Good morning. Today we’ll be taking a look at the 8th chapter of Exodus, the second book of the Bible. We are in the beginnings of the Exodus, the freeing of God’s chosen people, the Israelites, from slavery in Egypt. But the current Pharaoh is a tough nut indeed and he is more than a little spoiled by over 2 million free slaves and is not ready to simply let his free work force go. God has raised up Moses and his older brother Aaron to be His spokesmen to Pharaoh, and up to this point, well, it’s not going too well. The first request to let the people go was received with a chuckle from Pharaoh. Moses next makes his staff turn into a serpent in front of Pharaoh but it too, was received with but a scoff. God then turns the entire Nile River to blood, and we’ll see that this will finally start to get the attention of Pharaoh. Like the temperature dial on a cooktop, God will continue to dial up the heat on Pharaoh until he cannot do anything but a hot-foot dance and admit who Almighty God truly is.
We saw yesterday that the 10 plagues are not necessarily a war against Pharaoh but more specifically against the false Gods that are worshipped in abundance in Egypt. With over 2000 gods worshipped in Egypt; God was more than a little upset with these folks. So, He will dethrone and humiliate 10 of the most powerful Egyptian gods to prove to Pharaoh, the Egyptians, the Israelites, and even us today, that He is God and God alone.
Today we’ll see in chapter 8, plagues 2-4. We’ll also start to see a pattern emerge. God will tell Moses what to say to Pharaoh about the next plague, Moses will go tell Pharaoh, Pharaoh will scoff, the plague will come, Pharaoh will repent and promise to let the people go, God revokes the plague and then Pharaoh reneges on his promise. This bitter cycle repeats until the 10th plague when God has to get deathly serious to force Pharaoh to keep his word. We’ll apply this principle a little later, but for now, let’s look quickly at plagues 2-4.
The second plague, the one that follows turning the Nile to blood, is frogs. Now be sure to remember that these aren’t just random animals or events, God is specifically waging war upon the major gods of Egypt. One of the most beautiful temples in Memphis was to the goddess Heqt, a quite unattractive woman with the head of a frog. She was a goddess of fertility and openly worshipped among all people in the land. Because of Heqt, all frogs were sacred and could not be killed or harmed. So, ironically for the second plague God brings frogs upon the land. A lot of frogs. They were everywhere. If you walked, you walked on frogs. If you sat, it was on frogs. When you slept, there were frogs on your pillow. We’re told they were even in the ovens and kneading bowls! (Ex 8:3) I personally can’t stand frogs, they’re just freaky little fat lizard looking things. Maui had some of the biggest, fattest frogs ever and it seemed they would always pop up at inopportune moments. Many times, I had my heart stop as a huge frog would intercept my path with a mighty leap in my direction, attempting to attack me and bring swift violent frog death. I don’t know what leaped more, the frog or my heart. The frogs push Pharaoh over the edge, he promises to let the people go, God takes away the frogs and then Pharaoh refuses to let them go.
The third plague is gnats. Now depending on your Bible translation, it can say either gnats or lice. The Greek root word here means to “nip” or “pinch” so they were insects that bit. Some scholars even think they could have been mosquitoes. Regardless of which insect, they all bit you and that is a real problem. The god of the dust (or soil) of the Earth was Geb, and we’re told in Ex 8:16-17, “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the ground,’ and throughout the land of Egypt the dust will become gnats.” They did this, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, gnats came on people and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats.” Notice carefully that the word dust is used a whopping four times in 2 verses. Clearly calling out Geb, the dust god. The third plague upon the land is directed at Geb and as the Egyptians pray to him for deliverance, he cannot offer any solace from the army of insects biting them day and night.
The fourth plague brings flies. Anything God does He does big and the plagues are no different. This would have been a lot of flies. You can see so far that the first plagues were not merely a hardship, but they were a great nuisance. Gnats and mosquitoes? Grrr, they’ll drive you batty with even one of their little bites that irritate, itch and burn seemingly for hours. And flies? Even though most flies don’t bite they still will drive you crazy with their incessant buzzing and constant attention to your food. When Marge and I were in Cozumel in August, we rented a car and drove around the entire island to explore. On the far back side of the island we found a little beach side restaurant called Bob Marley's and stopped in to check it out. What we found was some of the best fried coconut shrimp we’ve ever tasted. So here we are, the two of us, sitting under a palm thatch umbrella with our feet in the sand 20 feet from the Caribbean Sea, eating coconut shrimp and tacos. No one else aorund. The good life indeed and moments like this we refer to as “happy thoughts.” But we weren’t completely alone for this romantic beachside lunch, we had flies. About 5,000. They were on our food, on us, just everywhere. But Marge in her genius had an idea. After enjoying a few tasty shrimp, she tossed the tails across the table and boy did the flies follow in hot pursuit. After a while we had 10 shrimp tails covered with all 5,000 shrimp, enjoying their lunch not ours. Flies. The Egyptian god, Khepri had the head of a winged insect and was thought to move the sun each day in it’s path across the sky. By controlling the flies, God sent a message about who wins when he takes on Khepri.
But as I read about the plagues what sticks in my mind is not the suffering, the discomfort or even how God is dealing with Pharaoh, it’s the heart of Pharaoh. The hardness of his heart and how he deals with Almighty God. It makes me think that even today, we are not that much different at times in how we deal with our Heavenly Father. Let me expound.
You see when everything was cruising along sweet, safe and comfy, Pharaoh had no need for God. God was distant and unknown. But God burst onto the scene into his life through the demands of Moses and now Pharaoh finds himself dealing with the God of the universe. God came knocking on Pharaoh’s pyramid door and He has a command. Let my people go. Pharaoh refuses. How many times in your life has this happened? Life is cruising along, you really don’t need much of God, I mean why would you, everything is going great, right? I mean don’t you only need God when things are going bad? But God intrudes into our lives and ask something of us…and we refuse. We like things the way they are, it’s simple, good, fun and familiar. We tell God, don’t rock the boat. I’m not proud to say it, but I have been guilty of this many, many times in my life, telling God no. Go ahead, you can be honest here too.
So, in order to get us to move in His direction, God turns the stove dial from 1 to 3. A little heat to get us to move. But what you notice in the instance of the plagues thus far, is that God could get Pharaoh to move, He just hasn’t got him to stay moved. So far, he has promised to let the people go three times and backed out each time. Now this is something that should strike a nerve in our lives. The heat gets a little too intense, we cry out to God, He reduces the heat and we go right back to what we were doing. We forget our promise to God or our cry to God and end up right back where we were at, forcing God to grab that stove knob once again. I call it the “yo-yo effect.”
You see, God only wants the absolute best for us. His plan for us is perfect but how we react to his plan is usually far from perfect. In His love, grace, mercy and patience, He guides us. With the utmost in care and love, He moves us around the obstacles, the problems and pain so we can enjoy a path of peace, joy and harmony…if we follow it. But when we get off the path, He might need a small plague (or two) to get our attention and move us back onto the path. Not punishment, but love. Just as our loving human father will rebuke or correct us to move us back onto the path that he knows will keep us from harm, suffering and pain. The goal? As God removes the plagues in our life and we promise Him to stay on the path, do it. Make your promises to God as strong as His promises to you. Don’t be like Pharaoh and once you get what you want, revert back to the status quo, but let God’s direction in your life have a lasting effect, building one lesson upon another. Until one day you look back and see that God’s hand has been guiding you constantly as you heeded His loving advice.
God bless you today as you walk with the King of Kings as your guide. May you heed all of His wisdom.
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