In the Passover story, God told Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 11:9).[1] God wanted to glorify Himself before Israel, before Egypt, and before the nations of the world. Remember, it is never about what the enemy is doing. It is always about what God is doing in fulfilling His purposes and accomplishing His promises and provisions to His people. God kept His Word and delivered them out of Egypt. But He also magnified Himself with signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, which included judgment on the gods of Egypt and on Pharaoh.
We do not see all that God is doing. We only know in part, and we understand in part (1 Corinthians 13:9). God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). So it is easy for us in difficult times to get confused by situations and say, “Wait! This isn’t what we were expecting.” But we have to set aside what we are expecting and reach into what God wants out of a situation. God had fulfilled His promise: “I will deliver you out of Egypt.” But He did not talk about what would happen after that. They were promised a new land, but the details were not clear; they were just focused on being delivered out of Egypt.
As the sons of Israel boldly marched out, Pharaoh had a change of heart and said, “What have we done? We can’t let these slaves go.” So Pharaoh gathered the horses and chariots and pursued Israel (Exodus 14:8–9). Just as the Israelites were beginning to relax and enjoy the presence of the Lord over them, Pharaoh and the Egyptian army came to take them back into captivity—or worse yet, to destroy them in the desert. So Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever” (Exodus 14:13). God had not promised that before. He just promised to bring them out of Egypt; then He expanded it because He was multiplying His wonders and His signs and His promises.
God is going to glorify Himself in this generation as well. And no one is going to receive glory except God alone. He said, “I did not tell you what I was going to do because if I told you, then you would say, ‘Oh yeah, I knew that. I created that’” (see Isaiah 48:5). So God has to surprise us. Then even we as believers will say, “O God, You are all powerful! You are doing beyond what You promised us You would do. You are bringing Your Kingdom in a way we never could have imagined and proving to the world that You are the Lord God, the Mighty One. You are to be exalted and praised and worshipped throughout eternity because of who You are.”
God takes our limited prayers and turns them into abundance beyond our wildest dreams. The Lord is in the process of giving us a greater victory and deliverance than what we had originally been promised or could even imagine. So we should face this time with faith and stand believing in God’s ability “to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20, KJV).
Listen to this entire message: GIG222 The Battles That Follow Deliverance
[1] Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).