18 But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals.
Think about it. The Lord stuck the land with gnats, perhaps mosquitoes. And the magicians want to bring more of them! How dumb is that. It would be much more impressive to bring something that would destroy the gnats. That would impress their boss. But they try to copy what the Lord has done, even if it means everyone is more miserable that they already are. But they can’t figure out a trick for this one. I don’t know how they did the first three, but now they are stuck. They have no more tricks in their magic bag. They too must sit down, shut up and listen to what the Lord has to say. They now know that the Lord is greater than they are. They are probably not yet convinced that they should serve Him, but they are at least in the process of being knocked off their high horses of self-importance and self-reliance. We must first come to realize that we are powerless before we can invite the Lord to bring His power to our table. The powers of this world keep trying to “solve” the world’s problems apart from Christ, and they keep failing miserably. The last century was filled with war, poverty, hatred, suffering and prosperity. The popular myth that education would solve our problems has been destroyed. Education often feeds man’s ego, thus giving them excuses for not recognizing and acknowledging their weakness. And we see it with the gospel of big government. They keep preaching one more program to solve the ills of society, ills they are not willing to solve in their own personal lives. I keep thinking of the saying, “Physician heal thyself.” Leaders need to be the first to admit that they don’t have the answers. But that doesn’t happen here. We don’t want leaders to admit need, because that would cause us to have to take responsibility for our actions, and we want another excuse. It is when we run out of our solutions that we can then receive the Solution, Jesus.
The Arnold Journey 