Introduction
What would it take to get your attention? Not just now, although now's as good a time as any. I don't want to trouble you, you who have already checked out of this blog and are on to thinking about how long it will take to read this today. How do I get your attention? You who are busy making to-do lists and working on lunch plans, how do I get your attention? How does anyone get anyone's attention?
The average adult attention span is 6 minutes. That's why the comedy and variety shows in the US have a commercial break about every 6 minutes! Other people report that the average human attention span is only 8.25 seconds, which is less than the goldfish's 9-second attention span. (https://www.sambarecovery.com/rehab-blog/average-human-attention-span-statistics)
Author Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day," he recalled in his book Stress Fractures. "Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was become unbearable.
"I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really fast.' "Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me -- and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." "I'll never forget her answer: 'Then listen slowly.'"
Our story today begins in Egypt, but it's not the beginning of the story. This may frustrate some of you. For that I apologize. The story is an episode in a fairly long drama which has already lasted over 350 years and now is in its final scenes.
Let me catch you up if you are new to us today.
Previously in Egypt
Moses is God's choice to lead the Jewish people out of slavery. Moses doesn't always agree with this chosen thing and hopes that God will work it out some other way. God convinces Moses that it's his job to do. So, off they go, Moses and his older brother Aaron. They are 80 and 83 respectively at this time.
Moses and Aaron went to the king of Egypt, who is called by the title Pharaoh, and ask for a 3-day pass to take the Jewish slaves out for a weekend retreat. The brothers use the phrase, "God wants us to go" and Pharaoh says, "Who is Yahweh?" or in modern talk says, fugetaboutit. In fact Pharaoh makes the lives of the Jewish people harder as a direct result. Ouch.
How will God get Pharaoh's attention? How will he get your attention? How will He get mine? Let's keep investigating in our text today and see what this book has to say to us as 21st Century people. OK?
A plague on your house!
Messianic Jewish scholar Alfred Edersheim writes in his commentary on this text regarding the purpose of the plagues:
"Provoked through the daring of man, who would measure his strength against that of the living God, it was to establish two facts for all ages and to all mankind. In sight of Egypt (Exodus 7:5) and of Israel (10:2) it was to evidence that God was Jehovah, the only true and the living God, far above all power of men and of gods. (Exodus 9:14) This was one aspect of the judgments which were to burst upon Egypt. (Romans 9:17) The other was, that He was the faithful Covenant-God, who remembered His promises, and would bring out His people “with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments,” to take them to Himself for a people, and to be to them a God (4:1-8). These are the eternal truths which underlie the history of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt." (Commentary on Exodus)
This may not seem a kinder or gentler way for the Lord of Heaven and Earth to get someone's attention. How about sending roses or lottery tickets-- not plagues, thank you very much.
Pains draw our attention to the need of repair. My car went in last week for some body work. It’s all good as of yesterday. What about loud noises in your car. They say the loudest sound a man will ever hear is not the engine of a 747 aircraft or a screaming baby in the movie theater. Rather it's in a new car. The loudest sound you can hear is the first ping or click you hear while driving." It gets our attention.
Suffering was the way for Yeshua to get His message to us. He died on the cross to bring eternal life to humanity. But many walked right past his cross that day, and many don't want to know anything about that to this day.
What about miracles? Won't they get attention?
I don't know how many times I hear from people that if God wanted to make it clear, that is, if He wanted all people to believe in Him, all He would have to do is... and they fill in the blank. He should heal my mother. He should let me win the lottery. He should help Australia beat India in the cricket.
Again I turn to Edersheim for comment.
“First and foremost, we learn the insufficiency of even the most astounding miracles to subdue the rebellious will, to change the heart, or to subject a man unto God. Our blessed Lord Himself has said of a somewhat analogous case, that men would not believe even though one rose from the dead.”
I know of a Jewish believer whose mother has been convinced so many times of Jesus, but yet she refuses. This mother has prayed and said, "God if you are who they say you are... " and God has answered this mother's prayers. But still she refuses. Yikes, I don't envy her position. I hope she repents before it's too late.
What does it take to get us to faith? What does it take to get our attention?
God did raise Messiah Yeshua from the dead. He has done all He needs to do to convince us of His veracity. What will we do with the Truth, at this point? How will God get our attention?
So here in the text, God uses frogs and lice and flies to seek to awaken the Egyptians. He could have used crocodiles or tigers, but
"In the present instance he shows the greatness of his power by making an animal, devoid of every evil quality, the means of a terrible affliction to his enemies." (Adam Clarke, commentary on Exodus)
In other words, he chose the small and ineffective to bring His notice to the Egyptians. And they began to get the picture, didn't they? It looks like there is a great divide in the populace viz the king.
Does separation work to get us to see?
I think of Jacob, our Genesis ancestor, and grandson of Abraham, who was separated from his normal circumstances and watched his wives depart some centuries earlier, leaving Jacob to think about his own situation. It was that night that Jacob wrestled with the angel and the history of the Jewish people took a sudden and powerful change of course.
God uses separation throughout our history to teach us, but do we listen?
The Egyptian magicians could not perform the same miracles, although they kept trying. They failed at making lice, and thus I believe the magicians were among the first to know that their powers were limited and that Yahweh was indeed God over all the earth. Listen to their testimony in verse 19. "This is the finger of God."
Only God can open our eyes and we must not resist
Separation is God's order of the day, and He does it via plagues and via miracles and via powerful displays. John Wimber who died some years ago used to call these "power encounters." God challenging the darkness with His own power and coming out victorious. This is what we see in Exodus 8 today.
So: What lessons do we learn from today's teaching?
1) Hardening your heart against God has consequences
2) As every false religion proves there is a true one, as a copy, however
marred or imperfect, shows there was an original from which it was taken,
so false miracles prove that there were genuine miracles,
3) When God speaks in whatever way He speaks... will you be listening? Are you still paying attention?
4) Let us not imagine that God has so bound himself to work by general laws that he cannot destroy things out of the ordinary
5) His final purpose is to bring Himself glory and to get the confession from us that Yahweh is God and there is no other!
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