What's the Real Question?

Television played host to documentaries during Passover week regarding the events in Egypt.  Most try to explain away in scientific possibilities the events, such as the epidemiologist Dr. John Marr who feels the ten plagues began with the natural event of a red algae bloom - the algae turned the water blood red, setting off a chain of natural events ending with the contamination of the grain which the “firstborn” sons were responsible for acquiring from the granaries.  None of this is unusual - the fact that the world will always try to explain away God’s sovereign creation and  intervention in man’s existence - it happens each time the word is preached, beginning with “Did God really say?”  

Psalm 19:1-4 ESV
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.  Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.  There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Psalm 33:6-11 ESV
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host.  He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; He puts the deeps in storehouses.  Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him!  For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded and it stood firm.  The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He frustrates the plans of the peoples.  The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.

All that we see then testifies that God speaks.  Who would argue that stars in the night sky are an unnatural event, the rising and setting of the sun an unexpected daily occurrence, the moon reflecting the sun’s light a shock?  None.  Yet these two Psalms (among many) indicate that the sky's very natural state alone proclaims God’s handiwork and demonstrates the hand of the Lord directing everything after the counsel of His will.  

It’s a classic case of “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” Whether the plagues were natural events or not, what the documentaries miss is the point. The point that God purposed the redemption of His people from sin - separating out the lineage that would bring forth the seed of this Redeemer (the Messiah); revealing in the finest details the pattern to Moses that would clearly identify the seed; separating out a people who would repeat this pattern as a testimony throughout every generation; revealing through Isaac, Joseph, David, etc., etc., characteristics of this Messiah; calling out prophets who would bear witness to this Messiah; calling out a people from all nations, tribes and tongues who would hear and who would see the Word who became flesh, the fulfillment of all that was patterned, who dwelt among us to redeem us, and who now lives in us.

So did God really say?  That’s the real question.