I refer to the following text: Exodus 12:12: For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.
The description of the judgment includes three stages, most of us have only seen one. The trial sets out the following stages:
- I will pass through the land of Egypt that night,
- I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, and
- and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt.
The first stage, I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, means “visitation”; it is not just an expression to fill in the argument of the text. God is presenting in this description His intention to “visit” the land of Egypt, meaning all its inhabitants, Egyptians and Hebrews; now, in the Bible when God’s action of visiting a place is presented, it is done to emphasize that God descends to the place to “evaluate” (weigh, in some texts, as in Daniel), the inhabitants of the land. What this means, then, is God is coming down to determine “HOW” worthy are the inhabitants of the place to avoid or receive the just judgment of their visitation.
The second stage, I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, is the part that we all know and the part that we have emphasized the most, that is, the death of the firstborn; however, spiritually it has a much broader meaning than simply punishing an entire nation by taking away the firstborn from their generations. The death of the firstborn means the measure of faith that Abraham established as a requirement for establishing the Kingdom and building a nation, when he did not retain his only son Isaac and sacrifice him (according to Hebrews 11:9) in Moriah (Genesis 22:2). The death of Egypt’s first-born sons was a protest against the evil of a nation that had killed generations of Hebrew children by throwing them into the river.
The third stage, and I will execute judgments on all the gods of Egypt, means the destruction of all the satanic work that had risen in the region because of the rituals and practices of sorcery that had spread there to other lands, as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah 19:3: “And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.”
You surely know that the three last plagues affected all the inhabitants of the earth, so the stories emphasize that God would make a difference between His people and the Egyptians, thus indicating that they —the Hebrews— were not exempt from them.
The plague of the coronavirus has been brought by God Himself, the coronavirus is not the work of Satan, so it cannot be rebuked because we would be standing against God. In one of the teachings, I have presented the instruction to study the ten plagues because the coronavirus is following the same route of the ten plagues of Egypt.
Of the three stages that this judgment of God established upon Egypt, the third stage has been particularly striking to me: and I will execute judgment in all the gods of Egypt. I think the reason for this is because the judgment is not only directed against the gods alone, but against the niches where they have been placed; if the gods are in the heart of a man/woman of faith, they will also suffer the same fate.
Is it possible to have the gods of Egypt in the heart of a man/woman of faith?
The prophet Amos denounces to the people that even though Israel was freed from Pharaoh’s slavery, Egypt never left their hearts, and the reason for this was because the people never renounced the gods of Egypt: “But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves..” (Amos 5:26).
The coronavirus has been brought by God and means, as we have already seen, a visitation from God to all the countries of the earth, it is therefore a time of “evaluation”, God is evaluating (weighing) the inhabitants of the earth, and particularly His people, God is determining the dignity of His people to pass on to the next thing that is to come.
How many gods are there in our hearts that we must discard? Don’t judge my question from the religious perspective; you read it well, there are gods that we must cast away to go to the next level, this was the demand that God Himself made on Jacob: “Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:” (Genesis 35:1-5).
“Gods of Egypt” are all those faculties, ordinary and/or extraordinary, of the great city constituted as resources of survival, resources of comfort, and resources of wealth. The “gods of Egypt” are the magical value that people give to dreams, to experiences; it is the sorcerer character that people develop to acquire wealth, to prevail over others; the “gods of Egypt” are the mystical-religious practices with which people wrap their evils to make them appear justifiable.
The plagues are against the “gods of Egypt” and they will raze the places where they are, if they are still in the heart of anyone, he will be razed as well. I have to tell you that as soon as the coronavirus has passed, and it will pass soon, many people of God will not be able to rise up, and you will see it, and all because they didn’t take the gods out of their hearts. God is visiting the earth and is doing so to “weigh” the inhabitants of the earth, God’s people are not exempt, the apostle Peter clearly states that the judgment begins first with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).
Take advantage of these days, call upon God in humility, and expose yourself to God’s judgment, and honestly put out of your heart the “gods of Egypt,” so that by the action of faith we may fulfill the Word: and called my son out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15).
The biblical quotations are taken from the Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
Pastor Pedro Montoya
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Treasure in Earthen Vessels 