“Duplicating Disaster!” – FBC Morning Light (1/29/2025)

Well, good morning to you. I'd like to encourage you with a few thoughts from Exodus chapters 7 and 8 for your journey ahead today, and it's really kind of an interesting and humorous sort of situation, if you will.

Pharaoh’s Magicians and the First Three Plagues

In these couple of chapters, the Lord is beginning to send the plagues upon Egypt, and it all starts as Moses goes before Pharaoh and tells him, you know, let my people go, and to prove that he has, you know, divine power behind him and divine authority in his voice, he throws down that staff that's in his hand, and that staff becomes a serpent.

Remember that? And then we read that the magicians, the Egyptian magicians, did the same thing. They had staffs in their hand and threw them down, and those also became serpents. But then it says the rod, or the staff of Aaron, swallowed up theirs.

That was the staff that God had given to Moses. Aaron threw that one down, became a serpent, and Aaron's staff ate up, became a serpent, ate up the serpents that the magicians had done, and Pharaoh's heart grew hard.

I wonder why his heart grew hard? I mean, after all, he saw it was Aaron's staff that ate up his magicians. Well, because he's thinking, well, these guys don't have any more power than my magicians have.

Well, along comes plague number one, the plague of the water being turned to blood. And so, you know, Moses goes out, and with his staff in his hand, the Lord tells him to strike the waters, and they're going to be turned to blood.

And Aaron is supposed to do the same thing. He says to Aaron, take the rod stretched out of your hand of the waters over Egypt, over the streams, etc., etc., that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

And so, Moses and Aaron do that, just as the Lord told them to do it. And then what we read is the magicians, in verse 22. Well, they did the same thing. Well, how helpful is that? I mean, is that what you want your magicians to do?

You want your magicians to be able to also turn water to blood? I would think that what you would want them to do is to reverse the whole process. But nevertheless, the magicians also are supposedly able, by their enchantments, to turn water to blood.

Well, then along comes plague number two, in chapter 8, the plague of the frogs. Pharaoh's heart is hardened. We read that his heart was not moved by any of this, so in chapter 8, the Lord tells Moses, go to Pharaoh, tell him, let my people go, that they may serve me, but if you refuse to let them go, I will smite all your territory with frogs.

And Pharaoh says, nah, I'm not gonna let the people go. You're no more powerful than my magicians. I mean, yeah, you turn water to blood, but my magicians turn water to blood, too. I'm not gonna listen to you.

Well, and so, in verse 5, the Lord spoke to Moses and says, stretch out your hand with the rod over the streams, the rivers, the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on all the land of Egypt. And so he does so, and frogs start coming up out of all the land of Egypt.

Well, then we see this wonderful little statement in verse 7, that the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt. Well, how difficult would this have been? I mean, after all, the process was already in full swing.

The frogs are already coming up all over the land. What's so great about this, that the magicians are doing what Moses and Aaron and God is doing through them? Why is God allowing this to happen? Why isn't God causing these magicians to fail in their attempts?

Well, in the first place, are the magicians really causing frogs to come up, or are they just capitalizing on the process that's already going on? But besides that, what's God's purpose? What's God's intention here?

God's intention is to bring judgment on Egypt, and he does so first with the water turning to blood. He does so secondly with frogs coming up and plaguing the entire land of Egypt. What the critical thing is for these magicians to do is to stop it, to stop the frogs from coming.

But they can't. They can't. Finally, the third plague comes in chapter 8, the end of verses 16 and following. It's the plague of lice. Finally, we read that the magicians worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not.

Finally, God frustrates them, and they're not able to do this plague. Again, why is God doing this? The magicians ended up just being tools in his hands, as long as he wanted them to be participants in bringing the plagues.

But eventually, the Lord shows them that their powers are futile, that he is the one who is bringing these plagues upon the land, and there are more yet to come. There are more to come. I read all this, and I think about how so many times in our human history, we think we have the answers to plague problems that come upon us, and we try to solve the plague problems that come upon us, and all we do is make things worse.

Have you noticed that? Have you observed that? Various things throughout our human history. We think we're solving problems, and we end up making things worse. Why? Because we leave God out of the picture.

Sometimes the problems that we're trying to solve are problems that God wants us to have, because he wants us to turn our attention to him, and to appeal to him, and to call upon him, and seek his face, and turn from our wicked ways.

Instead of doing that, we think, we're going to solve this problem. We don't need God. We do, and the magicians found that out, and Pharaoh's going to find this out all the more starkly in the days ahead.

Our Father and our God, I pray that we would be a people humble before you, and not proudly and arrogantly think we can solve all our problems. We don't need you. What folly. Deliver us from that, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

Alright, well listen, have a good rest of your day. I trust the Lord will bless you in it.