The True God - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Exodus 7:14-10:29, God sends 9 plagues on the Egyptians, slighting their false gods and making a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites..
Transcript:
A reading from Exodus chapter nine, verses 13 through 16. Then the Lord said to Moses, get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, this is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I'll send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the Earth. for by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would've wiped you off the earth. But I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
In the year ahead, we're gonna be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States. The founding of our country is an unlikely story. Betting odds would've been against us. The British empire held immense power and was battle tested in all sorts of global forays, particularly against the French. The Americans had no standing Army or Navy-- they were building the plane even as it was taking off. And yet, despite all odds, they outlasted the British. The red coats could not suppress the rebellion-- at the same time, it can't be said that the Americans eviscerated the King's army. The Brits retreated, still possessing great power. The whole affair simply became too costly, the Americans were more trouble than they were worth.
Those turn of events pale in comparison to the upset that we find in the pages of Exodus. Here we have a slave population who didn't even revolt, and yet they were to be liberated? By who? By an unknown God? In the face of the might of Egypt, the majesty of her Pharaoh, and the fame of her gods, this God had allowed his people to be enslaved. He would be the one to overthrow all that? It seemed too incredible to believe, so incredible that if it should happen one can only conclude that this previously unknown God was in fact the one true God.
At this point in the Exodus narrative, it's showtime. We've seen that Pharaoh's heart has been hardened, that he has refused to let the people of Israel go. Now what follows is all the plagues that were promised, traditionally identified as the 10 plagues. And today we're gonna cover the first nine. if you can, I, I'd like to invite you to turn open to Exodus seven in your Bibles, in the pew Bible, that's page 44. Now, I'm not going to be reading every single verse this morning. Otherwise, we'd be here a very, very long time. I'm going to summarize and then pick out some verses that should be highlighted. Before we begin, I want to offer you a set of lens that will help you kind of decode the significance behind the events that we're gonna read about this morning.
First, one thing to notice is just this general theme of how the plagues in many ways kind of represent a work of de creation on the part of God. So you have 10 plagues, and some commentators have pointed out that this seems to parallel the 10 creation statements that we find in Genesis one. And so when you look back and forth between Genesis one and, and Exodus here, you can see how God seems to be kind of undoing the order of of creation. Now that idea of order is something I'm going to pick up on a little bit more, but I think it is a theme here, though it might not be the primary theme.
Now, the other thing that we'll notice as we read these plagues is they're all natural phenomenon. It's not like spiritual visions or things like that. It's all natural phenomenon that is occurring, but it's supernaturally caused.
Now, there are various theories on, out there as to kind of some of the natural elements of causation behind these plagues, and especially maybe how they progress, maybe one built on the other. And it can be valuable to think about those things, to think about, so when we talk about how the water was turned to blood, was it turned to actual blood? Did it just look red? Was it from clay from down river, like a big clay deposit that, you can, you can work through things like that in terms of thinking about kind of the, the science behind all of this, and that can be valuable. But one thing I'd like to caution you against is this, is as we begin to kind of explore those sorts of causes, it can have kind of a reverse effect, where if we can't understand the science behind it, sometimes it can bring us to this place of doubt. Where if I can't understand how that could have happened, then maybe it didn't happen. We have to come humbly before the text and recognize that these things did happen, even if we don't understand how God brought them to occur. Ultimately though, what we're confessing here is that God did it. God did it. And so while there's elements here as you're reading, you could say, well, I could see how some natural events could kind of, kind of converge to cause these things to happen. There's other elements where it's very clear that there's not a very obvious natural explanation for these things, and we see God's fingerprints over it all, especially when you see all of these things happening.
The next thing that I, I want you to have in mind as we read these plagues is that there's a significance here that goes beyond just the concrete effects of the plagues. Yes, they're very troublesome, and as they proceed, they become more and more devastating. But something more than that is going on here. In fact, it seems apparent that God is sending a religious message to the people of Egypt and, and to the Hebrew people as well who are very familiar with the religious practices of the Egyptians. What Yahweh is doing here is revealing how his power is greater than the power of Pharaoh and of the Egyptian gods. Because in all these natural events that are occurring, there are Egyptian gods who are typically associated with those natural phenomenon. When we go back in ancient times to the pagan world their understanding of the world was that there was a God behind every natural force in the world. And so while those gods are not named explicitly as we go along here, I think you'll see how it seems like God's trying to send a message there and how he's trying to disrupt the idolatrous practices of, of the Egyptians. And we have some indication of this also in Numbers 33: 4, where in the latter part of that verse it says for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods. So there is a little bit of biblical attestation to this dynamic as well.
And they had a lot of gods 15, over 1500 gods, around 1500 gods and goddesses. And what God is revealing here is, is how he is overruling those gods. He's also embarrassing Pharaoh greatly, because what he is doing is disrupting the order of Egyptian society.
Now in fact, this idea of order was captured in the person of this goddess called Maat. And Maat you can almost think of it, if you've ever seen those statues of justice where she's got the scales and she's blindfolded, it's almost like that kind of idea where this goddess was representing the harmony, law, morality of Egyptian society, and it was expected that Pharaoh was going to uphold that. He was gonna uphold the good of Egyptian society.
Now, as we're going through these plagues, you're gonna notice that things are, the wheels are really coming off here. Everything's falling apart. And so it's an embarrassment to Pharaoh that he's not able to uphold Maat.
Now, we've already had a sign here even before we get into these first nine plagues, where you might recall that the staff that Moses used was turned into a serpent and swallowed the other staffs that the Egyptian magicians also had turned into serpents. If you go back and you look at the staffs that were used by Pharaoh, it often had a serpent kind of worked into it. So this was a sign of power. And so God's staff in the hand of Moses and Aaron was, in a very visual way, overcoming the power of Egypt. So that was just an immediate small clue here. But Pharaoh, of course, refused to yield to that sign. And so turning now to the remainder of chapter seven, we see what follows.
In verses 14 through 16, we see that Moses is instructed by God to go and confront Pharaoh because he's continuing to refuse to yield to God's command, and he's instructed to take his snake staff with him. And so he goes to Pharaoh by the river. And in verse 17 it says he said this to Pharaoh. This is what the Lord says: by this, you'll know that I'm the Lord: with the staff that is in my hand I'll strike the water of the Nile, and it'll be changed into blood. The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water. The Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron, take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs, and they'll turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in vessels.
And so then the fallout of this is, that's exactly what happens. He strikes the water, fish, fish die, there's a great smell.
Now, as I said before, you know, is this actual blood? I think we could suppose that it's actual blood. That's what the text says. Now, if it wasn't actual blood, would that be a problem? No, I don't, I don't think it would be a problem. We do have some indication here that there's something miraculous going on though, because it's not just the natural waterways that are transformed. Notice that it also says that it's going to even extend to their vessels of, of wood and stone. So something really incredible is has happened here. Now, when we think about, you know, the significance of this, does it cause some problems? Yes, it causes a great stink, but its impact is really meant to be symbolic.
Now, there's a couple of ways where we could see the symbolism here. Recall what happened to the male infants of the Hebrew people. Pharaoh had taken them and cast them into the Nile River, and now that Nile River's turned into blood. Also, if you're familiar with the Egyptian gods, the Nile river is often identified as kind of the blood, their bloodstream. So it could be, something of a sign against the God Khnum, who's identified as the creator of water and life; or against Hapi, the Nile God; or against Osiris, whose bloodstream was the Nile.
Now, the other piece that is significant here for the religious practices of the Egyptians was that they wouldn't have been able to use the water for ritual purification. It would've been unclean. So we see God, even here, right outta the gate, beginning to disrupt their idolatrous religious practices.
Now, something that's really interesting though is it says in verse 22, but the Egyptian magicians did the same thing by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.
Now when you see the word magicians there, that's the word hartummim. And when we think of magicians, a lot of times we think of the guy with the top hat, and he's pulling a rabbit out and all of that, that's not the kind of magician you should have in mind here. Rather, another term that could be used for these magicians would be called lector priests. These are, religious men, religious leaders of Egypt who were able to cast spells, they had spell books and they'd read things and things would happen. So that's why they're called magicians, but they're part of a formal religious order. They're not like witches in that, in the sense that we're kind of familiar with, or wizards. Now as we think about how did they do this, could it be a party trick? It could be, it could also be that they did this by demonic powers. Demonic power is a real thing. The thing that's interesting though here is this, is notice they couldn't reverse the issue. They couldn't turn the Nile back into just regular water. All they could do is just turn more water into blood. And so you can imagine, Pharaoh's heart is hardened here, and maybe he found this convincing, but you can kind of imagine him thinking, well, gee, thanks guys. We didn't have enough water that had been turned into blood. It'd be really nice if you just fixed the issue.
And this is something that's gonna become kind of a theme with, with them, is they're not really able to restore order. They just contribute to further disorder. So again, yes, Pharaoh does not take it to heart. Says that they were digging along the Nile for water. We don't know if they were successful for getting water that hadn't been turned into blood. It says seven days pass verse 25. And this brings us to the second plague described in chapter eight through verses one through 18.
Now, in the first seven verses here in chapter eight, what the Lord tells Moses is that he's gonna send a, he's gonna send a plague of frogs upon the Egyptians, frogs from the Nile. And they're gonna get into everything, even into their beds and bedrooms, which is kind of an indication that this is gonna reach the, the high and mighty of Egyptian society 'cause not everyone had nice beds and, and bedrooms and things like that. And they're even gonna get into their kneading bowls, which if any of you who make bread, you can realize how frustrating that would be because they would save a little bit of the, the dough for yeast to make the next day's bread, and so if you've got a frog in there, that kind of spoils the whole thing, kind is very disruptive. Again, this isn't something that's absolutely catastrophic, but it's a real big pain.
And it's also again, symbolic. Very interesting. There was a goddess known as Heket, who is known as kind of this goddess of, of frogs, and she was known as a goddess of, of childbirth. And so, and, and this is why she's represented as, as a frog 'cause she's this goddess of frogs. I don't really understand completely the association between frogs and, and childbirth, but there's a connection there for the Egyptians. And so you have this great propagation of, of frogs, an inexplicable propagation of, of frogs, and it's so outta control, and the Egyptians can't do anything about it because the frog is sacred. They can't kill the frogs, so they just have to deal with these frogs jumping into their beds and jumping into their kneading bowls and, and all of that.
And, and so this time, what Pharaoh does is he, he, he summons Moses and Aaron and he says, verse eight, pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I'll let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord. Moses said to Pharaoh, I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile. Tomorrow, Pharaoh said. Moses replied, it'll be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God. The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they'll remain only in the Nile. After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. And the Lord did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards, and in the fields. They were piled into heaps and the land reeked of them.
So it would seem like, okay, maybe Pharaohs had a change of, of heart here, that he's going to finally let the, the Israelites go out into the wilderness to worship God. And Moses says, great, and I'm gonna let you choose the time when you want these frogs to go away.
Now, you would almost imagine Pharaoh would say, now, how about now? But he chooses, he chooses tomorrow. And the thing that's significant about this is it, what it demonstrates is that this is no accident. That this wasn't, again, just mere natural phenomenon where the frogs happened to go away. Pharaoh said, I'd like them to go away tomorrow, Moses prays accordingly, and then they do leave, but they die. They leave by dying, which creates a, a really great stink. Imagine a bunch of dead frogs, says the land reeked of them.
In verse 15, we learn that Pharaoh hardened his heart again. And note here that he is the one who is responsible here. Yes, God is, has determined in his will that Pharaoh will harden his heart, that he would harden Pharaoh's heart. But we see Pharaoh in his own person hardening his heart against God, and, and so follows a third plague. It's a plague of gnats, or some would translate it a plague of, of lice. So this picks up in verse 15.
So what Moses does here in following God's command is he, he strikes the dust of the ground with his staff, and when he does that, it says gnats, or lice, and it seems a lot of the commentaries I was looking into seemed to prefer lice here, as what's being meant. Gnats or lice would come up from the dust.
Now, the thing that seems kind of interesting about this is, as you'll recall from Genesis, human beings were made from the dust. But now, rather than life coming forth from the dust, you have something that's afflicting humanity, these lice or gnats.
Now, there is something religiously significant about this. In order for this, these hartummim, these lector priests, and all the rest of the religious persons to serve in the temples of their gods, it was necessary that they did not have any lice on them. And so in order to achieve that, what they did is they would actually shave themselves completely. They would completely shave themselves. Maybe you've seen depictions in Egyptian iconography. And so if you see someone who's clean shaven like this, there's a good chance he serves some sort of religious role. Now they've taken that sort of preventative measure, so they're, the worship of their gods is not disruptive. But now you have all these lice coming forth, and so it's making them impure so that they can't be performing their religious duties.
Now, what's really interesting here is we get to verse 18, and we see that these lector priests, these magicians are not able to do this, it says, but when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere, the magicians said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. But Pharaoh's heart was hard, and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.
So once again, they're. They're not even trying to rectify the situation to make the gnats go away. They can't even do a similar sign that would just contribute to the further disorder here. And in this way, what God is really demonstrating is, yeah, you really have no power in this situation. They're being completely outstripped here. And just as a little side note, it's interesting that in verse 19 it says, this is the finger of God. Kind of a unique phrase, we hear very often in the scriptures of the hand of God. But this phrase, this is the finger of God, is a phrase that is particularly utilized by the Egyptians. And they even create amulets based off this, this is the fingers of, of Horace. Now the reason why this is interesting is this, is that the fact that this is included in the biblical text is just an evidence of its authenticity. That they weren't, that this record doesn't come from hundreds of years later and them taking wild guesses. Otherwise, they probably would've just said the hand of God. The fact that they use a phrase like this is the finger of God indicates that this is Moses who is communicating this record of what transpired here. So it's just kind of an interesting thing to pick up on in the text.
Now, like with the plague blood, blood plague, for the next plague, God once again directs Moses to confront Pharaoh by the Nile. And in that, in that situation where Pharaoh is by the Nile, you have to imagine there's other people around. So there's onlookers here. There's onlookers here as Moses is confronting Pharaoh. The Lord says to Moses, get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the river and say to him, this is what the Lord says: let my people go so that they may worship me. If you do not let my people go, I'll send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies; even the ground will be covered with them. But on that day, I'll deal differently with the land of Goshen where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there so that you'll know that I, the Lord, am in this land. I'll make a distinction between my people and your people. The sign will occur tomorrow.
Now, in this particular case, it's a little difficult to pinpoint a correspondence with a particular Egyptian deity. That doesn't mean it's not significant just 'cause we're not able to do that, but the greater sign here is the distinction between the Egyptians and the Hebrews in Goshen. The fact that these flies are afflicting everyone else except for the Hebrew people where they're living, it's a clear sign that don't get it twisted. This isn't the Egyptian God's playing tricks. This is the God of the Hebrews who is demonstrating his power here. And so it is that, as Moses said it would be, in verse 24, it says that the Lord did this and dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace and into the houses of officials throughout Egypt, the land was ruined by their flies.
And so once again, in verse 25, we find Pharaoh summoning Moses and Aaron to himself. He wants to negotiate, says he says to them, go sacrifice to your God here in the land. But Moses said, that would not be right. The sacrifices we offer the Lord our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. And if we offer sacrifices that are detestable in their eyes, will they not stone us? We must take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, as he commands us. So Pharaoh wants to adjust things. You want to go in the wilderness. How about you just do the sacrifices here? Now, Moses says they can't do that because it would be dangerous for them, because the sacrifices that they would offer might be detestable, would be detestable to the Egyptians.
Now, in what way would they be detestable? One way it might be is that they might offer female cattle and the female cattle, the female cows, they were protected by the Egyptians. They wouldn't have been offered in sacrifices. And so in that way, perhaps the sacrifices would've been detestable. And so in verse 28, Pharaoh relents. He says, I'll let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but you can't go very far. And, so Moses says, okay, that's fine. I'll pray to the Lord, and the flies will go away. But you better not be playing any tricks. Better not be acting deceitfully. But in verse 32, here in chapter eight, we see that yet again, but this time also, Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.
And so we move on to the next plague. What, what follows is the fifth plague, and this is a plague that afflicts the Egyptian's livestock with, with plague. In chapter nine verses one through three. The Lord says to Moses that he's going to bring this, a terrible plague on the livestock of Egypt.
But again, we're gonna see another distinction here between the Egyptians and the Hebrews in verse four, verses four through six, it says, but the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die. The Lord set a time and said, tomorrow the Lord will do this in the land. And the next day, the Lord did it. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died.
Now one question that might be raised here is it says that all the livestock of the Egyptians died, and yet as we go forward in these plagues, we'll see that there is still Egyptian livestock around to be afflicted. So what should we make of this? Well, one of the things I, I, I think is important to point out is if you do look in verse three, God does not tell Moses that all of the livestock is going to die, says he's going to bring a terrible plague on, on all of the livestock. So there's that in mind, that God didn't say that all the livestock would die, which then allows us to consider that this might be a bit of Hebrew hyperbole here. And this is something that's not, foreign to scripture, where it'll use things like saying like all of them died, or everything with breath was killed, and it's just meant to indicate like they got whooped basically, that, that kind of thing. The other option is this, notice that the Hebrew people, that their livestock was not afflicted. So it was also possible the Egyptians when their, their, their livestock got killed, they could have acquired more from the Hebrew people.
Now, this particular pestilence against the livestock, in particular cattle, it could have been directed against the goddess Hathor, who you can kind of see how horns are worked into her imagery there. It could have been kind of a sign against her, or against Apis, who is a symbol of fertility represented as a bull. So as we're going along here, again, God is kind of taking shots at the Egyptians gods and their power.
Now Pharaoh investigates this disparity between the fact that all of the Egyptians livestock is afflicted, but not the Hebrews, he takes note of it, but still he hardens his heart. And so this brings us to the sixth plague of boils that would afflict both humans and animals. And this is brought about as Moses is instructed to take soot from a furnace and toss it in the air before Pharaoh's presence.
We, we read about this in verses seven through 10. Now what's interesting here is that this might be a little play on the fact that the Hebrew people were tasked with making bricks for the Egyptians. Now, I showed you a whole video about how they made sun dried bricks, and that would've been the majority of the bricks that they would've made. But that doesn't mean they didn't use furnaces also for making bricks, because they would've used a furnace in some cases in order to make, to produce exterior bricks that would've been more weather resistant. And so God is taking a symbol of their oppression, these furnaces and the ashes in there, and he's turning it against the Egyptian people such that by tossing it in the air, God afflicts them and their animals with these boils.
And once again, we have this appearance of, of the priests, these magicians.
In verses 11 through 12, it says, The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses. So the magicians, it doesn't even mention them even trying to put boils on people. They probably thought, we don't want any more boils. But again, this is significant because if they got boils, they cannot be engaging in their religious services. So the whole, all of Egyptian worship has been upended here by what God is doing. And yet despite how much everything's been disrupted, Moses, Pharaoh, rather, continues to put up resistance.
So Moses is instructed to once again confront Pharaoh. And as we read in the scripture reading, he brings the threat of truly calamitous plagues, greater than the ones that proceeded. The reality is, is that God could have wiped out the Egyptians at any time. What God is doing here is revealing his power, his authority, that he is the one true God.
So again, as, as, as was read earlier in verses 13 through 16, the Lord says, tells Moses to confront Pharaoh in this fashion, saying that. He's going to bring his full force. And again, in order in verse 16, I have raised you up for this very purpose that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the Earth.
So something again, just to keep in mind here is what God is doing, is he's engaging in a work of revelation. Here we think of revelation often in in visions or in writings. God is revealing himself in plagues. Here, he's revealing the nature of his power and his authority. And so this takes us on to the seventh plague, which we read in verses 17 through 19.
You still set yourself against my people will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I'll send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every person and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.
Now Pharaoh is stubborn here. He doesn't want to, he, he doesn't want to heed what Moses is saying, but that's not the case for all of his officials. You can see some of them beginning to crack because they can see, Pharaoh, you're kind of losing it here. You're not upholding order. This guy says things are gonna happen and they happen. And so some of them do bring in their animals, they do bring in their people in order to be spared from this hail that's going to fall upon the land.
And so in verses 20 through 25, it says that Moses stretched out his hand and hail came upon the land with lightning, and it brought with it death and destruction, such that it hadn't been seen since the founding of the nation, which again is just an indictment of Pharaoh. It's this idea that everything had been going great from the beginning until you decided to dig in your heels here and tried to fight against God.
Now, once again, we see a distinction made here between the Egyptians and the Hebrews, verses 26 through 28. It says, the only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. This time I have sinned, he said to them. The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I'll let you go; you don't have to stay any longer. What a development here from, I mean, think about the beginning where Pharaoh was not acknowledging who God is. He's like, I'm not gonna give this guy the time of day, and now he's confessing, I have sinned. And so you think, well, maybe this will be the turning point here.
And yet we see him verses 33 through 35, that he's, his heart is hardened again after Moses calls upon the Lord and the thunder and hail and rain stop. Now, in verse, verses 31 and 32, it's noted that there was not complete destruction that occurred here of the crops. Those that were destroyed were the flax and the barley, but not the wheat. Now, the wheat and the spelt would've been a primary component of the Egyptian diet. The flax would've been used for clothing, the barley would've been used for beer. So God, what God basically did here is I'm taking away your clothing and your beer. You're not gonna have a good time. But he had spared their food up to this point. So there's still an opportunity here where, if you just, if you just stop now, Pharaoh, if you let the people go, it doesn't have to get worse.
Now, between this plague and the plague that's going to follow, there are some possible kind of indictments here, again, of the Egyptian gods. It's possibly a strike against, the god Set, who's the God of, of storms. Also of, of Min, and this was a particular interesting example, just because that, it was indicated that this first plague came as about this time that the flax and barley were to be harvested. And, Ziony Zevit is giving all the detail on this. He's a scholar and he was, he noted that around this time there was a widely celebrated festival called out, called the coming out of Min, and so God basically rained on his parade and disrupted that, that religious celebration.
This brings us to the eighth plague In Exodus 10. Before revealing to Moses the nature of this plague, he explains that, how his purpose is not just to reveal his power to the Egyptians, but to the Israelites, so that they would know he is the Lord, that he is who he says he is. We go to Exodus 10, we read in verse one, then the Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his, of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord. So again, this is a revelation, not just for the Egyptians, it's especially for the people of Israel. Verse three, it says, so Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, this is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews says: how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I'll bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They'll cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They'll devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They'll fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians-- something neither your parents nor your ancestors have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now. Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh.
So God gives Moses a message to bring to Pharaoh that he's bringing a plague of locusts upon the land. And what the locusts are gonna be coming for is that wheat. The essential food supply. And he's, he says that there's going to be so many locusts that they're going to cover the face of the ground.
Now, what some commentators have noted here is that the English translation might be kind of missing out on, on a, a piece here that might be significant, which is the word translated as, as face of the ground here could also be translated as eye, it's the word ayin, so it might be called the eye of the land.
Now, if you're thinking about Egypt and their gods, probably the most well known of the Egyptian gods is the god Ra. He's the sun god. You think of the eye of, of Ra, and you, and so when you think about the sun, the sun is the eye of the land. It shines upon the land. And so what God is saying here is that there's going to be so many locusts coming into the land, they're going to blot out the sun. You won't be able to see it. Once again, another embarrassment of the Egyptian gods.
Now, Pharaoh's officials protest in verse seven. They say, they say to him, how long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the Lord their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined? Like you've totally messed, You had one job, maintain an order, keep the people safe. You're ruining it. Just let the people go. And so Pharaoh says, all right. He, he brings Moses and Aaron back to negotiate. He asked them, you know, who's going to be going on this journey to worship? And Moses says, everyone. Now Pharaoh says that that's unacceptable. And in verse 10, he says, the Lord be with you-- if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil. Now, the word evil here in, in Hebrew is the word rah. So again, this might be a little bit of a play on words here. It may be that, that Pharaoh is asserting the superiority of the god Ra on the face of, of Yahweh, and that by going out in this manner, they're basically asking for it.
Whatever the case may be, the deal falls apart. He's not willing to let all the people go out to worship. And so the locusts do indeed come. Verses 12 through 15 says that the locusts come and they wreaked destruction upon the land. They covered all the ground until it was black, and then they devoured all that was left after the hail. This is verse 15. Everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt. So then we get to verse 16, and it says, Pharaoh, again, quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, I have sinned against the Lord and your God, the Lord your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the Lord your God to take this deadly plague away from me. Moses does this. Same pattern plays out, he's hardened, hardened again, even after the, the locusts are, are taken away.
So this brings us up to the ninth plague, the last plague we're talking about today. Verse 21, it says, then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt,-- darkness that can be felt. So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness, covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived. Now, as we think about the significance here of this sign, again, it's very disruptive. The religious significance, you can't see the sun. So it seems to be a sign against the sun god Ra. Also notable that you have this distinction of how the Egyptians lived in darkness, but the Hebrews did not.
Now, this makes us wonder, how, how did God bring this about? And it's, it's a fine thing if you wanna look into it and consider the ways that God might have done this. I don't think we have to feel burdened to try to explain all these things Again, it's not as though if you're not able to explain the, how this phenomenon occurred that well, then you have no reason to believe how it, that it happened. God has done many things that are incredible that we're not able to explain in natural terms. It's, these are supernatural things that God is bringing about. We think about the resurrection. It would be kind of a fool's errand to try to explain that in, in scientific sort of, sort of terms. It's, it's a supernatural thing that's brought about, even as the body that is raised is a true, real body that can be, that could be touched. It was, it was a real body that could eat with his disciples. What we see here is, is the supernatural wielding natural forces.
And so Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron. Verses 24 through 26. Go, worship the Lord. Even your women and children may go with you; only leave your flocks and herds behind. But Moses said, you must allow us to have sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the Lord our God. Our livestock too must go with us; not a hoof is to be left behind. We have to use some of them in worshiping the Lord our God and until we get there we will not know what we are to use to worship the Lord. Now we can imagine why Pharaoh would've wanted to keep the animals behind, because he would've wanted to appropriate them for himself. Yeah, you go out in the wilderness and then they come back and like, oh, sorry guys. We took your animals. You want 'em back, uh, you're not getting them. Now, Moses says, well, we couldn't do that. We couldn't possibly do that. We're gonna need them for our sacrifices.
So in verse 27, it says, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go. Pharaoh said to Moses, get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The day you see my face, you will die. Just as you say, Moses replied. I'll never appear before you again. Now, what Moses says there holds true, he would, he would never appear before Pharaoh again. But God was not done revealing himself to Pharaoh, as we'll see moving forward.
What we see in these plagues is a vivid picture of God's omnipotence in stark contrast to human obstinence and of how human obstinence is no match for that omnipotence. In the case of Pharaoh, we can see just how far gone people can become when they're, when God purposes that their heart should be hardened in accordance with their sin nature. That should humble us. That should humble us. Apart from the grace of God, we too would dig in our heels like stubborn mules. Now Paul comments on this radical transformation in Colossians two verses 13 through 15.
He says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. What Paul is saying here is that we were dead in our sins. In fact, he says in chapter one verse 19 that we were enemies of God in our minds, but God has made us who believe, He has made us alive with Christ. What awesome mercy he has shown us, incredible mercy so that we who believe would no longer be rebels, but counted among his children. And just as God in the time of the Exodus exposed the weakness of Pharaoh and all of Egypt's false gods, so has God in Christ made an even greater display. Paul says that in Jesus Christ God disarmed the world's powers and authorities, he embarrassed them, he made a spectacle of them. They thought they could kill Jesus, but, and put him, put an end to him once and for all. But Jesus would not stay dead. That the cross, that symbol of defeat became a symbol of victory-- the triumph of Jesus Christ. So God made a spectacle of the Egyptian gods. He makes a spectacle of the powers that would oppose him through the resurrection and triumph of Christ.
We see here that God remains the same God. His word remains firm, absolute, just as we see here in the plagues and just as we see in the birth life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. And we can be sure, we can be sure that God's word which promises Christ's return, his second advent, that that word will be fulfilled. Evil will be destroyed, and creation restored. As in Goshen, God's people shall be preserved and will be brought out into a new world to live with God and worship him forever and ever. World without end.
Let us pray.
Dear Father.
The text that we've read this morning just reminds us of the awesomeness of your power, of your authority. That while, while the people of this world, while we so often pretend that we're so high and mighty,
you could absolutely obliterate us and destroy us at any point. And that's what we see Father in, in these plagues, that you gave so many signs, you gave so many signs that demonstrate your power without bringing complete destruction, though you are able to do that, all in order that we'd understand and appreciate who you are.
Father, we confess that apart from your grace, we would just be just as stubborn and hardened as Pharaoh. We thank you for showing your mercy to us, that we would be responsive to the salvation that you've given us in Jesus Christ. That we would believe in him and put our trust in him, that we would repent and turn away from our sin.
Father, help us to remember this. Remember how you have demonstrated your power and authority so that in these seasons in which maybe we feel like the world seems like it's a whole lot more powerful, we remember that that's not the case. That it's, it's mere illusion. In fact, you hold all power and authority and that this will be revealed on the day of Christ's return.
We give you praise in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God and hear the preaching of his word. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)