A Cry for Vengeance
The Exodus narrative provides us insight into the heart of God as it relates to his righteous judgments. When God revealed himself to Moses as covenant LORD, among his divine assurances was that he was not aloof to the suffering of his people.
Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Exodus 3:7-9
Yahweh had not forgotten about Israel. He was about to demonstrate the integrity of his word and his enduring character by delivering his chosen ones with mighty acts of salvation. The LORD had not forgotten his promises to the patriarchs. This would have been the temptation for the Hebrews-to believe that they had been abandoned, and that their cries of misery had fallen upon deaf ears.
God was enduring with much patience vessels of wrath he had prepared beforehand for destruction. He was going to show that the greatest world power and its self styled god king were no match for the Great Deliverer. Through the prophet Moses, YAHWEH executed judgment on the false gods of Egypt through the plagues. Each of them were a direct assault on the permanence, stability and security of the pagans.
Waters of Blood
Perhaps most poetic is the turning of the Nile into blood. We are told that when Pharaoh ordered all of the firstborn Hebrews to be destroyed, he demanded that they be cast into the great river. The Nile was not merely a source of economic provision, but viewed as a deity, with the power to give life. Whoever commanded the waters had command over life and death.
The plague of blood upon the waters turned the world of the Egyptians upside down because it struck at the center of Egypt’s national stability. What they had previously relied on to guard them was being ripped away before their eyes, as with the various idols that Yahweh would judge through the signs of his spokesman. God was not deaf to the cries of the Hebrews, nor was he deaf to the cries of innocent children that were carelessly cast away. He brought a reckoning for the innocent children they had slain. This culminates with the final plague where all of the Egyptian firstborn are taken, indicating divine justice and the principle of “an eye for an eye.”
In the same manner, God has not forgotten about all of the babies murdered by abortion in our blood stained land. He hears the cries of his people for deliverance and he turns his ears toward the innocent and the oppressed. We should not think it strange that the things we look to that give us security in our time are being steadily ripped away from us, whether it be our economies, our health or godly leadership. Abortion is the greatest threat to national security that we face as a nation. God will not forget. He will not be mocked. He will repay men according to their works. Expect him to continue to take these things away until we repent of child sacrifice and the shedding of innocent blood.
Where True Security is Found
Perhaps this is what must happen before we will finally awake from our apathetic slumber and remove the evil of our deeds from us. There is true safety in the God of Israel and he delights to deliver his people out of great calamity. Therefore, it is up to us to lead the way in prayer and repentance, exercising our prophetic voice and all lawful means at our disposal to establish justice. We must pray and trust to bring reformation and revival in his time. Our charge in the present moment is faithfulness. May the LORD lead us to this end and make us immovable in his grace.
