Plagues A Plenty

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

All right, let's pray Lord jesus this great thanksgiving week.

00:05

We thank you for all of your blessings and gifts to us We thank you especially for the gift of salvation forgiveness of sins

00:12

We thank you for the gift of your word that sustains us as you feed us in our wilderness wanderings

00:18

As we head towards our true promised land in the new jerusalem the new earth all of this we ask in jesus name.

00:25

Amen All right All right We're going to start to get into the meat and potatoes portion of Exodus at least as far as the action is concerned things are going to ramp up There's going to be non -norwegian conflict

00:44

I know Can you believe? And it's important that we get what's going on in the book of exodus

00:53

And that is is that this is a showdown a showdown between a false god king

01:02

As well as a showdown between well the true god and all of the false gods of egypt

01:10

Now we won't engage in the verbal gymnastics. We'll do our best to pronounce these words as best as we can.

01:16

I do not Read or speak ancient egyptian So that's not one of the things i've learned but what we're going to do is we're going to note as we get to this part of scripture

01:28

That each and every one of the plagues that god wrought against egypt

01:35

If the egyptian gods were true gods They should have been able to stop it

01:41

They should have been able to act contrary to yahweh and the other thing that's kind of important When we use the word catholic as christians, we use the word catholic catholic means universal

01:56

And here's the idea in the ancient world gods were territorial so if you were to cross a river or Go over a mountain range and enter into a particular region

02:08

You would need to find out who the deities were that were in charge of that region And oftentimes you would need to make a sacrifice if you're traveling through recognize their their dfdf well

02:22

Their godly powers, right i'm trying to be snarky here And so the idea then is is that remember the hebrews are not from egypt

02:35

Yahweh is well, he's not a god of egypt. And so on your home turf

02:42

Deities are supposed to be able to win the day other deities are not supposed to have power in that capacity and Back in the days before football.

02:51

I know You know, we're we're talking, you know, have you ever seen a map? of like different pockets of fandom for nfl football teams throughout the united states

03:04

If we were in denver, it's all orange here It's this purplish weird color and I I don't understand that but down in indianapolis everything was blue for the cults

03:13

And so you kind of think of it this way football teams had territories And if somebody beat another football team on their home turf, that's kind of a big deal because you got the home team advantage

03:23

But back in the days before there was football They would have armies That would go to war during the war season, which was after the mud

03:32

You know went away and you could travel on the roads and then before it became rainy again And the roads turned into quagmires because of of the winter and so during the war season

03:43

You know different armies would fight each other and if your army beat another army Oftentimes deities were associated with armies or with regents and it would be seen as our god defeated your god and what's absolutely hilarious in scripture

04:02

Is this little factoid helps us get what's going on in the subtext of a lot of things

04:07

In the bible and you see that god doesn't play by the rules when yaweh

04:16

Well suffers defeat if you would militarily and everybody sees this as a great victory for A particular deity things don't go well for that deity.

04:27

I'm going to give you an example Let me pull this up in my bible real quick before we get started.

04:32

This is all kind of preface i'm going to look for the for the god dagon in the

04:38

Old testament Yeah, here it is First samuel chapter 5 we'll just this is all part of preface first samuel chapter 5.

04:48

This is an example Um, it says this verse 1 when the philistines captured the ark of god

04:54

What had happened is is the philistines and the israelites had a battle and Well the philistines won

05:02

And as a result of it, you know as the battle was going poorly They actually came and got the ark of the covenant brought it out to the battle with the thinking that if we have the ark

05:10

We're going to win the philistines won and they captured the ark And so it says this when the philistines captured the ark of god

05:18

They brought it from ebenezer to ashdod Then the philistines took the ark of god and brought it into the house of dagon and set it up beside dagon now dagon is kind of like a mermaid or merman god if you would and so Here's the ark of the covenant of israel

05:37

In the temple of dagon and the reason for this is simple dagon just defeated yahweh

05:45

But is dagon there No, so here's what it says. So And when the people of ashdod rose early the next day behold

05:55

Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the lord So they took dagon and put him back in his place

06:03

But when they rose early the next morning behold dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the lord

06:09

And the head of dagon and both of his hands were lying cut off on the threshold Only the trunk of dagon was left to him

06:16

This is why the priest of dagon and all who enter the house of dagon do not tread on the threshold of dagon in ashdod

06:21

To this day So you'll notice that god doesn't play fair So there he is in a pagan temple, you know, at least the ark of the covenant is and when no one's looking

06:31

Throws him over he's like And you know, it's like what what they put dagon back up Just knock him over again.

06:40

God doesn't play fair. And so what ends up happening if you read the rest of the chapter Is that things go really poorly for the philistines really really poorly and this isn't supposed to be this way because Yahweh's magical box is in their territory and their gods should be the ones prevailing

06:59

Over yahweh because he's he's out of his land And so the idea then coming back to the concept

07:06

I talked about when we talk about the church being catholic the church being universal back in the ancient world, this was a

07:14

Revolutionary idea it was as revolutionary as the iphone. It was as revolutionary as the printing press it was

07:21

Totally revolutionary to have a catholic religion One that applies and is true for all people of all nations all tribes all languages all

07:34

Geographical regions and that's what the term catholic means universal So you kind of got the idea here

07:42

So this is a little bit of the subtext of what's going on in exodus In the book of exodus and we're at the tail end of exodus chapter 4

07:49

We're going to work our way through this if you remember moses has been commissioned by god

07:55

To go and set the people of israel free from slavery and he is so not on board with this

08:02

You know and literally says to god, please send somebody else Which is just absolutely a scream if you think about the theology there

08:12

And so moses chapter 4 verse 18 moses went back to jethro His father -in -law said to him

08:18

Please let me go back to my brothers in egypt to see whether they are still alive jethro said to moses go in peace and Yahweh said to moses and midian go back to egypt for all the men who are seeking your life are dead

08:31

So moses took his wife and his sons had them ride on a donkey and went back to the land of egypt

08:38

And moses took the staff of god in his hand And yahweh said to moses when you go back to egypt see that you

08:45

Do before pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go

08:55

Sounds like a great assignment, right? You're gonna do it Yeah, this is god's judgment

09:03

When god hardens someone's heart in the face of such powerful miracles his intention is judgment

09:10

And who is he judging again the false god king and all of the false gods of egypt

09:16

So I will harden his heart so he will not let the people go Then you say to pharaoh then you shall say to pharaoh thus says

09:22

Yahweh and i'm going to use the lord's name here each time because I think when we get into pharaoh's

09:28

You know royal hall It's actually you got to get the name in there because it helps us better understand.

09:35

So thus So when you say to pharaoh thus says yahweh israel is my first born son

09:43

And I say to you let my son go that he may serve me If you refuse to let him go behold,

09:49

I will kill your first born son Now this language in this text should key us into what's going on here

09:57

We're dealing with some type of typology In old testament terms that's pointing to none other than the son of god himself.

10:06

Israel is my firstborn son singular Huh It's like that's a weird way to talk and if as we get into advent and into the christmas season and we read the stories about jesus going into egypt because Well herod's out to kill him, right?

10:27

He says this is to fulfill the prophecy out of egypt. I have called You kind of get the idea here.

10:33

So this is one of the passages that helps us understand that jesus

10:39

Is all of israel squished into one person He's the ultimate compressed file if you would

10:47

He's all of israel squished into one person and he is the one who fulfills All of the demands of god on our behalf and that's important theology.

10:57

And this is one of these passages that helps us get that So israel's my firstborn son.

11:02

I say to you let my son go so that he may serve me if you refuse to let him go I will kill your firstborn son

11:09

Now if we were to do this today, there would be a lawsuit against moses, you know This is this is a form of you know, kind of physical bodily threat threatening murder now comes one of the most bizarre

11:23

Passages in the old testament. Let me read it And we'll see how puzzled your faces look and then we'll kind of unpack what's going on here

11:30

At a lodging place on the way. Yahweh met him sought to put him to death

11:36

Then zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched moses's feet with it

11:42

And said surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me So let him alone.

11:48

It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision You're going

11:56

What just happened there this this literally this is one of those pieces where it just like it drops out of the sky

12:02

And you sit there and go what on earth is going on? You have to kind of work through this text backwards to get it so here's the idea moses is on his way to Egypt to goshen to the land of you know, where the people are in slavery.

12:18

He's been commissioned by god, but here's the issue his one of his sons isn't circumcised another of his sons is

12:28

This tells us that there was well Religious tensions in the home of moses

12:36

And that his wife was the source of these tensions So somehow they had come up with some type of a compromise

12:46

All right, this son gets to be circumcised fine. Zipporah that one doesn't well, this ain't gonna work

12:53

This ain't gonna work She's she's a midianite Yes, so she's not even in the 12 tribes of israel

13:02

He's married outside of the 12 tribes. And so one of their sons ain't circumcised and She's the reason for it

13:12

So if you work kind of backwards with the text who's the one who ends up going and circumcising the son?

13:19

Who's supposed to already be circumcised but isn't? Zipporah And is she happy about this?

13:26

No So here's the idea As moses is traveling back to egypt for his assignment

13:34

The lord meets him And all the lord is the one who's called him. The lord says you're dead

13:43

You're not obeying me. One of your sons is not circumcised And the reason for it it falls on zipporah

13:52

So she grabs a flint knife performs the procedure herself Touches his moses feet with it and everyone said ew

14:01

And she seems quite upset. Surely you're a bride groom of blood to me So the lord let him alone.

14:08

It was then she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision weird text

14:17

Tells us a little bit about mixed marriages religiously I don't know if anyone has noticed that those have a tendency to be challenging

14:27

Especially when kids are in the mix And the solution that they came up with god was not pleased with and moses nearly lost his life for it

14:41

Religiously mixed marriage. Yeah In this particular case a hebrew marrying a woman who

14:50

Is not exactly Got good theology Yeah that that really helps a lot

15:01

Mixed religious marriages oftentimes lead to all kinds of anxiety and conflict It's a sad thing

15:07

Some of them do many don't Verse 27.

15:23

Yahweh said to Aaron go into the wilderness to meet moses So he went and met him at the mountain of god kissed him

15:29

Moses told aaron all the words of yahweh with which he had sent Him to speak and all the signs that he had commanded him to do

15:37

Then moses and aaron went and gathered together all of the elders of the people of israel Aaron spoke all of the words of the lord had spoken to moses and did the signs

15:47

And the sight of the people and the people believed and when they heard that the that yahweh had visited the people of israel

15:54

And that he had seen their affliction. They bowed their heads and worshiped

15:59

So the lord remembers them sees their affliction Is doing something to save them and here's an important motif in scripture when yahweh visits his people

16:11

This is picked up in the new testament where jesus speaks of those who do not repent at his preaching and teaching

16:18

That they had failed to recognize God's visitation

16:24

God visiting his people to save them So when god visits oftentimes god visits in a way that's going to end up in salvation

16:32

This motif actually gets picked up by cs lewis in the chronicles of narnia

16:38

Let me give you an example when things go badly in narnia Like when queen jadis takes over and rules narnia for a hundred years and causes it to be winter, but never christmas

16:49

Who is it that visits narnia and upon his visitation sets things right?

16:55

Releases them from bondage It's aslan And you'll see that over and again when aslan shows up when aslan is giving a visitation to narnia

17:04

That always means salvation for narnia for whatever it is that ails them same concept

17:10

Then is actually lewis gets this idea from scripture So god now is visiting his people.

17:17

They have been in bondage in slavery suffering deeply God now visits his people

17:23

And their response to this is worship Their response is thanksgiving and praise and our response to god's visitation to us to save us

17:34

Again is also thanksgiving and praise chapter 5 afterwards. Moses and aaron went and said to pharaoh

17:41

And here it comes now Let's get ready to rumble

17:48

Oh That's what's going on here the rumble begins Now i'm going to show you a chart that we will be relying on and if you want to know where To find this this is at biblicalarchaeology .org

18:03

The chart is based upon the work of archaeologists and Old testament scholars to kind of put this all together to see how this is a conflict between the deities of egypt

18:15

And the one true god and then this chart will kind of guide us this is the result of that research

18:24

Our first note here the first miracle we will see is water being turned to blood

18:31

Water being turned to blood we will see that it's coming up and it's important to note that this is a judgment against Potentially three deities of the egyptian pantheon

18:43

Hoppy and osiris Khnum was the guardian of the river source hoppy was the spirit of the nile and osiris

18:51

Was believed that the nile was his bloodstream The nile was his bloodstream

18:58

So the idea here is we've got a foreign god exercising clear miraculous signs

19:06

Outside of his geography on the home turf of the egyptian pantheon So there's a war going on here and the focal point is pharaoh

19:15

And again, I would remind you back in seventh and eighth grade When you had to study about world civilizations and the fertile crescent one of the things that was of the important note

19:24

About the ancient kings of mesopotamia Was that they were viewed as god kings?

19:31

Same with the with the king of egypt. He is a god king So this is a showdown between a true god the one true god and a false god

19:39

So moses and aaron went and said to the pharaoh thus says yahweh the god of israel

19:44

Let my people go so that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness the pharaoh said

19:50

Who's yahweh that I should obey his voice and let israel go? I don't know yahweh and moreover.

19:59

I will not let israel go And then they said the god of the hebrews has met with us

20:05

Please let us go a three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to yahweh our god

20:11

Lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword but the king of egypt said

20:18

Moses and aaron. Why do you take the people away from their work get back to your burdens?

20:25

And pharaoh said behold The people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens

20:31

And the same day pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foreman You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks as in the past Let them go and gather straw for themselves

20:43

But the number of the bricks that they had made in the past you shall impose on them and you shall by no means reduce it

20:49

For they are idle therefore they cry. Let us go and offer sacrifices to our god

20:55

Let heavier work be laid on them that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words

21:04

All right Idle means that the people of israel that he thinks that they're they have too many coffee breaks

21:13

You know, you know, they clearly they formed a union and now they're getting coffee breaks and cigarette breaks every five minutes

21:20

Right and they're sitting around kicking up their heels and not actually working you know

21:27

Yeah, right so You can kind of say this in the opening inning of this great conflict

21:36

Things are not going to go well for moses I don't know what it is About god, but there seems to be a pattern in scripture that When god steps in to do something the first round usually goes to evil

21:53

I don't know why I just don't get it you think of the anointing of king david

21:59

The anointing of king david david is anointed the king of israel And the reigning king of israel wants to put a spear through him chases him around the wilderness for a while You know, it just it it's this weird thing that god puts people through suffering

22:18

No, there's only one lucifer and you have to understand this in the fight between good and evil. There's really no

22:24

There's no fight I mean, yes, it's it's called a war It is absolutely warfare

22:31

But god is capable of winning by basically sneezing if he wanted to But what this kind of conflict forces the people of israel to do?

22:41

Is to trust Do you believe yahweh's words or not?

22:48

God already told moses Listen, here's how this is going to go down.

22:53

You're going to go to the king of egypt You're going to tell him let my people go i'm going to harden his heart so he won't let the people go

23:00

Do you believe me or not? Did moses not know what was going to happen?

23:08

Moses knew exactly what was going to happen. God told him So when it goes down exactly the way god said

23:17

Are you going to believe god or not? This calls for faith

23:23

Verse 10 so the taskmasters and the foremen of the people went out and said to the people thus says pharaoh I will not give you straw go and get your straw yourselves wherever you can find it

23:33

But your work will not be reduced in the least So the people were scattered through all the land of egypt to gather stubble for straw

23:39

The taskmasters were urgent saying complete your work your daily task Each day as there as when there was straw

23:46

And the foreman of the people of israel whom pharaoh's taskmaster had set over them were beaten and asked

23:52

Why have you not done all your task of making bricks today and yesterday as in the past?

24:00

and the foreman of the people of israel Came and cried to pharaoh. Why do you treat your servants like this?

24:06

No straw is given to your servants yet They say to us make bricks and behold your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people

24:13

But he said you are idle you are idle. That is why you say let us go and sacrifice to yahweh

24:19

Go now and work. No straw will be given you you must still deliver the same number of bricks

24:26

The foreman of the people of israel saw that they were in trouble when they said you shall by no means reduce your number of bricks

24:32

Your daily task each day they met moses and erin Who were waiting for them and they came out from pharaoh and they said to them

24:42

Yahweh look on you and judge because you have made a stink in the sight of pharaoh and his servants and have put a sword

24:49

In their hand to kill us And then moses turned to yahweh and said oh yahweh. Why have you done evil?

24:56

to this people Why did you ever send me? For since I came to pharaoh to speak in your name

25:02

He has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all Well, that's strange

25:10

I thought God is doing exactly what he said. He was going to do and this is going exactly according to plan

25:19

Is it not? now They still haven't Yeah, we we got to get to that part

25:30

But in order to get to that part, we first have to make a lot of bricks without all the straw we used to have Now I think you can make you can kind of point out that this is a similar motif

25:44

If not the same motif that we see in scripture regarding the persecution that we christians face

25:50

That being a christian causes us to suffer Potentially lose our lives and none of it is fair None of it even makes sense

26:00

I mean really you're going to reduce you're going to reduce our straw You're going to take our straw away and then demand that we have the same quota of bricks

26:08

Who does this? It doesn't make any sense at all Then in the same way christians suffer persecutions and the persecutions they face

26:19

They don't make any sense at all. It's similar to when martin luther was called to stand

26:27

For the diet of worms and He thought he was going to be able to go and explain to them you know what the scriptures say and have a theological conversation with the rulers of the church and the rulers of the holy roman empire in order to You know

26:46

Let's let's open up our bibles and see if we should pray to saints see if we should do these other things

26:52

And when he gets there, what do they say to him? They had taken all of his books put them on a table and basically said luther

27:02

Do you recant? Which you have written in these books and he wanted to have a you know, a little bit of a conversation about this because some of his books

27:14

I mean Were polemical Some were catechetical. They just put the whole lot on the table recant luther recant

27:23

And luther kind of begs for time give me a day to think about this and so they give him a day Give him a day to think about it

27:31

And when he comes back the next day, you know, pretty much there's no dialogue. There's no conversation. There's no theological discussion

27:37

There's no opening above our bible nothing like that at all that he was hoping would happen And they just basically made the same demand and he basically said listen

27:45

I cannot in good conscience recant because there are good and wholesome things in these books

27:51

And unless you show me from scripture where I have erred I will not cannot

27:59

Here I stand Amazing that he got out of there alive That's the thing about evil.

28:06

It always it stacks the deck in such a way that there's no ability to actually have a real bona fide dialogue

28:13

And that's the lot that we christians face The devil will not stop harassing us and stop making extreme demands upon us

28:22

And continue to pile on our burdens and persecutions and things like that you think about You think about The woman, you know, there's several women that this has happened to in the middle east where there are christian women

28:37

Who have been raped? by muslim men raped by them

28:43

And they were put to death for the sin of adultery it's the same weird bizarre insanity the dominion of darkness

28:57

Is totally irrational makes no sense. It is only about power and submission

29:04

Here we see an example of it same thing. All right, so they're in trouble moses prays but god

29:13

Is you know everything's going exactly how god it said it was going to go this is like no no surprise

29:20

So yahweh said to moses now you shall see what I do shall do to pharaoh For with a strong hand, he will send them out and with a strong hand

29:28

He will drive them out of this land a strong hand against him is what god is saying

29:34

So god spoke to moses and said to him I am yahweh I appeared to abraham to isaac to jacob as god almighty

29:44

But by my name yahweh, I did not make myself known to them I also established my covenant with them to give that give them the land of canaan the land in which they lived as sojourners

29:55

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of israel whom the egyptians hold as slaves and I have remembered my covenant

30:03

Say therefore to the people of israel I am yahweh and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them

30:13

And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment

30:21

It's going to be an important Phrase that we'll have to keep an eye on here Great acts of judgment.

30:27

I will take you to be my people I will be your god You shall know that I am yahweh your god who has brought you out from under the burdens of the egyptians

30:37

I will bring you into the land. I swore to give to abraham to isaac and to jacob I will give it to you for possession.

30:45

I am yahweh Moses spoke thus to the people of israel, but they did not listen to moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery

30:54

Now running the verbs here Who's doing the redeeming Yahweh who's doing the saving the delivering

31:04

The lord is not them He is And since this is a picture of our own salvation

31:14

Who's doing the redeeming? Who's doing the delivering who's doing the saving when it comes to our salvation and our slavery to the dominion of darkness?

31:25

God So the motif works out. Oh, and by the way hebrews 11 helps us understand that the ultimate promise that god gave regarding The promised land the land flowing with milk and honey

31:42

It's not in canaan It's the new earth Hebrews 11 makes this very clear because it says they all died in faith not having received the promises

31:52

They were looking forward to well a city whose builder is god

31:59

The new jerusalem So this is how we get tied up into all of this. This is our story as well

32:06

So yahweh said to moses go in And tell pharaoh the king of egypt to let the people of israel go out of his hand

32:13

But moses said yahweh behold The people of israel have not listened to me How then shall pharaoh listen to me for I am of uncircumcised lips

32:24

But yahweh spoke to moses and aaron and gave them a charge about the people of israel and about pharaoh the king of egypt

32:30

To bring the people of israel out of the land of egypt I love how moses every time he's kind of pushed in the early stages

32:38

What? What kind of job is this? There's osha standards god

32:45

I'm gonna take you and sue you as a terrible employer You're setting me up in the sketch 22 so the text then

32:58

Says these are the heads of their fathers houses the sons of ruben the firstborn of israel and we will

33:04

Skip all of the names heads of the of their fathers means these are the names of the guys Who are the heads of the different clans of israel?

33:12

So you have now within the israeli structure you have you have tribes

33:18

And then you have important clans and clans are organized by very strong family figures.

33:25

And so the names of the different Clan leaders are listed here We'll leave off We'll pick up at verse 28 on the day when yahweh spoke to moses in the land of egypt

33:37

Yahweh said to moses. I am yahweh tell pharaoh king of egypt all that I say to you

33:42

But moses said behold I am of uncircumcised lips. How will pharaoh listen to me chapter seven?

33:51

So notice the redundancy here same thing. How is pharaoh going to listen to me? Leave that to god because remember all the verbs he's doing the delivering.

33:59

He's doing the so now The inning number one goes to pharaoh and egypt now it's time for the second inning

34:08

And remember we're on egypt's home turf So the visiting team gets the bat first It works

34:18

It works So the lord yahweh said to moses see I have made you like god to pharaoh and your brother.

34:26

Aaron shall be your prophet You shall speak all that I command you and your brother.

34:31

Aaron shall tell pharaoh to let the people of israel go out of his hand But I will harden pharaoh's heart

34:37

And though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of egypt pharaoh will not listen to you

34:43

And then I will lay my hand on egypt and bring my host my people the children of israel Out of the land of egypt by great acts of judgment second time.

34:52

We've heard that Keep that and again, we'll keep this phrase in mind The egyptians shall know that I am yahweh when

34:59

I stretch out my hand against egypt and bring out the people of israel from among them Moses and aaron did so They did just as yahweh commanded them.

35:09

Now. Moses was 80 years old And aaron 83 years old when they spoke to pharaoh

35:21

Clearly god does not recognize retirement age 80 is the new 40

35:29

So brought out by a couple of old geezers. All right, so they moses took his walker

35:39

So then Yahweh said to moses and aaron when pharaoh says to you prove yourselves by working a miracle

35:46

Then you shall say to aaron take your staff cast it down before pharaoh that it may become a serpent

35:52

So moses and aaron went to pharaoh And did just as yahweh commanded aaron cast down his staff before pharaoh and his servants and it became a serpent then pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers and they the magicians of egypt also did the same by their secret

36:15

Do you know the names? at least two of these magicians of egypt

36:22

Scripture gives us two of their names Janice and jambres Janice and jambres new testament names two of them.

36:31

So we know that janice and jambres are among this group and you'll notice They did the same thing

36:40

They performed a miracle By whose power did they perform a miracle? By the devils ultimately

36:48

So here we have some kind of demonic power able to counterfeit the exact same miracle that god gave to moses and aaron to perform

36:57

So does this mean that if you see a bona fide miracle that that absolutely means that god the holy spirit is behind it

37:05

No Absolutely not Miracles always support a theology miracles are not the theology

37:17

So the question is what theology is attached to this miracle?

37:23

Well the miracle that moses and aaron performed Theology behind it is the one true god.

37:29

Yahweh And his saving his redeeming his delivering his creation his say all of the stuff, right that he does

37:37

So that's the theology attached to their miracle. What's the theology attached to the miracle that janice and jambres were behind?

37:45

Self yes, but the whole egyptian pantheon is behind their miracle so it's this is this is a showdown of two different theologies and now we're having a

37:56

Miracle duel if you would Yeah, y 'all ever heard, you know that that that um

38:03

Wonder if was it who was the oakridge boys who sang that? I don't know about this the the you know talking about the fiddle playoff with the devil

38:11

Charlie daniels, right? The devil went down to georgia. He was looking for a soul to steal, right? So this is this is kind of like that if you would this is a a miracle off and Round one in the miracle off and at least in this inning

38:33

They're going one for one each scorn here. Each man cast down his staff and they became serpents, but aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs

38:43

That should have said something to them still pharaoh's heart was hardened and he would not listen to them as yahweh had said

38:53

This is exactly what yahweh said was gonna happen. So then Yahweh said to moses

39:00

Pharaoh's heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go Go to pharaoh in the morning as he's going out to the water stand on the bank of the nile to meet him

39:10

And take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent and you shall say to him

39:16

Yahweh the god of the hebrews sent me to say to you let my people go That they may serve me in the wilderness, but so far you have not obeyed

39:25

Thus says yahweh by this you shall know that I am yahweh behold with the staff that is in my hand

39:32

I will strike the water that is in the nile and it shall turn into blood The fish in the nile shall die

39:39

The nile will stink the egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the nile

39:46

And yahweh said to moses say to aaron take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of egypt over the rivers

39:52

Over their canals their ponds and their pools of water so that they may become blood and there shall be blood throughout all the land

39:59

Of egypt even in the vessels of wood and in the vessels of stone So moses and aaron did as yahweh commanded in the sight of pharaoh and in the sight of his servants

40:07

He lifted up the staff and struck the water of the nile and all the water in the nile turned into blood

40:14

And the fish in the nile died the nile stank So that the egyptians could not drink water from the nile there was blood throughout all the land of egypt

40:27

But the magicians of egypt did the same by their secret arts So pharaoh's heart remained hardened.

40:35

He would not listen to them as yahweh had said Pharaoh turned and went into his house and he did not take even this to heart

40:44

And all the egyptians dug along the nile for water to drink for they could not drink the water of the nile

40:51

Now we noted that this Is a judgment against three egyptian deities

41:00

That should have been able to stop yahweh from doing this. I mean after all this is their home turf osiris himself

41:07

It is said of him that the nile is his bloodstream Happy is the spirit of the nile.

41:12

He should have had power over yahweh interfering like this But they seemed quite um powerless against yahweh

41:25

Who was the visitor during this match? Well, it says they they perform the same things by their dark art

41:41

So maybe they found a you know a vessel that hadn't turned to blood yet and said watch here's some more here's some blood We can do this too

41:52

Is there a significance? To the first I mean to all of the plates. I mean why?

41:58

Why was water turned to blood first time? I mean is there anything? Okay, the the why is going to be tough to to figure out

42:07

I will say this Is that? You really want to get technical here.

42:14

Let's start kind of piecing some dots together Where in the new testament do we see water and blood?

42:22

uh Not in revelation exactly crucifixion crucifixion

42:27

Water and blood come out of christ's pierced side Yeah, exactly and see when you when you see like things like this in the old testament understand

42:37

This is type and shadow and so you don't get the full kind of substance You can't really make out the full form, but you can start to see connections here.

42:44

And remember this is an act of judgment The ultimate act of judgment that we're going to see in the 10 plagues is the killing of the firstborn

42:54

Israel's my firstborn your firstborn is going to die So the killing of the firstborn is the ultimate act of judgment

43:01

And so now kind of you have to kind of almost flip it a little bit Come into the new testament christ is crucified on the cross.

43:08

The first the the only begotten son of god is dead

43:14

This is an act of judgment And we'll talk about that in the sermon today, by the way well

43:21

No by god, this is an act of judgment by god because christ on the cross has become the singular sinner of all of humanity

43:32

All of the sins of the world are put on him and god's wrath just takes him out So he becomes the singular sinner and in christ's death.

43:43

We see water and blood mixed together Now kind of fast forward a little bit into post ascension

43:50

Water and blood together are the cleansing agents of sin So we we can often talk about how we are cleansed by the blood of the lamb

44:02

Or we can say in our baptisms our sins are washed away So we see water and blood together

44:09

In fact, one of the things I think is a good, you know When you start putting all the dots together a good way to talk about baptism

44:16

Baptism The one thing I don't see while i'm baptizing Is the blood that's in the water the blood has to be that the blood of christ is the thing that washes away our sins

44:26

So we see water and blood. So what what was an act of judgment gets flipped the thing that that is destruction and death

44:33

For the people of egypt and the nile for us in the new testament blood and water coming together is absolute life

44:42

You see how when things get pulled through the cross they get kind of flipped motif wise Does that make sense?

45:03

Well, god didn't save judas Yeah Right All right chapter seven ends with these words

45:23

Seven full days passed after yahweh had struck the nile so The interval of time is one week between acts of judgment

45:33

Then yahweh said to moses go into pharaoh say to him thus says yahweh Let my people go that they may serve me

45:42

But if you refuse to let them go behold, I will plague all of your country with frogs

45:48

The nile will swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed

45:54

And into your houses of your servants and your people and into your ovens and your kneading

46:00

Bowls the frogs shall come up on you and on your people and all of your servants and yahweh said to moses say to aaron

46:09

Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers over the canals over the pools And make frogs come up on the land of egypt

46:16

So aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of egypt and the frogs came up And they covered the land of egypt

46:23

But the egyptians did the same thing by their secret arts and they made frogs come up on the land of egypt

46:30

Now, let's kind of take a look at our chart here frogs two egyptian deities are in play happy the frog goddess and Both related to fertility so Things are really out of whack here at least for the egyptian pantheon

46:50

They seemed again be utterly powerless to stop All of these acts of judgment on on behalf of yahweh or being performed by yahweh but it's at least comforting for pharaoh to know that His magicians can perform these miracles as well tit for tat up to this point tit for tat

47:12

But man frogs everywhere Really? Yeah This would make me croak anyway

47:26

I wrote that myself. Thank you. I'll be here all week Right, yeah, exactly

47:38

So pharaoh called moses and aaron and said Plead with yahweh to take away the frogs from me and from my people

47:46

And I will let the people go sacrifice to yahweh Moses said to pharaoh will be pleased to command me when

47:52

I am to plead for you And for your servants and for your people that the frogs be cut off from you and from the houses and be left only in the nile now this

48:03

Him picking the time makes it so that pharaoh can't say well, maybe it wasn't yahweh that did this

48:10

So you pick the exact time? And the exact time you pick will be the time when the frogs disappear

48:19

So pharaoh wisely picks tomorrow I'm with you there, but moses, but pharaoh picked tomorrow.

48:30

All right, so So he said tomorrow moses said all right be it as you say So that you may know that there is no one like yahweh our god and that's the point here

48:41

You pick the time and the reason why you're going to pick the time is so that you may know There is no one like yahweh our god

48:49

The frogs shall go away from you and from your houses and your servants and your people they shall be left only in the nile

48:56

So moses and aaron went out from pharaoh And moses cried to yahweh about the frogs as he had agreed with pharaoh

49:04

And yahweh did according to the word of moses the frogs died out in the houses the courtyards and the fields

49:11

It's like their batteries died, you know Can't you send them back into the nile

49:18

Top go away, you know, they all die and so They died out in the houses the courtyards in the field and they gathered them together in heaps and the land stank

49:30

Nothing like a good rotting pile of dead frogs They taste like chicken though.

49:36

I'm just saying So then pharaoh saw that there was respite and he hardened his heart

49:43

And would not listen to them as yahweh had said now important little note here

49:50

Who hardened pharaoh's heart? pharaoh did pharaoh hardened his own heart

49:58

And this is where we must pay attention because at some point in the story it's going to change

50:05

It's going to say and pharaoh hardened his heart and pharaoh hardened his heart and pharaoh hardened his heart and then yahweh hardened his heart and once yahweh steps in and says

50:17

All right, you want to think this is burger king? You want it your way? I'm going to let you have it your way

50:23

And you're going to have it your way until you die and i'm going to take you off the cliff and throw your puny carcass

50:29

Into hell You do not despise the word of the lord

50:38

Nor do you tempt god Okay Harding your heart against what god has said and what you know is right and what you know is wrong

50:49

Is a formula for eternal disaster Keep that in mind So he hardened his heart would not listen to them as yahweh had said

50:59

Then yahweh said to moses Say to aaron stretch out your staff strike the dust of the earth so that it may become gnats in all of the land of egypt

51:08

I Hate gnats Absolutely despise them

51:14

During the summertime my wife and I like to walk on the greenway And sometimes when we're walking right kind of like twilight -ish, you know what i'm saying?

51:22

You'll be walking along In their eyes and your nose in your mouth

51:28

Can't stand these things. Could you imagine a whole land filled with them just that's too long

51:37

They multiply like Yeah, yeah, that's just one generation so So that it may become gnats in all the lands of egypt and they did so Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff struck the dust of the earth bang

51:55

There were gnats on man and beast all the dust of the earth became gnats

52:00

And all the land of egypt and the magicians tried by their secret arts to produce matt gnats

52:05

But they could not Now notice here

52:12

This miracle is a little bit different In that this is a creative miracle god from the dust of the earth creates gnats

52:23

The devil can't do that It just says they came out of the nile

52:30

It was a bunker year that year The frogs were really Fertile So but this one specifically says dust

52:41

And then he strikes the dust and god created from the dust these gnats. This is creation.

52:47

This harkens back to genesis Right, all right out of the dust of the earth god makes, you know critters and creepy crawly things and things like that So notice the devil can't create

53:02

The devil can only twist what is created And turn it to evil So here we've got this is where the beginning of the distinction is made

53:12

And the magicians they can't do this. Let's see which gods are in play. You have to put that in air quotes um disease on the cattle the lice actually gnats and lice

53:26

I think it's gnats, you know because they were flying but the this is

53:32

This is the miracle we're looking at and this is seb the earth god of egypt The earth god of egypt seb has gone down in flames

53:44

Seb was completely powerless here Let me make sure I got yep. That's the right one.

53:50

So say to aaron stretch out your staff strike the dust They did so then they couldn't and so the magicians tried

53:57

So the there were gnats on man and beast then the magician said to pharaoh. This is the finger of god

54:04

But pharaoh's heart was hardened and he would not listen to them as yahweh had said Then the lord said to moses rise up early in the morning present yourself to pharaoh as he goes out to the water and Say to him thus says yahweh

54:19

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

54:29

This is just creeping me out you know gnats and flies and frogs and ew

54:37

I'll send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people and into your houses and the houses of the egyptian shall be filled with swarms of flies

54:44

And also the ground in which they stand but on that day I will set apart the land of goshen

54:50

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 if I had heard this in pharaoh's court

55:00

I would have called you all We're moving to goshen, honey We're moving to goshen, so notice god's making a distinction now

55:10

That's how I'll put a division between my people and your people tomorrow this sign shall happen And yahweh did so there came great swarms of flies in the house of pharaoh and into his servants houses throughout all the land of egypt

55:23

The land was ruined by the swarms of flies Then pharaoh called moses and aaron and said go

55:32

Sacrifice to your god within the land Moses said it would not be right for us to do so for the offerings.

55:38

We shall sacrifice to yahweh our god Well, they're an abomination to the egyptians if we sacrifice offerings abominable to the egyptians before their eyes.

55:46

Will they not stone us? Yeah, see apparently pita was already in existence back there in egypt so I had to say that.

55:56

Yeah, which is always so funny. Yes, so Sacrificing an animal is an abomination. So your solution to this thing that you think is abominable is to kill a human being

56:07

That's some logic for you That is some really crazy Logic now, let's note the god that's in play ut

56:16

Watch it the fly god of egypt and Yeah, so that that one's gone down Moses says we must go three days journey into the wilderness sacrifice to yahweh our god as he tells us

56:31

So pharaoh said I will let you go to sacrifice to yahweh your god in the wilderness only you must

56:37

Not go very far away plead for me So then moses said behold i'm going out from you and I will plead with yahweh that the swarms of flies may depart from pharaoh

56:46

From his servants and from this his people tomorrow Only let not pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to yahweh

56:56

So moses went out from pharaoh and prayed to yahweh and the lord did as moses asked and removed the swarms of flies from pharaoh from his servants and from his people not one remained but pharaoh hardened his heart this time also as And did and you know also and did not let the people go

57:15

Who was hardening his heart? pharaoh Yeah, that's that's the end result

57:28

Okay It's still coming Yeah. Yeah I think a good way to put this is that pharaoh is exercising his free will

57:38

And his free will here is only being used for evil, which is kind of an important thing that we understand here in scripture when it comes to sinful

57:47

Dead and trespasses and sins human beings our free will is incapable of actually exercising anything positive towards god

57:55

It's capable of exercising good things Horizontally, but not vertically. It's an important thing here.

58:01

So pharaoh in the face of these judgments I mean we've got egyptian gods going down like you wouldn't believe if this was a dog fight

58:11

There's one plane that says yahweh on it and here are all the egyptians gods flying around He gets on the six of you of utchit takes him down takes down the the gnat god takes down the osiris

58:23

I mean, there's egyptian gods falling out of the sky crashing and burning and and and pharaoh.

58:29

What's his response? Right Yeah in this particular case the assumption is it's still him doing his heart

58:43

Still doing the heart and the verbs are going to change very shortly Yeah Right, but we're going to leave it there

58:53

Yeah, i'm sorry if you want to know what happens you have to come back next week Yeah Spoiler alert god wins anyway