God's Judgement #1 Series

Sermon Series “Exodus”

7:20-25

“God’s Judgement #1”

Pastor John Bright

Exodus 7 “20 And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. 21 The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

22 Then the magicians of Egypt did so with their [f]enchantments; and Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said. 23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house. Neither was his heart moved by this. 24 So all the Egyptians dug all around the river for water to drink, because they could not drink the water of the river. 25 And seven days passed after the Lord had struck the river.”

No fancy sermon title this week. We are starting three weeks of plagues and this is week #1.

It was the first day for a middle school class and the teacher wrote their home work and the board for them to copy – pg. 25 #1-20. After much discussion among the students, one of them asked, “Why to you want us to copy ‘hash-tag 1 dash 2 zero’?”

Times have changed, but God does not!

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One thing is sure – we know more about God because we have both the Old Testament and the New Testament. There is a short description of “progressive revelation” in the box on your Teaching Sheet:

“Scripture teaches what is often called “progressive revelation.” Simply put, this means that God revealed Himself to His people over many centuries, periodically giving new information that built on but did not contradict or deny what came before. Progressive revelation means that while Scripture’s application to old covenant believers is different in some ways from its application to new covenant believers, we do not reject any of God’s Word. It reveals one message of salvation that we cannot fully grasp unless we consider the whole of the Bible.

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/progressive-revelation/

As I have told you before – we don’t replace the previous revelation of God with the latter revelation. We add to it, or build upon it.

Our God is still a God of Judgement – I have hear folks say “That God if the Old Testament was a harsh judge, but the God of the New Testament (Jesus) is a loving parent.”

Actually, Jesus was quite judgmental:

• He was really tough on the disciples (especially Peter)

• He had hard words for the religious leaders of His day

• Don’t forget the woman caught in adultery (John 8) – non-Christians will say to us – Jesus said “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”(John 8:7) but they leave out Jesus’ really mean and intolerant final word to this woman – “… go and sin no more.”(v. 11)

When we look to the book of Revelation we see that God is still going to be the Righteous Judge in the future - 16:1 “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.” Many compare these “bowls” to the 10 plagues of Egypt.

The attributes of God never change – James 1 “16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” Even in the Old Testament, God is described as loving and merciful: Nehemiah 9:17, Isaiah 54:10 are just two examples.

In the same way that a human parent can both love and discipline a child – God does both in our lives and in our world. IT’S HIS WILL – NOT HIS CHOICE! That’s because His righteousness is part of His will – He must judge sin.

The first three plagues:

Now begins the fulfillment of the promise in Ex. 7:5 “… the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord…”

Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic religions – worshiping one God.

Other religions are polytheistic – worshiping many gods.

In these plagues, the One True God will challenge and beat the false gods of the Egyptian’s polytheism – approximately 2,000!

First – the river Nile, their source of water (for drinking, cooking, bathing) and food (fish were a major source of protein), was turned to blood. The Egyptians had several gods that protected the river – Khnum, Hapi and Osiris. They believed the Nile was the bloodstream of Osiris. So here we see The One True God turn the bloodstream of the god to blood.