Friday, September 26, 2014

From Bad to Worse

18 But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.  Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere, 19 the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.  Exodus 8
We're in the midst of the plagues, and while I could go into each one individually, I think picking a piece out of the chapter can be more beneficial.
So, there are gnats everywhere.  My study bible says that these were probably closer to modern-day mosquitoes.  Eeewww... I took my son out to play yesterday and just as it started to get dark out, I had two mosquitoes buzz right by my ear.  I was done!  I scooped up my son and we headed indoors at that point.  Now, think about what just happened in Egypt.  It's described that "all the dust became gnats."  Everything was covered, all people and all animals.  There was no escaping them by running indoors.
So Pharaoh called to his magicians to fix it (he does this a few times and they're never able to do so).  What I find really interesting is that the passage doesn't say that the magicians tried to remove the gnats, rather, they tried to produce more gnats.  They wanted to create so that they could see what trick Moses and Aaron had performed to create the gnats, and then they would know how to undo the problem.
The section on gnats is really short in comparison to the other plagues.  However, we aren't given any timeframes, and I doubt it was as fast as it took me to read those two paragraphs.  This took a while.  Those magicians were working for a while on creating gnats, and getting no where.  I'm sure they were frustrated, tired, itchy and uncomfortable.  It took a lot, but eventually, they realized that this was something more than they could do.  This had to be the direct work of God.  They saw that and accepted it, but we don't know if they turned their hearts over to God.  
So I read ahead.  I wanted to know if anything comes about with the magicians again.  During the remaining plagues, they're only mentioned once more.  They're mentioned during the plague of boils to state that their boils were so painful, that they could not stand before Moses.  The study bible I have explains that the meaning there isn't that they didn't want to be seen by Moses, but that these were so painful, and probably located on their legs and around their knees in particular, that they were physically unable to stand.  That's it.  That's the end of the mentions of the Egyptian magicians (at least for this section of the bible).  Pharaoh remains with a hard heart as the plagues continue, but there is no mention of the magicians trying to fix things or recreate the miracles Moses was performing.  
Sometimes, we are presented with situations that we try to rationalize.  We try to fix them or explain them away.  However, sometimes there are things so extraordinary, so far outside of our normal lives, that we have to realize that it's something direct from God.  Does that mean the situations will improve?  They didn't for the magicians.  They went from gnats to flies to dead livestock to the boils.  Their situation went from bad to worse.  Jesus is our rock.  He's our foundation.  When things are going from bad to worse, he is always there for us to lean on.  I don't know if the magicians did this (obviously they didn't know about Jesus yet, but they could have leaned on God), but I do know that we can do this.  We can put our faith in Jesus to know that even though the situation is uncomfortable and seemingly impossible for us, he will never leave us.

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