the Bible says, “hail that has not been seen in Egypt since it was formed as a nation”. The hail was so bad that it killed anyone outside, it killed the livestock that were left outside, it destroyed the vegetation, and it even obliterated the trees.

I worked 46 years in public safety, and my job was greatly effected by the weather. And in my course of studying the weather, I’ve note that where I lived, the month of August produces the worst lightning. Don’t get me wrong, we have lightning with every thunderstorm, but when August arrives, it is fierce. The electrical storms are bad with frequent cloud to ground lightning, and lots of it, and it hits close. I’m not a meteorologist, so I do not know about the August climate that is different so that it produces an abundance of lightning, but it does.

But this is July, and the lightning we’ve been having lately is like the lightning of August. Is God trying to send us a message that it is time to repent and turn towards him?

So the hail destroyed everything in Egypt, except for the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived, it was spared.

And when Pharaoh saw the hail and the destruction, he sent for Moses, and confessed that he was a sinner, that the Lord was righteous, and promised that if Moses would stop the hail, he would let the Israelites go.

But as soon as Moses stopped the hail (actually it was God through Moses), Pharaoh did not fulfill his promise, and kept the children of Israel as slaves.