The Consuming Power of Sin
Exodus 10:1-20
- We’re continuing our study through the book of Exodus.
- As we study each passage, we’re asking the question, “What can I learn about honoring God from this text?”
- Last week, we looked at the seventh plague, the plague of hail, and how it illustrated half-hearted repentance.
- This is when a person looks like they are on the right path to repentance, but their heart is not genuine.
- Before you know it, they have second thoughts, and it becomes evident that their repentance was half-hearted.
- Today, we’re going to look at the eighth plague, the plague of locusts, and we’re going to see some ways in which it illustrates the consuming power of sin.
- When I was in High School, I went over to a friend’s house, and her mother had just made a few cheesecakes.
- They were in the refrigerator, and I asked if I could have some because I love cheesecake, and my friend said yes.
- So, I ate a huge piece.
- Well at one point, she went with her mother on an errand, and I was left at the house with her brother.
- He was upstairs playing a video game in his room or something, and I was downstairs.
- Well, as a teenager, I had a big appetite, and I remember going back to the fridge to take another piece of cheesecake, but only a small one this time, so no one would notice.
- I ate the tiny piece, then went back to the living room to watch tv, but my mind was still thinking about that cheesecake.
- So, I got up, went to the kitchen, and ate another piece of cheesecake.
- I should have stopped, because it was becoming noticeable that more of it was missing, but it tasted so good, and my mind kept thinking about it, so I kept going back for more.
- Before I knew it, most of the cheesecake was gone.
- The next day, my friend told me her mom was mad at me because when she went in the fridge to get a piece of cheesecake, most of it was gone!
- I felt really bad about it, but I let my hunger get the best of me because my mind was consumed by thoughts of delicious cheesecake.
- Sin is sort of like that…
- It seems innocent enough at first, but before you know it, the consuming power of sin has taken over your life.
- So, let’s look at four things that will help us understand a little part of the consuming power of sin.
I. Sin starts with pride- Vs 1-6
- God has sent seven plagues on Egypt, and all seven times, Pharaoh has been stubborn, and his heart has been hardened.
- Remember, he wanted to be the one with the last word, so every time he said “Okay, I’ll let your people go, Moses”, but then he’d change his mind and say, “Never mind. They belong to me.”
- Pharaoh was full of pride and he was refusing to submit to God Almighty.
- Yet once again, we find God giving him another warning…
- God sends Moses to Pharaoh to tell him He’s sending another plague, a plague of locusts.
- On top of that, He gives him a whole day to repent, by not sending the plague until the next day.
- He even tells him just how bad it’s going to be…
- Vs 5 “They will cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth, and they will eat the residue of what is left, every tree which grows up… vs 6 “…they’ll fill your houses…unlike anything you’ve ever seen!”
- Common sense says, “With every single other plague, God has done what He said He was going to do…this time is no different!”
- Yet Pharaoh would still refuse to submit to God.
- In vs 2, we’re told that God was allowing Pharaoh and the Egyptians to continue their resistance so that He could show His people, the Jews, His hand at work on their behalf.
- He also wanted the Jews to remember all the mighty things He did in Egypt for them, and to pass that on to their children and their grandchildren.
- That way, they would remember who God is and all He had done for them and would continue to do for them if they remained faithful.
- In vs 3, God explains another reason why Pharaoh refuses to do what He says…
- “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?”
- So, Pharaoh wasn’t being forced against his will to harden his heart and be so stubborn…
- No, Pharaoh was willingly refusing to repent in humility.
- This reminded me of a time when Aaron was about 2 ½ years old, and my mother in law, Kathy, was coming over to get Aaron and Leah to bring them to her house to play.
- But before they could leave, they both had to give Sherri a kiss on the cheek.
- Leah had no problem with this, so she kissed Sherri and was ready to go.
- Aaron, however, decided he didn’t want to kiss Sherri.
- He was being stubborn.
- Sherri and I said, “Well Aaron, you can’t go with grammy if you don’t kiss mommy. Just kiss her, and you’ll get to go…”
- Still he refused.
- So, mom said, “I’ll just start leaving with Leah, walking down the driveway, and maybe he’ll change his mind.”
- Well that upset Aaron, so he started crying really loud, expecting that we would just let him go.
- Obviously, as his parents, it was hard to say, “You can’t go”, because he really wanted to go…
- However, he needed to learn that there were consequences for his stubbornness…
- It’s interesting because even though he was so young and didn’t know what pride was, he was still acting with pride, wanting his own way…
- So, pride is part of our sin nature, part of our flesh, even at a young age.
- Before any of these plagues came, Pharaoh of course was full of pride.
- You don’t get to be the leader of a country without having some form of pride inside.
- He displayed pride by allowing people to worship him as a god.
- He displayed pride through how he viewed and treated the Hebrews, as lowly slaves under him.
- He displayed pride by viewing himself as the most powerful man in the world.
- But God, through each of these plagues, was giving Pharaoh a chance to humble himself and submit to God’s authority.
- You see, pride was at the root of his sin problem…
- It led to his cruelty to the Israelites, it led to his disobedience to God, it led to his lying to Moses and God, it led to his attempts to control the situation…
- Pharaoh was consumed by the power of sin, all of it going back to his pride.
- Today, I believe God asks people the same question… “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?”
- It’s an honest question and it deserves an honest answer.
- How long will you refuse to humble yourself before God?
- For some people, the answer is a lifetime…
- They refuse to humble themselves before God and choose to live their lives as if God doesn’t exist.
- They’ll say things like, “I’ll do what I want, when I want, how I want, and nobody, not even God, can tell me otherwise!”
- That’s why so many people refuse to respond to the call of salvation.
- “I don’t need Jesus. I’m a good enough person by myself”
- Or, “I don’t want Jesus because I want control of my life!”
- Pride makes us think we’re just fine on our own, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
- We’re told in the book of James, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God!”
- Humility…when we first come to Christ, lost and broken, we must come humbly…
- But the humility doesn’t stop there…
- As we grow in our walk with Him, we must remain humble…
- He is God and we are not!
II. Sin wants control- Vs 7-11
- Years ago, when I was a kid and lived in Colorado, I went over to my friend Brendan’s home with my other friend Shane.
- Brendan had a dirt bike and he wanted to show it off to me and Shane.
- So off he went, speeding off into the road, and he made it look easy.
- Shane and I really wanted to try it out, so when Brendan got back, he handed the dirt bike over to Shane and off he went into the distance, and again, it looked easy.
- So, when Shane got back, Brendan let me get on.
- “It’s just like riding a bike” he told me, so on I went.
- I started it up and squeezed the accelerator and zoom, off I went.
- Unfortunately, it was not as easy as I thought it was.
- I panicked when I felt the wheels speeding forward, and I started to swerve.
- I tried to hit the brakes, but then hit the accelerator at the same time, and I was completely out of control.
- I couldn’t stir it straight, I felt the wheels wobbling this way and that, and when I got to the spot where I was supposed to turn left, I hit the accelerator again, screaming as I instead lost control and drove right straight into the bushes in a big ditch across the road.
- I fell off and my friends came running over to make sure I was okay.
- I got up, and they started laughing at me, because I looked like a fool and screamed like a baby.
- On top of that, I broke the dirt bike, so when my friend realized I’d done that, he got upset, and of course, I never got to ride it again.
- The reason I tell that story is because even though I had never driven a dirt bike before, I thought I could control it just fine, and when I got on it, my mindset was, “I’m in control…” and I wanted to control it, but of course, it didn’t end well.
- When it comes to sin, you’ll always find that sin wants control of things, but it doesn’t end well.
- That’s where we find Pharaoh in these verses…continuing to want control of the Israelites, and only willing to let them go to worship in the wilderness if he controls the terms.
- Yet God is showing Pharaoh that he doesn’t have control.
- Notice in vs 7 he’s even starting to lose control of his servants…
- “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, Egypt is destroyed!”
- Wow…up until this point, Pharaoh’s servants have been on his side.
- Now, however, they’re speaking up, and what they say is absolutely true…that’s why we don’t see Pharaoh object to it or punish them for saying it.
- Instead, in vs 8, he has them bring Moses and Aaron back to him.
- But once again, he’s trying to be in control.
- He says, “Okay, you can go, but who are the ones going?”
- Obviously, he knew the answer to the question because Moses has been asking all along for all the people to go…
- On top of that, when the Egyptians held festivals for their gods, they included the entire population, not just the men, so he knew Moses meant everyone.
- Yet Pharaoh, trying to keep control, attempted to make an unreasonable compromise.
- He was probably thinking that if the men went alone, they would have to come back because their women and children would be left behind…
- So basically, he could have kept them as hostages to ensure the Hebrew men didn’t run away.
- In vs 9, Moses quickly answers that all the Hebrew men, women, children, and their flocks and herds must go for the feast to the Lord.
- Moses could bravely answer this way because God didn’t need to compromise…God was in control, not Pharaoh.
- Obviously, Pharaoh didn’t like that answer, so once again, trying to be in control, he makes threats to Israel, and tries to take credit for letting them go…
- “God had better be with you when I let you go!”
- Then he sarcastically throws in there a fake concern for their safety when he says, “Beware, for evil is ahead of you!”
- Pharaoh’s sarcasm was bad enough, but look at what he does next in vs 11…
- “Go now, only the men, and serve the Lord…” and they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.”
- He doesn’t even give Moses a chance to respond.
- Instead, he says, “This is how it’s going to be!” and then, for the first time after 7 plagues, Pharaoh has them driven out of his palace.
- The consuming power of sin had Pharaoh deceived into thinking he had control of the situation, and that his compromise was enough…
- But Pharaoh was about to learn once again how wrong he was!
- In our world today, sin wants control of the lives of Christians and non-Christians.
- In Genesis 4, after God accepted Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s offering, Cain got angry.
- In vs 7, God warned him by telling him “…if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”
- That still rings true today…sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you!
- For the Christian, Jesus gained victory over our sin when He gave His life on the cross for our sin.
- Yet in our flesh, there is still an ongoing struggle, a daily battle against sin.
- Paul spoke of this in Romans 7:18-20 where he said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
- If we give in to sin, and let it become a habit in our lives, with the same sins controlling certain areas over and over and over again, then we’re willingly giving those areas of our life to sin, which is a defeated enemy…why would we want to do that?
- In vs 24, Paul says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”
- Then he answers his question in vs 25… “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
- In Romans 6:18, we’re told, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
- Then in vs 22, Paul says, “…now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
- So as Christians, you and I need to daily allow the Holy Spirit to control our lives, and say no to sin, because we are slaves of God, not sin!
- The more we say no, the more we’ll grow in our walk with the Lord, through the process of sanctification.
- Unbelievers, however, are under the control of sin.
- In Romans 6:16, Paul explained, “…when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—[if] you are slaves to sin, [it] leads to death…”
- In vs 19, he says unbelievers, “…offer [themselves] as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness…”
- Then in vs 20 and 21, he says the person who is a slave to sin is free from the control of righteousness, but there is no benefit because those things result in death.
- Thankfully, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the sin of the world on the cross, so no person has to live under sin’s control…
- Deliverance is through Jesus Christ alone, but you can only receive that deliverance and victory if you turn to Him…
III. Sin is destructive- Vs 12-15
- When I was in Middle School, my teacher had our class read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories about her time living in the Great Plains.
- In one of those books, she talks about the time a swarm of locusts brought destruction to that part of the country in the 1870’s, so we looked at actual photos of the swarms and the damage they caused.
- We also read historical accounts from people who lived through it.
- Trillions of locusts descended on the Great Plains and spread from Montana to Minnesota and down to Texas.
- The locusts devoured anything they could eat, including crops, sawdust, leather, and even the very clothes on people’s backs!
- They left economic ruin and even death in their path.
- Beginning in late June 1874, wide blue skies all over the American prairie suddenly went dark.
- Some likened it to a snowstorm, others to the coming of night.
- The pinkie finger-sized insects ate a panoply of crops, including wheat, corn, melons, tobacco, barley, strawberries, potatoes, beans, and fruit trees.
- The weight of all the bugs in the swarm was estimated to be more than 27 million tons.
- One farmer had fifteen acres of corn eaten by the locusts in just three hours!
- One pioneer wrote, “The locusts looked like a great, white glistening cloud, for their wings caught the sunshine on them and made them look like a cloud of white vapor.”
- Some farmers covered their gardens with blankets and textiles, but the insects’ numbers were too great, their maws too tireless. They simply chewed through the fabric.
- One defense strategy entailed keeping a barrier of fires around one’s land, the more smoke produced the better, to deter their approach and descent.
- Still, locusts would land upon the burning pits in numbers significant enough to snuff them out.
- In her book, Laura Ingalls Wilder explained, “You could hear the millions of jaws biting and chewing,” Later, she described the scene as family members came back inside after a brief excursion: “Grasshoppers went into the house with them. Their clothes were full of grasshoppers. Some jumped into the hot stove where Mary was starting supper. Ma covered the food till they had chased and smashed every grasshopper. She swept them up and shoveled them into the stove.”
- A New York Times correspondent wrote, “They beat against the houses, swarm in at the windows, cover the passing trains…They work as if sent to destroy.”
- If a person tried to walk outside, they’d find that the locusts were piled on top of one another four to six inches deep!
- I think this gives us an idea of what it was like for the Egyptians, but I believe the plague was much worse for the Egyptians because in vs 14, we’re told, “The locusts were very severe, previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them.”
- Just like God said He would, He sent the locusts…a huge swarm of them, with the purpose of leaving nothing but destruction in their path.
- There were so many of them that they blotted out the light from the Sun…
- I imagine that would be pretty scary, not being able to see anything, but hearing the loud buzzing of trillions of locusts, and listening to them eat everything that was left of the Egyptian’s crops.
- Once again, God was showing His power over the false gods of Egypt…
- Set was supposed to be the protector of crops, but he couldn’t stop God from destroying the rest of the Egyptian’s crops.
- Osiris was supposed to be the god of crop fertility, but he couldn’t stop the destruction.
- Nut, an Egyptian sky goddess, had no power to keep the swarm of locusts away from Egypt.
- And of course, Pharaoh, who was supposed to be a god, couldn’t stop the locusts from coming, or make them go away.
- Imagine, nothing green being left…Egypt must have looked like a wasteland!
- The locusts completely consumed all that was left, and there were serious economic and social consequences.
- Pharaoh failed to heed God’s warning, and he and his country paid for it with this destructive plague.
- Sin is also like that…destructive, consuming everything and everyone in its path.
- Romans 3:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death.
- James 1:15 tells us that sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
- Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
- Those are just a few verses describing the destruction of sin.
- We can look all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit…
- Before that, they had perfect, sinless bodies…after that, they grew old, got tired from hard work, got sick, and eventually, they died a physical death.
- Every single person who has lived since them has faced the same thing…the destruction of sin.
- The earth was perfect before Adam and Eve sinned…today, the earth is no longer perfect…
- There are natural disasters, there is disease, there are wars, there are famines, there is pollution…
- There have been murders, rapes, theft, betrayal…
- Animals no longer live in harmony…they’re either predator or prey.
- So many bad things all around us.
- Sin has left nothing but destruction in its path, and we see more and more of it every day.
- The only hope for our world is found in Jesus Christ our Lord!
- He tells us in Revelation 20 that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire, and in Revelation 21, He describes the new heaven and new earth that He will create, perfect, without sin.
- As Christians, we will be with Him for all of eternity, and we’ll get to see a perfect world ruled by our perfect God.
- Unbelievers, however, will not get to see it…
- The destruction of sin from their rejection of Christ will follow them into eternity in the lake of fire.
- We don’t want to see anyone go there, so it’s our duty and our privilege to tell the world about the hope that is found in Jesus Christ our Lord!
IV. Sin is deceptive- Vs 16-20
- The destruction from the plague of locusts was too much for Pharaoh.
- He realized his mistake, so he called for Moses and Aaron to come.
- Notice this time, he says, “I have sinned against the Lord and against you!”
- For the first time, he’s acknowledging that he has sinned against God, and against Moses.
- Every other time he’s repented, he’s never called it sin.
- Here though, he calls it sin.
- I believe the reason for that is because Egypt is completely devastated.
- Pharaoh has not been able to stop any of these plagues from happening, his people are getting upset and restless, so his only choice is to repent.
- However, even though he’s saying the right words, he is being deceptive.
- Notice he says, “Please forgive my sin and entreat the Lord to take away from me this death…”
- I can picture him crossing his fingers behind his back because he knows that God will do it, just like He did with the other 7 plagues.
- Also notice that he doesn’t say anything about letting the Israelites go this time…
- I believe that’s because he already knew in his mind that he was going to keep trying to stop the Jews from leaving.
- He didn’t want them to go.
- So Pharaoh still thought he had the power…
- Perhaps he thought God couldn’t send any more plagues because everything was already destroyed…
- So maybe he thought he’d use the Hebrew slaves to rebuild Egypt.
- I don’t know, but whatever he was thinking, the fact is that he was not planning to let them go.
- He already made his mind up, so the Lord hardened his heart, which was already hardened, and he continued in his wickedness.
- Sin had him deceived into thinking he could still win.
- Today, sin continues to deceive people.
- In Ephesians 4:22, the Apostle Paul says, “…put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires…”
- Sin wants us to think it’s fun and innocent.
- Sin wants us to think it has our best interest in mind.
- Sin wants us to think it’s easier to give in than to fight.
- Sin wants us to give in once, so then we can give in a second time, then a third, then a fourth, and so on.
- Sin is deceptive.
- For those who don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, sin wants them to think they don’t need God.
- Sin wants them to think they can be good enough on their own.
- Sin wants them to think everyone else does it.
- Sin wants them to think Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross is a fairy tale.
- Sin wants to blind people and control their lives.
- Sadly, many people have been deceived by sin over the years, and they died without Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
- We don’t want that to happen to anyone.
- As Christians, we recognize the consuming power of sin, and can see the pain it causes in people’s lives.
- But we also know that victory is in Jesus Christ, and we can point people to Him and His love and His forgiveness.
- Don’t let sin deceive you, as a Christian, into thinking people won’t listen to you tell them about Jesus…
- Don’t let sin deceive you into thinking you won’t know what to say….
- Don’t let sin deceive you into thinking someone else will tell them…
- Be bold, go out, and tell people about Jesus and how much He loves them.
- If you’re watching on tv and you’ve never made a decision to believe in Jesus and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, do so today.
- You don’t have to be a slave to sin…you can give your life to Jesus Christ today.
