Never Go Full Burger King

Okay, let us pray and we will get into our text today. We are in the tail end of Exodus.

Exodus 8, starting at verse 25, let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open your word, we ask that you open our hearts and minds so that your spirit may continue to conform us into the image of your son.

And through your word, you teach us our doctrine as well as our life. May we hold both firmly to the glory of your holy name, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. We have been working our way through the book of Exodus and we have noted that God is keeping his word.

We over and again see the refrain in the passages of Exodus, as the Lord had said through Moses, as the

Lord had said through Moses. And we're going to note that again, it says over and again, thus far, with each plague that has come upon the

Egyptians, it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart.

God is about to do some hardening of his own and he's going to get very specific with Pharaoh regarding his sin, if you would.

We're going to note these things and we're going to get through plague number nine today and we're going to save plague 10.

We're going to save plague 10 for next week. Plague 10 is a vitally important plague.

Plague 10 points us to Jesus in so many ways, it's going to take us a little bit of time to unpack it.

You remember John the Baptist say, it wasn't John the Baptist, I think it was Paul, said, Christ, our

Passover lamb has been slain. The Passover is intricately linked with plague number 10, the killing of the firstborn and talk about the blood of the

Passover lamb on the doors, on the lintels and how that then points us to Christ.

That takes a whole class to do. So what we're going to do today, we're going to walk through what remains of the plagues up to plague number nine, we'll finish plague nine.

And then for those of you who have not been here for a long time, we're going to do a little bit of work using

Google Earth. And this is going to be an important thing. And the reason for it is that there is a lot of scholarship today that, well, the

Exodus, you know, all of these hundreds of thousands of Israelites wandering through the wilderness, crossing the

Red Sea, that apparently that never happened, that there is no evidence for it. And that is hogwash.

Oh, the water washed it away? No, it actually, the water did not. We'll talk about that a little bit.

Okay, yeah, just the waves, just that, all washed it away. So the problem though, and I'll kind of lay this out at the beginning, the problem is if any of you, have any of you actually been on a tour of the

Holy Land? No? No, in your dream, somebody said? Okay.

Now, I haven't been to the Holy Land either. I've traveled there using other people's vacation photos that they post on social media and the internet.

I find them to be very helpful. I thought, boy, that's quite the picture. It's a very beautiful picture of the Mediterranean Sea.

I enjoyed that. You know, you can vicariously live through other people's stuff. But Google Earth helps us out a lot here.

And the issue is, is that if you've been on a tour of the Holy Land, oftentimes it'll include a little bit of time spent in Egypt, and you can go to the

Great Pyramids. You can pay somebody a lot of money to ride a camel and do a photo opportunity and things like that.

And then on your way back into Israel, your bus will take you into the south part of the Sinai Peninsula, where apparently

Mount Sinai is. But that's not where Mount Sinai is. Mount Sinai is not in Egypt.

The Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter four explicitly says that Mount Sinai is in Arabia.

And so we're gonna do a little bit of biblical archeology using Google Earth, and we will be looking for Mount Sinai.

Luckily, we've had the help of some new scholarship that helps us identify where it is.

It's not in Egypt, it's in Saudi Arabia. We'll talk about that. Yeah, so this part of the

Book of Maps, where it says where Mount Sinai is, not inspired. I'm just saying. We'll get there.

So let's go back to our text, Exodus chapter eight. We're gonna start at verse 25 for our context, and then keep working through.

Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, go sacrifice to your God within the land. See, the plague that is happening at this point is the,

I think this is the flies. Yep, the flies, which grosses me out extremely.

I mean, I don't even like it when there's like one fly in my house. By the way, a little bit of a side note here.

A handy thing to get rid of flies, I use Bugzooka. Yeah, you ever heard of Bugzooka?

Okay, you can look it up on Amazon, and Bugzooka looks like a bazooka. And yeah, let me see if I can find this real quick.

Just while we're here, you know, hang on a second here. Amazon .com,

I mean, I'm on the internet, why not, you know? Hashtag not sponsored. Yeah, today's

Sunday school class is sponsored to you by Bugzooka. Okay, all right, hang on a second here.

Let's see if I can find this, because I did get this off of Amazon. Yes, this is it, this is

Bugzooka. Okay, well, it's not quite a vacuum. It has like a little billows thing at the back end of it.

And so what happens is you see this part right here, you kind of push that thing in and it catches, and then you use the trigger.

You know, the other end, it has like a trap that's like activated by the wind. And you put your thing right next to the fly and you press the button, it goes thunk, like that, and the fly gets sucked into it.

You bought that? Oh, yeah. Does it say shop back on the side?

No, here's another picture of Bugzooka. This is very effective. Although I think Bugzooka would not have worked against the swarms of flies, just too many.

And so it traps them alive. I mean, when you get like the hornets in your house in the fall and stuff like that, Bugzooka to the rescue.

I tried that like, that tennis racket that has like the electrical thing and you know, you press the button and you know, you hit it and the bug goes like that.

But apparently they've genetically altered because it never kills them, it just stuns them.

They look at you like, what'd you do that for? So. Wait a minute, this catches them alive, what do you do with them?

Well, I just take the trap and I go outside and I dump it out. And then they're still alive, so then they come back in?

No, no, we have never had any repeat offenders in our house. Mark them, you don't wanna chip it out first.

Right. We fingerprint them before we release them, okay?

Okay. Yeah, okay.

Running around the house with his Bugzooka. You could make some bucks. That's right.

Janet would watch it over and over again. Yeah, it would go viral, yes.

We've now proven that Chris Rosaro has lost his mind. All right, back to the text.

So this is the swarm of flies. Pharaoh says, all right, go sacrifice to your God within the land.

Moses said, no, it wouldn't be right for us to do so. For the offerings we shall sacrifice to the

Lord our God or an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the

Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? No, we must go a three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the

Lord our God as he tells us. So Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you must not go very far.

Plead for me. Then Moses said, behold, I'm going out from you. I will plead with the

Lord that the swarms of flies may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people tomorrow.

Only let Pharaoh not cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice to Yahweh. So Moses went out from Pharaoh and he prayed.

We noted this last week, okay? Moses pleads, Moses prays.

This is a picture of prayer. And this gives us a picture of even our own prayers.

And you sit there and go, but I'm not Moses. Right, neither am I. We'd all be very old if we were.

But the prayer of a righteous person availeth much. You are covered in the righteousness of Christ.

So don't think for a second that just because you're not Moses, God doesn't hear your prayers. He does.

And you'll notice it says, plead and ask and pray.

Our posture in prayer is always the posture of asking God. And there is this false teaching regarding prayer today that you need to go out and decree and declare things.

Are you struggling to pay your credit card debt? Well, you need to decree and declare wealth for yourself.

That's not praying. That's witchcraft. That is not praying. Uh -huh.

So what's it, you said plead. Okay, yes. Prayer is a form of pleading.

And let me check the Hebrew on this real quick. I will part and plead. Atar. Okay, so the

Hebrew verb is atar. It's just it's translating in the ESV, kind of picking up on different aspects of it.

Pray and plead are the same concept, the same idea. That this is an asking, an earnest request, imploring of God.

That's what that means. So Moses went out from Pharaoh. He prayed to Yahweh, and the

Lord did as Moses asked. Yes, he did. Wow.

I just love the fact that God in his great sovereign power and mercy has chosen to listen to his children.

And there are times when you literally have it figured out. You'll sit there and go, that friend of mine who's in this trouble.

Oh, this is a terrible situation. And what they really need is for God to help them in this way, this way, in this way.

So pray to God, Lord God, please, I pray on behalf of this person that you would help that person in this way, this way, in this way.

And here's the weird thing. God hears your prayer, and he just might answer it exactly how you prayed.

And then when it goes down the way you had prayed, don't sit there and go, well, was that God answering my prayer or not?

Because isn't that how that works? You sit there and go, we prayed for this person, and God answered our prayers, but was that really

God or was that just circumstances? It was God. So the Lord did as Moses asked, remove the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people.

Not one remained, but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go.

Let's check the scorecard real quick. This is Yahweh versus all the false gods of Egypt. And here's all the gods that have gone down in flame because, well, they're not really gods.

Khnum, Hapi, Osiris, Hekt, Seb, and Uachit from, these are all, yeah,

Gesundheit. And we'll see which gods next are gonna go down. Again, notice,

Yahweh is defeating all of these false deities on their home turf. They seem utterly powerless to stop what

Yahweh is up to. Chapter nine now. Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh, say to him, thus says

Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go so that they may serve me for if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, behold, the hand of the

Lord will fall with a very severe plague on your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, the flocks.

But Yahweh will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.

And Yahweh set a time saying, tomorrow Yahweh will do this thing in the land. And the next day the

Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died.

And Pharaoh said, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead, but the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people go.

Everything, all the animals just dropped dead. It was a mass heart attack.

They all just died. But here's the important words. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. He did not let the people go.

He's still in the driver's seat on the hardening at this point. God is going to step in.

We'll note that. Chapter nine, verse eight. Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, take handfuls of soot from the kiln.

Let Moses throw them in the air on the side of Pharaoh. It shall become fine dust over all of the land of Egypt and become boils, breaking out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.

They took the soot from the kiln, stood before Pharaoh. Moses threw it in the air. It became boils, breaking out in sores.

We noted that these are the same plagues we see in Revelation chapter 16. And the same distinction is made.

When you read Revelation chapter 16, the plague from one of the bold judgments of the sores on people only falls on those who have the mark of the beast.

God makes a distinction even in the plagues that befall the earth there in the book of Revelation.

And these are a picture of God's judgment. So they took the soot from the kiln. Moses threw it in the air. It became boils, breaking out in sores on man and beast.

And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils. For the boils came upon the magicians and upon all the

Egyptians. And notice what it says. Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh.

He did not listen to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses. So here's our refrain.

As the Lord had spoken to Moses. This calls for faith. When God says, he doesn't lie.

When God tells you something, he's telling the truth. Now, God has not told us that we're gonna suffer plagues like this.

Instead, God has promises that he's made on our behalf. And that we are forgiven, bled for, died for, have eternal life.

You think of the promises in the waters of our baptism that our sins are washed away. We're buried with Christ.

We're raised with Christ. Our hearts circumcised by the hand of Christ. Then you hear the absolution that your sins are forgiven.

These are words not coming from me, but coming from God. And these are the things that God has spoken.

And does God lie? Does God say he's gonna do something and it's not true? No. So when

God speaks, we say, yes, God. And you sit there and go, but I don't understand. Yeah, neither do I. I don't understand how combustion engine, how it really operates or works.

And I cannot change the oil in my own truck. And still, I get into it.

Now, listen, I understand that some men here, they're gassed at this news. My apologies, I'm a theologian, not a mechanic.

I'm a mechanic of a different type. So you get the idea. But you don't have to understand how something works to know that it does.

I mean, is this a week? Is this two weeks?

Is this 10 days? We don't know. Because here's my question. Okay, you just had the plague of the livestock.

They all died. Now, it states... That there were four lives.

Yeah, and the gestated boy was gonna break out by the men and animals. Throughout the land. If all of their livestock animals died.

Yeah, they've had time now to go and say to the Israelites, hey, you know, that's a good looking cow.

Would you mind selling that one to me? Or would you mind selling me part of your sheep? Because, well, as you've heard from Yahweh, died.

And so there's obviously some time that has passed between these plagues. So we don't know the exact timeframe.

We don't know from the first plague to the last plague. Was it three weeks? Was it a month?

Was it half a year? We're not sure. But clearly there's been enough time that their livestock has been replenished in some sense.

They've gone out and purchased more. And the only place you can get, well, livestock in Egypt at this time is, well,

Goshen. So, all right, why this...

Okay. All right. Here's the idea. The scriptures explicitly teach us that the reason why this is all happening the way it is is so that God can manifest his power, his glory, and his judgment.

So Pharaoh is now going to stand for time immemorial as an example to the rest of the world of what it looks like when somebody opposes and exalts himself against God.

And so God knew what the end would be. And so here's the idea, is that as we've been reading through the plagues, we've been hearing these words, and Pharaoh hardened his heart, and Pharaoh hardened his heart, and Pharaoh hardened his heart.

God didn't. And at some point, now things are starting to change. As we just read, the

Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. And this is a very severe judgment.

And the idea is this. You wanna persist in sin and unbelief? You wanna continue to oppose

God and exalt yourself over him? And harden your heart against what he is telling you to do?

What is he telling you to do? Repent. Repent, be forgiven, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

You wanna continue to go down your path? Well, at some point, you hardening your heart, you hardening your heart,

God goes, I like to say, he goes all Burger King on you. Remember the Burger King commercials, you can have it your way?

All right? So God goes all Burger King on you, and says, fine, have it your way.

You wanna keep hardening your heart? Now I'm gonna step in and I'm gonna harden your heart so that you can't change your mind.

And so when that happens, the person literally becomes the walking damned, damned of God.

There is no possibility for repentance at all. And God's gonna run them off the cliff of their life, and that cliff will take them straight off into the fires of hell.

And the judgment occurs in time and space rather than at the end. Yes, that's exactly what this text says, that he's an example of God's severity as well as God's mercy.

I know it seems harsh, but remember who's in charge all around here? God is. And although it seems harsh by our understanding, keep this in mind, is that scripture is very clear that all of God's judgments are just and right, and there's never a judgment, especially on the day of judgment that God makes that will say, no,

God, that was unjust of you. No, all of God's judgments are just, true, and right.

And as severe and awful as this is, this also serves us by showing us just how seriously

God takes idolatry and sin and those who exalt themselves against him. It's really severe.

The consequences of our sin is eternity in hell. Let us not forget that. Yes, you have a statement?

You would like to make a statement? Do you plead the fifth? So, later on, he's gonna use

Israel to basically, Israel is supposed to go out and destroy. And they don't.

And they don't. And this is just like the first step in it. God uses, he makes Egypt an example. I'm sure there's a reason for that genealogically, because it goes back to Shaman and Jacob, but that's a random tangent.

But, you know, I mean, but just going forward to this, God is also merciful and gracious because you have multiple tribes in Israel, Israelites, well, one tribe specifically in Israel, Israelites, and the

Israelites conquest that becomes saved through what the Israelites are doing. They do it in a deceitful manner, but they become saved.

And then, I mean, they get saved through Israelites. And then you also have, when we're talking about the story of Jonah and the whale,

God is very gracious to the Ninevites. And he gives them a chance to repent, and they do.

And the Israelites are also hardened against these people, and they don't even wanna go and preach God's repentance to them.

So it's like there's multiple things in play here. But you gotta realize that Pharaoh captured the

Israelites in the first place, and he used them as a slave. Yes, they were enslaved while they were there, while they were living there.

Now let's continue with the text, because the text is actually gonna come back to the question you were asking regarding why God is doing this.

But that's coming up in just a little bit. So the Lord said to Moses, rise up early in the morning, present yourself before Pharaoh.

So remember, God hardened Pharaoh's heart in this last one. And the God of the Hebrews, and he says, let my people go so that they may serve me, for this time

I will send all my plagues on you yourself and on your servants and on your people so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.

For by now, and now I want you to notice, God hardened his heart in the last plague. God is not gonna harden

Pharaoh's heart in this plague. And with this plague comes a very specific call on God pointing out

Pharaoh's very specific sins. And watch what he says. For by now

I could have put out my hand and struck you, and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.

But for this purpose, I have raised you up to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

And so this right here, I'm showing you my power so that my name will be proclaimed. You can literally kind of paraphrase that,

I'm showing you my power so that you'll repent and proclaim my name. That's what

God is doing. He actually wants Pharaoh to repent, but he won't.

He says, and then God says to Pharaoh, you are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.

Who is he exalting himself against? God's people. And when you exalt yourself against God's people, you're exalting yourself against the

God of those people, God himself. And so he wants him to repent.

He basically says, listen, I could have snuffed you out in plague number one. I just would have put my thumb down and you're gone.

Instead, I've shown you my power so that my name will be proclaimed, so that you'd repent.

How is God's name proclaimed? When sinners repent and are forgiven. This is God's desire for Pharaoh, but he has having none of it.

And he calls out his sin that he's exalting himself, which by the way, is how Satan operates.

Let me remind you of what scripture says regarding the devil, the way the devil is described in Isaiah chapter 14.

Terrible passage, by the way, but you get the gist of what the devil is like.

Isaiah 14, 12. Oh, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star, sun of the dawn.

How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid low the nations. You said in your heart, listen to this,

I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high.

I will sit on the mount of assembly. You have an eye problem there. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will make myself like the most high. But you are brought down to shield to the far reaches of the pit.

You see it? So the one who is exalting himself will be humbled.

The one who humbles himself will be exalted. The one who exalts himself, what is he doing?

He's being satanic. He's being just like his father, the devil. The one who is trying to exalt himself above God himself.

And that will not go so well for the devil or any of the people who are following him in this nonsense.

For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence. But for this purpose,

I raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. You're still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.

Behold, about this time tomorrow, I will cause very heavy hail to fall, such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

And we see the details of this hail. This is not like any supercell thunderstorm we've even experienced up here.

I'll explain in a minute. God says, now therefore, send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.

And you're wondering, how big is this hail? We've seen the golf ball size. We've seen the dime size.

What is this, like grapefruits or cannonballs falling from the sky? What is this? It's a little bit more than even that.

Well, you'll see. Now therefore, send, get your livestock. So they're out in the field, they're gonna die. Whoever feared the word of the

Lord. Now here's the distinction. The distinction is not between the Israelites and the Egyptians. Now the dividing line is between those who fear the word of the

Lord, even if you are an Egyptian. When whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock.

They hurried them into the houses. It's like, oh man, Yahweh's gonna act again. Every time that God speaks, he means what he says.

He says what he means. Quick, get into shelter. But whoever did not pay attention to the word of the

Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field. And that didn't go well for them.

And here's the storm. So then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt on man and beast and every plant of the field in the land of Egypt.

Then Moses stretched out his staff towards heaven and Yahweh sent thunder and hail.

And yes, that's exactly what that word is, fire. Hot, fire and ice.

Normally these two don't mix. Not sure how this is working out, but this hail is also mixed with fire.

It ran down to the earth and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail.

Very heavy hail such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. The hail struck down everything that was in the field in all of the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

And the hail struck down every plant of the field and broke every tree of the field.

Only in the land of Goshen where the people of Israel were was there no hail. I kind of have a question. Yes. So it says, if this hail is so big that it can crush a person and kill them instantly, what structural integrity do the houses have to survive that experience?

I was thinking that too. I was wondering. You're gonna have to. I was wondering if it would be better. Maybe they wouldn't go on a holy trip to fields.

Yeah. I would say, I don't know. Do your archeological research on ancient

Egyptian abodes. I'm sure some of them had thatched roofs and stuff like that.

That wouldn't have provided shelter. And I'm sure they were sitting there going, okay, really big hail's coming.

This roof ain't gonna do it. Let's go to the next door neighbor's house. They have a better roof. You can really sit on these checkers and go through those.

Were the pyramids a result of this storm? Yeah, right. Yeah, if you were in the pyramids, you survived.

So, right. So we continue now. So Pharaoh sent and called

Moses and Aaron and said to them, this time I have sinned. Yahweh's in the right.

My people are in the wrong. Plead with Yahweh for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail.

I will let you go and you shall stay no longer. Now this sounds like repentance, right? But already we know this isn't because the

Lord said he wouldn't. So this is just him feigning repentance.

Moses said to him, as soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to Yahweh.

The thunder will cease and there will be no more hail so that you may know that the earth is

Yahweh's. There's the reason why. It doesn't belong to the Egyptian deities. It belongs to me, the

Lord says. But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear Yahweh.

The flax and the barley were struck down for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in the bud, but the wheat and the emmer were not struck down for they are late in coming up.

So apparently they hadn't really come up yet. So we have part of the crops needed to sustain the people gone, right?

The major crop failure all over Egypt and God's gonna make sure that the next part gets taken care of in the next plague.

So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, stretched out his hand to Yahweh. The thunder and the hail ceased.

The rain no longer poured upon the earth. But when Pharaoh saw, yet again, when he saw that the rain and the hail and thunder had ceased he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants.

And notice the sin here is that he hardened his heart. Oh, finally, we got some respite from this wacky, terrible hail.

Oh, no way I'm letting those Israelites go. All right, so he just feigned repentance.

So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and this is the last time Pharaoh gets to do it. God's gonna go full

Burger King on him from this point on. So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. He did not let the people go.

Just as the Lord had spoken through Moses, that's exactly what he said would happen. Chapter 10.

So the Lord said to Moses, go into Pharaoh, I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants that I might show these signs of mine among them and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your grandson how

I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them that you may know that I am

Yahweh. In other words, I want you to catechize all of your children in this story.

I want all of your kids to know I harshly treated he who continued to harden his heart against me and then

I hardened his heart. Law and gospel both come from God.

And you sit there and go, dang, this is harsh. Yes, it's supposed to.

It's supposed to be harsh because sin is not something God winks at.

Instead, sin is ultimately dealt with by God himself becoming a man, taking all of our sins upon himself on the cross and bleeding and dying in our place the punishment that we all deserved.

God never winks at sin. Its ultimate consequences are seen in the agony of Christ on the cross and his suffering and bleeding and death for you and for me.

But we have to preach law and gospel, sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

To withhold this information is actually to go against what God commanded. We must teach it to our children, to ourselves, to our neighbors.

Notice how seriously God takes rebellion against him. And God says

I want you to teach this to your children but it's not politically correct. So, since when did political correctness have a say in what we teach?

God said he wants this taught to our kids. So Moses and Aaron went into Pharaoh and they said to him, well, thus says

Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? That's a good opening comment.

Yeah, I was thinking back on the strength of the roof that you go to your house.

Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah, yeah.

And God is capable of making a hailstorm in one spot and not another. Clearly, we see that in Goshen.

He promised those who took his word seriously and took shelter that they wouldn't suffer loss and they didn't. So how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?

Remember what Pharaoh is. Pharaoh is a false god king. He is a living deity on earth.

And so this is a fight between a false god and the real God. And the real

God says to the false God, repent, humble yourself before me.

And Pharaoh says, not on your life. It's not even a fair fight.

How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go so that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow

I will bring locusts into your country. They shall cover the face of the land so that no one can see the land and they shall eat what is left to you after the hail.

And they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field. And they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the

Egyptians as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen from the day that they came on earth to this day.

And then he turned and went out from Pharaoh. I'm pretty convinced that the only person in all of scripture who would look at a plague of locusts as dinnertime is

John the Baptist. Yes, yeah, what's a plague for you

Egyptians? Well, that's just harvest day for John the Baptist. Okay, so Pharaoh's servants said to him, how long shall this man be a snare to us?

Let the men go that they may serve Yahweh their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh and he said to them, go, serve Yahweh your

God. But which ones are you to go? Moses said, well, we'll go with our young, our old, we'll go with our sons and daughters, with our flocks and our herds for we must hold a feast to Yahweh.

But he said to them, Yahweh be with you if ever I let you and your little ones go.

Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No, go, the men among you and serve the

Lord. That is what you're asking and they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Yeah, exactly.

And this is not gonna work. Who's in the driver's seat here, Pharaoh or Yahweh? All right, so the

Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land and all that the hail has left.

So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night.

When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all of the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before nor ever will be again.

They covered the face of the whole land so the land was darkened and they ate all the plants in the land, all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left, not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field through all of the land of Egypt.

Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said to them, I have sinned against Yahweh your

God and against you. Now therefore forgive my sin. Please only this once and plead with Yahweh your

God only to remove this death from me. So he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord and the

Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind which lifted the locusts and drove them into the

Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in the country of Egypt but the Lord hardened

Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the people of Israel go. Repentance is no longer possible for Pharaoh, no longer possible.

So then Yahweh said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.

So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.

Three days, hmm. Gotta pay attention to that three day stuff in scripture. When Jesus was dying on the cross there was darkness over the whole earth for three hours.

Gotta pay attention to this stuff, right? So they did not see one another nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.

But all the people of Israel had light where they lived. Notice, light, darkness. That's good interplay here.

Good, evil, light, darkness. You get the idea. So then Pharaoh called Moses and said, go, serve

Yahweh, your little ones also may go with you. Only let your flocks and your herds remain behind. This is not a good negotiation.

God is actually calling for unconditional surrender. No, no, no, this is not how this is gonna go down.

You're gonna repent, humble yourself, and acknowledge me before men as God of the earth.

I have another question. Yes. Okay, so like, crossing the

Red Sea, well, during certain times, parts of it's dry, so that's really what happened. You know, whatever.

Do they have an explanation for this? Do you know, or did they just say that this didn't happen? They always try to come up with naturalistic explanations.

The best one I've seen, the best one I've seen. So here's the question is, they always try to come up with explanations.

So the people who don't believe in miracles. Well, the reason Jesus was able to walk on water is because he knew where all the shallow stones were and he was just, you know, kinda hopping along.

Or maybe he was wearing cork sandals, who knows, right? The best example I've seen regarding these plagues is that they tied it to the eruption of, oh, what is it?

Mountains? What? Pompeii. Not Pompeii. It's, it's, it's, there's a volcano that erupted in the year 1500

BC in north of Greece. Is it

Vesuvius? I'd have to look it up. Yeah, they blame it on a, basically a caldera volcano eruption in the, where Greece is, in the ocean there.

And that that's what caused this darkness. Well, I mean, it just so happened that the winds were blowing just right, so it was only dark right along the border.

Yeah, it's this series of naturalistic, well, coinkidinkies, you know, the kind of thing.

Listen, God can do what God can do because God is God. And the person who sits there and says that, listen, a miracle is a breaking of the laws of nature.

Therefore, miracles can't happen. Listen, a breaking of a law of nature is not like breaking the law that says, thou shalt not kill.

A breaking of the law of nature is just a meddling with how things are organized here on the earth. And God who created everything could do whatever he want.

It's not like that there's some police officer who's gonna pull Jesus over and go, whoo, oh, I'm sorry there, buddy.

You just broke one of the laws of nature. It's time for you to come on in and have a talk with the judge.

It just doesn't work this way. God is God. God can do what God wants to do.

Yeah. Look at the preaching.

Look at the preaching in the time of the Depression and the Dust Bowl and stuff like that. They were constantly likening it to these plagues.

They were. Yep. No, no, it was in the 30s.

It was in the 30s. Yeah. Yeah, they saw it as God's judgment.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

They didn't have all the antibiotics that we have now and all the medical technology. Yep. So we continue.

So Pharaoh has said they gotta leave their herds. Moses said, all right, you must let us sacrifice, have sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our

God. Our livestock also must go with us. Not a hoof shall be left behind for we must take of them to serve

Yahweh our God. And we do not know with what we must serve Yahweh until we arrive there. But the

Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go. Then Pharaoh said to him, get away from me. Roughly translated, get out of my face.

Take care you never see my face again. From the day you see my face, you will die.

Moses said, have it your way. As you say, I will not see your face again.

Let's check the scorecard real quick. See how the gods of Egypt are doing.

We last left out, Yopjit took a dive. Now we've got with the disease on the cattle,

Ptah, Nevis, Hathor and Ammon, they're all down. And then with the boils,

Sekhmet, Serapis, Ammon -Hopet, Hopetep, he's gone. Nut, I love that,

God named Nut. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Anyway, Isis and Seth are gone,

Shu gone. The locust, Serapia, the Egyptian deity protector from locusts, didn't do his job.

And then you got Ray, Ammon -Ray, Aten, Atum, Horus and Thoth, the

Egyptian moon god. That's pretty much all of the Egyptian gods just sitting as wrecks.

Rob Ross' Kumbha. Yeah, right, Ray, yeah, yeah.

So you see what's going on here. This is a judgment against all of those false deities.

They're totally powerless. And this is a call for the false god king, Pharaoh to humble himself and he doesn't.

Opportunity, opportunity and he resists and hardens his heart. God says that's it.

The next plague, the death of the first born. Again, the connections here between Christ, the

Passover and all this, that takes a whole class. So we're gonna fast forward a little bit. Just a smidge.

We're gonna do some archeology using Google Earth. And here's what we're gonna do. Here's how the series of events goes down.

Let me pull this up in my Bible over here so that I can show you kind of the series of events that's gonna come up.

We are in Exodus and we're finishing, we're starting 10 or 11.

Okay, the final plague is threatened in 11. In 12, we have God explaining what the

Passover is. And then the 10th plague, the death of the first born happens.

The Exodus takes place in chapter 12. The institution of the

Passover is explained. The consecration of the first born. And then we have an explanation regarding the feast of unleavened bread, which is the

Pesach or the Passover. And then we've got the pillars of cloud and fire leading the people of Israel as they leave

Egypt, they leave Goshen. You have the crossing of the Red Sea in chapter 14.

So you kind of see what's coming up. This is what's coming up next. And once they cross the

Red Sea, you have this wonderful song of Moses that is recorded for us in scripture.

And then the question is, what happens next? Like once they cross the Red Sea, what is the first couple of things that they find themselves dealing with?

And the first things they deal with are immediately the waters of Mara, which are bitter.

And they come to a place, then they came to Elim where there were 12 springs of water, 70 palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

Now, the reason I say this is because this helps us identify where they are. The oasis of Elim, we've known where this thing is for millennia.

It's never been lost. We know exactly where it is. Is it in Egypt or is it in Saudi Arabia?

It's in Saudi Arabia. Now I'll show you where it is. We're gonna start here with Elim. So I put a pin for this in Google Earth.

You can all see that, right? Let me back up just a smidge. Let me double click on this.

Whoa, yeah. This, let it come into view now, there we go.

This is the oasis of Elim. And you can see it, it's right here. Now, thankfully, people in Google Earth, they like to actually pin some of their photos to different spots.

And I want you to note this, pull this up. And again, it's gonna take a minute. Internet's a wee bit slow out here.

So we've got the hourglass. It's like having dial -up. And this is the oasis of Elim. And you'll notice all of the palm trees.

Now, this we know is the exact spot they were at. This is where the children of Israel went, the oasis of Elim.

12 springs of water. There's 12 springs of water there. And there were 70 palm trees when they arrived.

I have no idea how many there are today. But if we were to back up, let's figure out where we are.

We are, we're in Saudi Arabia. We are not in Egypt.

Egypt is up here. Saudi Arabia is right here. And this is gonna help us out where the

Red Sea Crossing took place. So let me zoom in again and let's take a look where the

Red Sea Crossing takes place. And there are some photographs, underwater photographs from the spot that from an archeological dive that took place in the 1990s.

I actually have the documentary on DVD on this and it's fascinating. Here's where, and by the way, historically,

King Solomon, when he was king, he had two pillars set up at this spot.

One here and the other over here. The crossing literally took place here to here.

This is where the crossing took place. And we know this because Solomon's pillars are still there. At least the bases of them are still there.

And they recognize that. So this is where the crossing took place. So it's the

Red Sea in the Gulf of Aqaba. And remember when the Israelites get to the

Red Sea, it's Red Sea in front of them, Pharaoh's army behind them.

And it says that the pillar of fire and cloud stood between them and the armies of Egypt.

Here's why that's possible is because in order to get here, you have to come through this valley ravine and that's a wadi.

A wadi is kind of a dry riverbed. And when it rains, that's the only time there's water running through it.

And so the rest of the time, it's like used as a trail or whatever. So the children of Israel came through this wadi to this point and they looked and there's the armies of Pharaoh.

The pillar literally just has to block right in there. So the pillar stands right in this place.

They can't get past it. And the children of Israel then do their thing. Now it's fascinating when you do the archeological work here and that is that this spot here in the

Gulf of Aqaba, it is very shallow and it's very smooth from here to here.

If you just come over this far, you can see by the dark blue water, it gets very deep, but this area, shallow.

Now somebody, I don't know who, took the time to put some of the photographs from the archeological dive that took place in the 1990s.

They were looking for signs that this was the crossing. Let me show you. That, no joke, is a photograph from the dive.

That's the outer kind of like bronze. They would put some kind of a metallic bronzing on the chariot wheels.

That's what less that remains. That's a chariot wheel. Let me show you another thing.

There's coral growing in this part of the Gulf of Aqaba. And this is a fascinating coral thing right here.

Do you see this right angle? What does that look like? It should look like, no, no, not a dinosaur here.

Very funny. Yeah, yeah. No, actually, I think it looks like the

Starship Enterprise. Nevermind. If you note here, it's the axle. That is the coralized axle of a chariot.

Okay, the wheel would have been over here and then it's interlocking with that. These are just a couple of the photographs.

The documentary on this has actual video footage of this archeological dive. And there are several coral growths that look exactly like this with right angles and stuff like that that literally looks like what ended up happening is the coral grew itself into the wood of the chariots.

So there's actual archeological evidence sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba at this point, which, by the way,

Solomon, like I said, there's a pillar here and there's a pillar here, and this is where they cross. And notice by the shades of the color here, shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep.

Yeah, you can kind of see this is a perfect place to cross, which means where would

Mount Sinai be? The traditional spot for Mount Sinai, let me back out and I'll show you this.

If you look in the book of maps in your Bible, where does it say the traditional site of Mount Sinai is?

Take a look, somebody take a look for me and tell me. Right at the apex down here?

Yeah, at the bottom of the Sinai Peninsula, supposedly this is Mount Sinai, the mountain down here.

But that can't be where it is. That's Egypt, yes. Well, the

Gulf of Suez, let me show you. The Gulf of Suez is the other arm here of the

Red Sea. The Suez Canal goes from the top of the Gulf of Suez up to the Mediterranean.

Yeah, the Gulf of Suez. So here's the idea, okay,

I'm gonna point this out here. If you believe that Mount Sinai, the traditional spot is where Mount Sinai really is, you've got a problem.

The children of Israel cross the Gulf of Aqaba here. We know that they are at Alem and we know where Alem is and it's here in Saudi Arabia.

If you believe that this is Mount Sinai, at some point they've got to cross the Red Sea again and they don't.

Right, but the other part of this is that, no thanks, Egypt is like not a good place for the

Israelites to be. In Galatians chapter four, let me show you this. Scripture actually explicitly says where in verse 25,

Galatians 4 .25, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. Mount Sinai is where?

Arabia. It's not in Egypt, it's in Arabia. So there are a growing group of scholars who reject this as Mount Sinai on biblical reasons, archeological reasons, and a whole lot of other reasons.

And for a long time, there's been another site that has highly been considered the probable site of Mount Sinai.

It's in Saudi Arabia. Oh, I know exactly where it is. We're gonna go there right now.

How would you like to go with me? Yeah, that's right.

Please leave a nickel. Now, I've just zoomed in, this is

Mount Sinai. Now, let me explain. When we read the account of what takes place at Mount Sinai, Moses is ascending the mountain.

What does it say is happening at the top of the mountain? Fire and smoke and lightning. It looks like the top of it is on fire, right?

Let's take a look at this Mount Sinai. And I'm gonna - We've been here before. Huh? We did this before.

Yes, we have, but this time, we're gonna take a little bit of a look here. So notice this Mount Sinai, which is by the name, by the way, it's called

Jabal al -Lawz, Jabal al -Lawz. The Bedouin call it

Jabal al -Moshe, the Mountain of Moses. That's what the

Bedouin call it. And you're gonna notice here, the whole top of it is totally charred, which is to be expected.

Those who've been on this site and have brought rocks back, the rocks themselves, the charring is only on the outside of the rocks.

And when you break them open, they're perfectly pink on the inside. So this is an environmental thing.

There is like practically no vegetation on top at all. And well, this is exactly what we would expect.

An important person visited Mount Sinai after the incident at Mount Carmel, and that would be Elijah. Remember after Elijah and the prophets of Baal and Asherah, after that was over,

Elijah says, I'm done, I can't do this anymore. And he travels to Mount Sinai. Where does he stay?

In a cave. Well, it's funny, this particular site, they have a place that people who've been there have identified as Elijah's cave.

Now, this is the spot right here that I've pinned. It's a little hard to see with the satellite photos because of the way the shadows fall, but somebody has actually taken a picture from inside the cave looking out.

Give it a second to load. That's what it looks like inside the cave pointing out.

Isn't that interesting? It's like a blue place. Well, that's just because of the way the photograph got scanned in.

Now, another kind of important feature. It was here that God gave Moses the 10

Commandments, and God gave them the laws regarding the sacrifices and the tabernacle and all that kind of stuff.

And we know from the account in Exodus that this is the first place where sacrifices took place and that they built an altar, and at the site of the altar, there were 12 pillars that were set up.

Well, it just so happens that this particular mountain has a very interesting feature to it. And I'm gonna zoom in, and I'll point it out to you.

So we're zooming in, and this is the feature right here. You notice kind of this little angled thing right here.

This is a stone animal chute, and the animals enter here, come down the chute, and there's an altar right there.

And on this site, in this area right here, there are literally 12 marble column bases, 12 of them, 12 tribes of Israel.

Let me show you this. So this is a picture of the chute itself. That's one of the photos of it.

And this should be the picture of the altar, if I'm remembering. Yeah, so they come down. This is where the altar was, where the sacrifices took place.

And then in here is, I think, where the, let's see if I can find the bases. Yes, so here's, again, this is the entrance to the chute.

They come down. This is the altar. And then here, one, two, you can count them in the picture.

There's 12 marble pillars, bases, right there, exactly where you would expect to find them if this was

Mount Sinai, which I think is oh so fascinating. Now, another very important event that took place here at Mount Sinai was the whole, well, golden calf incident.

Remember, Aaron tells the story of how the people told him he needed to make a cow, and so he grabbed up all their gold and threw it in the fire, and poof, out came this golden calf.

Well, it just so happens that the golden calf altar itself still exists, and the

Saudi Arabian government has, well, put a fence around it. And I'm gonna show it to you.

It's here, so you can see the fence on the outside. So this is the top of it, and this part, you can kind of see it's all broken, but these four pieces, you can tell they were at one time all united, and this has somehow been broken.

So this used to be a very flat top, and then it's been smashed, but what's fascinating are the petroglyphs on it.

Let me explain. Okay, so this is a picture of it from outside of the fence, and then we look at some of the other things going on here.

Now, take a look at the petroglyphs. You see the apis bulls here? That's an apis bull.

That is an Egyptian bull. Bull, B -U -L -L.

See the horns? But you see it?

In the side of this altar, you have, in an Egyptian style, these petroglyphs that look like a bull.

Yeah, it does look like how you butcher an animal. It really does look like that. Here's the flank.

Yeah, and this is kind of a zoomed out, so you can see in there what was going on. Yes, Midian is actually very close to here.

Midian was an ancient tribe of people that were also

Semitic, and Midian lived out in this area. When you look at the maps of how this was organized by the tribes, this is in the exact area where the

Midianites were, and it fits. I didn't understand the question.

No, that's up near Babylon. That's a totally different thing altogether.

You had a question, Janet? I have lots of questions, you know me, but let's just go on.

Uh -huh. All right, now let's take a look at one more thing before we finish, and the other thing that is necessary to kind of help us out here, so once the children of Israel cross the

Red Sea, just before they get to Sinai, as they're traveling there, one of the things that happens is that they didn't have water, and they were grumbling.

Did you bring us out here because there were no graves in Egypt? We're thirsty, you know, and what did God command

Moses to do? Strike a rock, and the rock split in half, and water came out of it.

Let me show you that rock, okay? This is called the Split Rock of Horeb, and it's just to the northeast of this site from Mount Sinai, and let me pull this up here.

Here we go, Split Rock. So we're gonna zoom in. Again, just northeast of Sinai itself, this is the area.

Now, this particular satellite photo, the rock itself is right here, but the shadow is cast in this way.

Now, I'm gonna zoom out and show you one feature so you can kind of get the gist of it. So here's the rock.

It's right here on this little outcropping, but here, this is a dry lake bed, and you can kind of see the outlines of where the water once were, when it was.

This is the dry lake. This was a lake that was created by the water that came out of this rock. Now, the rock we're gonna look at, it is four stories tall, and I gotta zoom in just a smidge and see if we can take a look at it, and I've gotta find the right photos to do this.

Give me a second here. That's it right there, okay? See the big split in it? That's a human being, so you can kind of get the perspective on the size of it.

Let me show you another side view, if I can find the right one. That's it from the side.

One more. Let me see if I can find this, because people who've been, there it is. That's a good picture of it.

That's the split rock of Horeb, and at the base of it, it shows signs of water erosion at the base, severe water erosion.

So literally the way the story then would work, Moses strikes the rock. It splits in half.

Out comes this water gushing from it, and the water is so profuse, it literally runs off and creates like a lake, a pond, so that all of the people can drink, and all of their flocks can be watered, and stuff like this.

Oh, it's out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing happens out there. It barely ever rains. I mean, they're lucky if they get an inch of rain a year in this part of the world, literally.

Well, number one, this is where it gets interesting. Number one, it poses a problem, because there's a lot of tourist money wrapped up in the

Egyptian site, but the other part is that Saudi Arabia is not open to visitors. It is not.

You have to have special permission to go there, and the people who I've talked to who've been on this site are all ex -oil people.

They've spent time in Saudi Arabia, and they've been to the site, and some of them unfortunately have broken the law by taking some antiquities and some relics off the site, which is not good, but a growing number of people are saying, this is actually the real

Sinai, because everything fits. Everything's there that you would expect to be there. On the other Sinai, nothing's there that you would expect to be there.

It doesn't even fit the story, because we know they're at Aleem right after the crossing. Why would they go back into Egypt?

How far can the Red Sea part of the site? Okay, let me zoom out so you can kind of get a perspective here.

So the very center is the split rock of Horeb, and we'll back up just a smidge so you can kind of get the gist of it.

We're a little ways in, but so here's the crossing, and so it's, yeah, it's a little ways in.

This is a several days journey on in on foot. And the main highway to travel is kind of in this direction through this ravine in this canyon.

Were they the first people to travel there? No, no. Moses himself, remember Moses talked to God on Mount Sinai.

And so the Midianites were in this area at that time. So yeah, there was plenty of caravans and travel through the area at this point.

All right, that's enough for today. Next week, we will pick up with the 10th plague and its implications regarding Christ, Lord's Supper, and things like that.