THE FIRST NINE PLAGUES
At the end of Exodus chapter 2 we’re told:
“Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.
So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.”
Reader, if you are one who has placed his trust in the shed blood of Christ and you belong to God, rejoice. Your groaning rises up to His divine heart of compassion. He remembers His promises concerning your eternal good. He takes notice of you.
What a blessed, wonderful thought. The sons of men have all turned aside. There is no fear of God before their eyes. They ignore Him, and they do not care that He ignores them. They struggle through life in their own strength, giving no thought, or giving wrong thought, concerning their eternal destiny. They are entirely lost and undone, and in their sinful rebellion they prefer false gods to the One true God. They scoff at His coming wrath, and they reject His ever-present offer of love.
But the child of God is remembered, and noticed; and when God takes notice, my friend, things happen.
Chapter 3 ends with, “...and God took notice of them.” Then chapter 4 begins with, “Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
As Moses penned this account, he wasn’t skipping from one subject to another, reader. God noticed. The pre-incarnate ‘Lion’ turned His noble head to catch the groaning of His people, and in response to their pleas He rose and set out toward Horeb, to meet there with His chosen man.
Read chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus, and bear in mind that this is our Savior Himself, prior to His physical birth, meeting face to face with Moses on Mount Horeb. (Ex 3:2 says the “angel of the Lord” appeared to him, and in verse 6 that visitor says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” We know this is God’s Christ, because He is the ‘Angel’ or the ‘sent One’, Who proceeds from the Father to do His will.)
In response to his calling on Horeb, Moses fetches Aaron and fills him in. Then, according to the Lord’s instruction, he and Aaron go to the elders and tell them also, showing them signs to help their belief. Ex 4:31 says:
“So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed low and worshipped.”
I cannot help wondering if deliverance might have come sooner, had they believed without seeing; known without being told that God was concerned about them; bowed down and worshipped because of Who He is, rather than for what He could give.
A lesson for us to take to heart, believer. In any case, Moses and Aaron were about to embark on the adventure of their lives. Next stop; the throne room.
In chapters 4-6 we can see the progression and growth of Moses’ confidence in God.
If you read the account of his calling, when the Lord met him at the burning bush, you know that he was so self-debasing and hesitant to receive the commission, that he angered the Lord (4:14).
These chapters document God’s instructions for their first meetings with Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s initial rejections. You will see Aaron doing all the work, but receiving his direction from Moses because Moses is the man through whom God has chosen to speak.
God answers Moses’ fears with encouragement, promising action:
“Then the Lord said to Moses,
‘Now you shall see what I will do
to Pharaoh; for under compulsion
he shall let them go, and under
compulsion he shall drive them out of his land’.”
As the plagues progress, you can notice Moses coming more and more to the forefront, until by the end there is no mention of Aaron, although Aaron was with Moses at each of his meetings with Pharaoh.
When we go out to do the Lord’s work in our own strength and self-confidence, disaster is sure to follow. But when we go in obedience to His commands and in His timing, our confidence in His strength will grow until with boldness and an assuredness that is contagious, we can say, “Stand fast, and see the salvation of the Lord!”
God’s message to Pharaoh is abundantly clear, and it does not change throughout:
“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,
‘Let My people go that they may
celebrate a feast to Me in the
wilderness.’”
They are to be an entirely separated people, delivered, not only from the task-masters and the whips and the labor, but also from the pagan temples and idolatry that surrounded them in that land. This is the condition for true fellowship with God, reader. The believer is called to ‘come out from among them and be separate’, and the coming out is for the purpose of ‘feasting with Him’. We may stand, eternally secure in Christ, through faith in His shed blood, and nothing can remove us from that place He has put us; but real, significant, thriving, fruit-bearing fellowship with God is done outside the camp (Heb 13:13).
Pharaoh’s initial answer to Moses and Aaron is a sad one, but it is the answer of every man who rejects Christ, and it is the answer that, unless they repent and believe in God through Christ, seals their eternal doom:
“Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides,
I will not let Israel go.”
Chapter seven verse 14 begins the account of the plagues that God brought on the Egyptian nation for Pharaoh’s rejection. It should be noted that each of these plagues was an opportunity for belief. At any time during them, Pharaoh could have repented and honored God by letting His people go. Instead, he continued to harden himself and refuse to obey, and the result was Egypt’s utter destruction.
In the book of Revelation, the vials of God’s wrath, poured out on mankind in the last days, will serve the same purpose. Each one is designed to awaken men to their sinful condition and their estrangement from God, and cause them to turn to Him in repentance. Sadly, most will only harden themselves further, cursing God and even praying to the rocks themselves to cover them and hide them from His wrath.
(Rev 6:15-17)
No less than four of the plagues took place before Pharaoh made his first attempt at compromise, with his first objection.
God had turned the waters of the land into blood, then He had polluted the land with frogs, then had sent swarms of gnats, then insects, and with each plague Pharaoh had brazenly declared, “You’re not going!”
Pharaoh’s first objection comes in chapter eight, verse 25. “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” Wrong answer! God had said, “Let My people go.” More specifically, He had said to let them go into the wilderness, outside of the land, to serve Him. There can be no compromise between God and Satan; between good and evil; between the decrees of God and the objections of the devil.
The world is to Christians, what Egypt was to Israel. The world doesn’t want to see your worship of the true God, believer. It is a loathsome thing to them. If they do not mock you, they will avoid you in disgust. If they cannot avoid you, they will persecute you.
At this point you may ask, ‘what is the definition of the world?’ It is this. It is the prevailing spirit of anti-Christ that dominates the thinking and the living of the spiritually dead. It is a system of thought and belief that denies God and His truth, and says ‘it need not be done God’s way; my own way is best.’
You see, Satan doesn’t mind if you worship ‘within the land’, because worship within the land means a watered-down worship that is not in accordance with obedience. It leaves out any sacrifice, it does not call for separation of any kind, and it is therefore no better, no stronger, no more real than any other world religion or philosophy. It is powerless and dead.
When you become nothing more than a ‘church member’, reader, and are satisfied that you have a good religion because you attend faithfully and engage in all the rituals and programs of the church...but there is no change in you or your life-style, you are worshipping within the land. You are disobedient to God’s command.
When the church adopts the world’s methods of advertisement and entertainment to draw people in, and from its pulpit preaches a feel-good, ‘I’m ok, you’re ok’ message, with no call to repentance, no conviction of sin, no mention of the virgin birth or the blood of Christ or His imminent return, it is a church that has chosen to worship within the land. It is worse than powerless and dead; it is leading people astray. The Spirit has departed from that place, and it’s leaders will bear the greater load of guilt.
God had specifically ordered that His people be allowed to leave the land, and His instructions to the people were that they were to go a three days journey into the wilderness, and worship there.
They were to worship in a place entirely removed from the influence of Egypt. They would not see its cities on the horizon, they would not hear its sounds, they would not even see the smoke rising from its pagan altars.
Pharaoh’s second objection was very much like the first, and comes right on the heels of the first (8:28). In response to his objection that they worship within the land, Moses repeats that God’s command is that they go a three days journey, so Pharaoh counters this with:
“I will let you go, that you may sacrifice
to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only
you shall not go very far away. Make
supplication for me.”
On the surface it may sound like a very contrite and sincere compromise on Pharaoh’s part. If they go outside the land of Egypt, even though they stay close by, they may sacrifice without hindrance and without insulting the ‘gods’ of the Egyptians. Everybody stays happy.
‘Oh, and while you’re out there, pray for me too.’ How sweet.
Reader, very recently my wife and I dealt with a person whose mind was so much like the mind of Pharaoh here, that I am sure she would feel that this was a very reasonable request, indeed.
This woman has taken the position of so many in the world, that religion is very ‘nice’. It is good to have a religion, because religion makes a person well-rounded and respectable. She uses words like, ‘God’, ‘prayer’, ‘spiritual’; and at one point in our dealings with her she even requested that we pray for her (in reference to her business and its decline in the slow season of the year).
As long as you don’t cross these people in any way, as long as the conversation remains very ‘generic’ and vague as to specific beliefs, there will be an illusion of peace between you and them. Satan doesn’t mind talk of religion. Some of his greatest agents in history were very ‘religious’ people.
But when, in your religion, you adhere to the truth of God’s Word; when you maintain a distinct separation between false and empty religion and a vibrant, personal relationship with the Savior, that Man/God Who bled for you and rose again, then you will raise Satan’s hackles. You will quickly see those same people lose their ‘peace’, and their true colors will suddenly shine through.
When we refused to jump into a sales deal that may have been ahead of God’s will; when we indicated that we had been praying and would continue to pray and seek His will, in her mind it was interpreted as ‘I’m going to lose this deal if I can’t get them to sign right now’, and she lost it. She became angry, she called prayer ‘metaphysical, psychological stuff’, and declared that she just didn’t have time to wait for us to “get it together”.
Reading verse 29 you will see that Moses did not back down from God’s expressed will concerning their going out. He just agreed to go out and pray that the Lord would remove the plague of insects, and warned Pharaoh not to deal deceitfully.
Once it was done and the swarms of insects were removed though, Pharaoh hardened himself once more against God and against God’s people. “You’re not going!”
Reader, we’re living in a time when the line between true ‘confessors’ of faith and worldly-minded ‘professors’ of faith is fading. The world itself is turning more and more to spiritual things and sounding a lot more religious in their speech and looking more religious in practice. The church, with its compromises and its embracing of many New Age philosophies is meeting them halfway, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern true religion from false, if the onlooker’s focus is not sharp.
I once heard Paul Harvey say, “In a time when the world is getting more ‘churchy’, and the church is getting more ‘worldly’, we need a fixed star to steer by.”
Mr. Harvey was very perceptive in that statement. Believer, your ‘fixed star’, is the cross of Christ. No other religion convicts of sin. No other religion says that God became a Man and, though innocent, took all the guilt of sin upon Himself and suffered and died to pay the penalty. No other religion says that the One who paid the price for sin with His own blood then rose in triumph over death. No other religion boasts a God with nail scars in His hands and feet!
In your witnessing, in your life-style, in the decisions you make from day to day, in your prayer and in your assessment of the ideals and philosophies that come to your ears from others, believer, use the cross of Christ as your star to steer by; hold all other things up to that, and if they don’t line up, reject them completely. Steer by the cross and though the storms rage, and the winds blow and the waves are high, you will eventually arrive safely at port.
Now why did I use all this space to say these things? Because, believer in Christ, you cannot retain this clear vision; you cannot continue to discern the distinctions between what is false and what is true, if you worship too ‘close to the land’.
Remember that I said the world is to the Christian, what Egypt was to the Israelite. You were once enslaved to Egypt (sin and death), but God has delivered you from that, and calls you to come out, separate unto Him. Be separate indeed. There’s nothing to go back to.
Remember that Christianity is not just a ‘giving up’ of things; not just a denying of things. It is a ‘gaining much’; it is a declaring of things much greater than what is denied. You do not go into Christianity naked and destitute and joyless and hopeless; that is how you were in Egypt. Now you are the opposite. You are clothed in His righteousness. You are heirs and joint-heirs with the One Who owns all things.
You have given up dung and dross for unsearchable riches. All that you had in Egypt is corrupted and passing away. What you have gained is incorruptible, unfading, reserved in Heaven for you.
Satan would rob you of that, if he could. He wants you to stay close enough to the land so that the passing things, the comfort of them, will continue to be an attraction and a snare to you. But if you will go a ‘three days journey, those things will quickly lose their appeal as you begin to worship, free of their influence, and in the obedience that God blesses. “...that they may celebrate a feast to Me.”
“He who fed the multitude,
Turned the water into wine,
To the hungry calleth now,
‘Come and Dine!’”
Pharaoh’s third objection (and therefore Satan’s), comes in chapter ten verses 10 and 11.
First, let’s take just a brief look at the plagues that had to befall Egypt in order to bring the Pharaoh to this next minor concession.
In chapter nine God sends Moses back to Pharaoh, to announce that He would bring a pestilence on the livestock of Egypt. He goes further though, to say that He will make a distinction between Egypt and Israel, in that not one of the animals of the Israelites will be touched.
Folks, it is not for us to make a distinction between us and those who do not know God. What I mean by that is, we are not to be ‘Pharisees’, who would say, “Lord, thank you that you did not make me as one of these...”
We are sinners, saved by God’s grace, and but for His grace and mercy there would be no distinction between us and the world, whatsoever.
But when God makes the distinction, it is to show what He thinks of us, not what we think of us, and His evaluation of us is based on His Son’s righteousness, where we stand, not on our righteousness, which is as filthy rags.
When we make a distinction between others and ourselves, based on our own estimations, there can only be hypocrisy. It will always be based upon what we see, and what we see in ourselves will always be tainted by sin and the sin nature. Our words at their best and most noble, would be “I am holier than you”.
But when God makes the distinction it cuts to the very heart of the matter, and the division is between light and darkness; life and death.
So the livestock of Egypt dies by pestilence. The plague is lifted at Moses’ request, and the Pharaoh says, “You’re not going!”
Then boils, on man and beast throughout the land of Egypt, then a rain of hail and fire that destroys crops, homes and anyone foolish to stick his head outside to check the weather.
If you back up and read straight through the account of these plagues, and use your imagination, you can surmise that by now the land of Egypt was quite a mess, and its people rather depressed.
Pharaoh is a little depressed also. Look at chapter 9, verse 27:
“I have sinned this time; the Lord is the
righteous one, and I and my people
are the wicked ones.”
Who do you think you’re kidding, Pharaoh, ol’ pal?
“I have sinned THIS TIME”? And what exactly were you doing before; when you murdered babies and enslaved God’s people and treated them harshly? What were you doing when you declared with arrogance and pride that you did not know the Lord and didn’t care? Was it sin, maybe, when you continued to allow your own people to suffer the outpouring of God’s wrath for the sake of your own selfish pride and rebellion against God’s demands?
Yes indeed, you have sinned this time...ALSO!
God isn’t fooled by false piety, believer. Nor was Moses.
“But as for you and your servants,
I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.”
(9:30)
Moses understood something that the Apostle Paul was to write centuries later. “There is no fear of God before their eyes”. Unsaved men will occasionally admit to sin. Sometimes, it will be a prideful, arrogant, boasting. Other times it will be in a humble admission that some act they have recently performed was not right. Then, less frequently but by God’s grace and mercy, there is the occasional sinner who, because he sees the gravity of some recent act of sin, finally turns to God in repentance. God uses that one act of sin to awaken the man to his folly and his lost condition, and grant him repentance, and draw that man to Himself.
But in most cases, when unregenerate man admits to sin, it is with the same glib, unresponsive, uncaring attitude that the Pharaoh was showing here in Exodus. They may as well be saying, “Oops, I burped”. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Until there is that, there is no repentance. Until there is that, there is no forgiveness of sins. Until there is that, there is no salvation.
Moses was right in saying that Pharaoh did not yet fear God. Pharaoh again hardened his heart and said, “You’re not going”.
So God says He will send locusts. They will destroy what little there was left of the crops and fill the houses of the Egyptians.
Listen folks. Crops or no crops, having locusts crunch under my feet as I cross the room, and feeling them squish between my toes as I step out of the shower would be enough to make me reassess my position in the whole matter...yecch!
Pharaoh’s servants must have felt much the same. In verse 7 of chapter 10 they begin to grow a little bolder with him. “Let the men go! Don’t you realize Egypt will soon qualify for disaster relief?”
So Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron back, to give his third objection. He is a little more diplomatic this time.
“Go serve the Lord your God! Who are the ones that are going?”
Moses holds nothing back. “We shall go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go...” (that one must have hurt a little; ‘you still have flocks and herds? sigh...”)
Here comes the objection:
“Not so! Go now, the men
among you, and serve the Lord,
for that is what you desire.”
(10:11)
This objection should hold a very solemn warning for all Christian parents. If Satan cannot keep the adults in Egypt, he will do his best to keep the children.
Remember what I said earlier about Satan wanting to frustrate life? Remember the examples I used; homosexuality...convenience abortion? They are designed to cut off generations. If you can stop the next generation from coming, that frustrates the life process.
Satan will do everything in his power, believer, to cut off the next generation of believers by keeping your children in the land.
We cannot suppose that because we believe, our children will automatically believe. John Wesley Hardin, one of the vilest murderers of the old west, was the son of a Methodist minister.
There are many, many other examples of people who actually grew up in the homes of Godly men and women, and later became actually famous for the moral depths to which they plunged.
I am afraid that far too many Christian parents read Acts 16:31 “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your household”, and think that the salvation of their children will be automatic because they themselves believe. There is great danger in separating any verse of scripture from the rest of scripture and basing a doctrine on that verse alone. We are saved by grace through faith, but saving faith issues in good works (faith without works is dead). By the same token, Acts 16 gives us a promise that our belief in Christ will be a saving influence over our household, but there are other scriptures that make it clear that the influence will be through the Godly parent; not apart from or inspite of.
“And, fathers, do not provoke your children
to anger; but bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord.”
(Eph 6:4)
Every one has to make his own decision for Christ, believer, and that includes your children. Grace is not hereditary; each one must be born of the water and the Spirit, or he will not see the Kingdom of God.
But they will not have the information needed to make that decision and be born again, if we leave them in Egypt and at the mercy of Egypt’s influences, while we go off and perform our rituals of worship.
Believer, do you suppose that God will bless your worship and receive your offerings while your children are being baby-sat by computer games, or are left to wander the streets and fall prey to every device of Satan?
You must take them with you.
So here come the locusts. Pharaoh quickly calls Moses and Aaron back, trying hard to look noble and majestic with Jimminy Cricket sitting on his shoulder (probably singing, “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide”) and at his pleading, God lifts the plague of locusts, and once more, Pharaoh says, “You’re not going!”
The boy just won’t pay attention...
God brings the plague of thick darkness over the land of Egypt, and of all the plagues, it seems that this one should have made Pharaoh sit up and take notice. A man might find it in his own reasonings to explain away such natural phenomenon as hail, and insects, and frogs and locusts and disease; but here are two nations of people, separated by space, but by no other obstruction, either natural or man-made. The Israelites live in an area of Egypt called “Goshen”, just inside Egypt’s border, but well within sight and range of Rameses, yet darkness falls over the Egyptians which is so thick they cannot see their hand before their face, but in Goshen there is light.
Still, Pharaoh’s heart will not soften, his will does not bend. He makes one more concession, one more objection, but still not in submission to the demands of God.
“Go serve the Lord; only let your flocks and your herds be detained.”
(Pretty cocky attitude from a guy who is swimming in such thick darkness that he couldn’t even read Better Pyramids and Gardens in the bathroom...IF he could find the bathroom!)
“There is none so blind, as he who will not see”
-Ray Stevens
Serve the Lord without sacrifice? Preposterous! What is the point in making a great show of separating from the world and professing faith in Christ, if we hold dear to the things of this world, leaving them behind so that we may go back to them as soon as our empty rituals are completed?
When we separate from this world and follow Christ, believer, we must take everything with us, for we never know what He might ask us to surrender to Him. All that we have is from Him, and all that we have, we should be prepared to
sacrifice to the One who gives to all, life and breath and all things.
Do you see the reply of Moses to Pharaoh’s objection? (Verse 26) “...until we arrive there, we ourselves do not know with what we shall serve the Lord.”
One of the most common questions asked by new and young Christians is, “How can I know God’s will?”
The answer to that question is not a deep or difficult one; and it is contained right here in Moses’ response to Pharaoh.
If you want to know God’s will, DO God’s will. He calls you to come out from among the world and be separate. He has saved you by His strength and grace, and He calls you to take action to BE what He has made you. Set apart.
The scriptures are very full of information as to where the Lord wants us to be spiritually, believer. The epistles are replete with instruction for the saved one who wishes to live in victory and obedience. Obey the Word of God as He gives you light, and you will find yourself in the center of His will. It is not hidden. It is not elusive. It is there to be found, brilliantly illumined as you stand in the presence of the One who IS light.
He won’t be found on the borders of Egypt. He waits for you ‘three days’ out. Go there and stand in the center of His will.
But don’t neglect to take with you everything you have. You won’t be going back.
Now let me close part two of our study with just a few words in reference to Pharaoh’s final face-to-face meeting with Moses.
First, don’t be alarmed or confused by the words in verse 27 of chapter 10: “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart...”
The sun hardens clay. But the hardening is due to the content of the clay. The sun’s rays fall no differently on the clay than on butter, which melts. What is the content of your heart, in response to the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, reader?
Pharaoh/Satan, has had his last objection. He has demanded that they stay in the land, or close to it, inspite of God’s command that they be allowed to go a three days’ journey. He had demanded that they leave the children behind, in defiance of God’s command that they ALL be allowed to leave. He has finally said, “Ok, go and take all, but leave behind your means of service and worship”, and Moses has stood firm on God’s commands. “Everything goes, Pharaoh, and not so much as a hoof stays behind.”
So now Pharaoh resorts to the only tool he has left. Intimidation. Satan will try that with you, believer. he will remind you of past sins, he will show you how weak you still are, he will build up a hedge of circumstances that will cause you to think all is lost. But a wise woman once said, “Satan can build a hedge of circumstances around the believer, but he can never completely close him in. When the outlook is bad, the uplook is always good.”
Pharaoh resorts to threats. “...in the day you see my face you shall die!”
Remember the halting, fearful Moses, who asked, “What if they will not believe...”? Well hear him now as he prophesies with confidence in the God who goes with him!
“You are right; I shall never see your face again!”
How sad, that Pharaoh has apparently forgotten entirely, the stern warning given by God back before all these plagues even started:
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Israel is My son, My first-born.
“So I said to you, ‘Let My son go, that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your first-born”’”
His heart was so hardened, he wouldn’t soften it, even to save the life of his own son.
Once more Pharaoh has driven Moses from his presence, but not far enough.
Get your travelin’ sandals on reader; we’re goin’ out!
