Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink… Exodus 7:17-18
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45
Apparently, the first four plagues in Exodus affected the Hebrew slaves as much as they affected the Egyptians. It was Pharaoh’s hardened heart that brought the plagues, but everyone suffered from it, including God’s own people. It’s not really fair is it? It does not fit our notion of a “fair and just” God. But it is the picture scripture paints of God, whether we like it or not…whether we understand it or not.
According to the stories of scripture, it is one of the ways of God. He sends his rain on both the just and the unjust. His wrath may come as a result of an unbelieving world, but the believing world will share in some of those consequences. This is so, I believe, because we were created for community. We, His church, are expected to be IN the world. We are expected to carry His gospel with us INTO the world, illustrating it in community with one another and in community with an unbelieving world.
I am grateful for Dr. Billy Graham and his generation of church leadership in the Evangelical church, because the world needs to know that salvation is ultimately a personal concept, stemming out of a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”. But I am also very excited about what appears to be an emerging generation of …
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