Exodus 9: The God of the Plagues Is Powerful and Good

Introduction

"What is ultimate in the universe?" That is how Phil, associate vicar of Christ Church Mayfair in London, opens the second message on the plagues of Egypt, from Exodus 9:13-35 and 10:21-29. For him, this is not a question reserved for religious people. It is a universal human question. Who, or what, runs this world?

The answers are as many as the cultures, from Allah to karma, from chaos to democracy. Ten or fifteen years ago, many Londoners would have said: scientific processes, nothing more. Today there is more openness, but also more confusion. Yet everything depends on it: your security, your peace, your hope when you get up in the morning. When God makes a promise, what makes you believe he has the means to keep it? When you pray, what gives you confidence that he can answer, that he cares, and that he will make a good decision?

The previous week was about Pharaoh. This one is about God. The preacher sums up Exodus 7 to 10 like this: the God of the Bible is the one true God, "God with a capital G," and he is good.

Message outline

1. The real contest: the LORD against Pharaoh

In the film The Prince of Egypt, the plot pits Moses against Pharaoh, two childhood friends who became leaders of rival nations. But that is not the duel the biblical account sets up. In Exodus, it is the LORD against Pharaoh.
In Exodus 5:2, Pharaoh asks with contempt: "Who is Yahweh?" He considers himself a god, the ultimate authority in Egypt.
The whole narrative moves toward the answer. From Exodus 7:5, God announces: "The Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh." The phrase then returns several times (7:17, 8:10, 8:22, 9:14, 9:29, 10:2).
At Sinai, God introduces himself this way: "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2). In other words: you want to know who I am? I am the God who brought judgment on Egypt to save my people.
This is not a boxing match of nine evenly balanced rounds before the decisive blow in the tenth. In Exodus 9:15-16, God says he could already have wiped Egypt off the earth, but that he raised Pharaoh up to show his power and to have his name proclaimed. Pharaoh's stubborn refusal was always the planned occasion for displaying his strength.

2. One God, master of all creation

Some see in each plague a victory over a specific Egyptian god. The preacher stays cautious: it works for the Nile or the sun, much less for the flies, and Egypt had at least eighteen gods for nine plagues.
The text instead shows three series of three plagues, each revealing one aspect of God's power over creation. The first three come through Aaron and his staff, the next three come directly from the LORD, and the last three come through Moses. In each series, the first plague is announced to Pharaoh in the morning, the second in his palace, and the third comes without warning. This careful structure echoes Genesis 1: God wields the creation he himself made.
First series (blood, frogs, gnats): God's mastery has nothing to do with that of the magicians. They imitate the first two plagues by their enchantments (7:22; 8:7), which hardly helps a country already without water. But they fail before the gnats and have to admit: "This is the finger of God!" (8:19).
Second series (flies, death of livestock, boils): the issue is control. God sets apart the land of Goshen, where his people live (8:22-23). The preacher mentions the famous video of Fenton the dog, a former guide dog let loose in Richmond Park to chase the deer: once the lead is off, there is no control left. We often picture the plagues that way, as chaos unleashed. The preacher says the opposite: "God controls the movement of every fly and the spread of every germ." Not one animal of the Israelites dies (9:7).
Third series (hail, locusts, darkness): incomparable power. The hail is the worst Egypt has ever known (9:18), the locusts unprecedented (10:6). Then come three days of darkness "which may even be felt" (10:21). In one hour the sun sends the Earth more energy than humanity uses in a year, and God switches it off for Egypt "like you turn off the lamp in your bedroom."

3. Not one more god, but the God of all

The Egyptians had Ra, Osiris and many others. But when Moses speaks in the name of the God of Israel, he is speaking of something else. The purpose of the plagues is that people would know "that there is no one like me in all the earth" (9:14).
So the right response of an Egyptian is not to make room for one more god in his temple, but to empty the temple of all those little gods and worship the one Lord who reigns over creation.
The preacher tells of being at the welcome forum for new students at Imperial College with the church's student team, among young people from all over the world and from almost every religion. What gives us the right to invite them to read the Bible? We are not presenting them with the god of Christians or of the West, but the God of all creation.
"Not only do we have the right, we have the duty to speak of him to everyone, because he is the God who created all people." And he created you too: he is your King.

4. A power that judges and saves

Few people would list these chapters among their favorites. The preacher jokes about someone wondering why he invited a non-Christian friend on a Sunday of plagues. Yet what we see here is God rescuing the oppressed.
God said to Pharaoh: "Let my people go." Pharaoh rejected the word of God, so he feels the sword of God. The plagues accomplish two things: righteous judgment and mighty salvation. "This is justice, not brutality."
Righteous judgment appears in the first plague. Pharaoh had turned the Nile into a place of death for Hebrew boys (Exodus 1:22). The river, the source of life for Egypt, becomes blood. But God is also patient: he does not make the Egyptians die by the Nile, he gives them a sign, a warning that justice is coming.
Salvation appears in the hail and the darkness. In Joshua 10 and Psalm 18, hail, thunder and lightning are the signs of God coming to rescue his people: "He bowed the heavens also, and came down" (Psalm 18:9).
Three days of darkness fall on Egypt just as God is about to save his people. Centuries later, three hours of darkness fall on the land when Jesus dies on the cross, at the heart of the plan of salvation (Matthew 27:45). God does not show off and does not play with Pharaoh like a cat with a mouse: he tears the oppressed out of the hands of an oppressor who wanted to kill them.
The preacher tells a story attributed to Norm Hadley, captain of Canada's rugby team at the 1991 World Cup, a giant of a man at six foot six. On the London Underground, two teenagers were threatening an old lady who had asked them to stop smoking. He lifted them up and removed them from the carriage at the next station. "He had immense power, but he did not use it to intimidate. He used it to rescue."

5. Today's pharaohs are no match

There are still many pharaohs in the world: leaders like Vladimir Putin, Islamist chiefs who brutalize whole regions of sub-Saharan Africa. And smaller pharaohs, who turn your work or your family into a hell of harassment and oppression.
Facing them, it is strengthening to remember the power of the God of the Bible and his bias toward the oppressed. One day he will carry out a just and terrible judgment against all oppressors. In the meantime, you do not have to fear them.
Pharaoh remained terrifying to the Israelites all the way to the Red Sea. But God had everything under control: Pharaoh's days were numbered, "he was on a lead the whole time." What you fear is no match for the one who created the world.
The ultimate pharaoh is not a human leader. It is the guilty desires that rule our disordered hearts. Paul describes sin as a slave master (Romans 6), in line with Jesus: "Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin" (John 8:34).
The preacher tells of speaking this week with a man who was weeping in despair at the grip of his guilty desires. "Here is the hope." The God of the plagues is more than able to deliver you from the deep and dark slavery of sin. Come to him and cry out to him.

6. Jesus is that God

Many feel uneasy about the plagues, especially when the name of Jesus is spoken: the God of the Old Testament and Jesus seem so different.
Yet when Jesus says he is God made man, he is speaking of that very God. Facing the religious leaders, he takes up the word from the burning bush (Exodus 3:14): "Before Abraham came into being, I AM" (John 8:58).
When he turns water into wine, calms the storm, drives the germs out of a deadly illness and terrifies demons, he shows the same power over creation as God in Exodus.
In Latin America, the preacher knew a violent man covered in tattoos who wanted to leave his life of crime. His question: "Is your Jesus more powerful than the devil?" We may not fear the devil in the same way, but we need to know whether Jesus is strong enough against what oppresses us: illness, mental health struggles, unemployment, a toxic marriage, global conflicts, terrorism, people who have too much hold over us, our children's future, our guilty desires.
The power displayed in Exodus is in the hands of Jesus, and he uses it to bless, protect and rescue his children. Better still: at the cross, he entered the darkness of divine judgment. He is the God who, in the end, will pour out the plagues of justice (Revelation), but also the one who bore in our place the plague of divine justice, so that there is forgiveness "even for pharaohs."
We readily keep a Jesus who is only human: the one who offered himself as a sacrifice, who understands our sufferings, who comforts. He is all that. "But he is also the mighty God who can rescue you. He is greater than whatever you are facing right now."

Key takeaways

The account of the plagues pits the LORD against Pharaoh: its purpose is that everyone would know there is no one like God in all the earth.
The plagues are not chaos unleashed: God controls every fly and every germ, and he switches off the sun like a lamp.
God uses his power to judge justly and to free the oppressed, not to crush.
The most fearsome pharaoh is the sin that reigns in our hearts, and the God of Exodus is powerful enough to free us from it.
Jesus is that God: he has the same power, and at the cross he bore the judgment in our place.

Personal application

If someone asked you what is ultimate in your life, what would you honestly answer, judging by what reassures or worries you?
What "little gods" do you keep in your temple next to the Lord, instead of giving him all the room?
Which pharaoh, at work, in your family or in the world, fills you with fear right now? What changes when you know he is "on a lead"?
Is there a guilty desire whose grip discourages you? What keeps you from crying out to the Lord to be set free?
Do you see Jesus only as a compassionate friend, or also as the mighty God, greater than what you are facing?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Why did God send the plagues on Egypt?

Exodus 9:14-16 says it: so that Pharaoh would know there is no one like the LORD in all the earth, and so that his name would be proclaimed everywhere. Pharaoh refused to let the enslaved Israelites go. God uses this stubborn refusal to show his power, judge the oppressor and free his people.

Do the plagues of Egypt prove that God is brutal?

No. For the preacher, it is justice, not brutality. The Nile turned to blood answers Pharaoh's order to throw Hebrew boys into the river (Exodus 1:22). God warns before he strikes, he distinguishes his people from the Egyptians, and he acts to tear slaves away from an oppressor who wanted them dead.

What is the link between the God of Exodus and Jesus?

Jesus claims to be that very God: "Before Abraham came into being, I AM," taking up the name revealed at the burning bush. He shows the same authority over creation by turning water into wine, calming the storm and healing the sick. At the cross, he enters the darkness of judgment and himself bears the plague of divine justice in our place.