What the Ten Plagues of Egypt Should Teach Us About the Character of God

"Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment." - Exodus 7:4 (ESV) So we read early on in the account of God telling Moses and Aaron to go and speak to Pharaoh, telling him to let the people of Israel go out of the land of Egypt. That is to say, there is not even a possibility of success, humanly speaking, in the near-term.  Pragmatists and prudential types would have given up straight away, knowing the message would not be heeded. They might have bided their time for years or decades more, hoping and praying for a more opportune administration. Yet God said 'You shall speak all that I command you." Where God Himself said He would harden Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not listen to them, so that God could display His power to Egypt, and Israel, and to all generations, some today find fault with God. They say that is cruel, or unjust, or unfair.  Yet as Paul writes in Romans, the clay does not get to talk back to the potter, asking why he was fashioned for either honorable or dishonorable use. Neither do we have standing to find fault with God. But we learn another thing here, that sometimes nothing fails like success, and that rewards rather than correction can be a kind of judgment on a nation and people, as well as the rulers of a people.