Mensa Otabil - The Lord Did It
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Exodus chapter 8, verses 12 to 13, states that Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried out to the Lord concerning the frogs that He had brought against Pharaoh.
So the Lord did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courtyards, and out of the fields. What a supernatural intervention! The passage says that Moses cried to the Lord. The word that is translated as cried is a very intense word, and it speaks of the intensity of prayer. This means that Moses did not just leave the presence of God to mumble some prayers or to relax; he went to pray and took his prayer very seriously. And why did he do that? Because he had ventured to fix a date for a miracle without consulting God.
Most of the time, the Lord will say, «Say this to Pharaoh,» and then Moses will comply, but this time Moses had ventured. He had put his word out, and he wasn’t sure if God was going to honor what he had said. So, I suppose the first reason why he cried is that he’s uncertain whether he had acted impetuously and rashly, and he was probably concerned that God was going to be angry with him for issuing an ultimatum without consulting Him. Thus, he cried to God.
But I also believe he’s crying to God because he needs God to back up his word. «If I have sinned by acting rashly, God forgive me, but I need You to support what I’ve said. I need You to back up my word.» This is the reason why he’s crying to God; he knows God can take away the frogs. He also knows that God would do that without any drama, but because he had put his word on the line-Moses’s word on the line-he didn’t say, «Thus says the Lord.» This was Moses speaking, and God had to back up the word of Moses. So the first thing you see is the intensity of prayer, and there are times when we are bold enough to make a declaration in the Lord; then we go back to God and say, «Lord, please, I put Your name on the line; can You back me up?» We pray with intensity.
The second thing the Bible states is that the Lord did according to the word of Moses. What a relief! God did not just honor His own word; He honored the word of Moses. Remember, at the beginning of all of this, God said to Moses, «I have made you as God to Pharaoh.» In other words, Moses, you have the authority to issue directives when you face Pharaoh, and I will back it up for you. This is what God is doing. The Lord acted according to the word of Moses, showing that He was with Moses. Though Moses had not consulted with Him first, God was with him because Moses had been obedient up until this time.
God says to Moses, «I am with you,» and it also showed Pharaoh that Moses truly is a servant of God because even without saying, «Thus says the Lord,» God had honored his word through him.It is both exciting and humbling when we talk to God, and He hears us and answers us-a man interceding with the Creator of the universe, and the Creator of the universe mercifully listens to the man to fulfill His word. So, Moses prayed for God to take away the frogs, and the Bible says that the frogs died.
Now the passage doesn’t tell us why they died; perhaps some bacteria infected them or something else happened, or maybe God simply spoke the word, and they died. We don’t know what happened, but the frogs died-the massive number of frogs died-because Moses prayed and God heard him.
Let us pray. Say with me, «Heavenly Father, confirm Your promises to me and do according to Your word in my mouth. In Jesus' name, Amen.»