the rest of the story
January 10, 2011 (Monday)
Damaging storms passed through South Texas coastal areas around 4:00 a.m. Sunday. The hailstorm in our neighborhood lasted only a minute, but marble-sized hailstones remained in our yard at sunset yesterday, 15 hours after they fell. Later in the day, when I thought back about the hail hitting the house, making a lot of noise, I thought of the hail God sent to Egypt to get Pharaoh to release His chosen people. (Exodus 9:33-35).
What a storm that must have been in Egypt long ago. It lasted long enough to be called a “plague,” and the ice stones were mixed with fire. Destruction and death must have been everywhere (except Goshen, where the Israelites lived), but the hail did not convince Pharaoh, who let the people go only after a plague far worse than hail.
Who were these people? They were the descendants of Jacob. They had lived in Egypt for several hundred years. From one family they had grown into a nation. Why were they praying for help? Because, although they had come to Egypt as honored guests, they were now slaves. They were cruelly mistreated. They called upon the Lord for help, and God sent Moses to lead them to a land of their own. When they arrived there, they refused to enter. For the next forty years, they wandered in the wilderness, because of their continual disobedience to God. The Bible gives us a truthful account of their suffering and unhappiness.
Many lessons are taught to us in the Exodus experience, and perhaps one of those lessons is that something that seems so good (a home in Egypt) can change into something very bad (slavery). If they had returned to the land of Canaan after the seven years of famine, their story would be quite different, but by that time they had become accustomed to an easy life in Egypt. It’s the old story of temptation, told over and over again in the lives of countless numbers of people. It is a story as old as the Garden of Eden. Jesus warned us that yielding to temptation can bring unpleasant consequences that are hard to bear.