Lessons From the Exodus Story part 5

Today's sermon, which is Lessons from the Exodus Story Part 5. And before I do that, let me assure you, just as there were 10 plagues, there are not going to be 10 sermons in this series. I think I'm probably going to end it at 6, so this is number 5. And I still had a couple of plagues to go this morning when I finished in Denver.

So I probably have one more sermon to wrap this up. But I did want to mention that although these events happened 35 centuries ago, there are a lot of different lessons we can pick up and learn from that. And as has been kind of a theme through this series of sermons, we'll be touching on a number of those lessons that are very relevant to our lives today as well. So to briefly recap where we left off last time, we covered chapters 7 and 8 of the Book of Exodus.

And we talked about the plague of frogs that overran the land of Egypt and how this was a direct challenge to Egypt's frog-headed god of fertility, Hecate, who's commonly depicted with the body of a woman with the head of a frog. We talked about the plague of lice, which was apparently directed toward the god of the earth, Geb, and the Egyptian pantheon, and how the dust of the earth, lice, came up out of that, plaguing the Egyptians, the animals, and the people.

And we also talked about the plague of swarms, which is probably concerning the way things are done in the Book of Exodus, that these plagues are directed toward specific Egyptian gods and goddesses. The off-flies is added in there. It just says swarms, and it's probably a plague of beetles, or more specifically, dung beetles or scarabs. And this would have, if that is the case, which I think it is, would have been directed toward the Egyptian god, Kepir. And he was the god who rolled the sun across the sky every day in Egyptian mythology and theology there.

Kepir, the scarab-headed god, and that's why he's often depicted with a head of a scarab there, is depicted here. So we left off there at the end of that plague near the end of chapter 8. However, before I go on, I want to go back and pick up on a few verses I had to rush through and bring out a particular point here at the end of chapter 8 that gives us insight into both Moses and Pharaoh. Because in this plague, Pharaoh sins for Moses and Aaron, and Moses tells Pharaoh that the Israelites will go into the wilderness to offer sacrifices.

And then Pharaoh responds to Moses in Exodus 8 and verse 28, Pharaoh said, 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. Intercede for me. In other words, ask your God for me to end this plague of the swarms. Then Moses said, indeed, I am going out from you, and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people.

But let Pharaoh not deal deceitfully anymore in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. So the point I want to repeat here is that Moses now rebukes Pharaoh for playing games, for dealing deceitfully with Moses and Aaron and the Israelites by repeatedly saying he will let the Israelites go, and then just as often turning around and turning his back on his word that he has given. So Moses is increasingly emboldened to speak with Pharaoh not as a slave person, but as an equal if not a superior now, because you just did not go up and publicly rebuke Pharaoh, as Moses does here, because Pharaoh had the power of life and death, because of virtue of his position, because he is viewed as a god there in Egypt.

And this was common in the ancient world. The rulers did have power of life and death over their subjects. So there was no...the kings' rulers had an absolute right to do whatever they wanted within their empires for the most part. And this is certainly true in Egypt. So continuing on then, verse 30, so Moses went out from Pharaoh and treated the Lord to stop the plague, and the Lord did according to the word of Moses. He removed the swarms from Pharaoh, from his servants, and from his people.

Not one remained. But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also. Neither would he let the people go. So here we see something important about the mind and the character of Pharaoh, because, as I just mentioned, Moses openly warned him to stop dealing deceitfully by assuring he would let the Israelites go. And then as soon as the plague ended, Pharaoh would go back on the word that he had given and refuse to free the Israelites.

And as we see here, right after Moses gives this warning that we just read, what does Pharaoh do? He immediately goes back on his word again and keeps the Israelites enslaved. And this tells us a lot about Pharaoh. It tells us a lot about the kind of person that he is. And it also tells us a lot about what the Bible means when it says that Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

Because the bottom line about Pharaoh's heart being hardened is that Pharaoh is going to do what Pharaoh wants to do. That's the real bottom line of the story here. He's going to do whatever he wants to do. And again and again we see that regardless of what Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron, he's going to do what deep down in his heart he really wants to do, which is keep the Israelites enslaved. And his heart is hardened and he is not going to let the Israelites go.

And a lesson here, another lesson, if you're keeping track of all the lessons, and I'm not sure how many things are, but a lesson for us here is that Satan is the same way. We've probably heard this in sermons over the years that this whole story of the Exodus is really a metaphor for our Christian struggle to escape the slavery of sin represented by Egypt. And in that analogy, which is very, very accurate, who is Satan? Who's the analogy there? Well, Satan is Pharaoh, or Pharaoh represents Satan. And the lesson from this is that Pharaoh wants to do anything he can to hold on to us, to keep his grip on us, to keep us as his slaves.

And he'll stop at nothing to prevent us escaping from the hole that he has on our lives. And he'll use anything and everything to do that. He'll use every temptation, every test, every set of circumstances he can to retain that hold on each one of us.

And that's why living as a Christian is not easy. As the saying goes, if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. But think about it this way. Living as a Christian isn't necessarily hard of and by itself. It's fairly easy not to murder somebody. It's fairly easy not to steal. The problem, the Christian life, is hard because of this factor of Satan wanting to keep his grip on us. Because we all live in a world that is established on Satan's values. And he doesn't want us to leave that system, so he's going to do everything he can to keep that grip on us.

And as a result, he'll throw up every kind of obstacle, every kind of roadblock, every kind of temptation, every kind of test, every kind of circumstances to prevent us from living God's way of life. And that's why living as a Christian is so hard in this world and in this age. And that's also why we need God's divine help. The help that he gives us through his Holy Spirit. We need that help to be able to break through and free ourselves from Satan's grip. That's why we need the help of God's Spirit to keep us on the right path.

But back to Pharaoh, after that lesson, that aside, the Egyptian people might have thought that it was the God of Israel who was their real enemy. But who is their real enemy through this story? Who's the one who's actually bringing the plagues and the destructions on the Egyptians? Well, it's Pharaoh. Pharaoh is their real enemy of the Egyptian people. Because it is his stubbornness that brings plague after plague after plague.

And eventually, the final one, the death of the Egyptians firstborn. And this is another lesson here. This is a sad fact of human history that often a nation's biggest enemy is their own leadership. And you might think of some of the examples of Adolf Hitler, of Joseph Stalin, of Paul Pot, of Mao Zedong, of Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein. All of these individuals who have portrayed themselves as the great leaders of their people and the ones who want to make the lives of their people better in all of this.

And yet, what happens? In the case of some of them, like Joe Stalin and Mao Zedong and Paul Pot, they slaughtered their own people in the millions and the tens of millions. Or in the case of Adolf Hitler, led them into disastrous wars that cost the lives of millions of their people. So a lesson to keep in mind is that often the enemies of a people are their own leaders.

And it just so happens that Pharaoh is one of the earliest leaders we have in recorded history. Who was an enemy to his own people because of his own stubbornness, his own blindness and refusal to see what is really going on. As Pharaoh is a great example of how not to be a leader. And why is that? Well, what was Pharaoh focused on? Well, for Pharaoh, it was all about him.

It's all about his ego, his prestige, his power of keeping all these people subjugated under him. But for us, what's it all about? For us, it's not about us. As the saying goes, it's all about serving others. It's all about giving to others. It's not about us. But for Pharaoh, it was all about him, about his ego, his power, his prestige, and so on. So there's another lesson from this story. So now we'll pick it up in chapter 9 and verse 1. We come to the fifth plague, which is directed against the domestic animals there in the land of Egypt.

They have a very severe pestilence. Now, just a few verses earlier, in chapter 8, last time, we talked about how Moses had referred to the sacred animals of Egypt, like the Rams that we talked about. And Moses said the Israelites are going to sacrifice some of these very animals there in the wilderness to God. And now God says He's going to strike some of those same animals with pestilence, showing that these animals indeed are not divine.

They're going to be struck dead by this next plague here. And this will reaffirm that God alone is divine, and nothing in nature is divine. Verse 4, and the Lord will make a difference between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt. So nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of Israel. So we see clearly here God's control over nature in that, even though the Egyptians and the Israelites are living pretty much side by side there in Goshen, that the Israelites' animals are going to be spared, and the Egyptians' animals are going to be struck dead in this plague.

And then we see in the next verse another example of God's control over nature, that He sets a time when this plague is going to strike. Verse 5, Then the Lord appointed a set time, saying, tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land. So with each plague, God adds more miracles to emphasize again and again. He's the one behind it. Now He sets a geographic limit to this plague and a time when this plague is going to strike, which is the next day.

So the Lord did this thing on the next day, and all the livestock of Egypt died. But of the livestock of the children of Israel, not one died. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. So what this tells us is that Pharaoh sends out messengers or some of his men to verify that indeed what Moses said would take place did, that the Israelite animals are spared and the Egyptian animals are dead.

And indeed, that is exactly what they found. The Israelite animals were well and fine and whole, and the Egyptians' animals were dead. And let's consider how great an economic disaster this was for the Egyptians. Because it affected their food, some of those animals were used as food. They were also used for transportation because they didn't have cars and trucks and buses. So specifically, the donkeys, the camels, would have been the freight system for that day. Those would have been the animals, would have been carrying the goods and food and stuff like that around the country.

That was the semis and the trucks for transporting things. It would have affected their military capability because the horses would have been pulling the chariots, which are the tanks of their day. The equivalent of that. Another aspect of this particular plague is that we've talked earlier about the rams, the sheep being a sacred animal and talked about the ram-headed god of Egypt.

But cattle in particular were also considered sacred by the Egyptians. They worshipped many different animals, but among them were cattle, bulls and heifers. The god Pata was represented by a bull called the Apis bull. You can look that up if you want to learn more. But this bull was... there was only one Apis bull at a time. And this creature was considered sacred, a holy animal. And it supposedly had the power of prophecy. I've seen a lot of people prophesy bull, but this is not exactly what we're talking about here.

We're not sure how this was done, but this was the thinking behind this bull. And it was considered very sacred, and to the extent that when the Apis bull died, it was as though Pharaoh had died. They would have kind of a national day of mourning for the animal, and as though Pharaoh had died. And they were considered so sacred that... it's a rather gross photo, but they actually embalmed and mummified the Apis bulls.

And they have actually found tombs with dozens of mummified bulls in them, these Apis sacred bulls. So again, this is representative of this god, Pto, as well. Another one of Egypt's greatest goddesses was Hathor. Depicted with the body of a woman, and typically the head of a cow, with a solar disc. That's what's the orange ball between her horns, representing the sun, the power of the sun there. So this is how she is typically depicted on tomb paintings and so on, and statues.

Here's a statue of the goddess Hathor, with the sun disc between her horns. She is also, at times, depicted as a cow, a heifer, with the sun disc, again, between her horns. And notice also that there's a male figure drinking milk from her. She was also... one of her titles was... excuse me, one of the titles of the pharaohs was son of Hathor.

She was viewed as the symbolic mother of pharaoh. So she was kind of a protector goddess there as well, Hathor once. And again, she's represented by a heifer. So these great gods that protected the bulls and the cows were powerless to protect the cattle. They're of Egypt. So this is a direct affront by God to these gods, Pthaha and Hathor, there. So as these plagues are playing out, keep in mind that it's not just the priests who are praying to the Egyptian gods, but the people themselves are praying to Pthaha and praying to Hathor to save the lives of their livestock and things like that.

And of course, their gods are silent. They're powerless. They can't do anything to protect the livestock during these plagues. Continuing, letter part of verse 7, But the heart of Pharaoh became hard, and he did not let the people go. So again, we see Pharaoh's stubbornness and pride and ego get in the way, and his people continue to suffer in these plagues. And now we come to the sixth plague, which is the plague of boils. So verse 8 of Exodus 9, So the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Take for yourselves handfolds of ashes from a furnace, and let Moses scatter it toward the heavens in the sight of Pharaoh.

And this furnace here is translated kiln in other translations. And I think that's probably right. A kiln is where a pottery maker would have a small furnace to heat pottery, to fire it, to harden it. And the Egyptians were really experts in ceramics and things like that. So this makes a lot of sense. It's not talking about a furnace, because you don't need heat in Egypt. You've got plenty of that, but you do need something like this for firing pottery.

This is probably what it's looking at. Just gathering some of the ashes from that and tossing them in the air is what is being described. And following the pattern that we saw earlier, the pattern of the three sets of three plagues, in which the third of the three comes without any warning to Pharaoh. We see that again here. God doesn't send advance warning. He just tells Moses to do this, and the plague will follow.

So, verse 9, and this ash that you toss in the air from the kiln will become fine dust in all the land of Egypt. And it will cause boils that break out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.

Then they took ashes from the furnace and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses scattered the ashes toward heaven. And they caused boils that break out in sores on man and beast. But the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians. So, the Egyptians had a number of different deities, as we've talked about gods and goddesses, to whom they offered sacrifices. And sometimes those sacrifices involved human sacrifice. And the way that worked, and why does God do it this way? Well, because of the way the Egyptians did it. They would offer a human sacrifice.

They would burn the remains on an altar, so there's nothing left from ashes. And then they would take those ashes and toss them up in the air. And it would spread in the wind, and that was viewed as spreading a blessing on behalf of whichever particular god the person had been sacrificed to. And it would be a blessing from that god on all of the Egyptians. So, what happens here is God takes that same act of taking ashes and spreading it, but instead of it being a blessing to the people as the Egyptians viewed this act, it was a curse.

It was a plague on the Egyptians, a plague of boils, as we read about here. These large, painful sores on everybody. And this plague would have been on a front to a number of Egyptian gods of healing. One of whom was Thoth, who was depicted with the body of a man and the head of an ibis.

You might think of a flamingo or a stork, a very long-legged bird, fishing-type bird. And this god was viewed as the god of intelligence and of medical healing. Another of the great goddesses of Egypt was Isis, viewed as the wife of Osiris. She's one of the chief goddesses of Egypt and supposedly was able to bring Osiris back to life rather after he had died. But we see from this plague that these noted Egyptian gods are powerless.

And the face of the powers of the god of Egypt. Verse 11 also specifically mentions there the magicians suffering from these painful boils. And the magicians were kind of the doctors of the ancient world because they're supposedly divine powers. And yet, here they themselves are suffering. They can't even parent the plagues from affecting themselves there. Much less anyone else. So again, it just shows they really have no power at all in the face of the true god.

Verse 12, but the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not heed them just as the Lord had spoken to Moses. God had told Moses that he's not going to let you go. And it's interesting because after the first five plagues, it's always said that Pharaoh strengthened his own heart. But now it shifts because now it is God, not Pharaoh, who has said that he strengthens or hardens Pharaoh's heart.

And we've talked about this a bit before, but to mention the point again. What does this really mean? Or is there a really significant difference between Pharaoh hardening his own heart and God hardening his heart?

Basically, I think what this is talking about here is that Pharaoh now has the ability to decide of his own volition whether he's going to let the Israelites go. By that, I mean in all of these plagues, he's essentially had a gun pointed to his head. You let the Israelites go, or this is going to happen.

The bottom line is now what seems to be being said here is that he's going to do what he's going to do regardless of the consequences. And what he really wants to do is to keep the Israelites enslaved. And we see this again and again, that he'll make an agreement to let them go, and as soon as the pressure is off, he returns and reverts back to his old practices.

And even after they're finally freed, after the 10th plague, what happens? What does Pharaoh do? He sends his army, sends his chariots out to pursue the Israelites to bring them back into slavery. So what we see again and again, he does, Pharaoh does, what Pharaoh wants to do. Regardless of whether how his heart is hardened, he is going to do what he really wants to do. Deep down inside his heart, and that is because of his stubbornness, because of his ego, because of his power.

He's determined to keep the Israelites enslaved. And that's what is going on when we see his heart being hardened, as it says here. It's also, it's interesting because he doesn't listen to his counselors or advisors either. And we'll talk about that a little bit more here shortly. So now we come to the next plague, which is the plague of hail, in verse 13 of Exodus 9. Then the Lord said to Moses, Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

For at this time I will send all my plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. And then we see something interesting here. Now if I had stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, then you would have been cut off from the earth. So God essentially tells Pharaoh here that just as he killed the livestock with a plague of pestilence, that he could have killed Pharaoh and the Egyptians, had he wanted to.

Had that been his intent, I could have killed you just like I killed Adel. But I didn't do that. God is still showing his mercy. And why does he not do that? Well, verse 16, But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my power in you, that my name may be declared in all the earth.

What's going on? Why does God say this? Well, think about it. The plague, God's interaction now with Israel, is different because previous to this time he has only worked with individuals or very small groups. Adam and Eve, Noah and the eight members of his family, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve sons of Israel, the seventy who go down to Egypt. But now God is shifting. Now God is working with two nations. He's working with the Israelites who are going to be his model nation, a kingdom of priests that he wants him to be, who he's going to deliver.

But he's also, and they're to be the good examples. And then there's another nation he's working with, as it says right here, the Egyptians. But he's going to use the Egyptians as a bad example. And as I sometimes tell the students at ABC, don't feel totally useless. You can always be used as a bad example. I tell them that in just and they know that. But that's what's going on here. He's using the Egyptians as an example of what not to do. Don't defy God. Don't be stubborn and hard-hearted. Do what I tell you to do. Don't enslave people. Don't treat people like that.

Don't treat nations like that. Egypt was the superpower of that day. And God is systematically destroying the nation, as we just talked about. Destroying the economic base by destroying their livestock. He's doing that. And this is a lesson to all nations, as it says here, that I may show my power in you, and that my name may be declared in all the earth. Well, his name is going to be declared because of his power over all of the gods and goddesses of Egypt. And the other nations better listen up and take a cue from this, as to what might happen to them if they try the same thing.

Egypt is so systematically destroyed that it takes them generations to recover from these plagues and the destruction and the devastation. So they will be an example of what not to do in defying the true God. Continuing in verse 17, As yet you exalt yourself against my people, and that you will not let them go. Behold, tomorrow, about this time, I will cause very heavy hail to rain down, such as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now.

Therefore sin now, and gather your livestock and all that you have in the field. For the hail shall come down on every man and every animal which is found in the field, and is not brought home, and they shall die. Now, a couple of interesting things to point out here. We see first of all an interesting twist, because who is told to send out the warning that this hail is going to come, and everything that's out in the field, whether man or beast, is going to be killed?

Who's going to send out the warning? Pharaoh is! Pharaoh is told to tell his people to warn them about the plague that the God of Israel is going to send. So this has to be very humiliating for Pharaoh, that he's got to be the one to warn the people this is what the Hebrew's God is going to do. So this has to be very humiliating because Pharaoh is supposedly a god, too. Can he stop the plague? No. Well, technically he can. He can stop the plague by freeing the Israelites.

But he's not going to do that. As we've talked about here, he's too proud, too arrogant, too power-hungry to do that. Side point here, we just read a few verses earlier that all of the livestock in Egypt died. And verse 6, So if all the livestock of the Egyptians died, why is there this warning now to get the livestock out of the fields, lest they be killed in the hailstorm? I touched on this briefly in an earlier sermon, but it's a problem in our understanding and translation of the Hebrew word here that's translated as all.

When we use all in English, we mean everything, every one, every single item, every single person, every single being there. But in Hebrew, it's used in a more general way. For instance, we might say that, you know, yesterday that there's a storm that's supposed to come in tonight, so I went to the grocery store and everybody was there stocking up on milk and bread and eggs and all of this.

So we say everybody was there. Well, we don't mean literally everybody, but just that it was crowded. There was a lot of people there. And that's kind of the sense of this Hebrew word, all, that we see, not just here, but throughout the Old Testament. We need to understand that. It doesn't mean literally everything, every one. It can at times mean that, but it means it in a more general sense. We went to the store and everybody was there. That kind of thing. That's the sense that this Hebrew word has.

And we'll see that later on throughout the story of the Exodus. We see phrases like, all of the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron. Does that mean literally every man, woman and child of the Israelites were complaining about Moses and Aaron? No, it doesn't. It just means the vast majority of them, a large percentage of them were. So we need to understand when it... what is being described here is, yes, a large majority of the Egyptian livestock were killed in the plague of the livestock.

But there's still some animals that are left. They're out there foraging in the fields. The pasture is there. And God warns, if you don't bring them inside and bring them into shelter, they're going to be killed by the hailstorm.

So that's what is going on here. And by extension, we see something else here. As I just touched on a minute ago, God doesn't want to kill all of the Egyptians. If he wanted to do that, he could have wiped them all out in the same plague as he did the livestock earlier. What he wants to do is to free the Israelites. That's the goal. And in that process, to demonstrate his might and his power, his greatness over all of the Egyptian gods and goddesses. So God does provide an advance warning to the Egyptians to protect themselves, to protect their animals, to protect their servants, as it's worded here.

But this is actually slaves. The Egyptians had other slaves, not just the Israelites, because they enslaved other nations that they conquered as well. So God doesn't want to kill all of them. He gives advance warning to bring them in so they'll be protected here. And verse 20, continuing with the story, He who feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants, his slaves, and his livestock flee to the houses.

They got indoors. They found shelter. But he who did not regard the word of the Lord left his servants and his livestock in the field. So here's a sad instance of where people, in this case the slaves of the Egyptians, suffered not because of any wrong that they had committed, but because they happened to live among evildoers, among people who disregarded the word of God.

And because they disregard the warning, then sadly they die in the hailstorm. And this is another lesson from the story here that so much of human suffering is caused, and I'm not talking about natural disasters, floods, tornadoes, things like that, but so much of human suffering is caused by people who don't fear God and don't pay attention to God. And as a result of that, because they don't care about God and don't care about His word, they mistreat people, they abuse people.

And if we are valuing God's word and what He says, what are we going to do? We're going to live by the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Treat people kindly. Treat people mercifully. Be kind. Be merciful. Reflect that nature and character of God. You treat others as you would want to be treated, but these people disregard God, and their animals and their slaves suffer and die as a result of that.

And that is the root cause of so much of suffering that we see, again, with the examples I mentioned earlier, about so many corrupt human leaders who care about themselves, and not really about God and God's values and God's instruction for how to treat other people. Continuing with the story, verse 22, A couple of points to bring out here. We live in Colorado. We know hail. How many of you have been in a hail storm that was so destructive that it really destroyed things?

Okay, just about everybody. I remember about 30 years ago, shortly after I moved to Colorado, a place I worked in, looking out in the parking lot in a hail storm with a size of tennis balls, and hitting our cars out in the parking lot, and literally pieces breaking off and flying off the cars. It can be terribly destructive there. Just multiply that several fold, and this is what is being talked about here. Hail big enough to kill people and animals that are caught out in it. I assume it mentions here fire accompanying the hail.

I think really what this is just talking about is simply lightning. Because of Egypt's geographical position, it really doesn't get hardly any rain there. I mean, ever. And because of that, it's not going to get storms, big storms, and lightning and things like that. Consequently, hail would have been extremely rare in that climate. And my guess is Moses had probably never seen lightning there, just because of this climate, this particular area there. And that's why he describes it as fire among the hail, and fire darting to the ground, and mingling with hail.

I think fire is simply the closest thing Moses could compare it to. And of course, lightning, if it strikes, what does it produce? Fire. The earth, it's combustible material. And the fact also that it's mentioned here that there is thundering. What does that mean? Well, that means it's lightning, because lightning causes thundering. So I don't think there's anything particularly mysterious about the fire, that it's just simply talking about lightning. And which gods and goddesses did this directly challenge? Well, since this hail originated in the sky, it's probably a direct challenge to the sky goddess, Nuit.

Nuit, the goddess of the sky. And she was viewed as one of Egypt's most important gods. She's viewed as the mother of a number of Egyptian gods, and she's often depicted this way in Egyptian art. You can see this arched body there, representing the sky that arches above us. And notice that her body is painted with stars all over, that's representing the night sky. She's the goddess of the sky in daytime and in night.

And I've been in some Egyptian tombs where you see her painted exactly like this with an arched body and the stars there. So here she is, the great goddess of the sky, and she's powerless to do anything against this horrible plague of hail coming down from the sky. And what is the result? The hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast. The hail struck every herb, every plant of the field, and broke every tree of the field.

It's so powerful, so big, the hail storms, and it literally breaks branches off trees. That gives you some idea of the power of this hail storm. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail. And Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said to them, I have sinned this time, the Lord is righteous, and my people and I are wicked.

And Pharaoh's response is interesting here. He says, not only he, but my people and I are wicked. Who does he name first? My people and I. He seems to be shifting blame somewhat. That we're wicked. So he may be trying to deflect some of the moral blame for this, by spreading the blame to others. Or it's possible also, it's somewhat ambiguous, that he is acknowledging that it was a national effort by the Egyptians to enslave the Israelites and to commit genocide against the Hebrew boys. And therefore, they are collectively guilty, as we've talked about in a previous sermon in the series, that there is such a thing as collective guilt, and that may be what Pharaoh is admitting here.

It's just ambiguous as to exactly which it means. We might notice also that Pharaoh refers to God by his proper name here, Yahweh. He's not called the God of the Hebrews. Now he's coming to understand some of the power of this God, of the Hebrews, and refers to him by his proper name. Continuing, verse 28, Pharaoh tells Moses and Aaron, And treat the LORD that there may be no more mighty thundering. And hail, for it is enough! I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.

So Moses said to him, As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, that you may know that the earth is the LORD's. But Moses isn't fooled by Pharaoh, because he knows what the man is like, and he knows he can't be trusted.

So notice what he says, verse 30, But as for you, Pharaoh, and your servants, I know that you will not yet fear the LORD God. So he knows Pharaoh is not being honest about it here.

Next verse, we see something interesting and revealing about the timing of these plagues. It says, Now the flax and the barley were struck, for the barley was in the head, so it's getting ripe, and the flax was in bud. But the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they are like crops. They're not struck because they haven't come up yet.

So notice here that the flax and the barley crop are destroyed. They are ripe, or on the verge of ripe. And this tells us something about the timing of these plagues. We tend to assume, reading through this account, that these plagues come right after another. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Maybe two or three days apart, something like that. But that's not the case. These actually take place over time. And we see that here because the time of the year when barley is in the head and flax is in bud, and Egypt, because of its warmer climate, the time of the year when that's ripe is in January.

But when is Passover? Passover is in March or April, two to three months later, depending on the year. So this tells us this particular plague of the hail takes place in January, but the final plague and the Passover don't happen until March or April, a good two to three months later. So this tells us there's at least a couple of months time gap in these particular plagues, between this one and the tenth plague. That's the only time indicator that we have in the account here. But it does tell us that these plagues didn't take place over a very short span of a few days or even a few weeks, but at minimum two to three months just for this plague to the last one.

We're not told about the time span from the previous one. So the implication we get here is this took place over at least a number of months, maybe a year, maybe even longer. We just don't know. It's not spelled out. This is the only chronological clue that we find here in the scriptures there. So let me change our perspective on some of these things. That Pharaoh obviously has plenty of time to think about what is going on in the destruction of his nation.

Verse 33, continuing with the story, So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh and spread out his hands to the Lord. Then the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain was not poured on the earth. And then true to form, when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more. And he hardened his heart, he and his servants. So we just read that Pharaoh had confessed to Moses that he was wicked, and what does he do?

He immediately turns around and reverts to his wicked behavior. And again, goes back on his promises to Moses. And this is typical of evil people. They beg to be forgiven, and then they resume their bad behavior. As soon as they're forgiven, or as soon as their punishment is ended. It's kind of like the classic story of abusive spouses, where an abusive spouse will torment the spouse.

And then when their actions are exposed, or they get caught, or the spouse leaves, or something like that, then they'll promise to change. But then as soon as the heat's off, what happens? They revert back to the same behavior. It's the same typical pattern of people who are abusers. That they do that.

I've seen that kind of behavior, regrettably. But this is the kind of, this is an insight into Pharaoh's behavior here. Including this chapter, verse 35, so the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. Neither would he let the children of Israel go, as the Lord had spoken by Moses.

And now we go on to chapter 10, to the next plague, which is the plague of locusts. But there's an important prelude here that is mentioned first. So let's read the first few verses here. Now the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart in the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine before him, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son's son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.

So when we see something, and I want to talk about this for a little bit here, because this has several important lessons for us. Notice that God, through Moses, instructs the Israelites to tell the Israelites through their generations, generation after generation, about God's miracles that take place during the taking them out of Egypt. And this is one of the reasons the Jewish people today, you've probably heard how they celebrate Passover, how they have a number of elaborate rituals, different symbols representing different aspects of the Passover story, and the questions they ask their children, and the children, excuse me, the children ask the questions, and so on.

And these things represent various aspects of the story, but it goes back to this command here, to teach your son and your son's sons the mighty things that I have done. And in other words, God tells them, remember these things. Remember these things, and teach them to your children. So why is remembering important? And it's not just here, because we see this theme show up again and again in God's Word.

We don't have time to cover a lot of these, but God tells us important things to remember, like, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. One of His Ten Commandments is all about remembering. So why is remembering important? Well, it's important because of what happens if we don't remember.

Because without remembering, we lack some important things, such as gratitude, such as gratitude. Because it's only when we remember the good things that others have done for us, whether it be other people or whether it be God, that we have gratitude. We have to remember that. You know, it's all too easy for us as humans to remember the bad things that people have done, the way somebody mistreated us or slighted us or did something we didn't like. That takes no effort at all to remember the bad stuff. That comes naturally to us. But it takes effort to remember the good things that people have done.

Gratitude, being grateful, takes effort. It takes a conscious effort to think about and remember the good things that other people do for us or that God gives for us. And this is why the Bible mentions thanksgiving and being thankful again and again and again.

And to remember and be thankful for the great things that God has done for us. Because it's important that we express thanks. It's important that we express gratitude to others and to God. And to acknowledge the good things they have done for us and to acknowledge the good things that God has done for us. Because if we don't remember, we won't have this attitude of gratitude there. It's important for us. It's an important aspect of the kind of character that God wants us to have. Also, without remembering, we lack something else that is very crucial, and that is wisdom.

And that is wisdom. How do we get wisdom? Well, we know from the Proverbs we get wisdom from studying God's Word. The knowledge of God is the foundation of knowledge, Proverbs tells us. But in large part, we also get wisdom from learning from and remembering what has happened in the past. And no generation, no people can truly be wise without learning from our history. Learning from the past, whether it's our national history, whether it's world history, whether it's biblical history. And unfortunately, we see something very sad permeating our world today, because people are abysmally ignorant. They're ignorant of the past. They're ignorant of our nation's past. They're ignorant of world history. They're ignorant of biblical history. And as a result of that, because they don't know the facts, they think with their feelings instead of facts.

And where does thinking with feelings get you? Not in good places. Not in good places. And this is having devastating consequences for our nation. Why do you think education, why do you think history is being erased from her history curricula in schools and colleges these days? It's not accidental. It's deliberate. I just read there was an article this week about one of the downtown Denver universities. I think it was DU, but I'm not sure. A professor is giving a class on political history of the United States, and he is deliberately omitting any mention of dead white men.

Think about that. A history class of the political history of the nation without mentioning a single white man. So, all the founding fathers totally omitted. Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, totally omitted. Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, freeing of slaves, totally omitted. How do you have a history class on the political history of the United States without mentioning a single white male? It's absurd. It's absurd, but this kind of thing is going on deliberately. To create an ignorant people who don't know their history so they can be fed any kind of lie that they want to present, and the people won't have any background to evaluate whether it's truth or lie.

It's sad, but it's deliberate. They're trying to create a dumbed-down population that will buy into whatever they're being fed, and it's deliberate. It's so obvious. I mean, in 9th grade, we had a class on civics, and on the Constitution, and on the history of the nation, and how our political systems developed.

This was in 9th grade when I went to school. And now they don't even teach that kind of thing at the college level. It's just ridiculous. And people who don't know their history, as the famous saying from Santiana says, those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. People who don't learn from the mistakes of history are they are doomed to repeat it.

They're doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. There's a popular saying when I grew up, and seeing the number of gray hairs out there, you remember, too. In the 60s, don't trust anybody over 30. And the people who took that advice, what happened to them? They grew up stupid. They grew up stupid. And who are the rulers of our political class these days? The stupid people who took that advice not to trust anybody over 30, so they don't know history. And they are determined to repeat the same mistakes that have been made again and again throughout history. It's sad, but that is exactly what's happening.

You ever ask yourself, why does the Bible contain so much history? I mean, even in the books of prophecy, like Isaiah, is full of history. Daniel, it's full of history. Not just prophecy, the prophetic books, 1 and 2, excuse me, the historical books, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, all of these. There's an awful lot of history in the Bible because he wants us to learn from it.

As Paul said to the Corinthians, these things were written for our admonition so we can learn from them. So God includes a lot of history in there. He includes the story of the Exodus in here. This is why I'm spending so much time in these sermons going through this because there are so many lessons in there for us. For us to learn from history. Good and bad. What's gone before? So again, we need to remember so that we learn wisdom from what has happened before.

What worked? What didn't work? What are the right examples? What are the wrong examples? What do we learn from them so we can become wise people? Without remembering, we also lack something else that is important, and that is faith.

That is faith. God's instruction here to Moses speaks to something very important, which is to recount to your children and your children's children what God has done. The miracles God performed in liberating the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. And we talk about that every year in conjunction with Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Exodus story.

Because if we don't remember the good things that God did in the past in His faithfulness, we forget it. We forget it. And without remembering what God has done, what happens? Well, people wonder, well, why should I trust in God? What's He really ever done for me? And without remembering and making a conscious effort to remember the great things God has done for us or the things He's done for other people whom we know, what's going to happen?

We're going to forget about that. We're going to wonder, well, is God really there? Does God really listen to my prayers? Does God really hear? Is He really going to be there for me and my family when we need Him? So remembering is vitally important to building and maintaining that faith and trust and confidence we need in God. What's one of the great tragedies of the story of the Exodus from Egypt? The great overriding tragedy is the Israelites' lack of faith. We've been going through these plagues in great detail.

The Israelites saw that. They saw the hail looking out, you know, falling on the Egyptian lands. They saw these things. But when it came down to having faith, did they remember these things? No, they didn't. They didn't with terrible consequences. Every one of the Israelites who witnessed these miracles had to die out in the wilderness for their lack of faith. So it's vitally important that we remember these things.

And that is why I'm spending so much time in the sermon series. So we can be grateful. So we can learn from these examples and have wisdom from it. And so we can have faith that we do indeed worship and have a relationship with a great and miracle working God who is faithful to His people.

So with that lesson done, let's get back to the story in verse 3. So Moses and Aaron came into Pharaoh and said to him, Thus, says the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go that they may serve me. Or else, if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. And they shall cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth. And they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from the hail. And they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field. They shall fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, which neither your fathers nor your father's fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day. And he turned and went out from Pharaoh. So Moses is now getting bolder with each plague, because this time he doesn't wait around for Pharaoh to respond. He just says, here's what's going to happen. The locusts are coming. I'm out of here. And he turns and walks out. And verse 7, Then Pharaoh's servant said to him, How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed? And this is quite interesting, what we see here, because Pharaoh's mother is one of the most trusted advisors. It says servants here, but from what is going on, it's obviously his advisors that he's talking with here. And they say, Egypt is destroyed. Let's let the Israelites go and stop these plagues. But Pharaoh insists on keeping them. And Pharaoh's advisors see something so obvious that Pharaoh himself cannot see. And that is, well, two things that it's Pharaoh's stubbornness that is destroying the nation, but also that Egypt's gods are no match for Israel's God.

But at the same time, the advisors are also victims of their own false belief, because because normally the way things worked in the ancient world is if you have a leader who's leading the nation to disaster. What happens? Well, you get rid of that leader. He gets assassinated, and somebody else comes on the throne. But how did the advisors view Pharaoh? They view him as a god, and you don't assassinate a god.

So they leave Pharaoh in office, and he continues this disastrous course for the nation there. They don't have the courage or the will or the ability to overthrow him and save their nation. And it's because of their own spiritual blindness that he's just a man. He's not a god. And as a result, the Egyptian nation continues to suffer, and things get worse and worse. Another thing interesting here is this shows, to touch on the hardening of hearts again, this verse proves that God is not removing choices from Pharaoh. In other words, Pharaoh still is a free moral agent. He's still free to make his own choices. We see this because, verse 1, just a little bit earlier, God tells Moses, I have hardened Pharaoh's heart and the hearts of his advisors. So, their hearts were hardened, too, as Pharaoh's were. But there's a big difference, because their hearts, even though they're hardened, they still know that the course that Pharaoh is choosing is disastrous for their people and for their nation. That's why they tell him, let the Israelites go! Let's stop this destruction. So just because Pharaoh's heart is hardened doesn't mean he still doesn't have freedom of choice. Pharaoh doesn't recognize the same thing his advisors recognize, which is, we need to let the Israelites go. But again, in his stubbornness, in his ego trip, he refuses to let them go. So, the bottom line, Pharaoh always had a choice. God, heartening his heart, did not remove his freedom of choice. He always had a choice, and he always consistently did what he wanted to do, deep down in his heart, which is keep the Israelites enslaved. So what is Pharaoh's reaction to his advisor's advice? Verse 8, so Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh, and he told them, Go, serve the Lord your God. And then Pharaoh adds something here that's easy to read over. He adds something. Who are the ones that are going? He asked a question. What does that mean? Who are the ones? He says, Go! Go serve your Lord, the Lord your God. And then he says, Who are the ones that are going? What's this mean? What's going on here? Well, Pharaoh again agrees to let Moses and Aaron go into the wilderness to worship their God. But he adds, Who are the ones that are going?

What this means is Pharaoh's going to keep hostages. He's going to keep hostages. He's willing to let Moses and Aaron and some of the people go. But he's going to keep other people behind as hostages to make sure that when they go, they come back.

And remain as his slaves. It's not explicitly spelled out, but that's obviously what is going on. So he's bottom line is he's going...he may have let some of them go for a little while, but he's going to keep hostages to make sure they return and remain as slaves perpetually. And notice how Moses responds to this. Moses said, We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds. We will go for we must hold a feast to the Lord. So Moses' response is simple. We're all going. Young and old and our sons and our daughters and our flocks and our herds. We're all going. We're not going to leave anybody behind as hostages to force us to come back and remain your slaves. And the conversation is getting pretty heated about this point. And verse 10, then Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron, The Lord had better be with you when I let you and your little ones go. So we see that he speaks very rudely and and threateningly.

In spite of example after example of God's power and support for the Israelites through the plagues that have already happened, Pharaoh essentially threatens the Israelites again and challenges God to do his worst. And as people ultimately see, God is more than up for the challenge. Verse 10, this is why I say it's a little bit of a threat, Pharaoh then tells Moses and Aaron, Beware, for evil is ahead of you. And the wording here is somewhat ambiguous, could be taken two different ways. He may be saying that the Israelites' intent is evil, in that by wanting to be free, they have evil in their hearts and want to escape, they want to get out from under this, which would be natural to any human being, but Pharaoh attributes it to evil, evil intent. Or he may be giving a threat by saying if you insist on being freed, this is going to end very badly for you. I think this is probably what is implied. Again, it's ambiguous, it could be either one. But regardless, it still hasn't changed Pharaoh's mind.

As we see next, in the next verse 11, he says, Not so, he responds to Moses, Not so. Go now, you who are men, and serve the Lord, for that is what you desired. And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. So, Pharaoh rejects Moses' demand that everybody is going to go, men, women, and children, and he says only the men can leave. But we're going to keep your wives, we're going to keep your elderly parents, we're going to keep your children here to make sure that you come back and return to your condition of slavery.

So again, he's determined now to keep hostages. So, continuing, verse 12, Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, for the locust, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb, every plant of the land, all that the hail has left. So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night.

When it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. Interesting point here, God could have simply said, Okay, locusts come, but he doesn't do that. He deliberately brings an east wind that blows the locust in from another area. So he uses, again, natural phenomena to bring about these plagues. The plagues so far are all natural phenomena, as near as we can tell, that God has either magnified or intensified, or are both, and controlled the timing of these things.

Why is that significant? Well, it's significant because the Egyptians could have attributed it all to coincidence. It's just coincidence that we had the worst hailstorm in our kingdom's history in the last thousand years. It's just coincidence that our cattle died, and the Israelites cattle were slaves, things like this.

But there's another lesson here to the Exodus story, because the Egyptians had to make a choice. Is this coincidence, or is it the hand of God? And in life, that's a choice for each of us, too. Is it coincidence, or is it the hand of God?

And not just for us, but for all of mankind, because Paul wrote to the Romans in the first couple of chapters there, the evidence of God's existence is all around us. It's everywhere. You see it everywhere, all around us, in the wonders that he has created. But Paul says human beings didn't like that. So they rejected the knowledge of God, and God turned them over to a reprobate mind. So they can believe all of these wonders came about by chance, by coincidence, or they can believe it came by the hand.

Now, somebody who's a whole lot greater and a whole lot smarter than we are. But people want to choose the coincidence model, the evolution model, things like that. So is God involved, or is it all coincidence? And everybody has to make a choice about that. But there are consequences to those choices. And for the Egyptians, the consequence was you can believe in the God of Israel that it is his hand at work, or it is just coincidence.

And too many of them decide that it's coincidence. But there are consequences to that choice, good or bad. Verse 14, And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested on all the territory of Egypt. They land throughout the land of Egypt. They were very severe. Previously there had been no such locuses as they, nor shall there be such after them.

For they covered the face of the whole earth so that the land was darkened. And they ate every herb, every plant of the land, and all the fruit of the trees, which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees, or on the plants of the field, throughout all the land of Egypt. And earlier I showed this satellite photo of Egypt, and it's mostly brown, tan, because it's sand, hundreds of miles of sand. And you see this narrow green strip running up the middle. That's the Nile River, and the fertile land on either side of the Nile.

And the triangular green shape at the top is the Nile Delta, where the Nile breaks off into several branches, and they have canals and irrigation and all of that. And on the right-hand side of that is the land of Goshen, where the Israelites settle. I mentioned earlier about the Israelites and Egyptians pretty much side by side in this area. I know that because when it comes time for the last plague, God tells the Israelites to go out and borrow from your Egyptian neighbors, take gold and jewelry and valuable things from them.

So they're close together. That's why I say the Israelites can see the plague striking the Egyptians. They're very close together there. But this is what the land of Egypt looks like. It has this narrow strip of vegetation and crops and trees along either side of the Nile River.

And then what happens? The locusts arrive and they strip everything bare. What does a plague of locusts look like? Here's a photo from 1915, a plague that struck the land of Israel in 1915. This is a fig tree, judging by the shape of the branches. And you can see there's not a single leaf left. There's not a blade of grass on the ground. It's been stripped totally bare. And here's a photo of an olive grove, an olive orchard.

And again, every leaf gone, every blade of grass gone. And these are photos of what a locust plague looks like. This was about a hundred years ago, 1915, when this struck. So devastating after everything else that has happened. Now everything green in the country is gone, devoured by locusts. This is kind of devastation that is being described here. And as with the preceding plagues, the gods of Egypt are silent. Where was the guardian of the fields? The Egyptians had a guardian of the field.

Anubis, the jackal-headed god of Egypt, viewed as the protector god for their fields. And there was also Osiris, who was green because he is the god of agriculture, of crops and everything. So they are powerless to prevent this plague that totally devastates anything that is green there. The fields have been battered down by hail, strong enough to break tree branches, and then burned by the lightning that came down with the hail. And now they've been stripped completely bare by the locusts.

And this is a testimony to the impotence of the Egyptian gods. Continuing, verse 16, then, The fair will call for Moses and Aaron in haste, he's urgent about this, and said, I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you. So he calls for them in haste, meaning he's desperate to get this plague ended here, because this plague is particularly devastating to them. And again, he admits that he is wrong. He has sinned.

2, verse 17, Now therefore, please forgive my sin, only this once, and entreat, ask the Lord your God, that he may take away from me this death only. So again, it's like the abusive spouse who says, okay, please forgive me, and I'll never do it again. We know the pattern. He does return, revert right back to his wrong behavior. Verse 18, Moses went out from Pharaoh and asked the Lord to remove this plague.

And the Lord turned a very strong west wind, which took the locusts away and blew them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the territory of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. So again, after removing this plague, the heat is off, the pressure is off, and Pharaoh reverts to his previous pattern of going back on his word. So he now will again choose what to do with the Israelites, and his choice is again to leave them in slavery. And we'll stop there and pick it up next time with two plagues to go.