After the Israelites eventually leave Egypt, they’ll have a story to tell. It’ll be one of struggle, of miracles, of faith, and ultimately, one of deliverance.
But they’ll also have a story about God’s power.
We sometimes wonder why God does things in a certain way, but as 1 Corinthians 10:11 points out, these things can happen as examples to us. Either as a reminder for us to live a certain way—or not to live a certain way—or as a reminder of something significant.
That’s part of why there were so many plagues. Sure, Pharaoh hardened his heart and stubbornly refused to let Israel go, but if he was going to be that way, then God could use that to make an example out of Pharaoh. The multitude of the plagues, the variety of the ways in which they came, and the things they affected all point to one thing: the power of God.
Jehovah knew that what He was doing in Egypt would reverberate throughout the generations. And Exodus 10:2 points out three things that He wanted His people to communicate to their kids and grandkids when they told of the story of Exodus.
First, how He made a “mockery” of the Egyptians. There was no comparison between their power and God’s power. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Second, how He performed His signs among them. The plagues were done in the Israelites’ presence to their captors. There was no mistake what happened.
Third, that the cumulative effect of the Exodus story points to the fact that Jehovah is the Lord, and there is no other.
Can there be any more important story to teach our kids and grandkids? Moses’ generation seems to have done that, as did Joshua’s. But when that generation died off, there arose another generation that “did not know the Lord” (Judges 2:10).
And what happened? Chaos. Disobedience. Selfishness. Sin.
The understanding of who God is and what He has done brings order to our life. It gives structure to our genealogical tree in a way that nothing else can accomplish. A family business may fail, the country we live in may perish, or our family home can burn up.
But as long as we rally our generations around the power of God, making that our family identity, we will never be moved. Because He cannot be moved.
