“WAS IT BECAUSE THERE WERE NO GRAVES IN EGYPT!” — GOD, MAN AND FREE WILL

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Have you ever had the experience of having seen, time and time again, the great power of God in your life or even in the lives of others, and yet, when a new challenge or trial arises, to find yourself full of doubt in God? With each such circumstance, it can feel as though we’re back at a point where we have to be coaxed into believing in this God with whom we already have a vast history of faithfulness.

 

If so, you are in very good company in this world and in Biblical times as well. At the end of the day, it turns out that we are all cut out of the same fabric, i.e. we forget His power in the past and succumb to a present of worry and fear that THIS TIME, He won’t be able to come through – that this problem is beyond even God.

 

Why do we fall into this pit? Usually, it is because, as Michael says, we superimpose on the Almighty our own human frailties. Since WE can’t see a solution to a given situation, we don’t think He can either. As a consequence, we experience a failure of faith. To sum up, we use our free will, our choice, to doubt God.

 

Michael so profoundly states what happens:

 

“We call it FREE will but it is not really free at all. The most COSTLY thing in the world is just that — free will.”

 

When we examine the price of free will gone awry, we find its tariff to be loss, loss of peace of mind and loss of faith, the latter of which can distance us from God, Himself. (When this happens we, not God, are the one who has moved.)

 

For, while God is winsome beyond words, there is a boundary across which He will never go. He will never violate our free will.

 

Before we plug in these truths to today’s Scripture, there is one more highly salient point that must be made. That is, ironically, our doubts often follow a season where God has poured out power and blessings like never before. So that, at a time when His divine power should be freshest on our minds, it is, in fact, the most distant.

 

Turning now to this week’s story, to the place where we last left Moses, Pharaoh and the Israelites, we find God about to mightily move in power in this part of the exodus of His People.

 

As stated last week, through God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, a delay had occurred where all the horrendous plagues had failed to persuade this King of Egypt to let the enslaved Israelites go. During this time, Moses, the Israelites and even the Egyptian magicians and officials came to a greater understanding of and allegiance to God. After this was accomplished through God’s intentional delay, God began the endgame which would change everything.

 

God did two things to accomplish this. First, He prepared the Israelites to be protected from the final plague. He gave detailed instructions for them to ready themselves and their houses for what we, today, still know as the Passover. By following His directions, given through a now fully engaged Moses, the Angel of Death, about to be the agent of the death of all the firstborn sons of Egypt, would not harm the Israelites at all. Instead, it would PASS OVER their homes altogether. What faith this must have engendered in them! What a mountaintop experience they surely felt with God distinguishing them for good when the cruel enslavers would not be spared at all.

 

Scripture tells us, of the Israelites, that,

 

“Then the people bowed down and worshipped.”

(Exodus 12:27) NIV

 

Secondly, God sent this ultimate plague on Egypt, right up to the firstborn son of the Pharaoh. In this case, none were exempt. As a result, Pharaoh finally acquiesced:

 

“During the night, Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. AND ALSO BLESS ME.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 12:31-32) NIV

 

And the other Egyptians? What did they do? Because of the LORD, they gave the Israelites silver, gold and clothing. (Exodus 12:35) NIV.

 

EVERYONE was persuaded of God’s power. As Michael said,

 

“When man is gifted great thought, it comes in a sequence, and it comes to more than a single person.”

 

But Michael also just as powerfully said, as stated above, that God has given humanity free will and that the wrongful exercise of it is not free but can be costly!

 

We name the following part of this blog, The Renege,” because ALL that Michael and I just described is about to turn 180 degrees  ALL were about to go back on their words, go back on their previous attitudes and actions!

 

It began with the Pharaoh and the Egyptian officials:

 

“When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials CHANGED THEIR MINDS about them and said, ‘What have we done? (The Torah says they changed their HEARTS.) We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!’ So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with ALL the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites , WHO WERE MARCHING OUT BOLDLY. The Egyptians… pursued the Israelites and OVERTOOK them as they encamped by the sea.”

(emphasis added)

Exodus 14:5-9) NIV

 

Two notes: One, God did not harden Pharaoh’s heart until he changed his mind/heart. He had free will and reneged on his agreement to let the Israelites go. Two, the Israelites were marching BOLDLY. They were free and their mood was high.

 

Pharaoh wasn’t the only one to change his mind. The Israelites followed suit.

 

“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

(Exodus 14:10-12) NIV

 

What a costly exercise of free will! The Israelites had changed their bold marching to wanting to return to slavery in Egypt! The price? All their peace of mind was gone. What robs a person’s peace of mind is just too expensive. The price is just too high!

 

And Moses? While he reassured the Israelites that God would rescue them, in his heart, he had chosen a path that carried with it an equally high price, a loss of leadership and courage. How do we know this? The following verses reveal it:

 

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘WHY ARE YOU CRYING OUT TO ME?’ Tell the Israelites to MOVE ON. (In other words, lead, Moses! I have spent 80 years readying you to lead. The moment is upon us. ACT!) Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”

(emphasis added)

Exodus 14:15-16) NIV

 

Wait a minute, hadn’t Moses already been leading? No. The following verses explain the actual leader, up until this point:

 

“Then the angel of God, who had been traveling IN FRONT of Israel’s army, withdrew and went BEHIND them. The pillar of cloud also moved FROM IN FRONT AND STOOD BEHIND THEM, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night, the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side…Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back…The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 14:19-21) NIV

 

The Egyptians were drowned when God closed the waters back over the land. Pharaoh’s decision, arrived at back at the palace, cost him his and his army’s lives at the Red Sea.

 

The ultimate outcome? The Israelites put their trust in God and in His servant, Moses.  

(Exodus 14:31) NIV.

 

To close out – a few points:

 

First, as Michael said,

 

 “Free will is not free. When misused, nothing in this world is more costly.”

 

As we continue through Scripture, this will be affirmed over and over.

 

Second, often, one’s negative exercise of it follows a great show of power from God. This is as true today as it was at the time of the Passover, when God protected Israel in a mighty way, only to see them, within a short time, wish to be slaves back in Egypt.

 

Third, God will sometimes take us to the edge of our own Red Sea, hemmed in, our backs against the wall. This will test our faith in two things — God’s power and His goodness. May we see Him and His Moses at those difficult moments. He is a delivering God and will never abandon us.

 

Finally, when God sees us, as here with the Israelites, between “the devil and the deep blue sea,” look for miracles, for unprecedented power from God. He sees our doubts and is so loving that, rather than rebuke us, He will push His limitless power up one more notch. He will win us through such a display of love made visible in power.

 

All glory to this God of love in the Old Testament.