“God’s Execution of Judgment, pt.1” (Exodus 7:14 - 8:32) | 3/12/23
Exodus 7:14 - 8:32 | 3/12/23 | Will DuVal
Well, this may be another heavy sermon - we’re gonna be starting the plagues this morning - but I thought I’d at least OPEN with a lighter joke; Did you hear about the disobedient, but clever young boy, who asked his mother:
“Mom, you wouldn’t punish me for something I DIDN’T do, would you? ”
She said, “Of course not, honey; why?”
He said, “Good, because I didn’t do ANY of my homework or chores!”
Well, this morning, God IS gonna punish Pharaoh for something that HE DIDN’T do, namely, let God’s people GO… free from Egypt, as God had demanded. Last week in Exodus, we witnessed God’s plan of deliverance for His people, Israel, which will culminate in their promised redemption just a few weeks from now on Easter, when they cross the Red Sea. But before God can make good on His promise to save Israel, He must FIRST make good on His promise to JUDGE EGYPT. And He will judge them 10x over - 10 plagues - SO many that we can’t even cover them all in one sermon, so you’re just gonna have to come back next Sunday, if you’re a “glutton for punishment”.
But the plagues aren’t JUST punishment; what we need to SEE in them is just how LONG-SUFFERING God is, how PATIENT He is, in His mercy toward sinners like Pharaoh, and like you and me. God gives Pharaoh not one… not two… but TEN CHANCES here to change! For the same reason Israel has been in Egypt for 400 years now: God announced to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 15: “your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs… and they will be afflicted for four hundred years… for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (15:13-16) God was giving the Amorites, who occupied the Promised Land from the 19th to 15th centuries BC, every possible opportunity to TURN from their sins, and be saved.
It’s the same reason Jesus has not yet RETURNED to the earth, by the way, and fulfilled his promise to make all things NEW: 2 Peter 3 assures us that “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (v9)
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Friends: God IS patient and merciful. But as we will see this morning, God is ALSO holy and just. And one day, His patience will run out. So God’s word warns us: “Do [not] presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience… God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance”!
And that is the most important message of the next 2 weeks and all TEN of these plagues: that we must REPENT of our sins, and THROW ourselves on God’s mercy that He offers us now through His son JESUS, lest we too should PERISH! If you hear nothing else this Sunday and next - and EVERY Sunday for that matter! - you need to hear that: God’s gospel invitation to turn from your sin and trust in Jesus for salvation.
And as we’ll see, each of these 10 plagues is gonna highlight a different facet or nuance of that gospel message. And each of the FIRST 4 plagues here - (btw: we won’t have time to get to the fifth plague, so we’ll save it for next week) - but each of these first FOUR actually conveys TWO gospel sub-themes. So I have EIGHT points total for you; 8 gospel PRINCIPLES, with FOUR accompanying gospel applications, or exhortations.
Lots to get to; but before we do, let’s go to the Lord once again in prayer…
Plague #1- Let’s read it first: Exodus ch7, vv14-24:
“14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh's heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. 16 And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. 17 Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.”’” 19 And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’”
20 Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. 21 And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. 22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. 23 Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.
Gospel Principles #1 & 2: God always gives sinners ample WARNING, and He never hardens a heart against our OWN WILL. (7:14-25)
God WARNS us, but ultimately grants us our WILL.
First, He WARNS us. God warns Pharaoh TEN times! Actually MORE, because remember: he got the PREVIEW plague last week, when Moses’ staff turned into a serpent. And not only does each one of these plagues serve as a warning and a chance for Pharaoh to repent, but as we’ll see, MOST of the plagues actually include their OWN warning… before the plague ITSELF. Moses went to Pharaoh “in the morning” BEFORE God turned the Nile to blood, to warn him about that plague… which was itself a WARNING! God gave Pharaoh every possible opportunity…
But v22: “Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen.” v23: “he didn’t take this [WARNING] to heart.” Instead, Pharaoh HARDENED his heart, his OWN heart. That will become even clearer with plagues #2, 4 & 7:
(8:15) “Pharaoh… hardened his heart”
(8:32) “Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also”
(9:34) “Pharaoh… sinned yet again and hardened his heart”
Now, last week we discussed GOD’S hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, which is EQUALLY true, and especially emphasized in plagues #6, 8, 9 & 10
(9:12) “the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh”
(10:20, 10:27 & 11:10) “the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart”
As Christopher Wright ATTEMPTS to explain for us (Exodus, 224-6): “There is a mystery in holding together the sovereignty of God and human moral responsibility for our own willed choices… Yet we must… insist that the Bible affirms both, frequently and unequivocally, however difficult it is for us to reconcile them in our human logic. The casual reader’s moral anxiety stems from imagining that if God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then the poor man had no meaningful choice. He was merely doing what he was programmed to do. How then was he to blame? …[But] the protest, ‘It’s not my fault; God made me do it!’ will always be just as false on the lips of any sinner as it would have been on pharaoh’s [lips]. The narrative… works very hard to make it repeatedly clear beyond any doubt that pharaoh was no puppet on a string, manipulated by a malevolent deity. His own sin was his undoing.”
Translation: God never hardens a sinner’s heart against their will. So we need to get this picture out of our minds of a HELL that is filled with remorseful, PENITENT sinners all begging for God’s forgiveness; that is NOT the picture the Bible gives us of Hell. No, the BIBLE says Hell is filled with sinners whose hearts only grow HARDER and more REBELLIOUSLY opposed to God and His sovereign rule with each passing day of ETERNITY.
As C.S. Lewis observed: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those TO whom God says in the end, "Thy will be done." All who are in Hell, choose it… No soul that seriously and constantly desires [life with God] will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock, it is opened.” (The Great Divorce)
I received an email the Friday before last, from a woman named Diana, who’s been watching our sermons online; she said:
“Hello [Pastor]: I have a question that has been seriously threatening my faith and I am trying to find an answer that would let me keep believing.
The problem comes from three things that I have been taught growing up in church:
1. We are all born sinners…
2. Salvation is a gift from God and cannot come from ourselves. My church teaches that if God has predestined you for salvation, you will be called to it and if God has not predestined you for salvation, there’s nothing you can do to move yourself toward it.
3. God loves everyone.
I don’t understand how all three of these things can be true. Why would God allow someone to be born, knowing that they need salvation, but are not predestined for salvation, and thus will be tormented for all eternity if he really loves them? How can God send anyone to hell knowing that there is nothing they can do to save themselves without HIS work? …If all this is true, then it would suggest that God is simply cruel, and I think I would rather live in a world without God...
This question weighs heavily on my soul, and I am becoming worried that God simply has not predestined me for salvation.”
So she sent that on FRIDAY, and then last SUNDAY, I preached about God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. And we looked at Romans 9 together: “[God] has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills… What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (18-23).
And before I had even read Diana’s FRIDAY email, she sent me a SECOND email Sunday AFTERNOON that said:
“Hi: by God’s sovereignty, I think [my question] was answered today. Thank you for clearing things up.
I am now certain that God created me as a vessel for wrath, and I exist [only] to prove his power. I was not given the capacity to love him in spite of that, so God must have hardened my heart. I’m pretty bummed out that I will spend eternity in hell, but at least I don’t have to keep trying to earn his love.”
I replied to Diana on Monday, (mainly just offering to talk with her in PERSON about all this) but just in case you’re listening this morning, Diana, or in case someone ELSE here needs to hear this, let me just offer you THREE replies; 2 affirmations, and one rebuttal.
First: You are RIGHT in all THREE of your initial affirmations - We ARE all born sinners (Ps 51:5); Salvation IS a free gift which must come from God (Rom 6:23); and God DOES love everyone (Jn 3:16).
Second: You are ALSO right about God’s SOVEREIGNTY, both over our SALVATION, and even over the timing of my sermon. It was no accident that I preached that message last Sunday; God WANTED you to hear it.
But third: You are WRONG to claim that this makes God “CRUEL”, and wrong to say He hasn’t given you capacity to love him BACK. Far from being “cruel”, God has freely, generously, mercifully, lovingly given us the SOLUTION for our sin problem… He has sent us a SAVIOR in His Son JESUS, as our atoning sacrifice. And friends: we really DO have the ability to love and choose and CHERISH Him today: 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because HE first loved us.” Yes, God had to make the first move. But He’s already MADE it in giving us JESUS. And now God calls US - He COMMANDS us - to love Him in return. Love is a choice. God’s already MADE His choice. Now the choice is YOURS: will you LOVE Him in return?
Sure, you can HATE God, and BLAME Him, for allowing some to REJECT His gracious gift of Jesus. OR… you can THANK God, and WORSHIP Him, that He would allow ANY of us to receive His amazing, undeserved gift! Maybe THAT’S why God wanted Diana to hear that sermon: to remind her that she CAN’T “EARN his love” at all; we must simply receive it, as a GIFT.
But make no mistake, friends: the choice is YOURS. Even if it IS God’s choice, and He’s either predestined you or not, we couldn’t possibly know one way or the other, so quit trying to read GOD’S mind and just make up your OWN mind this morning… to BELIEVE! “Whosoever BELIEVES in Him - in JESUS - will not perish but have everlasting life”; trust in Jesus and be SAVED!
You can choose Him today; Hebrews 3:15 says, ““Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart...”
So my first personal application - gospel exhortation - for us, Church - for Diana and for us ALL! - is to LISTEN! v22 said Pharaoh wouldn’t LISTEN; Hebrews 3 exhorts us to HEAR God’s voice. And this is what He’s saying - SCREAMING! - it’s the same thing He was trying to tell PHARAOH; that:
God is God.
You’re NOT. You’re a SINNER.
And therefore you NEED a SAVIOR.
So trust in JESUS!
That’s IT! It’s really that simple! This is the gospel, friends: God’s salvation invitation to YOU this morning. Will you LISTEN… and RESPOND?
If you WON’T - if you REJECT God’s gracious invitation - you will have NO ONE to blame but YOURSELF. Because God WILL NOT harden your heart AGAINST your will.
Plague #2 - and Gospel Principles #3 and 4 - God invites us to CRY OUT to Him, and He delights to show us COMPASSION. (7:25-8:15)
We read on:
“Seven full days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.
8:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 2 But if you refuse to let them go, [WARNING:] behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. 3 The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. 4 The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants.”’” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!’” 6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. 7 But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.
8 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be cut off from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” 10 And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like YHWH our God. 11 The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people. They shall be left only in the Nile.” 12 So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord about the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. 13 And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards, and the fields. 14 And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”
SO much going on there, but the two most IMPORTANT takeaways are that 1) God wants us to CRY OUT to Him, because 2) God LOVES to show us MERCY!
Even those of us who are least deserving, like Pharaoh! God could have told him, “How ‘bout you let my people go, like I ordered you to, and THEN I’ll consider relenting of this plague!” But God hears Moses’ CRY, on Pharaoh’s behalf, and God shows him compassion.
Because God DELIGHTS to show us mercy, ESPECIALLY those who are least deserving! Because the less you DESERVE it, the more glory GOD gets from saving you, in SPITE of you! Jesus told a parable about two debtors who both got their debts forgiven: one $5,000 and the other $50,000. “Which one”, Jesus asked, “do you think will LOVE the creditor more?”
If you get pulled over for breaking the speed limit, and the cop graciously lets you off with a warning: would you be more grateful if you were going 5 mph over… or if you were going THIRTY-five over?! If you were just doing 5 mph over, you might even get indignant that he pulled you over at ALL.
Can I tell you: SOME of you this morning, if you’re really honest, don’t think you deserve a “ticket”. You think you’re MOSTLY a good person, and okay: if you speed just a little bit, every once in a while - it’s only 5 mph!- then God ought to understand and just let it slide.
But here’s what God’s WORD says, friends; James 2:10 - “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in [just] one point has become guilty of all of it.” If you break just ONE of God’s commandments, just ONE TIME, then you’re just as guilty as if you had broken them ALL. Because ANY sin against a PERFECTLY holy God deserves eternal punishment. It’s not about how BADLY you broke the Law; it’s about WHOSE Law you BROKE. There’s no such THING as a $5,000 debt; that’s the point: every ONE of our debts was INFINITE! And Jesus paid it ALL.
Because God, our Heavenly Father, is pleased to show us COMPASSION. Even the Pharaohs among us; God declares in Ezekiel 33:11 “Behold: I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die”? But see, that’s the problem with Pharaoh here: he CRIES OUT, but he doesn’t actually TURN. There are THREE problems I see, actually, with Pharaoh’s version of **“repentance” here (note the scare quotes):
First, Pharaoh doesn’t cry out for HIMSELF; rather, he asks MOSES to do it FOR him. Philip Ryken (231) notes: “this shows us how much a person can learn about God without ever coming to him for salvation. Pharaoh knew that God was both Creator and Judge. He recognized the power of God’s name and believed he could answer prayer. But he did not know God as HIS Savior and Lord… Quite literally, the man didn’t have a prayer.”
Second, Pharaoh “made the wrong request. Rather than asking God to take away his sins, he asked God to take away the frogs. Pharaoh wanted relief from the punishment for his sin without being willing to repent of the sin itself.” (231)
And lastly, when does Pharaoh WANT the relief? V10: “Tomorrow”. It’s almost comical! He’s up to his NECK in frogs, yet trying to convince himself: “Eh, it’s not so bad; I’ll deal with it TOMORROW.”
Friends: how often do WE do this, with OUR sin? With our “repentance”? “Eh, I’ll get around to it… TOMORROW.”
I’ll apologize to my spouse… tomorrow.
I’ll pick up my Bible… tomorrow.
I’ll delete that app… block that site… quit porn… tomorrow.
I’ll trust God and quit worrying, quit living in fear and anxiety… tomorrow.
Friends: “if you hear God’s voice TODAY, don’t harden your heart”; repent TODAY! TRULY repent; no scare quotes!
Pharaoh’s “repentance” proved 3 things: 1) he had no relationship with God, 2) no remorse for sin, 3) and no URGENCY to change.
May that not be said of US, Church! Rather, let us: CONFESS!
CRY OUT to Jesus, our personal Lord and Savior… asking him to take away not just the punishment of our sin, but the sin ITSELF - because we LOVE GOD enough to HATE our SIN, and we want to live lives that are “holy and pleasing” to Him… TODAY! May we not be content to wait until “TOMORROW”, to get right with God. “Take care, brothers, lest there be in you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb 3:12-13)
Confess, and truly repent.
Which leads us to Plague #3, and Principles 5 & 6- God will punish IDOLATRY, and His power is INCOMPARABLE. (8:16-19)
In ch8, vv16-19 we read:
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt.’” 17 And they did so. Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats in all the land of Egypt. 18 The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not. So there were gnats on man and beast. 19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.”
Two points stand out: God will punish IDOLATRY, and His power is INCOMPARABLE. (8:16-19)
See, the plagues weren’t just God’s judgment on the Egyptians; Numbers 33:4 tells us “On their gods YHWH executed judgments.” Each one of these plagues was God’s direct and personal attack on a different false god worshiped by the Egyptians.
Last week, when Moses’ staff-turned-serpent “swallowed up” the magicians’ snakes, it was the goddess Wadjet, who was idolized in the form of a cobra, and worshiped especially by the pharaohs (Ryken, 207).
With the FIRST plague, Yahweh attacked Hapi, god of the Nile. Tony Merida explains (57): “The Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt… It was responsible for transportation, irrigation, drinking water, food… This type of catastrophe would be similar to cutting off all oil supplies, the stock market collapsing, drinking water being contaminated, and having no food in the grocery store” …all at once! …The Egyptians worshiped the Nile as their creator and sustainer. At least 3 deities were associated with the Nile… But the most important was Hapi, the god of the flood… a fertility god… the idea was that the annual flooding of the Nile gave birth to Egypt.” (Ryken, 220)
With the SECOND plague, Yahweh judged the goddess Heqet. James Boice explains (Ordinary Men Called By God, 65): “The goddess Heqet… was always pictured with the head of a FROG… [Therefore,] the frog was sacred in Egypt. It could not be killed… [thus,] they were forced to loathe the symbols of their depraved worship… And when the frogs died, their decaying bodies must have turned the towns and countryside into a stinking horror.”
The THIRD plague was God’s judgment on the earth-god Geb (Merida, 58).
The FOURTH plague was “directed against Beelzebub (which means, ‘the lord of the flies’)... Protector and guardian”, of their fields (Ryken, 249-50) Yahweh was showing them who is TRULY the ‘Lord of the Flies’!
And we’ll meet the REMAINING 6 false gods still yet to be judged next week. But underneath ALL of it, for Pharaoh, was the idolatry of SELF; Merida explains (59): “The Egyptians believed Pharaoh had the power to maintain order in the cosmos, what they called the ma’at.” But in the plagues, God was exposing Pharaoh’s impotence; his utter IN-ability to hold things together. The plagues are an INVERSION of the creation account; “Instead of order… out of chaos, there is disorder produced from order.” Instead of man being “formed from the dust of the ground” (Gen 2:7) in order to have dominion over the animals and establish order, you’ve got BUGS being formed from the dust and ruling over US in total CHAOS! (Ryken, 241) God is saying: “Pharaoh, you are NOT the one who maintains order in the universe; I am! And if I remove my sustaining hand - my “finger” - for just one MINUTE, you will SEE just how unable YOU are, to hold things together.”
And that’s the second principle here: that God’s power is INCOMPARABLE. As we’ve seen, Satan does have power; SIN has real power. The magicians turned their staffs to serpents too, they turned water to blood too, conjured up even MORE frogs; but notice: all they could do was make the situation WORSE. That’s all sin EVER does; makes things WORSE. Satan can’t create, produce, bring LIFE; He can only DESTROY. And even then, Satan has his limits. He is NOT omnipotent, all-powerful. And this third plague is the first one that Pharaoh’s magicians CANNOT recreate, the gnats; they’re out of their depth now. Such that even THEY are forced to admit to Pharaoh: “This is the finger of God.”
Now, before we LAUGH at the ancient Egyptians for worshiping a river, snakes, frogs, the earth… let’s ask ourselves: are we really all that different? We’ve got PLENTY of idols and false gods, don’t we?
There’s the god of MONEY... (bull)
The god of STUFF... (Amazon)
The gods of Entertainment… (Netflix)
The god of Popularity… (FB)
The god of Sex… (bunny)
The gods of Politics… (elephant/donkey)
Some of US worship mother Earth too… (environmentalism)
Or the god of COUNTRY… (American flag)
Or the god of Family… (stock photo)
We worship all KINDS of gods!
But Underneath ALL of it, friends, as was true for Pharaoh: is our idol of SELF! (that’s a mirror, if you couldn’t tell). We worship at the altar of SELF.
And perhaps God is allowing your world feel like it’s spinning out of CONTROL right now to remind YOU, like Pharaoh, that you are NOT the one who maintains order in the universe. That’s a job WAY out of your paygrade, friend. So if you’re tired of carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders this morning, hear Jesus’ invitation to you: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Because holding the universe together is HIS job; [**SING:] “He’s got the whole world…?” [*sing back*]
Let HIM be God, friends. “For by him all things were created… and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:16-17).
What’s OUR job? To REPENT of our idolatry - to turn from our worship of lesser, false “gods”, most of all, the god of SELF - and to trust in JESUS instead. “Repent, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus” (Acts 3:19-20).
Finally, #4- God offers his people GRACE, but we must come on GOD’S TERMS. (8:20-32). We read:
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh, as he goes out to the water, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. 21 Or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and into your houses. And the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand. 22 But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. 23 Thus I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall happen.”’” 24 And the Lord did so. There came great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses. Throughout all the land of Egypt the land was ruined by the swarms of flies.
25 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” 26 But Moses said, “It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? 27 We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he tells us.” 28 So Pharaoh said, “I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only you must not go very far away. Plead for me.” 29 Then Moses said, “Behold, I am going out from you and I will plead with the Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people, tomorrow. Only let not Pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” 30 So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord. 31 And the Lord did as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people; not one remained. 32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go.”
God offers us GRACE, but we must come on GOD’S TERMS.
Ryken explains (251): “In the plagues, God treated his own people completely differently from the Egyptians. The Israelites didn’t lose their livestock, they weren’t afflicted with boils, their crops weren’t destroyed by hail and locusts, their sons weren’t taken by the angel of death, and they didn’t drown in the depths of the sea… Why did God make this distinction? Obviously, Pharaoh got exactly what he deserved. The question is, what was it about the Israelites that secured their salvation? …The Israelites were no better than the Egyptians… As the story continues, we will discover that the Israelites were a fractious, rebellious, idolatrous people who deserved to be judged every bit as much as the Egyptians. So why did God save them? …The answer, very simply, is”: GRACE! God’s FREE, undeserved GIFT. “The people of God are saved not through any merit of their own, but by the sovereign purpose of God’s electing will.” (252)
And friends: what does that kind of lavish GRACE inspire in us - REQUIRE OF us!?
“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my ALL!”
God’s grace compels us to FOLLOW Him. To LIVE for Him. To lay down our lives, in holy surrender, TO Him.
Pharaoh offers the Israelites a COMPROMISE in v25: “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” But as Ryken notes (255-6): “ staying in Egypt would violate God’s command... when it comes to obeying God’s commands, there can be no compromise… Some people… come to church on Sunday, but they are not willing to leave their sins behind the rest of the week… They are willing to make a few sacrifices, as long as they don’t actually have to leave Egypt.”
But hear what the great Charles Spurgeon preached on this point: “God’s demand is not that his people should have some little liberty, some little rest in their sin, no, but that they should go right out of Egypt… Christ did not come into the world merely to make our sin more tolerable, but to deliver us right AWAY from it. He did not come to make hell less hot, or sin less damnable, or our lusts less mighty; but to put all these things FAR AWAY from his people, and work out a full and complete deliverance!” (“A Divine Challenge!”, 5:287)
And so He HAS, friends! And you can be delivered of all YOUR sins this morning, and walk in complete FREEDOM today, if you will but SURRENDER to God’s grace. Jesus said, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Lk 9:24) Are you willing to lose life as you know it, in order to find a BETTER life - life to the FULLEST… ETERNAL life! - in Christ Jesus this morning?
CONCLUSION: LISTEN… CONFESS… REPENT… and SURRENDER!