Satan can do his own signs … up to a point.
Satan did some powerful works in Job 1. By God’s permission Satan is is able to hurt Job and all he has. He is able to stir up the Sabeans to make a raid and capture Job’s oxen and donkeys, and kill the men tending them. Then Satan was able to make fire fall from heaven and burn up seven thousand sheep and their herdsmen! Also Satan stirred up the Chaldeans to make a raid on Job’s camels, and take them all, and kill the men tending them. Then he made a strong straight line wind come across the plains of Mesopotamia, and hit the house where Job’s sons and daughters were having a get-together, and knock the house down, and kill all of his children. All in one day. All by God’s permission.
Still Satan has his limitations, He has great influence over many, perhaps even us. Even so, just like you and I, he can only do what God allows him to do!
And Pharaoh could do his own signs … up to a point.
In Exodus 7 Moses and Aaron appeared before Pharaoh and Pharaoh asked them to perform a sign from God. First Aaron threw he rod on the floor and it turned into a snake. Then Pharaoh called for his magicians and sorcerers, and they did the same “with their enchantments,” Ex 7:11-12. But then Aaron’s rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he would not listen to the words of God through Moses and Aaron.
Again by God’s command, Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh in the morning as he went out by the Nile River. They told, “Let my people go, that they might serve me …” Then Moses and Aaron struck the waters of the Nile so that they turned to blood, and the fish died, and the water became undrinkable, Ex 7:14-21. Then the magicians did the same with their enchantments. So Pharaoh would not listen.
One day another great champion of evil will oppose God.
Someone called “the beast” is given, “Authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation,” Further, he is given to “make war with the saints, and to overcome them,” Rev 13:7. This beast is opposed by “two witnesses” in Revelation 11, who “have power to shut up the sky, that it may not rain” and over the waters “to turn them into blood,” Rev 11:6. These two witnesses sound a little like Moses and Aaron, and little like Elijah.
How is this to be? A parallel vision in Revelation 8 says,
“The second angel sounded, and something like a great burning mountain was thrown into the sea. One third of the sea became blood, 9 and one third of the living creatures which were in the sea died. One third of the ships were destroyed.”
Rev 8:8-9
There is more than one reference to waters turning to blood and becoming undrinkable in those final conflicts.
The contest between Moses and Pharaoh is evidently
symbolic also of this final contest in history.
Scriptures are from the World English Bible WEB, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901.