The Finger of God
Text: Exodus 8:16-19
Introduction: We turn now to the third of the ten plagues imposed upon Egypt under Moses, the plague of lice. I suppose there is nothing quite like the though of parasites to make our skin crawl. Recently I watched a documentary entitled “Body Bugs.” It was all about the microscopic creatures that live on our person, and it was a fascinating programme. There are creatures all over us, even down to our very eyelashes. Of course most of these creatures are a help to us, feeding off dead skin, and helping us in many other ways. The beauty of microscopic creatures is that the naked eye cannot see them – but lice, nits, and fleas – now they are a different matter. I will never forget sitting behind a young women in church one night, and being distracted by the movement of hair. Her head was alive! I am not kidding – there was a colony of head lice living in that person’s hair. I can honestly say from that point on I cannot remember a single thing the preacher said – the rest of the night was taken up watching her head, hoping and trying to ensure that none of her pets were dropping on to me!! The very thought of lice is enough to send shivers down our spine, yet these itching, blood sucking creatures were the very tool God was now using to bring Egypt to her knees.
There are two interesting observations about this plague. First of all there was no warning given concerning it. God’s warnings are an act of grace, as Pharaoh hardened his heart God’s grace was slowly being withdrawn. Secondly the magicians could not copy the miracle, though they tried, causing them to declare of it “This is the finger of God.” That is a remarkable statement, especially when we consider its source. Here were these occultists and they saw and recognised the power of God, but Pharaoh could not, again he hardened his heart.
Every day man is confronted by the finger of God. Of course not necessarily are we faced with lice, but lice or no lice, God is operative in the world, and His fingerprint is all around. The finger of God is a finger of challenge. It is a pointer to truth, and as we examine this phrase throughout the Scriptures we see that the finger of God can be witnessed addressing five aspects of our lives.
I. The Finger of God Addresses Our Culture – Exodus 8:16-19
A. The plagues on Egypt was an attack on Egyptian culture.
1. As we saw last week the Egyptians were a scrupulously clean people.
2. They were also ardent idolaters.
3. The plague of lice affected them in both areas.
B. First of all it challenged their passion with cleanliness, particularly the cleanliness of the priests.
1. Lice were extremely repulsive to Egyptian magicians and priests, so much so that they actually shaved their heads to avoid them.
2. Nevertheless they did not escape the plague as the lice were on both man and beast.
3. The fact that the lice were also on the beasts only served to exacerbate their problems.
4. First of all they could not make any sacrifices to their idols, and secondly some of their idols, in particularly their sacred bull was affected.
5. This bull was reverently cleansed and combed every day – how could they now worship a beast deemed as unclean.
6. We can only imagine the harvest of lice they reaped with every sweep of the rake through the bull’s coat.
C. So the plague challenged the worship practices and culture of Egypt in general, but it also challenged one god in particularly – Geb, god of the earth.
1. Whereas the first two plagues involved water, and came from the water, this plague was sourced in the earth – the dust beneath their feet was turned into lice.
2. When you consider how much dust there must be in that sandy land we can begin toi imagine the extent of the problem.
3. In fact the word translated “lice” also means “cover.”
a. Just as the earth is covered in dust, so the Egyptians were covered in lice.
b. How the people must have loathed all thought of Geb.
D. Our culture is no less challenged by the finger of God, and here lies the root of many of the problems we face as a church today.
1. Our nation has its idols – to some it is the idol of science, to others money, sex, drink, drugs, pleasures – whatever.
2. The Word of God is a challenge to our modern gods, and let me tell you these gods shall fall, they are going to go everyone of them until we acknowledge as a nation that the earth is the Lord’s.
a. Revelation 18:1-19
b. This is the finger of God unravelling all that the world and her system hold.
II. The Finger of God Addresses Our Character – Deuteronomy 9:10
A. Deuteronomy 9 reveals that the ten commandments of God were written with the very finger of God.
1. To what end? To what purpose?
2. Not that we might live up to them, but that by them we might see the flaws of human character.
3. The whole purpose of the law, and the commandments was to expose our sin.
a. See Roman 7:12-14
b. Galatians 3:19-24
B. To that end the law has been good. In fact it has been a roaring success, for from the day Moses received it on Sinai to this present hour no man alive, Jesus Christ , excepted has been able to keep it.
C. The law has revealed our depravity.
1. Who can say I have never placed anything above God in my priorities.
2. Who can say I have never known the presence of idols in my life?
3. Who can honestly claim to have always used the Lord’s Name honourably or indeed ensured always that one day in seven belonged to Him.
4. Is there one who can boast having always honoured and obeyed their parents, or one who professes never to have experienced even a moment’s hatred for someone else?
5. Can we say that we have been free of adultery. Maybe in our body, but what of our minds?
6. Have we always been scrupulously honest, never taking what isn’t rightfully ours, always putting in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay?
7. Who cannot admit to having told lies in their life, and of whom may it be said that we have never been affected by covetousness of another person property, position or prestige?
8. The law has found us out. The finger of God is pointing at us, and it shows that we are exceeding sinful, that we are utterly depraved, that we have no rightful business in the presence of a holy God.
III. The Finger of God Addresses Our Conduct – Daniel 5:1-30
A. This is a very telling episode, for it shows us first of all how a man will behave without God in his life.
1. Belshazzar was a vulgar pagan king.
2. His gods were gods of his own making – what time had he for the God of the Bible especially since his father had pillaged that God’s temple removing the sacred vessels from its precincts and storing as the spoils of war at his palace in Babylon.
3. We can only imagine with what relish Belshazzar produced these artefacts at his feast, and how he enjoyed the sacrilege of employing them for his own personal use.
4. This was a symbol of his power, a display of his might, a picture of his position as king of the great nation of Babylon.
a. Like many people Belshazzar reckoned without God.
b. Without realising that a king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, and that his father had merely been an instrument of chastening to a wayward Jewish people, Belshazzar revelled in his own history and greatness.
c. Like many men of privilege he gave himself to excesses, and here we see him partying with his lords no doubt glorying in his greatness.
d. He is acting as though God has let him away with it – that the God of the Hebrews will not act, that He will not judge him.
e. Psalms 55:19 says “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.”
(i) In other words, because everything remains the same from day to day men assume nothing is going to change and God is not going to act.
(ii) Modern men have ruled out the possibility of Christ’s return, they consider themselves more sophisticated than Bible truth and they have thrown every idea of judgment by God to the back of their minds.
(iii) Like Belshazzar modern man is in for a shock!!
B. As Belshazzar sat in his drunken stupor, praising the idols of Babylon, the finger of God appeared before his very eyes.
1. The king sobered up quickly as the finger began to etch in the plaster of his courtroom “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN” – “God has numbered your kingdom & finished it. You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
2. What did this great man do? Did he puff out his chest and brace up to the finger of God?
3. No – he soiled himself – that’s what the phrase “the joints of his loins were loosed” indicates.
a. Sitting in his own stench, colour drained from the king’s face so that all the party goers were astonished.
b. Let me tell you something that’s what happens to all the “great men” when they face the finger of God.
c. That is the end of all the earth’s mighty men when God calls our lives into account.
d. It is one thing, as some do, to play the hard man, and the big man in a human court – it is another thing to play the hard man in God’s court.
e. There are no hard men when the finger of God calls us to account!!
(i) See Revelation 6:15-17
C. By his command God’s has found us out in principle, but in His judgment God will have found us out in practice, so that we ask with John “Who shall be able to stand?”
1. Oh friend what will you do when at last the finger of God is pointed at you?
IV. The Finger of God Addresses Our Conscience – John 8:1-11
A. We have no idea what Jesus wrote with his finger in verse 6 of this passage.
1. It has been suggested that he wrote
a. The law pertaining to adultery that both parties were to be brught for stoning and not just the woman.
b. The name of the man with whom she had been found.
c. The names of others standing there in the lynch mob who had committed the same sin.
d. Or the sins of those who were her accusers.
2. Whatever he wrote only eternity will tell, but the effect of what he wrote is ours to know, for looking at the crowd he said “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
B. You know it is always easy to examine the sin in other people’s lives.
1. It is also easy to find someone whose life is morally worse than our own.
2. But when the finger of God points it doesn’t point to the sins of others it points at our sins.
3. The Bible says: “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
4. When the finger of God points, it doesn’t point at my neighbour it points at me.
a. It searches my heart, it reveals my life, it exposes my motives.
b. Like the Pharisees we are all too willing to expose other in order to hide ourselves.
c. Friend that doesn’t work with the finger of God. His finger pricks your conscience and mine.
d. Had we stood in that crowd that day I am afraid we would have been no better off than the Pharisees, we too would have had to have walked away head bowed in shame, unwilling to pass judgment upon a fellow sinner.
C. It would seem that the finger of God is very daunting in its address of our culture, character, conduct and conscience and that from it all hope is lost.
1. That is until we examine one more passage;
V. The Finger of God Addresses Our Condition – Luke 11:20
A. Here the finger of God is associated with deliverance.
1. In this passage the Lord Jesus had been accused of casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub – some folks will do anything to detract from the reality and truth of Christ.
2. But the Lord points out that Satan is hardly likely to dismantle his own kingdom.
3. No - Christ delivered not by the power of Satan but with the finger of God.
a. The same finger of God that turned the dust into lice in ancient Egypt, the same finger of God that etched the commandments on tablets of stone at Sinai’s summit, the same finger of God that inscribe Belshazzar’s plaster, the same finger that drew in the hot sands of Israel pricking the conscience of the Pharisees.
b. The hand that so readily condemns us is the same hand that so graciously saves and delivers us.
Conclusion: You see that finger represents power. In the first instance it symbolises God’s power to judge us. That is God’s right. No man can is able to stand against the finger of God. By right the finger of God is against us. But by grace that same finger is powerful toward us. By the finger of God we may be delivered. The Bible says “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12) That my friend is also the finger of God. By the finger of God we are laid bare and exposed, but our exposure is also our salvation. The same finger that finds us out, also takes away the sin of the world. Which its to be for you depends upon ho3w you react to that finger. “The magicians” in a rare moment of understanding “said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.” But, “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them.” How different things might have been if instead Pharaoh had laid hold on that finger.
You know one of the joys of fatherhood and motherhood occurs in the earliest days of a child’s life when we feel the gentle hand of our baby curl around our finger. In that moment we sense that child’s dependency upon us. It seems that that grasp states all the trust of our little one in us. In much the same way we too must grasp the finger of God. In one simple act of faith we trust Him to deliver, to save us, and we place our faith in all He has done for us in and through Calvary. The finger of God is a fearsome thing – but it doesn’t have to be, if we would but trust Him to deliver us.
