This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

God has promised that he will still deliver his
people from Egypt through great acts of judgement.

These are the plagues - a
series of mighty, miraculous acts

that devastate the Egyptian economy,
infrastructure, leadership, and people.

The plagues are not only a direct
punishment against Egyptian evil,

but a statement against
Egypt’s false gods.

Egypt had many gods that supposedly had
power over different parts of their world:

the river, the sun, the crops,
the livestock, and more.

So whenever God would turn the
river to blood or the sun to darkness,

whenever he would cut down crops with
locust or devastate livestock with disease,

he was showing all people that there
is no one greater than Israel’s God.

But throughout all these miraculous
judgments, Pharaoh doesn’t budge.

He keeps refusing to see God
as the power behind these plagues.

He rationalizes, barters, and lies,
but never repents and lets Israel go.

Why? We're told it is
because his heart is hard.

No matter how much of God’s glory and might he
saw in the plagues, his heart remained unchanged.

This is our story as well.

No matter how many times God reveals
his glory, justice, and power to the world,

we are still hardened in heart, and
tend toward disbelief and disobedience.

In the Gospel of Jesus, God overpowers
every false god, every man-made religion,

and every political infrastructure that would
try to claim a power or truth apart from him.

He has rid the demonic kingdom of its power
to condemn by dying on the cross for our sins.

He has authenticated faith in him as the
one true religion by rising from the dead.

And he has proven himself as more
powerful than every worldly regime

by ascending to heaven and
sitting on the highest throne.

The mighty sign of Jesus’ death and
resurrection is more proof of God’s power

and uniqueness than
all the plagues combined.

And yet, like the plagues of Egypt, people
look at Jesus and his cross and come up with

a thousand different explanations for
what it is and why it doesn’t matter to them.

The only difference between those who
look at the cross and see nothing worthwhile

and those who look at the cross and see
Jesus bearing the punishment we deserved, is

God graciously softening hard hearts.

If it wasn’t for that, we would
always be Pharaoh and never Moses.

We would always be
Egypt and never Israel.

I pray the Holy Spirit gives you eyes
to see the God who softens hearts,

so that we don’t
end up like Pharaoh.

And Jesus as the one who did everything
to bear your plagues, change your heart,

and move you to
repent and follow him.