Exo 9:13 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
Exo 9:16 And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
Show God's power. God's name would be declared throughout all the earth. Just imagine the scene before us here. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Joseph and subsequently the God of those of all the Hebrew people formed from the family of Abraham was a seemingly powerless God that allowed His people to become enslaved for 400 years. Abraham had journeyed through Egypt and when he did, he lied telling those in charge that his wife was his sister because he didn't want anything to happen to him because the Pharaoh of the time was known for killing husbands to get their wives. When Pharaoh took Sarai, Abraham's wife and wanted to make her part of his harem of wives the Pharaoh and his household become sick and remained so until it was uncovered that the GOD of Abraham was displeased with the situation. To remedy the situation Pharaoh had to LET Sarai go. The Pharaoh knew that there was a powerful God working there, the God of the man Abraham.
The God of Abraham was known to the Egyptians but by the time Joseph entered the picture as a slave and made his way up to the second in command of Egypt the God of Abraham was past history and not on the minds of the Egyptians at all. When Joseph brought His God into the picture again…
Gen 39:8 But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand;
Gen 39:9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?
Gen 39:21 But the LORD was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
Gen 40:8 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.
Gen 41:16 And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.
Gen 41:25 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.
When Joseph brought His God into the picture again and from the verses above we can see that He did just that, the Pharaoh of the time wasn't objecting to Joseph or His God. He embrace Joseph and allowed Joseph to worship the God of Abraham. Then… Joseph died and time passed and the Hebrews fell out of favor with the Egyptians because they forgot Joseph and all he'd done for them.
Exo 1:8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
And this is what happened…
Exo 1:9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
Exo 1:10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
Exo 1:11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
And we know what happened after that, they became slaves and stayed the slaves of the Egyptians for a long, long time and during that time the power of the God of Abraham and subsequently all His descendants were forgotten. Why wouldn't He be forgotten by the Egyptians- His people were their slaves.
Then...
Exo 9:13 And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
Exo 9:16 And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.
God raised Moses up to SHOW him HIS power, so that God's name would be declared throughout ALL the earth.
The power of God.
Exo 15:6 Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.
Glorious in power.
Deu 9:29 Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
Thy mighty power.
2Ki 17:36 But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice.
With great power.
None has the power of God. None has the power of our God, none, period. We talk about power and then we imagine what should be done with that power. We try to play God imagining what God should be doing with His power and in our finite, powerless way we think we are special and have enough knowledge to do so. We have NO power of our own, none.
Remember this verse from yesterday's study--
2Co 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
The excellency of the power… may be of GOD and NOT of us.
Remember this…
Mat 6:13 ...For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
God is the power.
We need to really understand this. It's something that is easy to say but believing it might be another story altogether. We're prone to believe we have our own power.
Jesus said...
Joh 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me
Jesus emptied Himself of His power so that He could rely totally upon God's power as we are called to do. It's true. We have to rely on God's power!
Our Father which art in heaven… THINE is the power. We relinquish any power we think we might possess and rely upon God's.
Does this mean we sit about like lumps expecting God to walk us about like puppets? No. God has given us abilities to walk ourselves. God has given us the power of life itself, but that power is His to give and take away. We don't have to understand, in fact we can't understand the whys and wherefores. We may believe a lot of times that God's ways are unfair but He sees the picture of life from a perspective we can't. He sees how every single event in our lives affects another. By His grace we must give ourselves fully to Him understanding that we are given salvation by His power through Christ's sacrifice, through Christ's righteousness forever!
In His love.
Amen.
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