WEDNESDAY 13 October 2021″WHY?” Exodus 9:16

Click To Download and Print Document or PDF

Greetings to you my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,

I begin today with one of life’s most fundamental questions: WHY do you and I exist? I don’t mean what was the biological process by which you were conceived, but rather WHY has God given you and I life and breath from our conception to this moment? I’m not asking what your vocation is, nor what your hobbies are, nor who your family is. I’m not asking about your life achievements or accomplishments for which you have been applauded. About 3500 years ago God made a powerful statement to the most powerful man in the world at that time. Here’s what God said to the great Pharaoh of Egypt through Moses: “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you My power and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Ex. 9:16)

Wow, what a statement! What do you see in it? I see these things at least…

1. “I have raised you up…”

God is saying, ‘Pharaoh, I created you, you did not create yourself. I birthed you at this time in history… not centuries ago nor centuries in the future, but right now, and for a purpose! I birthed you into the royal family of Egypt, you didn’t decide what family you wanted to live in. I could have birthed you into a poverty stricken family living in an unknown part of the world. Furthermore, I have sustained your life from the moment of your conception to this moment. I, God, keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing, especially when you are sleeping. I hold your very life in My hands! While you may be viewed as the most powerful man in the world at this time, I could easily snuff your life out in a second. You are alive and breathing because, and only because, ‘I have raised you up’!!

My friends all around the world… can you and I own this statement? It’s all true of each of us. God has raised every human being up to live their life entirely dependent upon HIM! How do you thank God for life?

2. “I have raised you up, for this very purpose...” God is an intentional and strategic God.

He has created all things to be and function according to His universal order and purpose. God sustains all that He has created. Listen to Colossians 1:15-17 “He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God….For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together…so that in everything He might have the supremacy.” Oh it’s a wonderful, beautiful, powerful statement explaining that Jesus is the originator and sustainer of all things, and that He has created everything by and with design and purpose. NOTHING exists by accident and nothing that exists has no purpose in God’s universe! Every person exists by God’s design and desire, and every person has purpose and great value in our world! So, have you yet discovered WHY God created you? The rest of God’s statement to Pharaoh is the answer to why we exist!

3. “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you My power…”

There is it… the reason you and I are alive! Do you see it my friends? God has created each of us so that we might understand God exists, and that God created us, God loves us, God has unlimited power and purpose in our world, and God desires a loving relationship with each person He created! Pharaoh knew essentially nothing about God before Moses stepped foot in his throne room for the first time. In fact Pharaoh honestly and boastfully responded to Moses’ first statement to him with these words: “Who is the LORD that I should obey Him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go!” (Ex. 5:2)

But now, a few short weeks later, and after having seen God’s power in several ways, Pharaoh was coming to understand WHO this supreme God is! Do we remember what Pharaoh has experienced in the past several days??

1. God turned Aaron’s staff into a snake, and it gobbled up the snakes of Pharaoh’s magicians! (Ex. 7:10-12)

2. God turned the Nile river into blood! (Ex. 7:14-24)

3. God sent a plague of frogs all across Egypt, even up into the Pharaoh’s palace! (Ex. 8:1-15)

4. God sent swarms of gnats across the land of Egypt, and Pharaoh’s sorcerers declared “This is the finger of God” when they were unable to duplicate this miracle by their occult powers. (Ex. 8:16-19)

5. God sent swarms of flies throughout the land of Egypt, but God did NOT allow any flies in the land of Goshen where the Hebrews lived! (Ex. 8:20-32)

6. God sent a plague that killed most of the livestock animals owned by the Egyptians, yet God protected all the livestock of the Israelites! (Ex. 9:1-7)

Yes, the most powerful man in the world has personally experienced 6 demonstrations of God’s greater power than he could neither explain nor duplicate, nor could he protect himself or his people from their devastation! But there is one final piece to the great statement explaining WHY we exist, which God spoke to the great Pharaoh through Moses:

4. “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you My power and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Ex. 9:16)

It is not sufficient for only one person in all humanity to understand God exists and then live in a loving relationship with God. Oh no, my friends. It is God’s intent that EVERY human being He has ever conceived, anywhere in the world, in every generation, would have the privilege of experiencing His power and understanding God created them by His desire and design to live in a loving relationship with Him, here on earth in this life, and for all eternity future in His presence!

Every person, every society, every language, every country, everywhere, in every generation! Do you understand the best way for this to happen? It’s really quite simple…. it’s called Family! Adults marry and have children and as those adults come to know God and then teach their children to know God and those children grow up, marry and build families who know and love God… it’s a spiritually reproducing cycle, generation after generation, in every place in the world!

But in the days of this Pharaoh, as today, only a portion of the world’s population understood this and knew the one, true God. In Pharaoh’s Egypt, there were about 1 million Hebrew people who had been telling each succeeding generation about God, as parents & grandparents taught their children about YHWH, the one, true, living, holy, Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, and the God whom Moses met at the burning bush! But God’s strategy was that through these plagues, the Pharaoh and all the Egyptians would ALSO come to know the God of the Hebrews.

So I ask you my friends, do you know God? Do you understand that God created you, you didn’t create yourself? Do you understand God keeps your body and mind alive and functioning, you don’t do that? Do you understand how much God desires that you would be interested in knowing Him and living in a loving relationship with Him? Do you understand that is ONLY possible through Jesus Christ, for Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6) And Jesus said those words to His friends only hours before going to His death on the cross! Do you understand that Jesus’ death is an atonement death, for Jesus, as the Son of God, paid our sin debt through His death. (John 3:16) His resurrection then victoriously defeated sin, Satan and death and Jesus’ ascension back to heaven returned Jesus to His glorious, sovereign reign over all. (John 17:4,5)

Now in heaven, Jesus is everyday saving completely (Hebrews 7:25) any and all people who recognize their inability to save themselves from their sin and who turn from their sin to trust Jesus to be their Savior! God the Father then does, in that repentant sinner who trusts Jesus, all for which He has created each of us. . . God draws us back into a loving relationship with Him and He adopts us into His family, and God forgives us of our sin, and He places His Holy Spirit to live within us, and He assures us that at the moment of our earthly death Jesus will escort us into heaven where we will reside with God for all eternity future!

One of my purposes in preparing “Walking with Jesus” everyday is to help as many people as possible, come to know this great God through His Son Jesus. I think it’s time to worship, what about you? So, here’s an old great song done in a new and enthusiastic way. It will help us celebrate what Moses knew and what Pharaoh was learning. . .

Today’s Scripture is Exodus 9:16.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).

Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.