"And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die..."--Exodus 11:5. God telling Moses what will happen during the 10th and final plague before Pharaoh finally agrees to let Israel go out of Egypt. At this point, livestock has been killed. Agriculture has been destroyed and the land of Egypt has been destroyed by various elements of nature brought on by God. However, what has been spared on a broad level is human life. That will soon change. The tenth and final plague would be the death of every firstborn in Egypt from Pharaoh's family all the way down to the "firstborn of the slave girl" (v. 5) to the "firstborn of the cattle..." (v. 5). The tenth plague would be death like Egypt had never seen before. The tenth plague would be tragedy.
Tragedy. This will be a two part devo. One dealing with the death of the firstborn and then what God commanded in order to prevent the death of the firstborn.
Tragedy. This is probably the most familiar of the ten plagues to people. Some people have often wondered why just the firstborn. But my purpose is not to explain why just the firstborn.
Tragedy. We see here in Exodus 11-12 described all the events surrounding the tenth plague. I ask myself sometimes why is it that it took all this pain and heartache for Pharaoh to finally decide to let Israel go?
Tragedy. But then I realize is this sometimes not the case in our own lives? Sometimes we are just like Pharaoh and we are stubborn when it comes to doing God's will and it is not until something drastic happens that we finally submit to His will. Unfortunately, just like here in Exodus, sometimes it is the death of a loved one that causes one to turn back to God.
Tragedy. What is it about death that makes such an impact on our lives? There could be hundreds of explanations here. But I think it is the fact that it makes us realize that no matter how much we do, how much we consume and how much we try to avoid it, death comes to every man and this life comes to an end.
Tragedy. Pharaoh suffered a great loss and that is what caused him to submit to God's orders. You look at these ten plagues and one could realize Pharaoh could have avoided losing his own son nine times before had he just submitted.
Tragedy. Today's devo is not intended to thoroughly explore the tenth plague but it is simply intended to remind us that we can't let some kind of major tragedy strike our lives before we decide to submit to God's will.
Tragedy. Submit to God's will now. Let the ten plagues be a sober reminder that sometimes we have the opportunity to submit to God's will before something really drastic happens in our lives.
It's hard for me to end this devo on a negative note but part 2 will bring this to a more conclusive close tomorrow morning and Lord willing end on a more positive note. :-)
No practical application except to study through the ten plagues found in the opening chapters of Exodus.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!
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