Gary Gleans

The word that comes to mind as I read this passage is flip-flop.  How easy it is for our hearts to be overflowing with worship towards God because of His provision of victory in our lives and then a short time later we are complaining to Him for not meeting our needs.  I think that dissatisfaction and conditional worship are two of the weapons that Satan uses most regularly in our lives.  At least I find myself constantly having to face these weapons in my own heart.  The contrast in attitudes and actions in this chapter are both clear and convicting.  It is easy for us to scratch our heads and wonder how the children of Israel could have been so forgetful, ungrateful and inconsistent.  However, when we judge them, we are really only incriminating ourselves because we do the very same thing. A SHINING EXAMPLE OF PRAISE: God’s deliverance from Egypt and the victory God gave Israel at the Red Sea inspires a spontaneous eruption of praise and worship in the pe...

It is easy for us to misinterpret the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  We very often think that we know the best way to do things and we expect God to act in a way that is consistent with our understanding of the situation at hand.  God is very quick to demonstrate that His ways are often very different from how we think they should be.  When this happens we will often doubt God’s goodness, question His abilities and become overwhelmed by fear and doubt.  However, God is gracious to us and patient with us.  Even though we complain and worry He acts in ways that are beyond our ability to comprehend and provides deliverance in ways that we would never dream are possible.  The result of this is that God’s enemies are judged, God’s people are astounded and have no other choice but to fall before God and worship. GOD’S PLANS CAN SEEM CONFUSING: God leads the children of Israel directly to a place where they are trapped between a rock and a hard spot....

God is very well aware of our weaknesses.  He knows that what we are able to handle and what would overwhelm us.  Besides having that knowledge, God has the ability to guide us away from the things that would harm us and He makes provisions for our weaknesses.  It is a great comfort to know that God knows us so well.  We truly can trust in Him to meet every one of our needs according to His will. GOD KNOWS WE CAN BE DISTRACTED BY FORGETFULNESS: The Exodus from Egypt was such a catastrophic event that we would think that it would never be forgotten.  However, God knows that over time it is easy for men to forget the great things that the Lord has done and just focus on their present situations.  God wanted the Passover to be remembered in every generation so He established a feast to celebrate the Exodus.  He also required that every first born child and animal be consecrated to the Lord as a possession.  This was a clear reminder that all the firs...

God has a very distinct purpose for His work in the land of Egypt.  He wants to show that He does not tolerate sin and rebellion but that He will judge it in the severest fashion imaginable.  God also wants to demonstrate that He is kind and gracious and that He provides a means of escape from His judgment through the shedding of blood.  These events are about far more than simply liberating Israel from Egypt.  They are prefigures of the sacrifice of Christ and our liberation from sin as a result of His death for us. THE PASSOVER REQUIRED PREPARATION: The Lord made it very clear that the children of Israel needed to make preparations for the Passover.  They had to choose a perfect lamb and then make a sacrifice of the lamb, apply the blood of the lamb to the doorframes of their homes and then eat the lamb completely burning anything that was left over.  Escape from the judgment of God required this process.  God cannot simply ignore the sins of men....

The consequences of sin are always much greater than we would like for them to be and beyond what we imagine would be possible.  When we sin we are enamored with the pleasures that sin promise, but we rarely consider the consequences of these actions.  Pharaoh has counted the cost of allowing Israel to go free and has decided that the cost is too high.  His pride leaves him in a position where he is blinded to the drastic consequences of his sinful choice.  God has been turning up the flame of suffering in Egypt that they might recognize their need to repent and obey God.  So far no one is listening, but that is about to change. GOD PROVIDES FOR THE CHILDRED OF ISRAEL: Moses has won the respect and fear of the Egyptian people.  They feared him and his God and must have wondered how in the world Pharaoh could be so blind.  Moses instructs Israel to ask for articles of silver and gold from the people of Egypt and the people obeyed and made great provisio...

We have a tendency to try to bargain with God in hopes of being able to get what we want without having to do more than we have to of what He wants.  The idea of complete surrender to God is hard for man to grasp and harder still to practice.  We are very good at rationalizing our sin and convincing ourselves that it is okay to continue on in our lives with a half-hearted repentance.  Then we wonder why we do not experience the blessings of God in our lives.  We long for peace, hope, joy and love to permeate our lives yet we pay lip service to the only source of these blessings.  Pharaoh longs for relief from judgment but he is very far from submitting to God in his life.  We must be very careful not to fool ourselves into thinking that we can “make deals” with God. THE PLAGUE OF LOCUST: The hail had already destroyed a large number of crops, but now the Locust come into the land and eat everything that is green.  They invade the home the fields the fo...

God knows how to judge sin and is capable of bringing great heartache to those who refuse to repent.  We often doubt this truth because it seems like so many times wicked men prosper while those who fear God suffer in this world.  However, the plagues in Egypt demonstrate that God is a very severe judge and that He is very capable of protecting His children while He judges His enemies.  One thing that is important to remember is that the slavery in Egypt has lasted 400 years and only now is judgment falling upon Egypt.  I am sure that the mothers who saw their babies being killed wondered if God would ever judge these people.  There may be situations in our day when we will wonder the same thing.  We can rest assured that He will. THE PLAGUE ON THE ANIMALS: The animals of Egypt were taken from them in this plague.  Some sort of a disease comes through Egypt on the day Moses promised and killed only the cattle of the Egyptians.  Israel’s animals we...