God Revealed

Sometimes I wish God showed himself to us today like he did to the Israelites. I am continually dumbfounded by how Israel saw miracles that were indisputably God’s work and yet they still turned away from Him! How blind were they? Sometimes I tell myself, “If I was in the Israelites shoes, there is no way I would ever doubt God’s existence or authority!”

An amazing example of this is the ten plagues. In Hebrew history, the ten plagues and the exodus from Egypt stand as a mighty example of the power of God over the false gods of the mightiest empire of the era, Egypt. All ten plagues were a direct shot at the Egyptians’ belief in gods that took away the glory from the one true God!

In order for all these plagues, and the subsequent testimony of God’s power, to happen there is a very interesting pattern throughout the ten plagues in the book of Exodus. At some point during all ten plagues, either Pharaoh hardened his heart, or (catch this!) God hardened Pharaoh’s heart!

Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Doesn’t he want the Israelites to be released from slavery? Of course He does! But God sees the big picture in all of this. God doesn’t just want the Israelites to be freed; God wants His people and the citizens of the mightiest empire in the world to see who is actually in control. If there was just one plague, someone could have explained it away. I can already hear them saying, “Wow that was a lot of frogs. Just another anomaly of nature, I guess.” But after ten horrendous, beyond miraculous plagues, the whole nation knows “these plagues will keep coming until Israel is freed.” God wants to make sure that everyone walks away from this experience without a shadow of a doubt that there was a divine catalyst for salvation!

Wouldn’t it just be easier if God just revealed himself to us? Wouldn’t our walk of faith just go so much smoother if God would write in the sky something like “I’m still here guys!” Sometimes I wish God gave me some grand sign that he is in control and that he will save me. But then I remember the greatest miracle of them all…

Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, fully human and fully divine, the image of the invisible God, lived on earth! God came down himself! And he saved us through the cross! And as proof that Jesus is who is says he is, he rose from the dead three days later. Not just rose from the dead and didn’t tell anybody. Rose from the dead and hundreds(!) of people saw him (1 Cor. 15:1-11).

I have been handed down the testimony of the greatest miracle of all. God has been revealed through Jesus Christ. Thank God He didn’t need 10 plagues to show me who was in control but instead God paid the price himself to free me from my chains of slavery to sin. And as Jesus told the disciple Thomas in John 20, “You have believed because you have seen me, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

- Alex Berger, High School Pastor