God sent one plague after another
on the Egyptians. The magicians of Pharaoh could imitate the first
two plagues. They could also turn water into blood and cause frogs
to jump all over everyone. Of course their demonic powers are very
limited, even though they could imitate that first two plagues,
they couldn't do it on a grand scale and they certainly couldn't
stop the plagues given by God! And when they couldn't imitate the
third plague even they admitted that it was the 'Finger of
God'.
Now it was only after the fourth
plague, the plague of flies that Pharaoh agreed that the Israelites
can go and worship their God, but he wanted a compromise.
"All right! Go ahead and offer
sacrifices to your God," he said. "But do it here in this land.
Don't go out into the wilderness." Exodus 8:25
He wanted to compromise, he didn't
want them to obey the Lord completely. But Moses wouldn't have it.
He had learned that God is not a God of half-measures. God wants
total obedience. Half obedience is the same to Him as disobedience.
We see it right through the Bible. For example several years later
when the Israelites were told to take Jericho, God told them that
all the proceeds from Jericho should go to Him. All the silver,
gold, bronze and iron was considered sacred to Him and should be
brought to His sanctuary. All the Israelites obeyed, except one
man, Achan. His greed took hold of him and he took a beautiful
robe, two hundred silver coins and a bar of gold for himself. And
what happened? God punished all of Israel because of this. God
wants 100% obedience!
Another example is where God
instructed King Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites. He told
Saul to destroy them all, including all their livestock. Saul went
into battle and destroyed all of them except:
"Saul and his men spared King
Agag's life, and kept the best of the sheep, cattle, the fat calves
and lambs - everything, in fact, that appealed to them. They
destroyed only what was worthless or of poor quality." 1 Samuel
15:9
And what was the outcome when Saul
didn't obey God 100%? He lost his kingship, he lost his joy, in
fact he lost everything.
Imagine what would have happened if
Moses was starting to tire from going back and forth to the Pharaoh
the whole time and decided that maybe this compromise was not that
bad. They probably would have had their three day feast and would
have returned to being slaves and God would never have displayed
His wonders for all to see. Or maybe God would have eliminated
Moses there and then and chose someone else to continue with His
plan for His people. Only God knows, but luckily Moses was 100%
obedient.
We must learn a lesson from this. I
had to learn it the hard way too, I tried to bend God's arm on
certain issues in my life, but He remained firm. And when I look
back now, I shudder to think where I would have been had I not been
100% obedient. I think sometimes people find themselves in very
difficult situations because they were not fully obedient and then
they wonder why this happened to them. But the truth is they didn't
listen. Or sometimes people don't achieve what they want to
achieve, because they didn't adhere to God's Voice. God demands
total obedience of us all and when we are obedient, He will bless
us for doing it and lead us onto the right path.
Lord, please forgive us if we are
not always fully obedient. Please help us and give us the strength
to stand up for You and to obey Your Voice to the last letter. You
know best and we want to follow You. Amen