t individual that the world has ever seen. He threw himself
away, did Pharaoh. He chose God's worst instead of God's best, but he
did not do it because he did not know better. Neither are you wasting
your life because you do not know better. If you have not had a
teacher great as Moses, you have yet been faithfully warned, and in
your sin you are without excuse.

God gave Pharaoh a chance to cooperate with Him, to help Him in saving
Israel and making her into a great nation. Moses' first word to
Pharaoh was this, "The God of Israel saith, Let my people go." Now,
Pharaoh's answer to this demand was haughty enough. He answers, "Who
is the God of Israel? I do not know him." And he didn't, though he
might have known Him. But God did not throw him away after this one
chance. On the contrary, He gave him ample opportunity to know Him.

With this end in view God brought His infinite energies into play.
Wonder after wonder He worked in the presence of Pharaoh by the hand of
Moses. At first these wonders were imitated by the magicians. These
fakes, by their cunning, made it easy, at least for a while, for
Pharaoh to resist God. They helped the King to close his royal eyes to
the truth. They helped him to start with decision on his course of
rebellion.

But the magicians were soon outdone. Moses began to perform wonders
that they could not imitate. And they themselves were forced to
believe in the presence and might and reality of God. And they who had
helped their king to go wrong, turned to him with this acknowledgment
on their lips, "It is the finger of God." But it is easier to lead a
man astray than it is to lead him back. It is easier for you, by your
godless and worldly life, to lead your children to despise Christ and
the Church than it is to lead them back after they have gone astray.
Pharaoh listened to the magicians when they counseled him to do wrong,
but he turned a deaf ear to them when they counseled him to do right.

Then followed that series of plagues upon Egypt that were always
preceded and always followed by this demand of God spoken through the
lips of Moses, "Let my people go that they may serve me." You see what
God was demanding of Pharaoh. It is the same that He demands of you
and me, obedience--that is all. He is commanding us to surrender
ourselves to Him, to enter into His purpose. And the one thing that
God wanted was the one thing that Pharaoh did not want. But he was
bec