Exiting Egypt Chapter 9B P4

Exiting Egypt

“Seventh Plaque – Fire and Hail”

Exodus 9:13-35

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 9B P4

Now, the judgment was to be life threatening, against both animal and human. Yet, still, God reveals His tremendous mercy in that He tells Pharaoh to get both animal and man out of the fields before the judgment comes; that they were to seek shelter so as not to be destroyed.

Now, the idea of it being both a fire and hail storm is quite the judgment. No way to think that this is just another natural phenomenon. It states in the Hebrew that there was hail joined by thunder and balls of fire. Why balls, because it seems that according to the language that the fire ran along the ground. It would seem that the lighting came down and ran along the ground, zigzagging back and forth.

God was going to judge them, but in the midst of the judgment, God makes a way of escape, and all they had to do was to believe God’s word.

God in the same way provides a way of escape for us, that in the times of trials and temptations will provide a way or a means of escaping it, or giving us that ability to go through it.

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it (1 Cor. 10:13 NKJV)

This verse has a whole lot of people confused, because they have not only been tempted but continue to be so, or continue to have the same trial over and over again and they question the truthfulness of these words.

But let me just give you a quick rejoinder. God is indeed faithful, and He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to take without making also a way of escape. He always has. Our problem is that we are either not listening or paying attention to what God is saying and the way He is pointing us to, or we don’t want God’s way of escape, we want our own.

Kind of like the guy who was drowning and when a couple of boats came over to save him he declined their help saying that God would save him. He did the same when a Coast Guard helicopter tried to drop him a lifeline.

Well, he ended up drowning and now is in heaven. He confronts Jesus saying, “You let me down, I was drowning and you didn’t save me.” To which Jesus replied, “Why didn’t you except the offer of help that I sent through the two boats and the helicopter?”

You see, God always provides a way, not only a way to escape, but to be able to bear it. This is a part of that verse we absolutely hate to see. God sometimes doesn’t get us out of our problems, or away from the temptations, but gives us the strength to endure them. But the key is that God is always faithful to provide a way. We just have to take the way He provides.

Something else about God’s message to Pharaoh is that He makes sure that Pharaoh knows that judgment is coming, and that He has provided a shelter for those who will listen. God provides us a shelter as well, and that shelter is no one less than the Lord Himself.

For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings (Psm. 61:3-4 NKJV)

Speaking of the coming judgment at the End of Days, the prophet Joel says,

The heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel (Joel 3:16 NKJV)

As we can see then that God’s judgment is going to fall, and that God provides shelter to those who are His, as He did to the Jews in the land of Goshen. And the same will also take place for those who are His today.

The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment (2 Pet. 2:9 NKJV)

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Th. 5:9 NKJV)