Am I Like Pharaoh?

This month, the beautiful month of February, I am reading through Exodus. And as I read, I make little notes in the margins, I highlight and underline and annotate until it's a beautiful, awful mess. And not too long ago I read through Moses' part in the Ten Plagues of Egypt, when the Hebrews were begging Pharaoh to let them go three days into the woods to sacrifice to God. (This soon turned into running away from the Egyptians and having all the king's horses and all the king's men die in the Red Sea.)

But Pharaoh would not let them go.

We all know this story when it takes until God kills every firstborn (except the firstborn sons of the houses with lambs' blood painted on the doorframes) in Egypt for Pharaoh to let them go. And even then, he chases after them and drowns his men in the Red Sea.

But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the usually unremembered part of the story—the part where Pharaoh begs Moses to tell God to stop plaguing Egypt.

I want to talk about the Pharaoh who begged and then forgot.

So many times, when we think of this story, we think of Moses as the hero and Pharaoh as the villian. But, with every Bible story, there really isn't a villian. There is the simply evil part of the story and then the good, light, welcome part of the story—God vs. Satan.

This Bible story is a little different, where instead of having evil come into action, we have God hardening Pharaoh's heart so the world will know God and see His glory in the rescuing of the Israelites. [Insert multiple Bible passage links here]

God knew that Pharaoh and his 'magicians' would not let God's glory be seen right away. He knew that there had to be a point where everything became really bad, and then it was good again. So He made it possible. He took Pharaoh, the man in charge, and hardened his heart (the Bible says this multiple times) so that he would be forced to show God's love and guidance to the slaves of Israel before letting them go.

Now that we've set the turf for the lecture, you must remember that in this part of the story, God gave Pharaoh the chance to change his mind. It was not all bad, but when Pharaoh began to doubt the power of God and not fear God, then God hardened his heart and made it impossible to let God's people go.

And, many times in the story, in the heat of the plagues, Pharaoh would call Moses and Aaron (Moses' brother, if you don't remember, who was helping Moses socialize) and beg them to tell God to stop plaguing the Egyptians. But every time, after God receded the evil he'd put on the land, Pharaoh lost his fear of God, and God, in turn, hardened his heart.

So, back to the main topic of this post: am I like Pharaoh?

Pharaoh begged, then forgot.

He was afraid, then haughty.

He knew, then he gave it up.

And, in turn, he put his entire army at the bottom of the Red Sea. But that's not what I'm going for.

What I'm going for is something like this:

We must remember that to fear God is to follow God. We must not forget that there is power in being afraid of the right person. Pharaoh made this mistake many times. There is a teaching in every Bible story, and this one is telling us not to give evil the chance to become part of our lives.

Remember the fear so you can remember to follow.

I hope this makes as much sense for you as it does for me.

Stay Strong,

Claudia