Exodus 7:1-5

Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."

We talked about "harden," a twisting to squeeze what’s in the heart and make it come out.

This is talking about the ten plagues that are coming.

I asked you to read chapters 7-14. Verse 5 is one you should have highlighted. There is something tremendous that I don’t want you to miss. You can get caught up in the plagues and Charlton Heston turning the Nile into blood, but listen to what God was doing. When you think about the Nation of Israel coming out of bondage, we think, "OK, God’s delivering them out of bondage. That’s His mission, plan, and purpose." But what does this say? "So the Egyptians will know." God’s going to deliver the Israelites out, but in everything God does, He says, "Yes, I’m going to do this, but I’m doing it so that I might be glorified and honored and so that the world might know who I am." Don’t ever miss that when God works on you, it’s not just for that little thing that’s going on in your life. It’s so that He might be magnified. This will keep coming up. "So the Egyptians will know who I am."

We’re going to have to skip a lot for the sake of time. Please read it—it’s all good!

Exodus 7:14-17a

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. Then say to him, `The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD

He didn’t say "hardened." He said, "unyielding." This means thick or heavy. Pharaoh is not going to respond to God.

God is trying to show Himself to all of these idol-worshippers that we call Egyptians. He is trying to show Himself to them. He is saying, "I am doing this so that you may know who I am." Yeah, the Israelites will get out of Egypt, eventually, but what is God trying to do? During this time, show the world who He is. The Egyptian neighbor (with his idols) is going to know who God is.

The plague happens.

Exodus 7:22-24

But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said. Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.

I told you that Satan was behind all the power behind the magicians in Egypt. Here’s a little confrontation between God and Satan in the presence of humanity. Our pastor said this morning, "During this time of year, the supernatural collides with the natural in everyone’s life." I love that. I thought that was a great statement, because that’s exactly what happens. Here in Egypt, we’re seeing the supernatural colliding with the natural.

Go back to what God was trying to tell them about who He is. What do the Egyptians say when they see their magicians doing the same thing? "Hey, we can do that. That’s nothing special!" If anything, there is a contest going on here. We’re going to see who wins. The Egyptians say, "We’re alright. We know what God is all about."

Exodus 8:7

But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

So here’s the second plague and the magicians can do the same thing. How’s the contest going? Dead even. What have the Egyptians learned about the Lord, God, Almighty? Nothing.

This is just like us in our lives. We could not possibly understand today what He has for us 5 or 10 years from now. You cannot take it. You have to accept what He has for you, today. Once you’ve learned what He has for you, today, then you can move on.

A couple in our class was on vacation in Orlando and their transmission went out. The last thing you want to fool with on vacation is car problems. In my mind, I would ask, "God, how much more?" We shouldn’t ask, "How much more?", but "OK, what do I learn from this, God? Thank you for my transmission going out. Let me see what I can learn from this. Let me see if I’m supposed to witness to the mechanic or do something else." There’s always God saying, "I’m with you. I know where you are. Take your next step through faith in me."

Plague

Warning

Replication

Respite

Response

God Attacked

Water into Blood

Pharaoh was warned and allowed to watch

Yes

The Egyptians managed to work around the problem

Pharaoh's heart was hardened

Hapi, father of the gods (the God of the Nile)

Frogs

Pharaoh warned but was not with Moses when it happened

Yes

Pharaoh named the time the frogs would go

Compromise but then Pharaoh hardened his heart

Heka / Heqt (Toad Goddess)

Gnats/ Lice

No Warning

No. The magicians saw the lice as an act of God

We’re not told but presumably

Pharaoh's heart was hardened. He doesn’t even speak to Moses.

Geb (God of earth or vegetation)

Flies / Beetles / Scarabs

Pharaoh warned but not with Moses when it happened

No. In fact they didn’t even try

The flies were removed when Pharaoh promised to let the Israelites go

Pharaoh hardened his heart

Kheper / Khepfi (Scarab, God of beetles and flies)

Murrain

Pharaoh warned and told when it would happen

Again they didn’t try

It was a one off action.. but the cattle stayed dead.

The heart of Pharaoh was hardened.

Apis (Sacred Bull) & Hathor (the Cow Goddess)

Boils

Pharaoh not warned but was there when Moses did it

Magicians could not even heal themselves

We’re not told but one would imagine scarring would result

The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Imhotep (physician God) & Thoth (Magic and healing)

Hail

Pharaoh and servants warned. Those that heeded the warning escaped.

Didn’t try.

No respite, crops destroyed although some crops left.

Pharaoh admits sin but then sins more by hardening his heart

Nut (Sky Goddess)

Locusts

Pharaoh warned and his servants almost cause him to give in

Didn’t try.

Complete devastation, this years harvest gone.

Pharaoh acts in haste and compromises. The Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart.

Seth (God of Crops) & Anubis (God of the fields)

Dark

No Warning

Didn’t try.

Yes, three days only

Pharaoh heart hardened by God. Tells Moses to ‘get out of sight’

Ra (Sun God)

First Born

Yes

No

No – firstborn dead

Israelites let go

Pharaoh (god-king)

Exodus 8:18a

But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.

So here’s a differentiation. What is God doing? The Egyptians are saying, "Wait a minute. Something’s different here. Something’s going on."

Exodus 8:19a

The magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God."

Do you see what the magicians are doing? The magicians deal with the supernatural. These are not today’s rabbit-out-of-the-hat magicians. These magicians are powered by Satan. They’re supernatural. They grew up with it, lived under it, and were trained by it. They know the supernatural and they knew what they could do. They could turn water to blood and produce frogs but not gnats. What do they say? They see the supernatural side quicker than Pharaoh or the run-of-the-mill Egyptian. They said, "Whoa! This is the finger of God here." It gets even better.

Next come the flies, beetles, or scarabs. These were very sacred to the Egyptians.

Exodus 8:22

"`But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the LORD, am in this land.

What is God doing? We always look at this as the ten plagues punishing Egypt. What’s God really doing now? He’s saying, "Here is who I am and you’re going to know who I am. You may not accept me, Egypt, but you will know who I am." I believe that God has done this with every single man, woman, and child that has ever been born from Adam & Eve on. He says, "I am going to give you who I am. You can accept it or deny it." You’ll hear me say this over and over, I believe it, and I can’t find any place in the Bible where God says, "I’m going to withhold my revelation from someone, they don’t stand a chance, and they’re doomed to Hell." I can’t find it. God keeps revealing Himself to everyone. He’s revealing Himself to the Egyptians and saying, "You have a choice. Now you know who I am. Are you going to do anything about it?"

God could have just spoken the Egyptians out of existence and rescued the Nation of Israel. What would happen? There would have been no experience. "God, did you really give them a chance?"

I hope you saw this as you were reading about the plagues. If you didn’t, go back and read it again.

Are you all beginning to sense that the Old Testament really is good? You don’t get hung up with what Hollywood has said to you or what other people have said to you. When you read it, it’s logical. It flows from one step to the next step. It’s all God, relationships and revealing Himself. You see it all over the place.

Exodus 8:23-25

I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.'" And the LORD did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land."

Egypt is like the world (today). The Nation of Israel is You.

(Satan) EGYPT à WORLD (Satan)

(God) ISRAEL à YOU (God, Jesus)

There is an application here that is phenomenal. If you track through what Pharaoh says to Moses and the Israelites, he finally gets to the point (after the third or fourth plague) where he says, "OK. You can go and worship, but you have to stay here." What was the demand? "We all go out to the desert and worship God." If you go back and read it carefully, it doesn’t say, "We’ll be gone forever." It says, "Pharaoh, let my people go to worship God in the desert." It had nothing to do with going back to Canaan. Moses just asked that they be allowed to go worship in the desert.

Egypt says, "You can worship, but you have to stay here in the land." What does the world tell you about your Christianity, religion, faith, and involvement with church? "Keep it to yourself. You can have your Christianity, but don’t share it. Don’t do this and don’t do that." I hope you get chills up your spine as you’re reading this. You’ll see more of Egypt treating the Hebrew Nation like the world treats you, as a Christian.

There’s a plague on the livestock and another with boils. This is disgusting.

Exodus 9:11-12

The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.

One of the things required to be an Egyptian magician or priest(ess) was that your skin had to be perfectly clear. As soon as they got boils, they couldn’t worship their gods. They had to remove themselves from service. If everybody had boils, who was left to worship? Nobody. It was empty.

Exodus 9:13-14

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, `This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

This is the plague of hail.

How about that? Is God revealing Himself? After the first two plagues, the land of Goshen was exempt. God made a distinction between the Egyptians and the land of Goshen. This was a further differentiation of God being in control. If you were one of these Egyptians and you heard about this from one of the Hebrews and you saw all of this happening, what is your opinion of God? Do you see it? You hear all these things and you say, "Wow. This is something else. He controls where the plagues hit." The plagues get even more differentiated when we get over into the plague of darkness.

The Egyptians do not yet know whether this is a god or the God. It’s just like we do today. We may compare religions, "Well, what do they believe?" It’s a personal belief. You still have to get rid of all your other gods. Remember that God is trying to say, "I am the one God. Get rid of all your other gods." We’ve already seen that the Patriarchs did not do a good job of that. Rebekah came over with her gods from her house. Even though she worshipped God, she had her own gods, too. That says something to us today, doesn’t it? We can go to church and act like Christians but still have our own gods at home, our own idols.

The plagues in the Great Tribulation are very interesting when compared to these ten plagues. If you really want to get into it, read about the plagues in Revelation and then come back and re-read these plagues. You’ll see a lot of similarities.

Note in verse 14, "there is no one like me in all the earth." That’s where God is headed with this: not just to let the people go and not just to squeeze Pharaoh’s heart.

Exodus 9:15

For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth.

I mentioned this earlier, but here it is. God’s saying, "I don’t have to go through this. I can just snap my fingers and you’re gone, but I’m trying to show you something."

Exodus 9:16

But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

Amen! Praise the Lord! Do you see it? What is God saying from day one? That His name might be proclaimed. That He might be honored and glorified in all the earth. We, as human beings, still reject that revelation of God. There is coming a time after Revelation (when we get into the period called, "the Millennial Reign"), where this earth will worship Christ, the King. He will be on this earth and we will worship Him, but that’s the future. We’re in this now where Satan has rule.

Exodus 9:20-21

Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field.

What are the Egyptians thinking? What does this say? Some of them believe that God’s going to do something. Some of them were accepting that this God is capable of doing anything. Do you see that it’s a personal decision that everyone’s making now? It’s not Pharaoh. Pharaoh has the thing about not letting the people go, but what about the acceptance of who this God is? How many of you think or believe that you’ll meet some of these Egyptians in Heaven? Yes. You will. God revealed Himself and some of these Egyptians accepted that revelation. We’re going to see them. As a matter of fact, we are going to hear about some of them in the Bible.

The Bible does not say how much time passed between the plagues. They did not come all at once. People had time to think about God. The plagues came in sequence, but I don’t know how much time was between them. It could have been weeks, months, or years. People had a chance.

This is almost like talking about people, today. Some people ignore the Word of the Lord and leave their children up for grabs to the world. You could almost rewrite this for the New Testament.

Exodus 9:26-28

The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were. Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. "This time I have sinned," he said to them. "The LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the LORD, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer."

It hailed everywhere else except where they were.

Who is saying this? Pharaoh. Does this sound good? We’re up to the fifth or sixth plague. If you read this, you’ll say, "Well, we’ll never see the last four." He’s changed his heart. He has repented. He has turned around, is going in a different direction, and he knows who the Lord is. Is this a long way from where Pharaoh was? Yes.

This sounds great! They can go. It’s done. It’s over with.

He doesn’t let them go, by the way.

Exodus 10:7

Pharaoh's officials said to him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?"

These are Egyptians talking to each other and saying, "Hey, Egypt is getting ruined here."

Exodus 10:8

Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. "Go, worship the LORD your God," he said. "But just who will be going?"

OK. The last time it was, "You can worship, but you have to worship here in Egypt. You have to stay here so that you can be contaminated by all these idols." Now he’s saying, "Yeah, you can go, but who is going?" Do you hear that?

Exodus 10:9-11

Moses answered, "We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the LORD." Pharaoh said, "The LORD be with you--if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil. No! Have only the men go; and worship the LORD, since that's what you have been asking for." Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh's presence.

I love this.

Now what is the compromise? Do you see it from the world’s view? Here comes the world, saying, "Sure, you can do this but don’t do that. You can’t do this. You can’t say that. You have to do it this way." In this particular case, it has really impacted the children. You, adult parents, have seen the light and you say, "I don’t want to be in the world. I want to live as a Christian. But it’s ok for my children to watch this and see that because they need to be exposed to that in order for them to have a well-rounded upbringing. It’s ok for them to go to this place and to do these things." What are you doing? You’re compromising with what the world convinces you is the right thing for your child. Your child must have this experience in order to be a normal, worldly child. You know what I say to that: HOGWASH! But we’re convinced of it. What happens if your child doesn’t go see (I’m not making a pro or con about this) "Harry Potter"? He/she comes home from school, is upset, and you ask, "What’s wrong?" "Well, all the kids made fun of me because I didn’t go see ‘Harry Potter’. You won’t let me." I’m not saying anything about "Harry Potter,’ one way or the other. But what is coming against you right then? The world. The world is saying, "Here’s what you’re supposed to do." You get under pressure and stress. Your kids are under peer pressure. This is another example. "Compromise and leave your children behind." This is subtle temptation—to want the best of this world for your children. It may not be the best for them, but we want the best. We’re convinced of this. "You have to do this for your children or they won’t be outstanding children."

Exodus 10:16-17

Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me."

The end of chapter 10 talks about the plague of darkness. That is fantastic. You don’t want to miss that. This is where light is taken away (except in the land of Goshen). If you read it carefully, it doesn’t mean they went and lit all their lanterns and could see. It meant that they lit their lanterns but nothing happened. There was no light. You’ve got to picture that. If you’re an Egyptian in the middle of this, what are you thinking? "Whoa! Whoa!" How can this happen? How much does it take for you to believe there is a God—"Well, if God will show me this and He will do that, I might believe in God." God says, "No. Walk by faith. It’s a walk by faith. Just believe that I can do it."