Closed heart

DEVOTION

EXODUS

CLOSED HEART

Ex 7:14-25

14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.'" 19 The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt — over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs' — and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars." 20 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt. 22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river. 25 Seven days passed after the LORD struck the Nile.

NIV

Once again we turn to our scholars to see if they have some great truth about the Nile River turning to blood. But they simply are trying to explain the natural phenomena that occurs each year when the river rises. It is normally brownish, but when it rises, as in the normal flooding time, it turns yellowish and then reddish because of some microscopic organisms in the flood water. But this would not kill all the fish. This always explains away the power of God, which is difficult to understand coming from our commentators. No, this is Moses striking the Nile in the presence of Pharaoh and the water turning immediately to blood, not just reddish in color, but to blood, that which flows through the veins of living beings. Blood that stinks so bad it was unfit for life, and certainly for drinking. Not just the Nile, but all the tributaries that flow into the Nile and not just them, but all the jars and buckets that had been filled from those waters. It is uncertain how the magicians through their black arts did the same thing. If all the water had been turned into blood, how could they turn the water into blood? Unless, it was not permanent. But it seems not to be a temporary situation as we are told the Egyptians had to dig wells along the Nile to get drinking water. The fact is they worshipped the Nile, they dedicated the god Napi to the annual flooding of the Nile. This was a show of the power of the Almighty God, Yahweh, who is the God of the Hebrews. He is greater than any god created by man. But what we are also seeing here as we will see again, the black arts doing the same as Moses and Aaron did by the power of God. Satan will always attempt to counterfeit the power of God. He deceives people into thinking they have the same power as God. This gives them the illusion the power of God is not from Almighty God, the creator of all that is created. This is an illusion that man is equal to any demonstration of the power of God, therefore one conclusion is; there is no God.  The other conclusion is the man is the only god, that man has the power in his own hands.  But this is but an illusion, for any black arts are powered by Satan and not by man. We see man today even living with this deception. Many believe we have power over the environment, that we are able to sustain the world. They talk about clean water, clean air, clean energy, but God has already constructed the earth to clean itself on a continuous basis. Not that we should trash our earth, but we do not have the power over it, as the Egyptians created a god to reside over the Nile. Has our generation created gods to reside over the environment? It would have to be the gods of government. We need to see the power of God as the power of God, he is the only one with the true power. If we see any other god as having any type of power, we have accepted the deception of Satan with his false miracles. The black arts are called black because they lack the light. Because the Pharaohs magicians did the same as Moses and Aaron, his heart was not turned from its already evil bent, in fact, his resolve against God was increased. This is how the world is today. Man’s heart is hardened against God because of the deception of Satan with his black arts in the hands of some people. Many are looking for the supernatural, and find it in his false black arts along with the illusion they can control the elements of the world. We know it is by the hand of God, and someday a third of all the waters of this earth will once again be turned to blood.

Rev 8:8-9

8 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

NIV

Man cannot stop it, man cannot do it, only God has the power. We have the truth, we have the Light, and we have the knowledge of God within our hearts and minds, let us never turn into our own palace, our own heart, our own way of thinking, but let our heart ever be completely open to the power of God. Let us never have a closed heart.