189 - Moses: Continued Faith in the Promise - Part 3 [B]

Hebrews Lesson 189  March 4, 2010

^NKJ Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;

^NKJ Proverbs 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

Let's open our Bibles to Hebrews 11. We'll begin there. We've been studying in the life of Moses and looking at the fact that in this section there are 5 things that are zeroed in on by the writer of Hebrews as being examples of faith operative in the life of Moses. 

The first example of course is not his faith; it was his parents' faith. Even though I said last time even though there's no clear statement anywhere in Scripture; there's no indication that there was a special revelation to his parents that he was the promised deliverer or how God would use him; there is every indication I believe that that probably took place. That is what Jewish tradition has held going back into the pre-New Testament era as far back as we have written extra-biblical evidence. Everyone else that's listed in Hebrews 11 is someone who responded in faith to revelation and to a promise of God.  So it seems that it would just make sense. It fits the pattern that his parents understood something special about the birth of Moses and trusted God. 

Therefore because of their trust in God they were not afraid.  Their faith cast out their fear. 

Then the second example has to do with Moses as he reached adulthood - more than adulthood. He was near 40 years of age when he makes the determinative choice in his life to put the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ first. He recognizes that he would rather suffer all of the affliction and all of the suffering and loss of everything, every detail of life that he had. Just imagine that - that if you had the opportunity to say you're either going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and lose everything or you can keep all of your possessions and all of your security and all of your house and all of your things that give you comfort. Here's the option. You're going to choose one or the other; but you can't really follow the Lord and be positive unless you're willing to give up everything. That really is a choice that we all need to make at some point in our life. Are we willing to do that? The Lord will not necessarily call upon us to do that. But that is what positive volition is. Are we will truly willing to serve the Lord no matter what that entails? That's not a decision you make when you are a brand new believer.  It's not an emotional decision you make in some sort of revival church service or something of that nature because it calls upon thought and it calls upon a certain amount of spiritual information and maturity in order to reach that decision. 

This is what is indicated as I pointed out last time in verse 26 through the use of the Greek verb hegeomai which means to recon or to consider or to think something through. It's translated esteeming in verse 26. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

So this was a thoughtful, a conscientious decision that Moses made. It wasn't just an emotional reaction to the fact that this Jewish slave was being beaten by an Egyptian overseer which is the impression that you could get from reading Exodus 3 if you didn't have this information. 

That's one of the important things about Scripture - is that the writers of Scripture in the Old Testament are writing within their purpose within what they're trying to communicate. They don't give all of the details.  Nowhere in Genesis 3 are we told that the serpent is Satan. We get that from Revelation 12 when you have the identification of the dragon as the servant of old, the devil.  But it's not until you get to Revelation that you have a special revelation from God identifying the serpent in Genesis 3 as Satan. 

But I know of at least one Old Testament professor at an evangelical seminary who says. "No, no, no. You can't do that. You can't ever teach Genesis 3 and say the serpent there is the devil because Moses didn't say that."

That's the kind of narrowness that has really invaded a certain measure of Bible study today - is you can't really rise above the level of each verse to do theology by comparing Scripture with Scripture. That's the same kind of thing here with Moses - is that if you just stick with what is revealed in Exodus 3 you might not present Moses' decision in its most accurate form because Hebrews must be taken into account. The writer of Hebrews is clearly indicating that Moses thought this through very clearly. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

That leads to the third major event in his life.

^NKJ Hebrews 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt,

Moses left Egypt. That's the old English word the New King James – forsook.  He left or he departed. That's where we stopped last time.

not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

This is a tantalizing verse because of the words that are used here in the last part of the verse. He endured as one who saw (literally who sees) – using that word for visibly seeing something, someone who is invisible, who can't be seen. So it's clearly not talking about physical sight, but talking about mental perception and that Moses clearly understood who he was following.  He understood the attributes of God to a certain level; and he understood God's plan and purposes for Israel.  This is why he was able to endure. 

So as we look at the words (the breakdown of the verse) he begins:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

The Greek verb there is kataleipo which is an aorist active indicative third person singular indicating simply to leave, to forsake, to depart.  There's not a real technical spiritual significance to the word. It's simply describing the fact that he left Egypt and went to Midian. So by faith he forsook. The main thought there is he left. He left and he left by means of faith which means his leaving was based on his perception through faith of God's promise and purpose. He is trusting in God his leaving. He's not just getting booted out of Egypt by the pharaoh who was angry at him because he murdered this Egyptian overseer.  There is more to it than that. It was - while that was true, what was also going on at the same time was that Moses had already reached a decision in his soul to leave and to follow the Lord. 

Now he got out of fellowship and made a bad decision in the way he reacted when he saw the Egyptian overseer beating the slave. That is the same kind of thing that almost everyone in this room has experienced at one time or another: we have made a right decision based on right information to be obedient to the Scripture, then 30 seconds later we're just as out of fellowship and carnal as anybody could possibly be. We make some decision that could possibly just muck everything up. We turn around and God in His grace does not bring that sin against us and discipline us for it. It may have some impact on us. I think in the case of Moses that it was just the immediate cause that booted him out of Egypt. But he had already made the prior decision in his soul that he was going to follow the Lord completely. He was going to turn his back on all of the wealth and privilege and everything that he had as the Prince of Egypt and that he was going to follow the Lord and he would be leaving Egypt.

The New Testament writer says that it's by faith that he left Egypt, not because the pharaoh was mad at him. He is operating on the faith rest drill, trusting in the promise and the plan of God. 

He left Egypt not fearing the wrath of the king. That's the next qualification. So the writer of Hebrews is making this very clear that on the one hand he makes the decision to leave by faith; and then on the other hand he reminds us it wasn't because the pharaoh was angry with him. That was just a circumstantial event. That wasn't the real reason he left Egypt. He left because he was trusting in God.

Then he goes on to explain why he did not fear the wrath of the king. That's what that next phrase does. It explains the reason why he was able to not fear the king. It has to do with what's going on in his mind.  It's what's going on between his ears. That is the most significant part of the spiritual life and most important part of spiritual warfare. 

Remember years ago when we were writing the Spiritual Warfare book? So many people think that spiritual warfare today is battling demons or battling the devil in some sort of external fight. But the battle that we fight in the spiritual life is a battle related to our volition that takes place between our ears. Ninety nine percent of spiritual warfare takes place between our ears where we have to think about the Word of God and decide whether or not we're going to apply it at any particular moment in relationship to the circumstances that we are facing.  So that is what we see with Moses. He 's not afraid. That is the circumstantial or adverbial cause. It's not because he was afraid of the wrath of the king there; but he endured, for he endured as seeing.

That word in the Greek is horao, another participle that is a participle of cause. It could be translated "for he endured because he saw." These adverbial participles can have a variety of different nuances. You just sort of think them through in a logical way as to which ones work and which ones don't and cause is the best one for this. 

For "he endured because he saw" or "because he was as one seeing". Since it is a present active participle active participle we would want to translate that as a present tense. 

Because he was as one seeing Him who is invisible. 

Now the verb there translated endured is kartureo and kartureo means steadfast or strong. That goes with endurance, the verb endurance, not the yellowed one. It goes with endurance and simply means that he was steadfast or strong. It's not hupomone. That's the word we normally find when we talk about endurance. 

^NKJ James 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,

³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.

 ⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

That is the quality that is at the core of spiritual growth. This is a synonym for endurance, but it emphasizes just steadfastness or strength, someone who is going to remain or stick with their decision. He is going to be strong in terms of their decision, not weak and wimp out once he's made a decision just because he faces tough consequences. He's going to stick with that decision as one who sees Him who is invisible. 

So he understands who God is and what God's plan is. That's what gives him the motivation. That's what gives him the strength to stick with the circumstances no matter what they are. He didn't have any idea that what that meant was that he was going to have to be out in the field taking care of a bunch of stinking sheep for the next 40 years. 

If you want get to a good dissertation on what it's like to deal with shrinking sheep, then you can either talk to Dr. Collins down here who was a vet for many years and worked in a processing plant up in Fort Worth,  or you can talk to farmer Gene Brown back in the back who spent many years of dealing with sheep in an agricultural context. I've listened to Gene tell me all about sheep until I wasn't sure that I thought being called a shepherd was a compliment because what shepherds have to do with sheep isn't always that pleasant. Fortunately that's not the point of the analogy that the Lord is using.  He's dealing with other aspects of the role of a shepherd. But that's the idea: that we have to we have to focus on the Lord and follow His leadership.

Now we come to the forth example of faith. This is in verse 28. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:28 By faith he kept the Passover

Hebrews 11:28 states it …by faith he kept the Passover, which means that he observed it. He was obedient to the Lord and Passover.

and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

Now I ought to give a pop quiz here and ask the question. I'll give a pop quiz. You can write down the answer.  Who is it that brought death upon the firstborn of the Egyptians?  Who was it that brought death upon the firstborn of the Egyptians in Exodus? We'll get there and answer that later one. You can find out if you're right or not. 

^NKJ Hebrews 11:28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

In the episode in the Old Testament related to the Passover, this was the last of the 10 plagues (the 10 judgments) that God brought against the Egyptians because of the way they had treated the Israelites. As the last of them, this really stands for all of them. It's not just standing for that last one; but that is the most significant and most dramatic of them and it represents all of the plagues as Moses stood firm against all of the might and the power and the threats of the pharaoh. He refused to yield and he continued to trust God.

So to pick this up we're going to go back to Exodus and just do a little survey of the 10 judgments that God brought against the Egyptians. Turn with me back to Exodus 6:1. Now last week we looked at the initial part of Moses' life: his birth in chapter 2 - and it's really covered fairly quickly with his birth and his parents kept him for 3 months, put him out on the River Nile, pharaoh's daughter discovered him, adopted him as her own so that he grew up within pharaoh's household with all of the privileges and wealth that Egypt had to offer which was everything that was in the world. He was one of the best educated, and one of the wealthiest men in all the world. There was no detail of life that was held back from Moses. He had everything. He had power. He had position. He had prestige. He had wealth and money. He had everything.  But when he became close to 40 years of age, he clearly identified with his people.  He knew who they were. Then we have the episode of his beating or rather killing of the Egyptian who was beating an Israelite slave. 

Then he has a little episode with the Jews. 

"Who do you think you are?  Do you think you're the one who will to deliver us?"

So there's the challenge that's brought forth before him and then his departure to Midian is described in the last part of chapter 2 so that chapter 2 covers everything from his birth to the time that God calls him. So 80 years is covered in the second chapter.

The third chapter begins with his taking care of the sheep up on a Mt. Horeb and there he sees this phenomenon of a bush that was on fire but wasn't consuming the bush.  So he thought to investigate that. God was waiting for him and God begins to tell him who He is and what He is going to do through Moses. Throughout this I emphasize that again and again the Lord referred to Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He does this in verse 6. He does it again in verse 15, again in verse 16, again in the next chapter and in chapter 4 verse 5. Again and again what God is reminding Moses of is that God made a promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham.  He had promised Abraham that there would be a time of about 400 years when his descendants would be out of the land and that they would be mistreated but that God would not forget about them and that God would indeed come in to deliver them and bring them back to the land. He commissions Moses to be the one to go to the pharaoh and to seek the release of the Israelites. 

The Lord in 4:21 promises Moses:

^NKJ Exodus 4:21 And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

He has already described to Moses all of the things that He is going to do, so Moses goes back to Egypt fully aware of how God is going to work the process out in terms of the various judgments.

In 4:22 God says:

^NKJ Exodus 4:22 "Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD: "Israel is My son, My firstborn.

I want to make the point here that God views Israel as His son, as His firstborn.  He is going to take the life of the firstborn of pharaoh. But He views Israel as His firstborn. So Israel is being viewed here and throughout the book in a corporate way as set apart to God for His service. We have the story of Moses coming back to Egypt and then his first confrontation with the pharaoh.

Chapter 5 describes that. Moses who is 80 years of age at this time and his brother Aaron who is 83 will go to the pharaoh to request that the pharaoh let the people go out into the wilderness 3 days in order to worship the Lord. But the pharaoh refuses to allow that to happen. He seems to toy with them for a while; but then he finally makes it clear that he is not going to do this.

So we come to chapter 6. In chapter 6 we begin:

^NKJ Exodus 6:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go,

That means that pharaoh will make a solid decision. These guys are going to say, "Ah.  Well maybe I'll let them go."

He's going to reach a point where he's going to say, "Go. Leave. Take them all. Take everyone out."

He's going to make a very clear decision that is unmistakable for Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt.

and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land."

^NKJ Exodus 6:2 And God spoke to Moses and said to him: "I am the LORD.

So again he identifies himself as YHWH. This is a term specifically associated with the Exodus and with the giving of the law. Again He goes back to Abraham.

^NKJ Exodus 6:3 "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them.

Now some of you are going to go, "Wait a minute. If you turn back to Genesis 12 that name YHWH is used all the way through the account with Abraham. Abraham even addresses God speaks of God as YHWH." 

Yes, that's true. He knew the name, but it is here in Exodus that that name is given significance and meaning because it is the name that is associated with Him bringing something into existence.  It is a form of the verb hajah, the Hebrew to be. The name YHWH means the self-existent one – 'I am who I am' or 'I am that I am.' God is going to make His name known to them in a sense of revelation of His character that they're going to learn about through the deliverance process.

In verse 4 he says:

^NKJ Exodus 6:4 "I have also established My covenant with them,

That is a reference back to the Abrahamic Covenant. 

to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.

So again the focus of the promise keeps going back to the land. How many times have we seen this as we've gone through Hebrews 11 starting with Abraham that the promise that Abraham focused on and Isaac focused on, Jacob focused on, Joseph focused on and now Moses is focusing on is this promise of the land that still hasn't been fulfilled in history? And it us far off in the distance so that the writer of Hebrews says they are all viewed this city that is built without hands. They never saw the fulfillment of God's promise in their own lives; but they trusted in the person (the character) of God and so even though they never had the tangible, empirical reality in front of them they still trusted him. 

That's what faith is. Faith is the evidence of things that are not seen. What did it just say in that passage in Hebrews 11? Moses made his decision as one who sees the invisible, reinforcing the fact that it is by faith, by trusting in the promise of God, even though there's no tangible expression of it in their physical lifetime.

Then in verse 5 we go on to read:

^NKJ Exodus 6:5 "And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.

God is faithful. He does not forget. We may think He's a little concerned with the troops over in Afghanistan or He's really busy trying to deal with issues related to the health care plan or He's concerned about the victims of the earthquake down in Chile or Haiti; but God is omnipresent and omnipotent and He knows every detail in each one of our lives so that no matter what we're facing, what the challenges are, what the difficulties are, what our hopes and dreams might be, it may just surprise us today; but it doesn't surprise God.  God knew you were going to face this particular challenge a thousand years ago, hundred thousand years ago, million years ago, far into the deep recesses of eternity past – God always knew that you're going to face whatever the challenge is right now.

And He said, "I've given you everything you need in the Word and with the Holy Spirit for you to be able to handle this as a testimony to My grace and to My power which is going to be made perfect or complete in you."

This is the promise. God is reminding Moses again of the fact that He knows (He's never forgotten) the covenant (the promise) He made with Abraham.  Indeed in that covenant in Genesis 15 God had said that there would be 400 years of slavery. Now He's coming to fulfill that promise.

^NKJ Exodus 6:6 "Therefore say to the children of Israel: 'I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

So it's not just the 10 plagues. These are judgments that God is bringing against Egypt because of their paganism, because of their idolatry and because of the way they have treated the Israelites while they were there. 

^NKJ Exodus 6:7 'I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

It is an experiential knowledge that God is talking about when He began by saying that now they would know Him by His name YHWH. They would come to know new aspects of His character and who He is,

Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

^NKJ Exodus 6:8 'And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage:

… as an inheritance.

I am the LORD.' "

That last line is like a signature seal on this promise again. 

So the next few chapters are going to go through the 10 plagues (the 10 judgments) upon the Egyptians. It is interesting to go through these. I'm not going to hit every detail; but I want to hit the high points of each one of these plagues as we go through this.

So Moses and Aaron are going to challenge pharaoh. In chapter 7 God directs Moses to take Aaron as his spokesperson.

It says in verse 1:

^NKJ Exodus 7:1 So the LORD said to Moses: "See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.

That's a great clue as to the meaning of the word prophet because it is a person who speaks or represents God. Aaron is going to be one to represent Moses, the spokesperson.

God says:

^NKJ Exodus 7:2 "You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land.

^NKJ Exodus 7:3 "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

Now pharaoh is already negative. He is a god. He used himself as a god. He's already rejected God and is worshiping the creature gods that have been created in the pantheon of Egypt. So God is not making pharaoh negative to God. Besides none of this has nothing to do with his stereological position anyway. It has to do with His decision to keep the Israelites. So God is just going to intensify a decision that pharaoh has already made.

^NKJ Exodus 7:4 "But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies

Isn't that interesting? God said, "Bring My armies."

What armies did He bring?  That has to be some sort of reference to angelic armies and the relationship between the events on the earth and the events within the angelic conflict. 

and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.

^NKJ Exodus 7:5 "And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them."

So in summary statement:

^NKJ Exodus 7:6 Then Moses and Aaron did so; just as the LORD commanded them, so they did.

^NKJ Exodus 7:7 And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

So they go in and they have Moses' staff (his rod) that he had out with the sheep. He is to take the rod and cast it before pharaoh. It's going to turn into a serpent; then pick it up again, which I still think is one of great acts of faith. In fact somebody gave me a copy of Leon Hale's editorial in The Chronicle last weekend, and it was a summary of Moses. He said the same thing. He thought that was a great act of faith on the part of Moses. How coincidental is that? 

So the first plague is a judgment on the waters.

In Exodus 7:17 the Lord says:

^NKJ Exodus 7:17 'Thus says the LORD: "By this you shall know that I am the LORD. Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood.

They're not going to just have water coloring in them.  God's not going to have Moses pour some food coloring into the Nile; and it's going to turn red. It is going to turn to blood. Think about all of the dynamics of that. If you've ever worked around blood, if you've been in the medical profession, or if you've been a hunter and you've worked with blood; it is sticky. There is a stench, and it attracts flies and lice and all of those are things. 

That's why some people say. "Well you know if the water turns to blood and then you get the lice and the flies in the other judgments that just sort of naturally falls out." 

Well, there maybe some natural relationships among the judgments; but that doesn't mean that they're not completely governed and controlled by God.  It's not some sort of result of a volcanic eruption out in some island in the Mediterranean or some other area that has cast a certain amount of volcanic ash into the air which causes the water in the Nile to change color.  This is not some sort of incident like that. 

It is changed to blood and it kills everything in it.  The fish die and they get cast up on the banks of the river.  They die and their carcasses rot.  They stink.

^NKJ Exodus 7:18 "And the fish that are in the river shall die, the river shall stink, and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river." ' "

The Egyptians can't drink any of the water. All the water from the Nile is essential especially in that arid climate of the Nile and for all of their economy.  What you see if you look at the total picture of the plagues is that by the time we get through with these judgments, God has absolutely wiped out the economy of Egypt. It is amazing to think that they were able to do anything for the next two or three hundred years. He has devastated their economy. Their agricultural potential has been has been completely wasted. Their military industrial complex is completely destroyed by the Red Sea. There is nothing left.  They have to completely rebuild their civilization. That would indicate that this would be a period of time historically when we would find little said if anything about Egypt.

God orders Moses to do this and he does. In verse 22 we read that the magicians of pharaoh duplicated this.

^NKJ Exodus 7:22 Then the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments; and Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the LORD had said.

This shows demon activities there and demonic counterfeit. Pharaoh's heart grew hard. He is hardening it himself. He sees this is just a magic trick; this isn't anything from God, so he turns his back on it.

A week goes by after striking the river and God sends Moses back to pharaoh. We have the second plague, which has to do with frogs. Now there is a natural causation you would think once the Nile turned to blood. The frogs are going to decide to look somewhere else for water and so they're going to start coming out of the Nile. But this is much more so. This is hundreds and thousands of frogs. 

Now I don't want to be responsible for anybody having any nightmares. Last week I had one person say, "If you're going to talk about snakes again let me know and I'll quit watching class because I had nightmares all night." 

Now I know there's going be somebody who says, "Oh. I don't like frogs and I'm going to have nightmares about frogs tonight." 

Well there were frogs everywhere. There were frogs in everything. You would go into the pantry and open up your stores of food and there were frogs that were popping out everywhere. This was a devastating judgment that was destructive of all of the food stores that they had in Egypt. Part of the idea is to wipe out their ability to feed themselves, to starve them to death basically so that they would want to get rid of all of the of the Jews. 

^NKJ Exodus 8:5 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.' "

^NKJ Exodus 8:6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.

Pharaoh calls upon Moses to pray to the Lord to let the people go. He acts like he's going make this decision to let people go out and worship for 3 days. He makes that decision, but as soon as the frogs are gone he thinks better of his decision and says, "No, I'm not going to let you go." 

He hardens his heart again, and we come to the third plague which is a plague of lice. Now the plague of lice and the plague of flies seems to makes sense in natural causation because when you have a lot of dead fish and you have a lot of dead frogs and probably a few other dead things because of the drinking the bloody water and everything else; that you would get a plague of flies and lice and various other insects that would come out as a result of all activity.

So in verse 16 the Lord tells Moses to tell Aaron:

^NKJ Exodus 8:16 So the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your rod, and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.' "

Lice are going to come up from the dust. If you have lived around Texas for long and you go someplace down near the beach or you go to some of the places up in the hill country and you're out on the rivers where there is sand and beach and you get into sand fleas, you have some idea of this - or chiggers. 

I was told the other day when I was going to watch out because of there are a lot of chiggers out there. I thought fire ants had killed all the chiggers in Texas but apparently they haven't. But that's what it's like. If you've ever had a chigger infestation or sand fleas have gotten a hold of you then you know how miserable something like this could be. Just multiply that about a thousand fold. 

But the magicians were not able to do this or duplicate this. From this point on there's no counterfeit, no duplication.

^NKJ Exodus 8:19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had said.

Now he's beginning to get angry and exceedingly stubborn. 

That goes to the next plague which is the plague of flies. Again the Lord orders the pharaoh to let his people go, or else if not verse 21:

^NKJ Exodus 8:21 "Or else, if you will not let My people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.

This is where the miraculous becomes so obvious. These plagues are covering everybody who's Egyptian, but it's not touching the Israelites. There's no reason the flies would all go on, for one simple analogy, one side of the street instead of the other side of the street. 

I remember a little bit about what this was like when we first moved up to Connecticut. That's farm country. You always knew when it was springtime, and it was planting time. There were all these farms around us that grew corn, wonderful tasty corn. It's amazing what produces really good corn because about the middle of May they would cover the fields in cow manure; loads of cow manure. 

About the time finally it's spring. You're opening the windows in the house because they don't have central air up there. So you have to open the windows in your house and you take one deep breath and you go, "Oh! Spring really stinks." And you smelled it everywhere. All of that manure on all those fields all around where we lived would bring a host of flies. You can count on it. Every spring (every September) we would get these flies infestations because of all the manure on the fields. It just drives you absolutely crazy. 

This was a thousand times more. But God protected the Israelites. There were no flies in Goshen, but they focused on the area where the Egyptians lived, especially on the house of Moses. So pharaoh gets frustrated tells them to go sacrifice to his people but again he's going to change his mind and harden his heart by the end of the chapter.

We get to the fifth plague. God warns him in chapter 9, verse 2.

^NKJ Exodus 9:2 "For if you refuse to let them go, and still hold them,

³ "behold, the hand of the LORD will be on your cattle in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the oxen, and on the sheep -- a very severe pestilence.

This wipes out all of their livestock not just cattle. It's horses, donkeys, camels, oxen, and everything. All of their livestock for their meat, to pull the plows, for providing energy for work. Everything is going to get wiped out.

^NKJ Exodus 9:4 "And the LORD will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel." ' "

This is exactly what happened.

Verse 6 says:

^NKJ Exodus 9:6 So the LORD did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died.

Now that's a lot of dead animals. About a month earlier you had all the dead fish and then you had all of the flies and lice; now you have carcasses of all your animals, cattle, camel, and oxen. All of your livestock is gone. You have just almost wiped out all the agriculture. 

Now God is going to focus on the people in the sixth plague and on boils. He is going to bring boils upon all the people. 

He tells Moses:

^NKJ Exodus 9:8 So the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take for yourselves handfuls of ashes from a furnace, and let Moses scatter it toward the heavens in the sight of Pharaoh.

⁹ "And it will become fine dust in all the land of Egypt, and it will cause boils that break out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt."

Now everybody is not only hungry, they are not only having to deal with a stench in the land and the fact that they're starving to death because they're losing all of their food, but now they are personally miserable and their bodies are covered with these extremely painful sores that are suppurating everywhere and there's no there's no relief.

Then there is a seventh plague. Now it's going to wipe out their homes. This is going to be a fiery hail that comes from heaven. 

In 9:22 the Lord said to Moses:

^NKJ Exodus 9:22 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt -- on man, on beast, and on every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt."

^NKJ Exodus 9:23 And Moses stretched out his rod toward heaven; and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire darted to the ground. And the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt.

This is not a volcanic eruption. This is hail mixed with fire. In terms of the vocabulary it didn't just look like it. It says there was hail.

^NKJ Exodus 9:24 So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, so very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

^NKJ Exodus 9:25 And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field.

^NKJ Exodus 9:26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

This is going wipe out their homes. This is going to burn what still managed to survive out in the fields. But in case anything is left, there will be another plague; an eighth plague which is locusts (grasshoppers) God is going to send upon the land of Egypt.

^NKJ Exodus 10:12 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land -- all that the hail has left."

What God is doing is He is systematically destroying all of the food, all of the agriculture, all of the economy in Egypt so that there is absolutely nothing left and the people are miserable and their homes and dwelling and everything has been destroyed by the hail. 

Then we have real psychological warfare here in the 9^th plague, which is darkness that God put this heavy darkness upon the land for three days. No sun will shine for three days. The land will be so dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face. This is frightening to people. There's no normal or natural explanation for this.

Verse 23 says:

^NKJ Exodus 10:23 They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

Isn't that fantastic how God separated and protected the Israelites and they had everything and they're not touched by anything. 

So pharaoh calls to Moses.

^NKJ Exodus 10:24 Then Pharaoh called to Moses and said, "Go, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you."

Then he's going to go back on it. The Lord hardens his heart and he decides not to let them go. So the last and final plague will come when we have the answer to our question. 

In Exodus 11:4 then:

^NKJ Exodus 11:4 Then Moses said, "Thus says the LORD: 'About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt;

Now those of us who grew up learning about the Exodus and the plagues and the Passover from Cecil B deMille and The Ten Commandments saw the angel of death and we had that spooky music. You had the clouds coming and the fog coming down and coming in under the doors and the angel of death. 

There is no angel of death anywhere in Exodus. 

I've said that before. Then a friend of mine recently that was visiting here (Andy Wood was here) said, "You know Robby. You said angel of death, but I remember one of my seminary professors point out that there's no angel of death there. 

I went home and looked. "See there is no angel of death there."

We all get affected by that; we read stuff into it. It's not the angel of death. It's God. God says, "I will visit them." 

It is the Lord Himself who comes and takes the life of the firstborn, and not just the firstborn in the human households, but even the firstborn of the female servant behind the hand mill and the firstborn of the animals.What animals are left? 

^NKJ Exodus 11:6 'Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again.

^NKJ Exodus 11:7 'But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the LORD does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.'

God is able to protect the believer from whatever he needs to be protected from because God is able. Now one of the things that is going on here is that each of these plagues is designed to be a really nasty insult to the gods of Egypt. See God is not a respecter of other people's false religions. 

He doesn't play nice with them and say, "Okay, you have your right to your view." 

God comes in and shows that all the gods of Egypt are useless, impotent and nonexistent. Turning the water into blood: the Nile represented the goddess of the Nile Isis. Also the bull god was the male god related to the Nile. Khnum was another guardian of the Nile. The frogs were represented by Heqet, who was depicted in her statues as having a frog's head. Gnats related to Set, the god of the desert. Remember they took the dust and the lice came up from the dust (the sand of the desert.) So the gnats are a slap in the face to their desert god. Then flies. This is related to Re or Ra the sun god and the god Uatchit represented by the fly. You had the death of the cattle which is an assault on Hathor who is a goddess is represented with a cow's head. Apis is the bull god a symbol of fertility. The boils were related to Sekhmet the goddess who had power over disease, and Sunu the pestilence god and Isis who is also the god of healing. Many of the gods and goddesses had different functions.

The fiery hail had to do with Nut the sky goddess and Osiris the god of crops and fertility as well as Set the sky god. The grasshopper and locust was an assault against Nut the sky goddess and Osiris the god of crops and fertility. Darkness was an assault against Re the sun god and Horus was the male god and Nut the sky god. 

I'll put this chart up again next week. I just took it from a summary chart the Bible Knowledge Commentary. But this shows that God is doing something in these plagues. He is not just bringing a judgment against the Egyptians, but He is destroying their hope in their false position. He's wiping out their hope. He's wiping out their false religion, which is the only basis for life. He's destroying the belief in pharaoh who is the incarnation of god. 

God is multitasking once again here showing that He is the only true God and He can deliver Israel no matter what circumstances they are in. He shows that He is the God over life which is the essence of what happens at the Passover. 

So we'll come back and deal with the Passover, the 10^th plague specifically next time when we come back – just tie this together - spend more time on it when we come back in a couple weeks after the conference. 

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer. 

Illustrations