Day 5—Exodus 4 - 16: God's Distinction for judgment is crystal clear in these chapters. Exodus 9:4 says, "But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.” Interestingly, this is the first time we have explicitly stated that a distinction was being made. It was also the first plague that brought death to people and animals. This fifth plague placed a decision before the Egyptians to face God's judgment that would bring death or surrender to Him and live. In chapter 9:20 - 21, "Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses, 21 but whoever did not pay attention to the word of the Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field." We see God's desire for people to live and not die in their sins. Mercy was offered to God's people's enemies because God wants "all to come to repentance, that none should perish." Yet, God must judge sin, and with that death comes physical, then spiritual.
They saw God's power through the first four plagues. Through the first two, the people may not have taken God's work seriously because the Egyptian magicians could perform their magic and repeat the actions of the plague. When it came to the third, the magicians were left feckless and incapable of doing what God had done. Then they recognized, "This is the finger of God." Grace was provided through these plagues. God began to reveal Himself to the Egyptian leaders and people. God showed the people their choice in these first four plagues, where death was not associated. God used these to work on the hearts of the people of Egypt. God was already defending the case of His people, and their trials in Egypt were ending. Through this time, God's grace was offered to whoever would choose to fear Him and act on the belief that His word through Moses and Aaron was accurate.
I thought of a story I want to bring back up as a reminder before God specifically said He would make a distinction in the story of Abraham. The angel of the Lord came to tell Abraham that he and Sarah would have a baby a year after their conversation. The Lord lingered to share with Abraham what he was about to do with the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here is how Abraham spoke of the justice of God in making a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous: Genesis 18:24: "... Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the... righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
In the Abraham story and during the plagues of Egypt, we are reminded that God makes distinctions between the evil and the righteous. Abraham equated that to what is "JUST!" The more significant part of God's justice is that he welcomes "whoever would choose to fear Him" not to be swept away in His judgment. His grace always goes before His judgment. There is no sin anyone commits that grace is not bigger than. Repentance puts you in the distinction group. Remember, in the story of the plagues, he gave the Egyptians time to surrender, and those who did were protected because they obeyed His instructions and lived along with His people.
Though God makes these distinctions hear his warning in Exodus 15:25b: "...There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” In the same way that those Egyptians who feared the Lord obeyed the direction of Moses and Aaron, God's people had then and have today a requirement of obedience to God. Don't think we get to live in contradiction to what God says or in continual rebellion, and we will continue in the group of those God sets aside to distinguish from those who face His judgment.
Comments