The River Turned to Blood

In Exodus 7, God begins His deliverance of Israel by bringing plagues on the Egyptians. The first plague was, in my opinion, one of the more impressive feats.

Exodus 7:20-21
So [Aaron] lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

Stop and think about seeing an entire river turn to blood before your eyes. Wouldn't that completely freak you out??

The Holy Spirit, our... Midwife?

 The life of a Christian can be put into a rough correspondence with the events of the Exodus, and this imagery is especially helpful for us during the Passover season. I've written previously about the similarities between Pharaoh and the "old man" written of by Paul (Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22), and this post is along the same lines. The "old man" is the person that we were before repentance and baptism. As much as we would like to be a 100% new person who doesn't sin anymore after baptism, it just doesn't work that way! We are still physical beings, and we have to struggle against the flesh and bring it into subjection to God. Occasionally, the Old Man gets the upper hand, and our spiritual lives wane - in effect, we go back to bondage in spiritual Egypt.

God allowed Israel, His people, to suffer slavery in Egypt for over 400 years. Even while they were slaves, God watched over them and allowed their population to grow larger and larger, working to fulfill a promise made to Abraham. Eventually, the Pharaoh came to see Israel's increasing numbers as a threat, and so he devised a plan to keep their population under control. 

Exodus 1:9-11
And [Pharaoh] said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them.

God Will Have Mercy on Them All

If you’ve ever read Exodus, you may wonder whether or not it was fair for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart, especially when Pharaoh got to the point where he wanted to let the Israelites go. Is God fair? Did God condemn Pharaoh by hardening his heart?