We are going to be picking up actually kind of at the middle part of Exodus chapter 8. It has been several weeks since we left off of our study here in the Pentateuch. We took a three week break in order to have some Q&A opportunities during our study on the topic of baptism. And so now we are dipping back into the plagues and we will spend time in the plagues probably this week, next week, and possibly one more week beyond that. We'll see how that goes. Just to recap real quickly, and I did put out some of the last handouts On the music stand, some of you will have those already. Some of you may not. Those handouts, remember, are simply supplements for these class sessions. And the handouts for Exodus cover a larger section of material than the ones that we prepared for the Book of Genesis. So you won't get them as often, but they will typically be a little longer and hopefully a little more involved than the ones that you received during our study of Genesis. Just to kind of revisit where we're at as we parachute back into this text, God has raised up Moses and prepared him to be the deliverer of his people, the Israelites, to bring them out of bondage in Egypt. And yet God chose two very dramatic and very different ways of preparing Moses for this mission. Moses spent the first 40 some odd years of his life in Egypt as a prince, as it were. part of the nobility, educated with all of the learning of the Egyptians, Stephen later says in the New Testament. And at the time in his life where Moses felt at the peak of his strength, of his wisdom, of his learning, of his ability to serve in this role, at a time in his life where Ostensibly, he believed that God was going to use him as the deliverer of the Israelites. It was at that moment that God sends Moses into exile. And he does so through the events of Moses killing an Egyptian and then having to flee for his life as a fugitive. And he spends 40 years as a fugitive in the land of Midian, working as a shepherd. During that time, Moses loses all confidence that he had in himself. He no longer feels able to serve in this role. At the end of that second 40-year period, God appears to Moses in a burning bush and calls him back to Egypt to serve as the mouthpiece of God before the Pharaoh and to call the people of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. And now Moses protests. rather than ready and rather than confident, Moses says, don't send me. There are many reasons. He offers five objections to God's call into his life, to the point that finally after the fifth objection, the Bible says that God's anger burned against Moses. And ultimately, God has his way, and Moses does not have his way. And Moses does return to Egypt and now stands before Pharaoh along with his brother Aaron, Remember that we saw that when Moses first comes back to Egypt and he meets with the children of Israel and he has the initial interview with Pharaoh, rather than things getting off in an encouraging way, things immediately turn for the worse. Pharaoh rejects Moses and his request from Yahweh, says that he doesn't know who Yahweh is and has no regard for him or his authority. And then Pharaoh turns around and it worsens the condition of the Israelites, takes away the straw that was being provided, says now you'll have to forage to find the straw that is necessary, but we will not diminish the quota of bricks that you're to produce. And they treat the children of Israel harshly. And surely what Pharaoh hoped to accomplish in that was to get the Israelites to turn against this would-be deliverer. And that's exactly what happens. So in chapters 5 and 6, you have Moses now in Egypt come to deliver the people, and Pharaoh is against him, and the people are against him, and it seems as though God has abandoned them. Lord, what are you going to have me do? I mean, why have you brought me here? You haven't improved their situation. You've made it worse. And that is when the Lord, having already begun this conversation at the burning bush, talking about what he was going to do and how he was going to bring the people. Now the Lord takes the next step, revealing more about his plan and his purpose. Because as it turns out, Moses has not merely come to Egypt to bring the children of Israel out of bondage. Moses has come to Egypt as the prophetic harbinger of God's judgment against this nation. God has more pieces in play than Moses ever imagined. And this is not merely a rescue mission for the children of Israel. This is an act of divine judgment against Egypt. And God has put this Pharaoh on the throne at this time, and the Lord says, I will harden his heart so that he will not let these people go. And I will multiply my signs and wonders, and I will display my glory. And when it's all said and done, Not only will the children of Israel be gone, but Egypt will have been judged, and everyone in both people groups will know that I am the Lord. And so Moses begins standing before Pharaoh announcing these plagues, these plagues of judgment. And we suggested that while there are 10 plagues, it appears most likely that these occur in three cycles of three plagues, and then a capstone plague on the end. And we pointed to a number of features, and I've given you more information in the handout than what we covered in any of the class periods. And I'm not going to spend any time on that tonight. But just notice, if you chart out the features of the 10 plagues, you'll notice the first three, and the second three, and the third three, and then the capstone have cyclical similarities and cyclical indicators within the text. The first plague is the water turning to blood, the Nile River. turning to something like, or actually, blood. The fish die. The river stinks. The people can't drink it. And yet, here we see the ways in which God is going to harden Pharaoh's heart. We kind of see this initially in the initial sign. You remember Moses throws his staff down and becomes a serpent. And Pharaoh brings in his magicians. And they throw their staffs down, and they become serpents. Now, Moses and Aaron, that their serpent eats the magician's serpents, right? And so God's sign is the greater sign. And yet the replication of the sign by the magicians of Egypt was one of the means by which God could pardon Pharaoh's heart. Because Pharaoh looks at this sign and, yes, it's impressive. Throw a stick on the ground and it becomes a snake. But my magicians can do the same. And if my magicians can do the same, then this is not a god that I have to fear. Well, similarly, when the plagues themselves commence, Moses turns the Nile River to blood, seemingly. Moses' God does that, right? And yet the magicians of Egypt, the magicians of Pharaoh come in and they pour out water and it becomes blood. Now what we suggested would have been really remarkable is if the magicians of Egypt could have undone the plagues, right? That would have been remarkable. But instead, all they're able to do is replicate the plague. But even that is sufficient reason in Pharaoh's mind to not fear the God that Moses is representing. And so they replicate the first plague. The second plague, right, is the frogs. All of these frogs come out and they cover the land of Egypt. They're in the beds. They're in the bowls. They're everywhere, right? Now, the magicians of Pharaoh are able to replicate this plague as well, but they're not able to do anything about the frogs. And these frogs are exceedingly inconvenient. And so Pharaoh reaches out and says, take the plague away, take the frogs away. Do you remember this episode? A remarkable scene, because Moses, quite confident perhaps in his prophetic role at this moment, says, well, would you be pleased to name when you want God to take this plague away? Maybe in Moses' mind, Moses is thinking, all right, this is it, right? We've won. Pharaoh has been vanquished. Little does he know how much yet lies ahead, right? And Pharaoh makes the most remarkably foolish request that maybe occurs anywhere in the Bible. Because what does Pharaoh say? He says, tomorrow. And Mrs. Pharaoh has got to be going, tomorrow? Now would be good. Yesterday would have been better, right? Now would be fine. Tomorrow, you want to spend one more night with the frogs, right? Well, that's what happened. But do you remember what God does? Here again, another way in which God is hardening Pharaoh's heart. God does something about the frogs. He doesn't remove them. He kills them right where they are. These frogs start flopping over and dying, and now instead of being infested with frogs, we're infested with dead frogs. And they pile them up, and the whole nation, the whole country around the Nile River stinks because of all of the frogs. Now, does it seem to you like God is not playing fair? Remember, the Lord says, I have put this Pharaoh on this throne. We're going to see this expressly in chapter 9 when Pharaoh himself is going to be told this. I have put this Pharaoh on this throne. God knows who he's dealing with. He is not dealing with an innocent person. He is not dealing with a neutral set. He is dealing with a man who is rebellious and unrighteous. And God is justified in judging him. But before he judges him, he will put him on the throne. and harden his heart so that his judgment might breach not only Pharaoh, but the entire nation that has exalted themselves against God. See, the plagues are not merely God's attempt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. God could have done that without 10 plagues. The plagues are his judgment against Pharaoh and against Egypt and against all the gods of Egypt. and a manifestation of God's holiness and His judgment to the people of Israel as well. We're going to pick up in verse 20. I know I'm skipping over the third plague. I am going to talk about it in just a minute. We're going to pick up in verse 20 where we had left off, and I'm going to read through the end of chapter 8, and then we'll pray and ask God's blessing and commence with our study tonight. 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 Yahweh, let my people go that they may serve me. 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. 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 Yahweh in the midst of the earth. Thus I will put a division between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall happen." And Yahweh 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. Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, go, sacrifice to your God within the land. But Moses said, you would not be right to do so. For the offerings we shall sacrifice to Yahweh, our God, are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to Yahweh our God, as He tells us. So Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in the wilderness, only you must not go very far away. Plead for me. And Moses said, behold, I am going out from you, and I will plead with Yahweh 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 Yahweh. So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to Yahweh, and Yahweh did, as Moses asked, and removed the swarm of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. Not one remained, but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go. All right, let's bow and listen. Heavenly Father, we are impressed with the perfect way in which you have ordained all things. And yet we're mindful, Father, that in the moment, in the present, your way often is unclear to us. Your hand of providence is often hidden from us, that we cannot see what you are doing in the moment, certainly not with perfect clarity. And as we reflect on the past, as we look at the promises pertaining to the future, we confess, Lord, that you do whatever you please. You do it for your glory, and all that you do is good. We pray, Heavenly Father, tonight that you would help us as we examine this passage for a few minutes together. We pray, God, that you would be pleased to bless us and to help us to open our hearts, to increase our wisdom as we study this passage, that we might where I will be able to apply the lessons that it teaches in our own lives and be reassured of your faithfulness in our present and forever in the future of your people. In Jesus' name, we do pray. Amen. So when God sent the second plague of frogs, Pharaoh had said, well, if you take this away, I'll cooperate. And of course, he didn't. And that's what Moses is referring to here now with the fourth plague. He says, don't cheat next time. Make sure you don't say that you are going to yield to our God and back out of that. That's not going to go well for you. But what happens in the third play? This third little plague is inserted, this plague of gnats or lice. Awful plague, right? I mean, really little, probably some kind of little biting fly type thing. And a miserable plague, right? And they're everywhere. And there's just a pestilence. Now, I want you to notice something. Nobody has been harmed yet. Nobody's been harmed yet. The first four plagues are what we might call nuisance plagues. That's about to change. These naps or lies would have been just miserable. There's no indication that Pharaoh says, hey, if you'll do something about this, then I'll cooperate this time. In fact, there was no announcement of the plague. Did you notice that? That's significant. Pharaoh says with the second plague, hey, give me relief and I'll cooperate. Then he reneges. God says, you're not getting any warning this next time. I'm just going to send a plague. Period. You can figure out why that is. Now, with the third plague, the magicians of Egypt come out, and they attempt to replicate this plague the same way that they did the sign with the staff, the same way they did with the first plague, the same way they did with the second plague. Well, with the third plague, they're not able to do it. Now, we emphasized this a month ago when we were covering that plague. What happens this time? Is God's ability to produce gnats somehow a special act, a special form, a deeper magic, if you will, that the magicians of Egypt don't have access to? No. As far as I know, it is no more difficult to produce a swarm of gnats or biting lice than it is to fill the nation with frogs or to turn a river into blood, for that matter, right? Those things are equally impossible to men. But why were the magicians able to replicate the first three songs? Well, I told you, I think, that it's a reference to demonic power. Some people think it was illusion or some kind of deception. I think that there's a real power here, that the law of Moses subsequently warns the Israelites against and says, listen, witches and sorcerers get stoned. Not for doing card tricks, but because magic is real, and it's forbidden. It's inferior, but it's real. So why can't their magic, from whatever source it may come, replicate this third plague? Because God says, not this time. God says, no. Not even the demons can leave a man and go into a pig unless God gives them permission, Mark chapter 5. Satan cannot lift a finger against the servant of the Lord, who is Job, unless God says, OK, you can do this, but no more, right? Even the demons believe and tremble. And even the power of evil, if you will, is subject to God's ultimate sovereignty. I don't mean by that that God is guiding the demons or commanding them to do evil. But what I am suggesting is he's got them on a leash. Right? And when he so chooses, he can jerk them back. And this time the magicians come, and they're going to replicate this plague of gnats, like we need more biting lice in our lives, right? And they try, and they can't do it. And it scares them. It frightens them. What do they tell Pharaoh? This is the finger of God. And what effect does that have on Pharaoh? The opposite of what you or I might expect, it hardens him. Right? His heart was hardened previously because his magicians could replicate the sign. Now his heart is hardened because his magicians failed. And he doesn't like that. And so with this fourth plague, we rafted it up to another level. Now God is going to do another new thing. He's going to send a plague of flies, incredible swarms of flies. Did you notice that the description of the plague itself says that the land was ruined? by these flies. Well, what do flies do? I mean, flies, they don't devastate crops like locusts will, right? They don't kill anything. They're not vicious animals, right? But can you imagine, can you imagine a swarm of flies like this? And the filth? that would come over the entire land as a result of these flies, the disease that they could spread. They don't have a concept of germs, right, at this point, but we know those flies are carrying all kinds of disease and they're everywhere. They're in your eyes, they're crawling into your mouth and your nose you can't get away from, you can't hide from them, they're everywhere except in the ocean. If God makes a distinction in the fourth plague and says, I'm going to put this plague on Egypt and not on Israel, what does that tell you about the nature of the first three plagues? They affected everyone. They affected everyone. We're going to return to this idea before we're done with the plagues, by the way. Why would God send three plagues that would affect his people as well as the Egyptians? because the plagues are not just about moving Pharaoh into doing God's will, right? These are pedagogical. In other words, they're intended to teach something. God is using the experience of suffering convey a message. And as C.S. Lewis said, pain is God's megaphone, right? Well, the first four plagues don't cause a lot of physical pain. Like we said, they're nuisance plagues. But boy, they would be inconvenient, miserably inconvenient. I'd be thinking about moving out of Egypt at this point, right? And yet the first three affect the Israelites and the Egyptians seemingly equally. The fourth plague, God says, now you're going to see the difference that covenant makes. Now you're going to see the difference that promises make. Let me tell you something. There is nowhere in Scripture that God absolutely, across the board, promises, when I judge the world as an unbelieving world, my people will not be touched. Now, there are times in biblical history where those kind of promises are made, where God says, I'm going to bring this judgment against this people at this time, but I'm going to protect my people, right? And that's a beautiful thing. But there is no promise that I know of anywhere in scripture that says just across the board, when God judges the unbelieving world, his people will never suffer. And in fact, I'm confident there's no promise like that because there are too many counterexamples to it in Scripture itself. How many times do the righteous suffer in relation to the judgment of pagan nations in the Bible? Well, that happens quite a number of times, and these pledges are an example of that. Do you know why that is so important in your life and in my life? But sometimes we may feel like, listen, if God loves me, and if God has made promises to me, and if I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, then I'm somehow insulated, right? I'm protected. I'm in the land of Goshen. I'm living in the midst of an unbelieving world, but I am somehow secure. And then the first three plagues come, and they affect the land of Goshen, too. You say, hey, what's going on? God's teaching us something. Because guess what? It's not just the Egyptians who need to learn who Yahweh is. Israel needs to learn that too. Israel needs to learn that. The Church of the Old Testament needs to learn who their God is. This is the prevailing theme, by the way, of the Book of Ezekiel. Here is a prophet sent to proclaim the word of the Lord to the captives in Babylon, right? Whereas Daniel is sent to the nobility, the administration of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, Ezekiel, in a roughly contemporaneous period, is sent to the captives in Babylon. And do you know the refrain that is repeated some 70-something times in the book of Ezekiel is, then they shall know that I am God. I am the Lord. I am God. Right? And they're going to know it. How? By experiencing suffering, judgment, struggle. This is where we come to know God. This is how we meet God. This is how God draws us closer to himself. What does God do? He fills Moses with all of the learning and instruction and wisdom and ability of the Egyptians. And then he says, now, go out into the wilderness and sit in the crock pot for 40 years and I'll come get you when you're ready. I mean, God loves crockpots, right? God works on us not with a microwave method, you know, where there's this instant gratification, this instant transformation. God puts his people in the crockpot and puts them on slow cook. And it's in that experience that all of the things that God is saying and doing begin to come together. But now with the fourth plague, God says, now, here's the next piece of the puzzle. Don't think that because the first three plagues affected everyone in this area that the Egyptians and the Israelites exist at the same level in my mind. They don't. Right? There's something called covenant. There's something called promises. And these are the people of Abraham, which means they're special to me. And I am going to take care of them. All right? And that means that God is going to protect them. And the way that he protects them through this and the subsequent plagues is going to be a really fascinating study, especially when we get to the 10th plague and the death of the firstborn. Because what will be necessary for God to protect his people will be a substitute, a sacrifice, right? Just a foreshadow for Christ, of course. But here he says, I am going to make a distinction in verse 22. On that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen where my people dwell so that no swarms of flies shall be there. For what purpose? Do you see the purpose clause? That you may know that I am Yahweh. Where? In Canaan? In Goshen? In Mesopotamia? In the Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham was from? No. In the midst of Europe. the whole earth, right? God looks at the entire scope of the created order, and he says, it's I. I'm Lord. Lord of lords, king of kings, right? Now, did you notice the distinction in pronouns in this play as we read it? Your God, our God. Pharaoh says, your God. Moses says, our God. Neither one of them are saying, the God. Not that it would be wrong, because Yahweh is the God. But it's more personal than that. Because Yahweh is not God in a covenantal sense to the Egyptians. He's the Israelites' God. And Yahweh is not God to the Israelites in just a generic sense of divinity, the God. No, he's our God, at least as far as Moses is concerned. The people will come along with that idea a little bit later, right? It's more personal than this. And yet, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is God in the midst of the whole earth. You see that? He is Lord over every sphere of human existence. Verse 25, Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron and says, go sacrifice. Now, he's not said it yet. He's going to say it in chapter 9. He's not said what he ought to be saying, which is, I'm a fool and I've sinned against God. No admission of guilt on this part yet. No humbling of himself before the Lord. But nevertheless, he is annoyed greatly by this plague, troubled greatly by it. And so he says, OK, fine, you can go and sacrifice, but you've got to do it in the confines of the land. We talked about this several weeks ago when we were introducing the exodus. And I indicated at that point that one of the ways that God hardens Pharaoh's heart is by presenting his word in a way that Pharaoh will never accept. Do you remember us talking about that? This is one of the ways God pardons people's hearts. He presents the word in a way that no one will ever accept, except by the Holy Spirit. except by the gift of God's grace, working faith in the human heart. My favorite example of this principle in the New Testament is in Matthew chapter 15. It's the only story in the Gospels where I actually prefer Matthew's account to Mark's, because I'm a Mark guy. Mark's my favorite Gospel. And it's the only story that is shared by Matthew and Mark where I actually prefer Matthew's account. And it's the story of the Syrophoenician woman, or the Canaanite woman. She has a daughter who is severely tormented by a demon. She comes to the Lord crying out for mercy and for help. She's a Gentile, understand. And Jesus, in a compassionate and pastoral fashion, ignores her. pays no attention, does not even acknowledge that she is there. She continues to cry out. The disciples become annoyed and they say, Lord, tell that woman to get out of here. She's a Gentile. She's annoying us. She's making a scene. Tell her to go away. And so he does. He says, I wasn't sent to you. I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Blessings that I have are not for you. You're a Gentile. pastoral and compassionate, like I said. Right. She continues to plead. The third time now, Jesus responds to her and says, you know, it's not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs. Now, I have heard men try creatively to make that a non-offensive statement. Let me assure you that was deliberately offensive. I heard somebody say one time, well, you know, he didn't mean some kind of cur in the street. He meant the little pet dog under the table, right? No. He just said the Jews are God's children and the Gentiles are dogs and the bread on the table is not for you. Now, what do you do at this point? What do you do at this point? You or I bow up, right? Get angry, pop off. Walk away, tell the Lord off as we go. Well, if it's that way, I don't want your help. Right. Probably say bad things about. No, what this woman does is she said, yes, Lord, but even the little dogs under the table eat the crumbs. The crumbs that fall, that's all she's asking. She is not saying that's not fair. I ought to be a child. She's saying, no, I'm a dog. I know I'm a dog. And I'm OK with that. And you're saying that the bread doesn't belong to me, and I'm saying you're right. You're right. It doesn't belong. And I'm not asking for the bread. All I need is crumb. All I need is a crumb. And I am content with that station. All I'm here is for grace. And I know I don't deserve it. And the Lord looks at her and says, Oh, woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you according to your desire. And I wonder how many people in churches in America today, or whether even I have the kind of faith that would continue to seek the Lord in those circumstances. Let me tell you something, that's what faith looks like. A faith that cannot be run off. A faith that cannot be offended. A faith that will not give up. A faith that, like Jacob, holds on to the Lord and says, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he is completely disabled when he says it. His hip is dislocated. He has lost this fight. And the angel of the Lord is saying, essentially, get off me. It's over. And Jacob says, not over until I get a blessing. And it's not because I deserve it. And it's not because I've won it. It's because I desperately need it. And I can't let you go without it. That's faith. And that's the kind of faith you'll never see in Pharaoh. Now, that's the purpose of this illustration, right? I want you to see what faith looks like. And I want you to understand that what God does in Pharaoh's life here is absolutely just. It is absolutely righteous, because God does not send Moses in Pharaoh's front door saying, hey, Yahweh has sent me. You don't know about him. He's a god. It's kind of a big deal, right? He's the true and the living God who made the heavens and the earth. He made promises to a man named Abraham about 400 years ago. And the Israelites are the result of some of those promises. He's not done with them. And so he's going to need you to let them go and let them move to Canaan. And we hope that's OK with you. Moses is not deferential, and he does not negotiate. He says, Yahweh sent me, and this is what he says, let my people go three days into the wilderness so that they can worship me. You say, what? Time out. That seems a little bit deceptive. That's not deceptive. It's just that Pharaoh's never going to do it. I thought that I thought the plan was to get the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of promise. It is. And that's where we're going. But we're going to get baby steps, baby steps, right? Because what God is going to demonstrate is that Pharaoh will not cooperate no matter what. But you know what he's also going to do? God is going to reveal to Pharaoh and to us that God is not a God to be negotiated with. that the Lord who calls men away from the nets and out of the boats is not a God that you say to. Let's talk about that. Could we kind of let me first go and say goodbye to those who are at my house? Well, let me first go and bury my father. Well, let me make sure that the terms of discipleship are kind of enough for me And if you're wondering what material I'm drawing on there, go home and read Luke 9 and Luke 14. This is not a God you'd negotiate with. So Pharaoh says, OK, OK, OK, if this flies are awful, right? If this God wants to be worshipped, fine. I'll give you a day off. Go sacrifice. Just stay in the land. Moses says, no, no. We have to go three days into the wilderness. Why? Look again at the text. Verse 26, Moses said it would not be right to do so for the offerings we shall sacrifice to Yahweh our God and our abominations, the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? We must go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to Yahweh our God. Notice the key phrase. As he tells us, so that's what this is about. It's not Moses who's hard to work with here. It's God who sovereignly imposes terms and not even the sovereign ruler of Egypt has standing for negotiating. You will either accept the Lord's terms or you will be cut off and cast out. Period. Period. There is no negotiating with God. Right? And God is teaching lessons here. He's teaching lessons to Pharaoh. He's teaching lessons to Egypt. He's teaching lessons to Israel. He's teaching lessons to us. And so verse 28, Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in the wilderness. Only you must not go very far away. Now plead for me. He's saying pray and ask for these flies to be taken away. And Moses says, behold, I am going out from you and I will plead with Yahweh that the swarms of flies may depart. Only let not Pharaoh cheat again. by not letting the people go to sacrifice to Yahweh. You would be tempted at this point in the story to say, I wonder what would have happened if Pharaoh had actually let the people go sacrifice, three days journey. Of course, that's kind of like asking, I wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve had not eaten that fruit, right? The reality is it's not going to happen, OK? It's just not going to happen. But is God in control? Folks, He's in control of every piece on that chessboard. Pharaoh's moving his pieces. God is not forcing him to do anything. And Pharaoh hasn't made a move yet that is outside of the ultimate plan and purpose of God. Later, many years later, in Isaiah chapters 40 through 48, This same God is going to explain his majesty as best it can be explained in human language to the people of Israel. One of the things he is going to say marks him out as the true God is that he is the God who announces the end from the beginning. That's what distinguishes the true God from the idols. It's also what distinguishes the true God of the Bible from open theism. which is unfortunately a doctrine of increasing popularity in American churches today. Open theism is the idea that God knows all things that are knowable, but the future free will choices of man are not knowable, therefore God doesn't know them, right? So God's waiting to see how this turns out just like you and I are, except he's not, right? That's an idolatrous and blasphemous view of God. Well, the Lord did, verse 31, as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people. Not one remained, but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also. People usually want to take one side of this equation or the other. They want to say, well, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, right? Just sovereignly, directly reached in, twisted that heart, took a good, innocent man, and made him evil. God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Folks, first of all, God has never made an innocent person evil, nor could He. You say that God is all-powerful. That's true. That doesn't mean that God can do anything. There's all kinds of things that God cannot do. He cannot make a square circle. Contradiction in terms, right? Has nothing to do with his power. Has to do with the nature of being. Can't make a square circle. He cannot lie, the Bible says. It's contrary to his very nature. Cannot fail. Contrary to his very nature. He cannot sin. It's contrary to his very nature. He never has and he never will corrupt an innocent person. The fact is, the Bible attributes the hardening of Pharaoh's heart both to Pharaoh and to the Lord. It's not an either or proposition. It's a both and. And we've dealt with that a good bit in previous lessons and in the notes. And so I'm going to leave it there for now. Chapter nine. Then Yahweh said to Moses, go into Pharaoh and say to him, thus says Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, behold, the hand of Yahweh will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds and the flocks. But Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die. And Yahweh set a time, saying, tomorrow Yahweh will do this thing in the land. And the next day Yahweh did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. And Pharaoh sinned, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go. We have stepped out of the nuisance plagues and into the destructive plagues. You see the difference? First four plagues were miserable. The fifth plague kills. And once again, there is the demand that Pharaoh honor Yahweh's authority in commanding his people concerning worship. Isn't this an interesting thing? The primary exercise of Yahweh's authority in this entire episode concerns his ability to command his people to worship. I mean, I guess as an outsider looking in, I might have said the most offensive thing about the Egyptian bondage of the children of Israel was not the prohibition of sacrifice, perhaps, and maybe not even the slavery itself, but was the execution of Israelite male children, right? Aren't those the bases upon which God would demand that Pharaoh release his people? God says, nope, this is about worship. God created the world for worship, he created people for worship, and he sent his word to bring forth what? Worship. And so there is that demand that Pharaoh acknowledge it. But now the Lord says, the next plague's coming, and this will be a very severe plague. I hope that you read the Bible, and particularly certain books of the Bible, with your imagination turned on. Because you could read through the entire narrative of the plagues very quickly, and it might not mean very much to you. I want you to try and imagine for a moment what this looked like the next day. I mean, when the Egyptians go out into their fields to feed their animals, are the animals already dead? Are they dying? Are they watching them fall? Are they seeing a plague sweep through? I don't know. I don't know. I just know that by the end of that day, all the Egyptian animals are dead. And Pharaoh sends messengers to Goshen to find out whether Yahweh kept His word that He announced through His servant Moses. And sure enough, they haven't lost a single one. I could imagine all kinds of natural explanations for this, right? Maybe Pharaoh is imagining some kind of terrible livestock illness that's coming upon every single flock, herd, and animal in Egypt, but not in Goshen. Natural explanations kind of fail at that point, don't they? Can you imagine how dramatic this would be? Can you imagine how traumatic this would be? Can you imagine how economically devastating this would be? God, through the plagues, is going to train wreck Egypt, which at this time is arguably the greatest and most powerful nation on earth. And he's going to train wreck them economically, religiously, agriculturally, and militarily. He's going to devastate them. And yet, Pharaoh's heart remains hard. If you are wondering how a person could remain hardened against the word of God under such extreme circumstances, let me respectfully suggest you do not know the human condition well. This is the human condition apart from grace. And if you doubt it, go home and read the book of Revelation and see what happens when God sends those plagues against the nations. Let's pick up one more verse eight. And Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, take handfuls of soot from the kiln and let Moses throw them in the air in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and become boils breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt. So they took soot from the kiln and stood before Pharaoh and Moses threw it in the air and it became boils breaking out in sores on man and beast. And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils for the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians. But Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh and he did not listen to them. as Yahweh had spoken to Moses. People will sometimes say, well, if the boils affected the Egyptians and the beasts, then obviously the last plague was not as devastating as the text suggests. And I would say that's only because you're reading the text too quickly. Remember, the dating of events within the plagues suggests that the period of the plagues is at least eight months long. And it could have been as much as a year. We know that from the harvests that are going to be mentioned in the very next pled, right? And so the Egyptians have got plenty of time to secure other livestock and animals. In fact, they would have to almost immediately begin attempting to do so lest their entire civilization collapse. And there's at least one place where there's plenty of livestock available and it's close by. And I wonder how many of these animals came from Goshen. Right? But that's just me wondering. We could not be sure. I don't know if this is several weeks later or several months later. But one thing I do know, that just as in the third plague, so here again in the sixth plague, there is no warning. There is no announcement. There is no prediction at this time tomorrow, I'm going to send a severe plague. No, they take soot out of the kiln and Moses and Aaron go stand in front of Pharaoh. What do you think he's thinking as they walk up? And Moses throws it in the air. Wouldn't you love to have seen what that looked like? Now, I mean, maybe I just have an overly active imagination, but I don't imagine that soot going up and down. And then Pharaoh's like, Big deal, right? Wes? Wouldn't the livestock and the beef maybe be different? Like maybe the wild animals instead of the livestock? Yeah, that's a good question, actually. I suppose that there could be some distinction at that level. I think, though, that when it refers to the beefs here, it's probably talking more about the domesticated livestock. But it's a fair question. It's a fair point. And it certainly could be that the effect of it was broader than just any domestic animals they may have regathered. I guess I imagine this suit, you know, Moses throwing it up and it doesn't come down, right? Right. It just goes up and it becomes this fine dust that suddenly is stretching over the whole land and is falling on the people. And when it lands, oh, men and animals have these painful boils. How bad is it? The pain of those, some of you have had shingles, I'm sure, right? The pain of these boils is so intense that the magicians, who apparently, even after their failure in the third plague, have continued to stand there with Pharaoh, I wonder, this is just a quick aside, I wonder if the magicians or if Pharaoh thinks that they're offering some level of support or protection, right? Maybe they're there to kind of ward off the evil of this God that they still don't understand. They can't replicate the plagues, but they're there for protection. What protection, right? They are in so much pain from the boils, they can't even stand up next to Pharaoh. Right? We have left the nuisance plagues. We are in the destructive plagues. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. And he did not listen to them. I want to plant a seed here, because I don't have enough time to cover the next plague. But I don't want to unpack this idea fully yet. The text will come to it later. We probably read this story and we think very narrowly about the effects of it, right? I mean, we've got Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh. We've got passing reference to the magicians. We've got kind of general allusions to the rest of the people and the Israelites and Goshen. But we don't have faces. We don't have names, right? I mean, we don't know about, you know, Billy Bob the Egyptian and what he thought of all of this. We don't know what some of these other people who are experiencing these plagues are really experiencing. But I want you to try for just a moment to put yourself in their sandals, right? You are John or Jane Doe, the Egyptian. And what are you experiencing? You go out one day, one morning to the Nile to bathe, and you see this redness coming. And you jump out of the Nile and say, what is going on? And before you know it, the whole river is blood. What is happening? You go back into your village and later in the afternoon, word comes to you that this phenomenon is happening all up and down the Nile. Every village along the bank of the Nile is reporting the same thing. And then maybe the next day you find out that there's been something that's happening with Pharaoh and these Israelites, these Hebrews, as they're known, the slaves. Some uprising, some demand. And you wonder about that, but you don't really know. A week passes and eventually the Nile clears and the hardship is passed. Time passes, maybe weeks, maybe months, I don't know. And then one day, you go out to the Nile and you start to see these frogs jumping up. Now, you've seen that before, right? Except there's a lot of them this time. And as you stand there watching, there's more and there's more and there's more and there's more. It's like an incursion of frogs. You understand where I'm going with this, right? You can imagine the rest of the plagues from your Egyptians standpoint. Now, what are you hearing? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you experiencing, right? And what kind of an impact is that having on your thinking? At what point, because remember, we're dealing with months. At what point does the news of Yahweh's name begin to be made known in these villages? At what point do you, as Joe or Jane Egyptian, have a conversation with one of these Hebrew slaves and say, you know, we've had some strange things going on here lately. What in the world is happening? And he says, our God sent a prophet. Our God sent Moses and our God is demanding that Pharaoh allow us to go and worship. And that's why this is happening. Pharaoh will not let us go. David. It seems to yeah, yeah Think about that, right? I mean How personally these things are affecting him even down to the tenth plague that we're gonna see soon. I Mean just try and put yourself in that Egyptian shoes though for a second And maybe an Egyptian that is not in immediate proximity to the to the conversations. Right. He's he's getting a second or third or fourth hand. And yet he's experiencing personally, tangibly all these plagues. I want to plant a seed and then I'm going to leave it there. You may not know who their names were. God knew who every one of them. Were. He knew their names. And he knew some of them before the foundation of the world. God has more in play than any of us ever really imagined. This is not just about getting the Israelites to camp. This is not just about sending Egypt a message. This is not just about punishing Pharaoh for being the proud, stubborn, insolent man that he is. This is not just about teaching Israel more about the God of their forefather Abraham. There is a whole lot in play, and you're going to see it unfold over the next several chapters. Does that make sense? Dick? Yes. Talk about a missed opportunity, you know? I don't know if Egyptians eat frog legs or not. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Forty years later, the whole city of Jericho locks its doors because they hear the Israelites are coming and they know what Yahweh did to Egypt. Like a door is going to help, right? Like a wall is going to help. God, okay, so as long as we've gone there, God saves Rahab with this story. Do you realize that? Rahab didn't see the Nile River turn to blood. She didn't see the frog. She didn't see the life. She didn't see the flies. She didn't see the sickness of cattle. She didn't see the boils or the hail or the locusts or the darkness of the death of the firstborn. She heard. And what does Jesus say to Thomas? You've seen and therefore believed, blessed are those who have not seen. but yet have believed. Rahab believes in God because of what she hears was done a generation before. And God saves her. And she's not the only one he's going to save in all of this, right? And I'm not just talking about Israelites. OK, that's our class tonight. Let's bow and pray before we go. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time and opportunity for the privilege of coming back into the Book of Exodus and observing the majestic way you ordained these events in the history of your people and in the history of Egypt. We pray, O God, that our eyes might be opened to how great and glorious you truly are and that we would be moved to reverence and gratitude, that we would be moved to worship because you are a great and an awesome God. We thank you for Jesus, who is our Savior and who is our hope, who came to bring your people out of bondage to sin and did so perfectly by the power of a sinless life and a perfect sacrifice. We thank you, Father, for that gift, for that blessing, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.