...all for Thee...Oh Lord!...

The Seventh Plague: Thunder and Hail

“13 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh, and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 14 For this time I will send all my plagues upon you yourself, and upon your officials, and upon your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. 16 But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth. 17 You are still exalting yourself against my people, and will not let them go. 18 Tomorrow at this time I will cause the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now. 19 Send, therefore, and have your livestock and everything that you have in the open field brought to a secure place; every human or animal that is in the open field and is not brought under shelter will die when the hail comes down upon them.”’ 20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord hurried their slaves and livestock off to a secure place. 21 Those who did not regard the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the open field.

22 The Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand towards heaven so that hail may fall on the whole land of Egypt, on humans and animals and all the plants of the field in the land of Egypt.’ 23 Then Moses stretched out his staff towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire came down on the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; 24 there was hail with fire flashing continually in the midst of it, such heavy hail as had never fallen in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 25 The hail struck down everything that was in the open field throughout all the land of Egypt, both human and animal; the hail also struck down all the plants of the field, and shattered every tree in the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail”

Exodus 9:13-26.

I don’t know if you have ever thought about this, but why do you think God created the world? Why did God create you? In Verse 16 above God gives us an answer to this question: “16 But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth.” God is telling us today that the reason why you and I have life is because, in creation, God shows us the power of God, so that God may have an eternal relationship with Him, so that God will never be forgotten, but always loved and adored and worshipped. God did not need creation in order to live eternally. But because of His love for us, a love we cannot even begin to fathom, He created us to live forever in His family, the Family of God. By creation and salvation God resounds throughout the universe — and rightly so!

This tells me that I need to live my life — today — in such a way that God is honored and loved and obeyed.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.