Exodus 11:1

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"One plague more." Exodus 11:1 .

God always teaches by repetition. One plague might have been forgotten, and another and another might have gone into oblivion. God must so assail our lives that we can never forget the tremendous onslaught. God has to work a memory of recompense and judgment in the life of men. Nothing so easy to forget as judgment when it is overpast. So God works with repetition and severity of scourge, so that often when the pain has departed the mark of the chastisement may remain. God can always send one plague more. The worst has never come. Jesus Christ said: Go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee! God has never dealt this heaviest stroke; the most terrible of his scourges has yet to be inflicted. God is a consuming fire; not only a thread of fire, or a string of flame, or a spark of heat, but a fire that can destroy both body and soul. All these plagues show the greatness of the sinner as well as the resources of God. God does not deal thus with beasts. It is worth while saving man even by judgment. God will spare nothing that can be turned in the direction of reclaiming and restoring his lost image. We see as much what estimate God sets upon the value of human nature by the fear which he excites as by the hope which he inspires.