Pharoah Hardens His Heart to God's Power (Ex. 8:16-19)

3/30/2008 7:25 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time  Focus:  Pharaoh hardened his heart to God’s power.
Bible Reading & Meditation  Reference:  Exodus 8:16-19
 Message of the verses:  “16 ¶  Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, that it may become gnats through all the land of Egypt.’"  17  They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt.  18  The magicians tried with their secret arts to bring forth gnats, but they could not; so there were gnats on man and beast.  19  Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.”
 Pharaoh’s heart was hardened after the frogs had died so now God sends the next plague, and that plague is gnats.  These gnats came out of the dust of the ground, as God created them out of the dust and they went all over all of the Egyptians and their animals.  Their magicians could not produce this plague and so they went to Pharaoh and told him that this was the finger of God who did this, however as God had said Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened, and it was getting harder all of the time.  Later on in this story of the destruction of Egypt God told Moses that He could have just destroyed their life, but by not doing that these Egyptians would be a witness to what had happened to them, thus all of this would cause others to fear the Lord and also fear the Israelites whenever they would go into the promises land to conquer it.
 The word “gnats” is translated as lice in the AV and some scholars think it could have been mosquitoes, and any rate this was a miserable time for these Egyptians who always liked everything so clean.
 Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The term “finger of God” is used a number of times in Scripture and it refers to God giving the Ten Commandments, the creation of the earth, and casting out demons, all of these refer to God’s power.  I am surely in need of God’s power to teach Sunday school this morning and so I ask the Lord to give me His power to do His work this morning.
My Step of Faith for Today:  I trust the Lord to give me the resources to bring honor and glory to Him this morning through the teaching of His Word in Sunday school class this morning.  I trust the Lord to do this because I am weak through the thorn in my flesh, and His grace is sufficient for me for His power is perfected in my weakness.
Memory verse for the week:     Philippians 3:8
8  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,