Exiting Egypt Chapter 8 P2

Exiting Egypt

“The Second Plague – Frogs Everywhere”

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 8 P2

Read Exodus 8:1-15

Seven days have now elapsed since the first plague happened. Note 7:25

And seven days passed after the Lord had struck the river (Ex. 7:25 NKJV)

What this suggests, but there is no direct confirmation, is that these plagues took place within a short period of time, one right after another, sort of like when you get someone down, keep them down, don’t let them get up to get a second wind. And so, rolling in these plagues one after another would have been quite a forceful impact. Just as their starting to get back up from the first plague of the Nile turning into blood and all the dead fishes, now “pow” the second plague comes rolling in, frogs everywhere. This would have shaken them to the core.

But God gives Pharaoh and Egypt a chance to repent. He tells Moses to tell Pharaoh again, “Let my people go so that they can serve me.”

What this is saying is that the right of freedom is a God given right, the right to a freedom of life, work, and worship. And this right is given, not by man, but by God. We see this truth in what the fathers of our nation wrote as they declared the United States to be a free nation.

Look at these words again.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Declaration of Independence)

No person, nation, or government is to deny people this God given right. God did not create humanity to be abused, but to live a life of live, work, service, and worshipped, all under His care and provision. This was God’s message to Pharaoh.

This was also the message of the coming Messiah, but not from physical bondage, but from spiritual bondage as proclaimed through the prophet Isaiah, and confirmed through Jesus.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound (Isa. 61:1 NKJV; cf. Lk. 4:18)

Again, note what the Lord is doing, he is warning Pharaoh of the impending judgment if he doesn’t repent and obey.

But why? Pharaoh rejected God and refused to let God’s people go because he wasn’t going to give up the wealth he received from their cheap labor. To free Israel would have meant the collapse of their economy. Egypt would be devastated and would have to completely restructure their lives and economy.

I really don’t see it as a moral issue to Pharaoh, but rather an economic one.

Exiting Egypt Chapter 8 P1

Exiting Egypt

“The Second Plague – Frogs Everywhere”

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 8 P1

Exodus 8:1-15

A world of facts could easily be declared about God, all proclaiming who He is and His works, not to mention that He has no equal, which is what we are looking in these ten plagues. There is just no one, and no god, like our God.

• He is the only one who can truly forgive sins.

• He is the only one that can give full assurance of living forever in the Promised Land of heaven.

• He is the only one that can fulfill the longs and needs of the human heart.

• He is the only one who can teach us the depths of the riches both of His wisdom and knowledge (Rom. 11:33).

• He is the only one who could ever die for our sin, who could ever pay the perfect price for our sins ever to be forgiven.

• He is the only one who could ever arise from the dead, thus conquering death.

• And He is the only one who can give us victory every day over the trials and tribulations of life, not to mention the temptations.

• He is truly God.

But the Egyptians had rejected God and turned to the evil sinful ways of the world, turned to idolatry, and to the brutalization and enslavement of people. Because they did not repent, now God’s judgment begins to fall in the form of these plagues.

The first plagues was now over, but they still refused to obey God’s call to let His people go so that they could serve and worship Him. So now God is about to launch the second plague, and in a way it is almost comical, a plague of frogs, but through this plague, what it reveals is that God truly has no equal, that no one is like Him.

Exiting Egypt Chapter 7 P4

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Purposes Behind the Plagues”

Exodus 6:28 – 7:13

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 7 P4

Read Ex. 7:8-13

God loves the world, so much that He gave His only begotten Son, so that through Jesus everyone who believes shall be saved and shall not perish. And since God does not change,

He also loved the Egyptians. God didn’t want them to perish, but to know Him, which is our second point as to why the plagues.

But for now, God wanted to give them every opportunity to repent, to turn, which is what this passage is all about. God wanted to give Pharaoh one last chance to repent and to free God’s people, one last warning shot, so to speak, before He launched His judgments, his plagues upon the nation.

This was the first of three signs God told Moses to perform back at the burning bush, which was Moses’ rod being cast to the ground and it being turned into a serpent. The purpose was to show God’s sovereignty over Pharaoh.

On Pharaoh’s crown was a snake, and it was through by the Egyptians to possess divine or magical powers. So, this was a throw down: God authority over Pharaoh’s.

Pharaoh then calls upon his guys, the wise men (they were the educated and trained politicians of that day), the sorcerers (they practiced witchcraft, the occult, and the casting of spells), and the magicians (they used trickery and the occult, and the word is used in reference to sorcery).

These guys seemingly duplicate the sign. Paul in the New Testament quotes from Jewish tradition and names them Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8).

Did they really duplicate the miracle? What we will see is that the magicians also duplicated the miracle of water to blood and brought up frogs from the Nile through their enchantments (magic, or secret incantations; some refer to it as the secret arts). But when it got to the lice, they said, “This can only be the finger of God.”

And so, can people perform false signs and wonders. Jesus said,

For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Mt. 24:24 NKJV)

Let me just say that there are powers of darkness that are able to counterfeit the work of God. Satan himself is a great counterfeiter, and therefore so are those who are His, transforming themselves into minister’s of righteousness to deceive.

And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works (2 Cor. 11:14-15 NKJV)

You even have the False Prophet doing just this and more during the time of Revelation deceiving the world into worshipping the Antichrist.

Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone (Rev. 19:20 NKJV)

Satan is able to counterfeit some of God’s work, but that doesn’t de-legitimatize God’s miracles. A counterfeit doesn’t disprove the genuine, rather it confirms that there is a genuine, otherwise it wouldn’t be a counterfeit.

Therefore, we shouldn’t be ignorant that such counterfeits exist. There are feats of magic that I believe that are more than just slight of hand. And so I believe that they were able to throw down their rods and that they became serpents. I am told that the deeper you go into magic and sorcery that you will find the book of Moses and the book of the magic of Egypt.

But, God revealed his Sovereignty when Moses’ rod turn snake swallowed whole the two rods turned into snakes of the Egyptian magicians.

Charles Spurgeon said,

“This incident is an instructive emblem of the sure victory of the divine handiwork over all opposition. Whenever a divine principle is cast into the heart, though the devil may fashion a counterfeit, and produce swarms of opponents, as sure as ever God is in the work, it will swallow up all its foes. If God’s grace takes possession of a man, the world’s magicians may throw down all their rods; and every rod may be as cunning and poisonous as a serpent, but Aaron’s rod will swallow up their rods.

“What multitudes of foes has our faith had to meet! Our old sins—the devil threw them down before us, and they turned to serpents. What hosts of them! Ah, but the cross of Jesus destroys them all. Faith in Christ makes short work of all our sins. Then the devil has launched forth another host of serpents in the form of worldly trials, temptations, unbelief; but faith in Jesus is more than a match for them, and overcomes them all.

One last thing before we end, and that is the fact of what God told to Moses at the end, basically it was, “I told you so.” Verse 13 says, “And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had said,”

God is even sovereign in foreknowledge. This is what it means to be Omniscient, or all knowing. God knew Pharaoh’s response before Pharaoh gave it. He knows that Pharaoh will demand to see a miracle and therefore He gives a miracle for Moses to display ahead of time. And He knows that Pharaoh will reject the miracle and message and told Moses just that ahead of time.

And so, God is sovereign. God is sovereign over all those things that are arrayed against us and against our relationship with Him, and will swallow them up, one way or another.

Exiting Egypt Chapter 7 P3

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Purposes Behind the Plagues”

Exodus 6:28 – 7:13

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 7 P3

7. To Establish He is God

Each plague seemed to be launched against a particular god of Egypt

• Turning the Nile River into blood was against Nilus or Hopi, the god of the Nile River and of water. They controlled the waters of the earth.

• The plague of frogs was against Ptha, the frog-headed god and Hekt, the goddess of reproduction.

• The plague of lice was against Seb, the god of the earth. This idol was worshiped in the hope that he would bless the earth by making it productive and protecting it from natural catastrophes.

• The plague of flies was against Kehephera, the beetle or sacred god. The Dake Bible says that the god was Beelzebub, god of the flies.

• The plague of livestock disease was against Hathor and Apis, the sacred cattle gods at Memphis. They were worshipped as gods of reproduction and fertility, as gods who could protect from plagues, diseases, and accidents.

• The plague of boils was against Typhon, the evil-eye god: worshipped in the hope of averting plagues.

• The plague of hail and lightning was against Iris, the water god, and Osiris, the fire and lightning god, and Shu, the god of the atmosphere: all worshipped in the hope that they would control nature and provide protection against storms and natural catastrophes.

• The plague of locust was against Seraphis, the insect god: worshipped in the hope of being protected from locusts

• The plague of darkness was against Ra, the sun god: worshipped to protect against any natural disaster from the sun and to provide warmth, light, and fruitfulness

• The plague of death of firstborn was against Ptah, the god of life.

And so, when we put them all together what we see is that the plagues reveals that there is no other God but the Lord, and that He is the Lord (Jehovah, Yahweh) the God of redemption, deliverance and salvation. {You can find this next Scripture in your notes}

Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord Himself is God; there is none other besides Him (Deut. 4:34-35 NKJV)

Now we come to God’s first encounter with Pharaoh, and the miracle of Moses’ rod being turned into a snake.

Exiting Egypt Chapter 7 P2

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Purposes Behind the Plagues”

Exodus 6:28 – 7:13

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 7 P2

2. To Let The World Know That the Lord is God

God used the plaques to teach the world this one thing, that the Lord (Jehovah, Yahweh) is the God of redemption, salvation and deliverance.

That you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord (Ex. 10:2 NIV)

3. To Demonstrate His Power

God is omnipotent, that is, God is all powerful, and through these plagues He proves and demonstrates just how powerful He is, not only over all of Egypt’s false gods, but over creation itself, for He is the Creator. To me, what points this out more than anything else is what the magicians said after only three plagues,

This is the finger of God (Ex. 8:19)

They recognize that the plagues we not even the fullness of God’s power, but just one of his fingers.

4. To Free Israel

But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments (Ex. 7:4 NKJV)

Again this goes back to His declared name, the Lord, and that as the Lord Israel would experience His deliverance.

5. To Distinguish Israel from Egypt

God used these plagues to show the great distinction between Israel and Egypt, or shall we say the great difference between those who follow God and those who don’t. What we will see is that starting with the fourth plague, God actually put a hedge of protection around the land of Goshen, which is the land in which Israel lived.

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. I will make a distinction between my people and your people (Ex. 8:22-23a NIV)

6. To Judge Egypt

God used the plagues to judge the Egyptians for their sins, for worshipping false gods, and for enslaving and brutalizing His people.

Listen to what Mazie Dunnam stated concerning the judgment of God

“There can be no covering up or diminishing the reality of divine judgment. The fact is set forth on page after page of Bible history. God judged Adam and Eve, expelling them from the garden and pronouncing curses on their future earthly life. God judged the corrupt world of Noah’s day, sending a flood to destroy humankind. God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, engulfing them in a volcanic catastrophe (Ge. 19:24). And God judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians just as He had foretold He would (Ge. 15:14), unleashing against them the terrors of the ten plagues.

“There are “Big Judgments” about which we all know. Apart from these, the pages of the Bible are literally filled with judgment. Those who don’t study the Bible seriously, nonchalantly suggest that when you leave the Old Testament and come to the New, the theme of divine judgment fades almost to nothing. That isn’t so. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals God’s action as judge. In fact, the entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment, which was set forth by Jesus Himself. It’s not easy to forget that picture, the powerful imagery of it – the sheep separated from the goats, the righteous on the right hand of God and the unrighteous on the left, the righteous invited into the presence of the Lord, the unrighteous condemned to eternal punishment where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).

“There is no way to cover up or diminish the reality of divine judgment.”

Exiting Egypt Chapter 7 P1

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Purposes Behind the Plagues”

Exodus 6:28 – 7:13

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 7 P1

After encouraging Moses and the people, God now reinforces Moses’ call. Literally he gives Moses a second call, because Moses again is trying to get out of doing what God had called for him to do.

Read Ex. 6:28-7:7

Now before we’re too hard on Moses, look at the awesome task set before him, to confront the most powerful person on planet earth and the most powerful army to boot, and he is doing so now crushed, broken, and desperate. Pharaoh had severely reacted against God’s message with a vengeance oppressing God’s people beyond measure.

And to top it off, the people accused Moses concerning their present hardships. This had crushed Moses, and so he feared returning to Pharaoh and arousing his wrath even more against the people.

And so God had to renew His call.

God will do the same with us. Recently a young man trying to get himself ready to go out on a mission trip said, “My Faith in the morality of people took a huge hit today, I tried to do something good for someone and got stabbed in the back for it, for no good reason.” He was at a turning point. Does he continue on, or let that experience sour him. This is where we can claim the promise of God’s word that says,

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:18 NKJV)

Know that if you have been called by God, if you are moving forward in His purpose for your life and for God’s kingdom, then no matter what may come your way from others that it will all work together for the good of the Kingdom of God, which translates what is good for you.

Notice something else, God lists both Moses and Aaron’s age. Moses is 80 years old and Aaron is 83 when they were called to serve God and declare His message. What a wonderful lesson; that we are never too old to serve God. In Isaiah, the Lord said it this way,

I will be your God throughout your lifetime? until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you (Isa. 46:4 NLT)

And so, what we see is that God is giving to Moses a second call, a second reminder of what God had called for Him to do, and in this he tells Moses that He was going to harden Pharaoh’s heart, and the reason would be so that he could multiply His signs and wonders and deliver His people out of Egypt through great judgments.

Maybe to say this another way, based upon our study of God’s name last week, God’s purpose was that Israel would know that God is the Lord, the Great Redeemer and Savior.

The day of judgment upon Egypt and the day of redemption for Israel are drawing near. And God does this through a series of ten plagues.

And so, as we prepare next week to begin looking at these plagues, what we should do at this juncture is to look at God’s purposes behind the plagues.

1. To Give Egypt Another Opportunity to Repent

All the plagues were severe, and as some have pointed out, this severity increased with each seceding one. But what we need to understand is that if God in His mercy had not stopped them, then each could have devastated the land and the people.

And so, God brought the plagues to reveal to the people that He wasn’t kidding, and to give them an opportunity to repent and turn to Him, which it seemed some did, as they left with Israel. They were known as the mixed multitudes.

And while these plagues seem harsh, and they are, it is God’s kindness that leads him to stop each one, hoping that some will repent, because it is God’s desire that everyone come to saving repentance. Look at how both Paul and Peter say,

Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?... He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (Rom. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9b NIV)

Exiting Egypt Chapter 6 P7

Exiting Egypt

“God’s Great Encouragement”

By Dennis Lee: Chapter 6 P7

6. I will bring you

I will bring you into the land, which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 6:8)

This has been God’s central promise to Abraham. And the wording is significant. God said He swore. Imagine what this would have looked like and sounded like. “I God, to hereby promise on Myself give to your descendants this land, and I raise My right hand to you in pledge.” Actually, God said, “I swear by myself” (Gen. 22:16).

The writer of Hebrews said it like this, “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself” (Heb. 6:13 NKJV).

7. I will give you

I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord (Ex. 6:8)

God will not only bring them to the Promise Land, He will give it to them. At this time the Canaanites inhabited the land, but they were only keeping it warm for the Israelites. You might say that God kept them there as caretakers so that the land wouldn’t be desolate and barren, but fruitful.

In much the same way, God has given to us the promise of heaven as our heritage, as our future home, and has promised it to all who believe. Jesus said,

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (Jn. 14: 1-3 NIV)

And so, Moses tells the people, and their response was close to the response of the paratrooper who had just opened up his emergency chute only to find that it didn’t deploy. Now they are saying, “Oh great, I bet the truck isn’t there as well.”

The last time Moses told them this, they were given an impossible task, which, in the words of the foremen, “put a sword in Pharaoh’s hand.”

Read Ex. 6:9-13

The people rejected God’s offer through Moses. They probably didn’t even believe that it was God who was speaking through Moses. And the reason was because of the anguish of their spirit and the cruelty of their bondage.

So often, the circumstances of our burdens cause us not to listen. Our pain drowns out God’s word.

And so Moses let God know that His plan to deliver the people isn’t going to work, first because the people aren’t listening to him, and second because he isn’t a good speaker. And so once again Moses is trying to get out of His calling, but God commands that they “Go.”

It is the same command that Jesus gives to us. He said, “Go and make disciples.” People might not listen to us, they might reject us, they might ridicule us, and so we try, like Moses, to get out of our calling, but God commands us like He did Moses to “Go.”

Just for the record, verses 14-25 are quite an odd genealogy. It records only the first three sons and tribes of Israel, not all twelve. The reason is so we know the heritage of Moses and Aaron, especially that they are from the priestly tribe of Levi.

And so, God prepares to save His people, and to do so He reveals Himself, who He is, and then He makes seven promises, and by He is saying, “Be still and know that I am God, and you will then see the salvation of the Lord.”

That is what He did for Israel, and that is exactly what He will do for