Liam Hungate
Tonight stepped back in the Redemption Series to look at what it took to get to the moment covered last week, when Moses led Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. Before that could happen, God had to press Pharaoh through a series of ten plagues.
The night opened with a picture of ignoring a smoke alarm at night, not just once, but pulling the battery every single time it goes off, for ten nights straight. Eventually the house burns down. That's exactly what Pharaoh did with ten unmistakable warnings from God.
Passages: Exodus 4-11
Back at the burning bush, God gave Moses three signs to prove he'd been sent: his shepherd's staff became a snake and then a staff again, his hand turned leprous and then was healed, and a third sign involving water. Even after seeing this, Moses doubted he was capable of speaking for God. God's answer was direct: He made Moses' mouth, and He would be with it. God doesn't just call the qualified, He qualifies the called. Moses still resisted, so God grew angry but still provided a solution, sending Aaron along as the spokesman while Moses led.
As Moses and Aaron headed back to Egypt, God told Moses plainly that Pharaoh's firstborn would eventually pay the price for holding God's firstborn, Israel, captive. Pharaoh's heart hardening became the theme to track through the whole night, compared to a callus: the first blow hurts, but after enough repetition, the skin stops feeling it at all.
Israel believed Moses and Aaron right away, but Pharaoh flatly refused God's request and made Israel's labor even harder in response. Yet God reaffirmed His covenant with a string of promises: I will bring you out, I will rescue you, I will redeem you, I will take you as my people, I will be your God, I will bring you into the land, I will give it to you as your own. All that was asked of Israel was trust.
The first plague turned Egypt's water to blood. Egyptian magicians copied the trick through demonic power, which only hardened Pharaoh further, but they could never reverse what they imitated, the same way counterfeit money can look real without ever holding real value. From there, the plagues escalated: frogs Pharaoh begged to have removed, then refused to release Israel once relief came; gnats, which the magicians couldn't replicate at all; flies, with God drawing a clear line between Egypt and His own people; the death of Egyptian livestock while Israel's flocks were spared; and painful boils breaking out on people and animals alike, described like the worst kind of sunburn blister covering the whole body.
It's during the boils, in Exodus 9:12, that the text first says the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. The point made here: God wasn't acting against Pharaoh, He was affirming the choice Pharaoh had already made over and over. The plagues continued with the worst hailstorm Egypt had ever seen, locusts stripping the land bare, and finally three days of total darkness, so complete that no one could see or move, except in the areas where Israel lived. Only the tenth and final plague, Passover and the death of the firstborn, remained, already covered the week before.
Each of the ten plagues directly exposed a specific Egyptian god as powerless. The Nile, worshipped as a source of life, became death. The frog-headed goddess of fertility was buried under an unclean swarm of frogs. Geb, god of the earth, couldn't stop dust from becoming gnats. Egypt's god of insects couldn't control the flies. The sacred bull and cow goddess couldn't protect their own livestock. The magicians tied to Egypt's gods of healing couldn't stand against the boils. The gods of sky and storm were absent when hail fell. Osiris, god of agriculture, couldn't save the crops from locusts. Ra, the sun god, Egypt's most important deity and the one Pharaoh himself claimed descent from, couldn't turn the light back on. And the final plague struck Pharaoh directly, the one Egypt worshipped as untouchable, through the death of his own son.
One layer at a time, God dismantled everything Egypt trusted: their environment, their health, their leadership, their religion, like pulling blocks from a tower until it finally falls.
God reveals His power to show us who He is, but our response to that revelation determines what it means for us. Israel and Moses responded in faith and were rescued. Pharaoh resisted again and again and was met with judgment. Same God, different outcomes, depending on the response. God still reveals Himself today, through circumstances, through people, and through His Word, and people still resist Him just as Pharaoh did. Hearts are always doing one of two things: softening or hardening.
These are the same questions the group wrestled with tonight. They are a good way to keep the conversation going at the dinner table.
A few easier openers if you want to start smaller: