{"id":5793,"date":"2014-09-11T00:05:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T07:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5793"},"modified":"2014-09-10T10:56:13","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T17:56:13","slug":"cooking-goose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/09\/11\/cooking-goose\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking Goose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Then the LORD said to Moses, \u201cGet up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, \u2018This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are.
\n\u201c\u2018But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the LORD, am in this land. I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n

And the LORD did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh\u2019s palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies. <\/p>\n

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, \u201cGo, sacrifice to your God here in the land.\u201d <\/p>\n

But Moses said, \u201cThat would not be right. The sacrifices we offer the LORD our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. And if we offer sacrifices that are detestable in their eyes, will they not stone us? We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, as he commands us.\u201d (Exodus 8:20-27)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God knows the best way to cook someone\u2019s goose. He was in no hurry with Pharaoh\u2019s. God distinguished between his own and those who were not his own. This illustrated an important point about the nature of God\u2019s love: how it is perceived depends upon the relationship the object of God\u2019s love has with him. Those who love God will recognize God\u2019s hand as beneficial. Those who do not, can\u2019t see it. The Egyptians suffered, while for the Israelites, the plague brought them just one more step closer to their liberation. <\/p>\n

For the first time, the Pharaoh\u2019s magicians found themselves unable to duplicate the plague and informed the Pharaoh that clearly there was a god involved in events. Of course, Pharaoh already knew that; but, despite the increasing severity of the plagues, he still could not see yet why he should do what this God or his representative were demanding of him. Pharaoh was still on his throne; his power remained undiminished. Discomfort did not mean he was in any danger, or that Egypt was on the brink. So he felt comfortable lying to Moses once again. Lying had been effective before: the last time he lied, the plague went away and despite his refusal to follow through on his promise, the previous plague had not come back. Instead, it was a different one. Clearly, Pharaoh believed, this slave god was not so powerful. He might try different things, but so far, Egypt and Pharaoh remained. He wasn\u2019t going to back down. The slaves were important to the prosperity of Egypt. Without their labor, many things could not be done. He needed the slaves; they were part of Pharaoh\u2019s\u2014and Egypt\u2019s\u2014wealth. But God was patient and though it might have seemed to both Pharaoh and the Israelites that nothing was changing, God\u2019s plan was in motion. It would work when and how it was supposed to. Sometimes slow roasting is better than quick fried.<\/p>\n

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Then the LORD said to Moses, \u201cGet up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, \u2018This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5795,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5793\/revisions\/5795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}