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Preacher: Ross Macdonald
Scripture: Exodus 7:14-25
Well, this morning we complete Chapter 7 as we begin the first of these next 10 plagues, which will take us up through the Passover of Chapter 12 and then shortly after the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies in Chapters 14 and 15.
So as we complete Chapter 7 and as we launch into the formal beginning of the plague narrative proper, I want to give some sort of prefatory comments about how I'm hoping to handle these 10 plagues. I'm not going to spend too much time this morning speaking to the structure of the plagues.
In fact, that'll be something that we will appreciate a little bit as we move forward. I don't think it's helpful ultimately to try to find some division. There's too many reasons not to divide it cleanly and neatly.
Some argue that the 10 plagues can be divided as a series of three triads, so a series of three threes plus the final plague as a sort of standalone or the sort of finale after these triads. And there's certainly something to say about the grouping of threes.
We have a pattern of a demand being issued twice with each plague and then the third time there's no demand issued. The plague is almost a capstone. So you get a sense that things are happening in threes.
Others see that there's sort of a split down the middle between the fifth and the tenth plague. So you have two sets of five. A death of the firstborn of the cattle of the Egyptians is the fifth plague and the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt is the tenth plague.
I don't think ultimately it's helpful whether we structure it as a series of three or five. There's a parallel between chapters seven and nine. There's an inclusio between the first and the ninth plague.
There's connections at every level. And for that reason, as we work through the 10 plagues, I'm only going to highlight certain features or connections or parallels as they come to us. I'm not going to force some external organization upon the 10 plagues.
Now there is a lot to say when we include Psalm 78 or Psalm 105 or Revelation 16 and even those things we'll take note as we work through the text. We want to appreciate not only what Moses records here in Exodus, but how other readers of scripture inspired by the Spirit of God have understood the events of the Exodus plagues as well, not least the Apostle John.
This morning, as we close out chapter seven, we'll do so in three steps. So in verses 14 to 18, we see the word of the plague. In verses 19 to 21, we see the act of the plague. And then verses 22 through 25, the ignorance of the plague, essentially Pharaoh's ignorant response to the plague.
So let's begin with the word of the plague, Exodus 7 beginning in verse 14. So the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning when he goes out to the water and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him.
And the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand. And you shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you saying, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness.
But indeed, until now you would not hear. 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.
And the fish that are in the river shall die and the river shall stink and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river. The first thing we read in this particular section is that Pharaoh's heart is hard.
That we of course saw last week when we considered the judicial hardening of God. So this is not some new announcement. We could almost understand it as Pharaoh's heart remains hard. Pharaoh's heart is now heavy.
God's hardening touch has already met Pharaoh's heart even before his plaguing touch will touch the river. And of course we see in a more dynamic way even here how Pharaoh becomes responsible for the condition of his heart.
That's something we'll appreciate chapter by chapter up until Pharaoh's destruction. Pharaoh's heart is hardened by the judicial hand of God and yet Pharaoh has no excuse. He cannot blame God though he cannot run nor will against the hand of God and we'll see exactly why chapter by chapter even here at the end of chapter 7.
Pharaoh is responsible for the condition of his own heart. There is no excuse to be laid at the feet of God. Neither can God be understood as the author of evil. What is Pharaoh's heart? It speaks to Pharaoh's whole being.
Speaks to Pharaoh's will. Pharaoh's mindset. Speaks to Pharaoh's desire. Here it speaks to Pharaoh's character.
It speaks to Pharaoh's soul.
That's what the heart is. From it all the issues of Pharaoh's life flow. From your heart all the issues of your life flow. Your heart speaks to your character. Your heart speaks to your soul. Your heart speaks to your will and your desire.
So we see a hardening of all these very things. Of his character, of his desire, of his sympathy, of his empathy. All of these things being hardened by his own sinful rebellion against the Word of God.
Now with the beginning of this we are reminded again that God is hardening Pharaoh for the sake of displaying through Pharaoh his divine power. Remember we saw that last week in Romans 9. For this very reason I have raised you up that I might show my power in you.
So with that the Lord gives this first instruction to Moses. Moses is to go to the very banks of the Nile River and intercept Pharaoh and his retinue, as it were, as they come down the river. John Gill in his commentary points out, Abimezra, an ancient scribe, thinks this was a custom of the Pharaohs, especially in the summer months of June and July when the river would increase and almost like gauging the groundhog to understand the coming of spring, they would go and gauge the levels of the Nile to think through what the fruitfulness of the season may bring.
Or else, Gill writes, he went to worship the rising sun or the Nile or pay morning devotions to his gods. And my answer as the famous Ortega commercial asks, why not both? He's going not only to boast and inspect the fertility of the river, but also to pay homage to the god of the river.
Also pay homage to the sun god and all the chief gods in the pantheon of the Egyptian empire. Of course, the true greatest gods are the god of the sun and the god of the Nile. In Egyptian understanding, this was their sustenance.
And so the god of the sun, Ra, and the god of the Nile, and in fact, many of the Egyptian gods, as I'll explain later on, had a lot to do with the Nile and their religious mythology. Of course, these are all idols that God in bringing plagues is seeking to expose and destroy.
His claim as the one true god over against the false gods of the Egyptian empire. He's, of course, by that exposing idolatrous worship, which ultimately is always worship of the serpent, even when the idol is the serpent.
But all idolatry is serpentine, satanic worship. And so men don't see it in this way, but in the Lord's eyes, there's a way of worshiping money. You worship the idol of money. And sometimes that idol has a name.
Other times it's not named in our modern context, but it's all an idolatrous form of robbing God of his glory, giving glory to that which does not deserve glory, giving glory ultimately to the evil one.
We'll see this again as we work through step by step how God is laying a claim against the gods of Egypt. God is exposing the false worship of the Egyptians over against He, the creator and sovereign God.
But also, God is exposing the strength, the pride, the arrogance, the might of the Egyptian empire. All of this comes down in the confrontation of divine judgment. Notice, this is an aside, but notice, because I love this.
We read, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you. God doesn't say to Moses and Aaron, go and confront Pharaoh. And now they have to trudge up to Pharaoh and they have to somehow find a way to get that conversation going.
God gives them everything they need to know. Go to Pharaoh and say this, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you. It's a passive construction. You go with my name in your mouth. You go with my sending instructions.
That's why you're going. That's very helpful, I think, to Christians. Sometimes we receive people. Sometimes people are put upon our path, maybe not on the banks of the Nile, but in the aisles of Walmart or what have you.
Sometimes we even feel that prompting, that urge to find a way to speak of the Lord, but we don't even really know where to start. So we just start kind of, how are the Celtics doing? You think they're gonna pull out game seven?
And God, no, how am I gonna get that to the Lord? Oh, well, Celtics, symbol of luck. And well, I don't really believe in luck.
I don't know about you.
Do you believe? I believe in sovereignty. You look for some glimmer in the eye. Or someone you're talking to, and for 15 minutes you've been going in circles. There's no in road. They're playing zone defense.
You can't get that conversation to things of the Lord until they say, well, have a blessed day.
And you're like, oh, a Christian.
Here in New England, that's like automatic Christian, right? Don't you love that God says, you go and tell them that I have sent you. And if we were to think this way and approach people in this way, so many of our anxieties and frustrations would melt away.
If we would just go and understand, ultimately, the Lord has sent us. It's the beginning of having some nerve, some confidence before levels of power even. The Lord has made it clear in his word, and I'm here to represent that word.
I'm here, in some ways, I've been sent to make this plain to you. This is what the Lord has said. To almost remove ourselves out of the equation so that we are simply vessels. We are simply passageways for God to send us through God's word to get to ears and hearts.
And the more we can relate to that and think about that, I think the more effective we will be in our various encounters. Certainly, as many of us are considering ways that we can address the lesser magistrate and the greater magistrate with him, we need to be understanding this logic.
The Lord God has sent us. The Lord God has put his word in our mouths. The Lord God has something to be known and to be heard. So we don't need to find ways to relate, ways to level, very neat, little, interesting, strategic milestones along the way.
We can just put things out there. This is what the Lord God has said. This is what I believe. For now, this is the last word that Pharaoh will hear from the Lord until chapter 10, verses one and two. And there's a lot of plagues between this first plague and chapter 10, verses one and two.
Three, to be exact. So Pharaoh looks upon the Nile River as the very source of Egypt's life, the very source of his power, the very boast of his glory, but the God of glory is about to make this idolatrous boast the very stench in the land.
All that Pharaoh would enrobe himself with as his majesty will now become the very plight and the very plague upon his empire. And please be reminded, God is the same yesterday, today and forever. This is not the Old Testament God who was very vindictive and judgmental and thankfully we have a grandfather like God who winks at our idolatrousness in our nation.
No, no, no.
All of a sudden God doesn't say, well, I used to really be concerned about idolatry and arrogance and a rejection of the creator God and a refusal of his purpose for creation and redemption, but now I'm kind of okay with it all.
Any nation can do as they see fit.
What we see here is the God who has never changed, the God who has no shadow of turning within him, bringing judgment upon the very source of idolatry in a nation, exposing that great wisdom and might and powerful claim to be folly and foolishness and vanity.
He's undermining the very core of Egyptian strength. Do you not think he will do that to a nation like ours? Do we not see throughout the annals of history that God has always done this to empires, going to the very core of their strength, exposing their folly and idolatry and bringing them to nothing?
Moving forward, the Lord reveals two specific purposes. First, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness and by this you shall know that I am the Lord. So first, this desire for God to be served and then secondly, for God to be known.
And of course, this is not a matter of order but sort of a both and. God is to be known and served. God is to be served and known. This is part of the reason he is bringing the judgment upon the land.
Now this is given as an ultimatum. This is in the form of a demand, but we'll notice there is no demand because there's no condition attached to it. This is more of an announcement than an ask. The ask was already there in chapter five.
The ask was already there in the first half of chapter seven. This is not God's demand upon Pharaoh as if Pharaoh has any condition upon him to turn back what's coming. But it's given in the form of an ultimatum.
And the verb here is different than we've seen. It's not that they'll go feast in the wilderness, it's that they'll go serve in the wilderness and here we have that ironic wordplay with this word in Hebrew, ebed, which can be translated serve in this context.
Slaves serve, they ebed, but worshipers ebed also, they worship. So the same word translated as serve is translated elsewhere as worship. And here we see some of the beauty of Hebrew narrative. The slaves had been ruthlessly called to serve Pharaoh as a harsh taskmaster, and yet God wants them to serve him.
And what's that service gonna look like? Worship, freedom, liberated worship. The same word pointing to two completely different realities. This points to the fact that our very purpose in life is to serve God.
As the first catechism question puts it for the Presbyterians, the second for the Baptists, as I've been reminded. Our great purpose in life is to serve God in this very way, to worship Him. To worship God is to serve Him.
To serve God is to worship Him. That's something that involves every aspect of our lives. It involves our hearts and we already said, the heart speaks to the total reality of our life. This is why we were made.
This is wherein our chief joy rests. To serve any other master is to lead to servitude, self-denigration, self-depravity. To serve any other master leads to bondage, into misery. That's what service to Pharaoh looks like.
That's what worship of Pharaoh looks like. That's what worship of idols in your life looks like. Sure, it offers some semblance of security, some place of belonging, but at the end, there's only misery.
But when you serve rightly, when you worship the right master, there you find the chief joy. There you find your very reason for being, the reason for everything that is, that God may be glorified by all and in all.
So it points out that this whole storyline of Exodus has this concern at the very heart. Going back to the very beginning of Genesis 1 and 2, God as creator being glorified in the midst of a redeemed creation.
God dwelling with redeemed humanity. That's the end of Exodus. God tabernacling with his people. Not saved to do as they please. Not brought out of Egyptian bondage and then they just take a beeline and say, well, now we can finally get on with the things that we've always wanted to do that we couldn't do when we were slaves.
No, now they're slaves of righteousness. Now they serve a new master. Now they've been yoked to the one who loves them and who saved them. Therefore, their whole lives are put on a different track that is still not their own.
Yet that track is a line filled with blessedness and peace. And so it is for the Christian. Not only is Pharaoh to know the Lord through these signs, but the children of God are to know the Lord.
Through these signs.
Remember where we left off the people of God. Moses had done some of the introductory signs and then we saw the Hebrew foreman as the labor increased under the heavy hand of Pharaoh cry out against Moses.
They rejected the word of God. Just like Pharaoh's rejecting the word of God. And so Moses, of course, as we entered into chapter seven, he had gone into the Lord, crying out to the Lord, even his faith was shook.
So where we've left the people of God is they doubt the promise of God. They reject in many ways the word of God, just like Pharaoh. And so these signs are for their benefit as much as for Pharaoh. Both Pharaoh and the people of God have doubted the word of God, have rejected the word of God.
And yet the people of God will be saved through the judgment while the enemies of God will be brought to condemnation.
Through the judgment.
There's nothing that sets the people of God apart from the Egyptians in this matter, except the sheer mercy of God upon them, that He desired His judgments to be the means of their salvation rather than their ruin.
And so it is with the Christian. There is no difference between us and those that are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, but sheer grace that is rested upon us. For we did not receive the word apart from Him.
We did not believe the signs apart from Him. We would not have come to Him apart from Him. Unless the Spirit of God had been put within us, we would not have been born again. And if we had not been born again, we would not have come to faith.
And so there's no difference here. The judgments that should fall upon us have not fallen upon us. And we have been freed, not of ourselves, but for the very glory of God. All that we would know the Lord.
Not through His condemnation, but through His mercy that we would know the Lord. Psalm 78 verse 12 says this very thing. Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt. So it's not just the marvels in the eyes of Pharaoh, it's the marvels in the eyes of God's children.
He did these things for their sake as well. But of course, Pharaoh is central to the plague narrative and the interaction between Moses and Pharaoh and ultimately between God and the principality behind Pharaoh is always in view.
And notice what the Lord says explicitly about Pharaoh's hardness. Until now, you would not hear. Until now, you would not hear. And until doesn't mean that's about to change. He says even up to this point, you would not hear.
Don't be surprised at what I'm about to do. Even till now, you would not hear. Beside the mystery of divine sovereignty interwoven with man's responsibility, we know, of course, we've established this.
Man is left without excuse. God is first cause, God is sovereign, He does whatever He pleases. And yet, in that mystery of man's responsibility, man's culpability, man is left without excuse. And we see that even here.
We have just read in the first part of chapter seven, I am going to harden the heart of Pharaoh. But then what does God actually say to Pharaoh when Moses confronts him on the Nile? Even till now, you will not hear.
Now, if God had hardened the heart of Pharaoh, why does God need Pharaoh to hear that? Why is God establishing that fact to Pharaoh? He's showing the responsibility to Pharaoh. He's showing the agency of Pharaoh.
He's showing the responsibility of Pharaoh. Even now, you will not hear. And so we always point, not beginning with the sovereignty of God to end with the sovereignty of God, but beginning with the sovereignty of God and pointing to the responsibility of man.
Have you been given ears to hear? Hear, because even till now,.
You have not heard the word of the Lord.
And that will not be on the Lord on that great day. That will be on you. Now, as I said, we don't have this normal demand, this normal condition. Pharaoh is told judgment is coming. Very rarely in the Old Testament do we have signs which aren't meant to confirm the Word of God.
God is not in the business of doing signs for the sake of doing signs. God does signs in order to confirm His Word. We have that as a pattern through various instances, not only as we'll see in Exodus, but through the prophets.
We have that as well at the foundation of the church in the New Testament. Signs that confirm the Word of God. You can read that throughout the course of Acts. This is not signs that then draw people away from the Word, but rather confirm the truthfulness, the veracity of God's Word.
And that's a very important point because well-meaning Christians today become very obsessed with signs and they miss the fact that the signs are there to draw you to the Word. I'm always very hopeful for those Christians that claim to have received a sign or seen a sign and have only thereafter been led into a deeper trust and walk in the Word, not pandering after more signs and not following after peddlers of signs.
It's always a good sign. So Muslims, for instance, in very hard-to-reach places for the Gospel, and you hear of almost endless reports of Muslims having some sort of encounter, almost like Jacob in his dreams, having an encounter with the living God.
And I have very little reason to doubt that that is true if the fruit of that is then being drawn to the Word of God and devoting themselves, even sacrificing themselves for the sake of that Word, not looking for more signs.
And I've met men in seminary classes that have this testimony. They don't like to share that very freely or easily. They're almost embarrassed to admit how the Lord first broke into that darkness in their lives.
But it's important to point out this first plague is not conditional upon refusal. Don't imagine that Moses will go intercept Pharaoh in his retinue on the Nile, and Pharaoh can go, okay, fine, I turn back.
And it's like, oh, good, well, now the plague will be stayed. No, it's too late. This is simply the announcement of the plague that is already coming. In other words, Pharaoh doesn't have a chance. And I say that because some people, they live their lives outside of Christ, and they delude themselves thinking, when the right chance comes, I will come to the Lord.
I just need the right chance. When the right time, when the right chance comes. Look at this very carefully. This is not a chance for Pharaoh. This is not a chance. If you're looking for a chance to come, when that chance comes, it's already too late.
We see, secondly, the act of the plague, verses 19 through 21. When the Lord spoke to Moses, say to Aaron, take your rod, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, over all their pools of water, and they may become blood.
And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants.
And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died. The river stank. The Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
Water, one of the most essential gifts of God's creation, is here rendered useless. To understand how distressing this would have been for the Egyptians, one has to appreciate how dependent they were upon the Nile.
The Nile was the key to Egyptian power actually being Egyptian power. There would be no Egypt if it were not for the Nile. Egypt didn't make the Nile. The Nile made Egypt. That's why the Nile along with the sun were the chief gods over Egypt.
Not only was it the sustenance by which crops were watered, but also it was their transportation system to move all of their goods and all of their troops from place to place speedily. It formed, of course, the irrigation system that enabled them to grow great agriculture that even in the time of the Roman Empire was still the breadbasket of the Mediterranean world.
We find at the very end of Acts 28 what is Paul shipwrecked on, an Alexandrian grain freighter. Where's that coming from? Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world. And so if you look at the historical importance of the Nile for this particular region and the agricultural abundance that led to sort of global dominance at this period in time, you can recognize how important this first plague is.
Now many commentators, they want to assert a theory of natural causation for the plagues. Natural causation for the plagues. Now I personally want to say there's a series of consequences that need to be understood as natural successive events.
But in no way should we ever see these plagues as anything but supernatural acts of the Lord God. German higher critics love to write massive monographs explaining why there's all sorts of ways we can understand that these were just typical phenomena that were perhaps longer or more intense than usual.
Well, that is not what the narrative paints for us. These are acts from the hand of God. And yet in saying they're supernatural or above nature, it does not repudiate the fact that they involve nature.
So many of these plagues will be, of course, beginning with a supernatural act of God, and yet there'll be various natural phenomena and consequences that flow from these supernatural acts of God. So I would encourage you to hold both together.
We shouldn't speak of supernatural acts as repudiating nature, though they are above nature. And so of course we give the predominance to God acting outside of, apart from, even against nature, and yet because He's acting within nature, there are natural consequences that flow from it.
This is an ecological disaster of epic proportions. If it were to happen today, what would the response be? It would probably be an army of white-suited FEMA troops and prophets on MSNBC crying out about how to prevent the next one, smashing cars of SUVs or what have you.
We would probably have every response under the sun except the response that matters most, the response that matters most to this particular plague here in Exodus chapter seven. That is a response toward the Lord God, not a response toward the plague or the effects of the plague or the prevention of future plagues, but a right response to the Lord God.
If this were to happen in our day, as many natural disasters have occurred in our day, we can see, as we have seen, every response, every concern imaginable would be stated, but they would all be geared toward what happened and how can we prevent it from happening again?
Who did this and how can we prevent them from doing it again? They'll never ask the question why, speaking at that higher level, at that sort of transcendental level, why do things like this happen? Why did this particularly happen?
In other words, they'll look to all of the immediate horizontal reasons that this could have happened, that this should not have happened and how to prevent it from happening again. But we recognize, as readers of Exodus, that this happened because the Lord God stretched out his hand and struck the land.
And therefore, the ultimate cause lies with the Lord God. Therefore, the ultimate response must be toward the Lord God. You don't need an army of FEMA troops to prevent the next plague. You need humility and repentance before the Lord God to prevent the next plague.
Now, that's true in people's lives as well. It's not just true of empires, true of people. Some cataclysmic event, some trial erupts in their life and they look at perhaps the thought, could this be a chastisement?
No, no, no, no.
Could this be the judgment of God for this or that?
No, no, no, no, no.
What's the immediate horizontal explanation and reason? How can I look to every possible reason and answer that has nothing to do with God rather than recognizing that everything has come in direction toward the Lord?
We have to be very careful at how we understand these plagues and what that means for human history, what that means for civilization, what that means for nations like ours. We'll be circling back to that in a moment.
This is not just something that happened to ancient Egypt as a one-off. There's wars and there's rumors of wars, there's famines. Even these are from the hand of God. The Puritans had this understanding of history that nations are judged by God and yet nations cannot be judged in eternity for every individual soul is judged at eternity.
On that great day when all is laid bare before him, he doesn't say, all right, I'm gonna judge you as an individual, as a soul that I have made, but I'm also gonna judge you as an American or when you migrated here, you're kind of half in, half out of that.
No, he understood he judges nations in history. Nations are judged in history. And so these acts of God that we see, isn't it interesting that insurance agents still have the possibility of claiming something as an act of God?
And what do they mean by that? We cannot give a natural causation for this. This is so beyond our statistics for how we measure insurance that this is just an act of God. Why did Billy Ray's pickup truck get struck five times by lightning?
That's an act of God. What was Billy Ray up to? We look at our nation and we recognize there's nothing so unique about our nation that our nation will not be judged in its history, in the course of history, as God is working his redemption through the fallen world.
Unto that great new creation. So we look very carefully, not only at our nation and the plagues and disasters that come that should not provoke us to the immediate response or the politician's answer, but actually to the Lord.
Is it not distressing to you? To see not only the God haters, not only the atheists and the secularists and the Marxists, but to see even evangelicals saying thoughts and prayers are meaningless right now.
We need more than thoughts and prayers.
That's so low.
That's just an excuse not to act. We don't need thoughts and prayers.
Excuse me.
That's what we need most.
Forget the thoughts. Let's just talk about prayer.
I don't know how a thought is helpful at all.
Prayer.
Wouldn't it be great if the nation would bend their knees and pray and cry out to God for mercy? Otherwise, God will take our lifeblood. Our lifeblood is not the Nile, but we certainly have all sorts of vulnerabilities in the things we boast about.
With our great economy, with our GDP, with our military prowess, with our global hegemony, we have so many Niles as a nation that God could strike and bring us to nothing. Just as God strikes the lifeblood of Egypt and makes it blood.
And what do we read? The fish that were in the river died. The river stank. So even if the people weren't there close to the banks of the Nile, you go out to sort of the remnants of the empire, Father Aloof, the whole land began to stink.
The 19th century. London as a city was the first city in the 19th century to break the one million person threshold since ancient Rome around the first century. That's a lot of centuries. That's almost two millennia before that million person city threshold was broken again.
And of course, as you have a massive influx of urbanization in London with that, as our good friends at Blue Owl know, you need to address plumbing issues. There were 200 ,000 cesspits within a span of about 30 years, 360 new sewers, and Charles Dickens wrote that the Thames was becoming a deadly sewer more than a fresh river.
And that all came to a head in June of 1858 when the temperatures in London soared on average between 93 and 97 degrees in the sun up to 118 degrees, which caused evaporation along the Thames so that raw sewage was exposed all along the banks of the river.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert went out for a pleasure cruise. It lasted eight minutes. They couldn't breathe and they went back to the palace and soon the parliament evacuated and no one wanted to be anywhere near the Thames.
And that event in the hands of the press became known as the Great Stink, the Great Stink of London in 1858. Michael Faraday and many other brilliant civil engineers ended up creating the modern sewage system that London still operates under.
Well, this is Egypt's Great Stink, the Great Stink of Egypt, and Pharaoh is not going to want to do a pleasure cruise along the bloody Nile. And I should say also, this is not the first time the Nile was reddened with blood.
This is not the first time the Nile was reddened with blood. And that's a very important part to understand this first plague. If you've ever seen that opening scene of Saving Private Ryan when they storm Omaha Beach at Normandy and after the battle, the main character played by Tom Hanks is sort of handshaking as he takes a swig from a canteen and he looks back and he sees just the scene of carnage from that initial wave.
And the cinematography is interesting because as it sort of sees these various amounts of gear and limbs and bodies coming in on the waves, you see that the waves coming in on the sandy beaches are red, red waves, red with blood.
That's what this scene would have looked like minus all of the soldiers. Red waves, bloody waves. When we come to Revelation chapter 16, we find this language mirroring Exodus chapter seven. We find bloody plagues in the book of Revelation.
John, of course, and we're gonna see this again in John's gospel at the very end this morning. John, under inspiration of the Spirit, is a very careful reader of scripture. John in his gospel, much like Revelation, loves thematic imagery, pregnant imagery, heavy laden with deep symbolism for redemption or judgment.
And we see that here in Revelation chapter 16. So beginning in verse three, we read, these are the final bowls or vials of wrath being poured out as judgment upon the earth. We read this, the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea and it became blood as of a dead man.
And every living creature in the sea died. So we have this judgment poured out on the waters just as we have in Exodus seven and the waters become blood. And the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water and they became blood.
Again, thematic ties to Exodus chapter seven. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, you are righteous, O Lord, the one who is and who was and who is to be because you have judged these things. So not only do we have this Exodus seven imagery of the waters, even the rivers, becoming blood, but we also have the Lord who is the great I am.
Remember the great theophany of Exodus chapter three for the first time since reading Genesis, we understand that the Lord is the great I am. And we have that in John's way of phrasing it, the one who is and the one who was and the one who is to be.
And then this cry, you are righteous, O Lord, because you have judged these things. So judgment has come in the form of blood turning to water and the cry continues. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and you have given them blood to drink.
It is their just due. And I heard another from the altar saying, Lord God Almighty, even so, true and righteous are your judgments. Do you see what Exodus 16 is holding together out of, sorry, Revelation 16 is holding together out of Exodus seven?
The judgment of God turning the waters into blood is a righteous judgment of God. And why is it righteous? What does the judgment correspond to? Or what does the voice from the altar say? They have shed the blood of the saints and the prophets.
They have shed the blood of the righteous ones.
And so you, O righteous judge,.
You have given them blood to drink. Now you see what John's holding together. This judgment of God is not God on a random Wednesday deciding to be angry about something. He's saying, well, I can do whatever I want and I'm gonna strike the Nile and turn it bloody.
Though we have already forgotten.
And maybe the Israelites had already forgotten that Israelite baby boys were dashed into pieces and drowned in the Nile, God hadn't forgotten. And so John is saying to a persecuted church, it may seem that God has not heard the cries, the weeping by the night of mothers who no longer have a child to embrace because that child is floating in the Nile and his blood is polluting that water.
We may have forgotten,.
And it may seem that God has forgotten,.
But you are righteous, O God, and your judgments are righteous.
And if they have shed the blood of your people, you have given them blood to drink. So we see in Exodus 7, this great transformation of the first few chapters of Exodus. God now answering in judgment.
We see, for instance, Moses. We first meet Moses in the context of that slaughter of the massacre of the Israelite children, the massacre of God's chosen people, the massacre of those that God had given great promises to.
And we see them cut off, cut short, plunged into the river under the hand of this evil serpentine empire. And so God, as righteous judge, is sending forth plagues upon them. And there we met Moses as he drifts down that Nile past all the pools of blood into the very court of Pharaoh.
And because Moses was taken from the banks of the Nile into the house of Pharaoh, his life, his household, the destiny of his nation was changed forever. And now here in Exodus 7, because Pharaoh has met Moses on the banks of the Nile, his life and his household and his nation will be changed forever.
They have shed the blood of saints and prophets. You have given them blood to drink. When I think of our nation, and I think of God being long-suffering, and I think of far more baby boys and baby girls being slaughtered than any Pharaoh could ever hope, could ever imagine, I wonder how long it will be before God gives us blood to drink as a nation.
That's why we need prayer. This is a judgment not on Egypt's idolatry, not just on Egypt's boast,.
On Egypt's strength,.
On the glory robbing of the sovereign God. This is a judgment on Egypt's guilt. That's what the first plague is getting across. God is righteous in all that He does. And then the most tragic part out of this whole outcome is instead of being struck to the heart, Pharaoh completely ignores the plague.
We read beginning in verse 22 through 25, then the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, but Pharaoh's heart grew hard. He did not heed them as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house.
Neither was his heart moved by this. And the Egyptians dug all around the river.
For water to drink.
Because they could not drink the water from the river. Seven days passed after the Lord had struck the river. Well, first we see the magicians and they're able to replicate this miracle of God. Again, I don't think we have to assume some Vegas parlor trick.
I think we know that they dapple with satanic arts. They have enchantments. And I think there's something to say about their supernatural replication. But they're outgunned and they're soon to be outgunned.
We'll see them the next time and then no longer. Pretty soon you run out of ways that you can replicate what God the creator can do. Notice though the irony. And this is why I think God includes this.
They're able to copy this plague. They're able to take water and turn it to blood in Pharaoh's sight. But notice they couldn't have do what needed to be done. They can't turn that blood back into water.
That's what Egypt needed. So what are they doing? They're adding to the plague.
All of the water is blood.
And they happen to have by some infernal art.
A bowl of fresh water. That should, don't you guard that.
All my guards around that. Only I'm allowed to drink it. And it's almost like the final ironic crowning of the plague. I'm gonna even use your trusted advisors to further my plague. Even they'll turn your drinking water into blood.
They can't turn it back. We'll see the same thing with the frogs. They can make the frogs increase but they can't make them decrease. They only add to the plague rather than remove it. But of course all of the narrative spends this detail elaborating Pharaoh's response which is a lack of response.
Oh please hear me by the way. A lack of response is a response. A lack of response to the Lord is a response to the Lord. Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them. As the Lord had said and Pharaoh turned, went into his house, neither was his heart moved by this.
We won't see this level of detail again until chapter nine. That's because chapter nine is linked with chapter seven. Pharaoh's heart growing hard, not heeding. Then these extra details, him turning. Again, in a narrative every word matters.
In Hebrew narrative you don't have any space to waste. Very evocative detail that Pharaoh turned and his heart was not moved. It shows you one of two ways to respond to the Word of God that's brought before you.
You can either not respond which looks like turning away, going back home, turning away, going into your house and having your heart unmoved. Or it looks like turning to the Lord, refusing to run away from that Word.
Because your heart's being moved by that Word.
Every time the Word of God goes forth, one of these two responses must be elicited by the people of God. We either have unmoved hearts and we turn away from that Word and go back to our own familiar comforts or because the Word is moving in our heart,.
We turn to the Lord.
We won't go back to our old ways, our own familiar comforts. We'll press on to know Him in greater ways. There's a hunger after the Word as we said last week, a love for the Word of God. But here the plague has had no effect on Pharaoh so he turns away.
The first plague has struck, he's completely unmoved though all of the water around him has turned to blood. He feels no guilt, he feels no irony, he feels no curiosity, he feels no concern, he has no dread.
He wakes out those seven days completely unflinching under the judgment in the hand of God. Completely unflinching. You read about, I was reading, I don't know why, I was on a little medieval stint midweek.
I was reading a little bit about Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt. Some of us went to that battlefield some years ago and I was reminded of the success of the longbowmen as they were outnumbered and they were fatigued.
And the French cavalry followed by French knights, they were fresh, they were well trained, had incredible armor. The one thing they didn't have was a very effective archery because of the development of the English longbow.
And so by the time the ranks actually came, the cavalry was so depleted and the ranks were exhausted trudging through the mud that the English swept them off pretty easily. They lost thousands, the English lost a few hundred.
And it was supposed to be a routing. I remember going to the museum and they talked about the effectiveness of this long-range longbow, kind of raining arrows down and how even through the plate armor it could pin a man to his horse.
Think about that. But the thing that reminds me of Exodus 7 is that the French didn't turn back after the first volley of arrows and they didn't turn back after the second volley of arrows and they didn't turn back after the third volley of arrows.
We see in Pharaoh that same, you'd almost want to call it courage if it weren't blind folly. To endure the judgments of God and not relent and not turn back until like the French, your forces are utterly swallowed up.
And that's what we see here. The beginning of the first volley and the volleys will keep coming. This is a sign and a miracle that's meant not only for Pharaoh, as we said, but even for the people of God.
This is God's doing and it's wonderful in our sight. One thing I would say else about this and we'll come to some application, I'll have to be very quick, but I feel this is an important point to stress.
Who knew that God was the one that had turned the Nile to blood? We at least know Moses and Aaron. We at least know Pharaoh and his magicians. We assume others within their households. We assume elders within the people of God, perhaps most of the people of God for that very reason.
How many Egyptians do you think recognize that Yahweh had struck the Nile with blood and that is why they were struggling and suffering to find water? I would venture to say very few, perhaps almost none of them.
So Egyptians went to bed one night drinking water from their nightstand and they woke up the next morning to find that water blood red. And they went out to their well and pulled up the bucket and found more blood.
And they did not have an explanation for these things. There was no word going forth for these things. The only explanation was taking place on the banks of the Nile between Moses and Pharaoh. That was the explanation.
And yet they experienced the judgment. That was the explanation and yet they were experiencing the judgment. Perhaps they were ignorant to the inner workings of what was taking place in Pharaoh's heart and why God was bringing judgment upon their nation.
But even though they were completely ignorant to it, they still experienced it. They may have even been Egyptians who were critical of Pharaoh who said, I wish he would lighten up on the Hebrews. I really wish he would just let them go and kind of free them or make them equal to us at least to give them all they need to do their work as they used to do it.
But even those sympathetic Egyptians still had to meet with the experience of God's judgment. And so you see the point, I hope. Judgment falls upon a nation and we may not be given the explanation for that.
It's a confrontation between God and the authorities of that nation. It's a confrontation not between God and only those who are against God. No, no, God, even those for God, even those sympathetic with God as God judges a nation.
So let us not be surprised as believers when we wake up and we have blood in our cups and in our water bottles, so to speak. God's judgment upon our land is a judgment upon our land. But at the same time in God's fatherly shepherd-like care, we know that he will provide for us, he will protect us.
And so we have no need to panic, no need to fear, no need to have anxiety about the judgment of God. Though we experience often the bitter edges of that judgment, we at the same time will experience the providing care of God.
It may reduce us to being fed by bread by ravens, but hey, that's a pretty good backup plan when you don't have bread. God takes care of his people even when they experience judgment upon the land. So applications, I'm gonna skip my first two.
This is a rare occasion, I assure you, because I want to at least make the last point clear. First, I want to recognize what was already pointed out about the magicians, and we'll see it again with the frogs.
Their weapon is turned against them. They're trying to replicate and so undermine God's act, they actually end up furthering God's act. It's an important step to see because we're gonna see this in the way that the serpentine powers try to undermine the purpose and promise of God, and yet in trying to undermine the purpose and promise of God, they further it.
What seems so minute of a detail here becomes amplified at the foot of the cross. The cross is the serpent's attempt to finally take down and destroy forever the promised one, to be the answer that God did not promise in Genesis 3 .15.
I won't just strike the heel, I will kill. You can picture Lucifer with bated breath waiting for Jesus to give his last breath, and then all of hell rejoicing in chorus. We have defeated the promise of God.
We have overturned the promise of God. There is no redeemer, there is no redemption. There is nothing sure about salvation now forever until someone came down to those infernal parts on a great triumph.
The very weapon formed against the Lord becomes the means of furthering the purpose of God. The very strike upon the promised seed's heel becomes the means by which the head of the serpent is crushed.
That's the mystery that was begun in Genesis 3 .15, and it's revealed in the fullness upon the tree. Throughout the book of Revelation, you find this refrain, the Lamb of God has overcome by His blood.
That's the most striking contrast imaginable. How can a conqueror conquer by his defeat? How can the king reign by being slain?
Things don't work in this way.
And this is the great mystery of God's redemption, that in His very crucifixion, He was crowned. Now let's think about that for a moment when we look at this image of water becoming blood. And as I said, signs and wonders attest the Word of God.
We find that emphasis in the Gospels. Jesus says as much about the signs that He's doing, to believe therefore the testimony that it is true. We find the same in Paul, speaking of signs and wonders among them.
We came to you with many signs and wonders, and He understood these things to testify to the truth of the Gospel. One of the greatest things we need to see with this water becoming blood is when Jesus comes, how different the signs and the wonders are.
Because one of the things that we find unfolding in Scripture that Paul loves to draw out is the great contrast between the way that God was and the way that God is now through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, the way that God brought salvation and redemption has not changed so much in manner, but rather by means. And here, I think, is where the signs really matter. God is always the one acting in grace, always according to His promise, always by His grace.
That has not changed, but what a contrast we see between Moses and the signs that Moses performs and our Lord Jesus and the signs that He performs. So Moses comes to give this sign of turning that water into blood, a pronouncement of guilt, an image of defilement, a foretelling of the ruin of the people that depended upon that.
That's what Moses brings as His sign. And as I said, John is a very careful reader of Scripture, and he loves thematic imagery. We saw that with Revelation and what John's pulling out of Exodus. What about John's Gospel?
What does John highlight? Remember John chapter one, he highlights this contrast. Moses came with the law, Jesus came full of grace and truth. He wants us to understand there's a contrast that needs to be established between the covenant of the law and this great covenant of redemption that is coming now with the Lord Jesus Christ in its fullness.
So John chapter two, we see the contrast pressed a little bit further. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.
And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, they have no wine. Jesus said to her, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever He says to you, do it.
Typical Jewish mother, eh, you're gonna do it. He'll do it, don't worry about it. Now there were set six water pots of stone. According to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing 20, 30 gallons apiece, Jesus said to them, fill them with water.
And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, draw some out now, take it to the master of the feast. And they took it. And when the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom.
And said to him,.
Every man at the beginning sets out to drink wine, but the good wine. And when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You've kept the good wine until now. This beginning of signs, Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory.
And His disciples believed in Him. Now what does John want to see, want you to see in this episode? Especially when we've just come out of the beginning of signs. When water was brought to the master, Pharaoh, and it was to him a sign of utter abject condemnation.
And ruin.
And it was a picture of God striking forth in judgment upon the land because of the guilt of that land. But with this beginning of signs, we see water not turning to blood, but turning to the best wine.
And we read that this is how Jesus manifested His glory. Now, how is turning water to wine a manifestation of God's glory? It's not just the mere act of turning water to wine. It's what turning water into wine rather than blood typifies or signifies.
It typifies that Jesus has come not with the condemnation of the law to strike those who are condemned in guilt, but He has come to give Himself to be a blessing, to be fruition, to draw His people to a feast.
He has come to manifest His glory as the one who foretells, the one who occupies, the one who draws them into His kingdom. And so we see this beautiful contrast. Even here in Exodus chapter seven, we can't help but wonder when water turned to blood as a sign of condemnation, that Jesus in the fullness of time came and turned water into wine as a sign of His great mercy.
If I could put it this way, choose this day whom you will serve. Will you experience the condemnation of the God who turns guilt back? Or will you come to the God of all mercy and be drawn into the kingdom of the Son of His love?
Many years ago, I went to a exhibition at Worcester Art Museum called Hope and Healing, and it was a curated collection of paintings and sketches that were coming out of the late Renaissance as a response to the bubonic plague.
And so you had a lot of imagery that was pretty bleak, as you can imagine, throughout the bubonic plague, when people thought the world was literally falling apart, and a third of Europe was dead, a plague of God upon the land, to be sure.
And yet, some of these paintings were chosen by these curators, whose whole job, by the way, is to look through endless catalogs and thousands of images and try to find the right piece to get across the point of that exhibition, and they chose marvelously.
And I was particularly struck by one wing where there's landscapes, but they were all very bleak and dark, in part, how they were painted, but in part, just the process of colors, especially heavily saturated colors, darkening over time.
And if you're not restoring them, everything kind of gets lost under the smoky fog. So you just saw this wall of very bleak pictures, but the one color that had shined through was a sort of bright bluish or yellowish hue, probably because of whatever they used to make that oil color.
That hadn't faded at all. So you had this wall, very dark, bleak pictures. Think of the context of the plague, the ruin of the cityscape. But behind that was just the dawning of the sunset. And even here in the plagues, and please remember this as we walk through the plagues, even in the bleakness of the destructive hand of God, decreating the land of Egypt, bringing their guilt and condemnation upon them, bringing them to ruin as a people.
Remember this glorious lining of the dawning coming of the promised one, who doesn't turn water into blood, but turns water into wine, who has not come to bring condemnation, but comes to bring salvation to His people.
And that has come to give any application. There's been almost no application this morning. If that leads to any application, it's this. And I close with this encouragement. We too must remember that we have not come to offer to people a spirit of fear or the dread of condemnation.
We have come of ambassadors of the Gospel. We have come with tidings of peace, with offers of hope and mercy. And though we hate the stench of the land, though we long to see, as the voice from the altar cries out, the righteous judgment of God, let us not for a moment think that we are then within this kingdom of God to advance by a cruel, vicious, cold-hearted condemnation of those that are not a part of the kingdom, but rather with pleadings and entreaties of love, with acts of love and works of love.
This is what it means to be a Christian. And I think this will be our greatest challenge yet. We long, of course, for the kingdom of God to advance until the very day that it's consummated. And as we long to be a part of that advance in greater ways yet, we must always be reminded that that kingdom is the kingdom of the Son of His love, not of His wrath.
And so the kingdom of God advances how? With a biting mockery? With a death wish? With a celebration when God brings ruin upon people?
No.
As Ernest Shurtleff in his famous hymn put, lead on, O King Eternal, till sin's fierce war shall cease, and holiness shall whisper the sweet amen of peace, for not with swords loud clashing or roll of stirring drums, but with deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes. 1.
John says, my little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It's hard for Christians who see the stench of the land and long for the righteous condemnation of God upon it to love in truth.
So take that as a parting application when we move forward in this exodus narrative that we all need to be challenged to understand that as Christ has come not to turn water into blood, but by His own blood to turn water into wine, so we also must be those who love mercy.
And love to show mercy.
Because we don't just love in word, we don't just love even in deed, but in truth.
Let's pray.
Father, we are not sufficient for these things, and so we ask, Lord, that You would bless us and help us. We thank You for Your love. We thank You, Lord, that shortly we ourselves will press the wine to our lips, which signifies Your blood.
We're reminded, Lord, of that first sign which spoke to us tidings of peace and of hope and of goodwill, of blessing in a sure future. And this was all of Your grace, not of us, that You would be glorified, Lord.
And we pray, as Christians, we would be so struck by Your love that we would learn how to love one another in deed and in truth. And from that, learn how to love the lost, even in deed, the enemies of Your kingdom, how we would learn to love them in deed and in truth.
These things we ask in Your Son's name, amen.