Flies, and Frogs, and Lice, Oh, My!

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I’ve been out of state at times, and some of you may have experienced this as well, where you’ll go particularly back east, and they will find out that you’re from Oklahoma, and they will ask you if it’s still like in the pioneer days. Has anybody else ever experienced that? And I’ve gotten to the point where I tell them it’s not like the pioneer days.

It’s not like living in the pioneer days. It’s like living in the Old Testament. And the reason I say that is we have earthquakes, we have tornadoes, we have hail, we have ice, we have floods.

I’m trying to think what else is there. We have snow, and sometimes all in the same week. As of last week, we had wild animals on the loose.

You just never know when you wake up in Oklahoma what that evening is going to bring. and it does feel sometimes like we’re living in the Old Testament. And every time I say that, it brings a little chuckle from people.

It brings perplexed looks from people who don’t live here, and it brings a chuckle from people who do live here. But at the same time, as much as I’m joking about that, the power that God demonstrated in the Old Testament is not a joking matter. That’s something that Pharaoh had to learn the hard way.

We’re going to talk today about nine of the ten plagues that God sent on the people of Egypt after he had given Pharaoh chance after chance after chance to let his people go. Two weeks ago, we took a week off for Mother’s Day to talk about mom a little bit and talk about God’s design for us in educating and discipling those who come after us. But two weeks ago, we talked about how God gave Pharaoh a second chance.

And I’m hesitant even to use the term a second chance because he gave him second chance after second chance after second chance. And he does the same with us. We can look at this story and we can see ourselves as one of God’s people in the story.

We can identify with that. But I think sometimes we should also look at the story and identify with Pharaoh and say, how hard does God have to work to get through to me? How many chances has God given me?

and to what lengths does God have to go before he finally has my attention? Because we see all throughout the Old Testament, we can look at the stories in the Old Testament and look at the lengths to which God had to go to get people’s attention, and we can blame God, and much of the world does. They look at the Old Testament and they say, well, God was just ruthless.

Who would want to serve a God like that? But then you look at the way that people were acting, and we let them off scot-free. People were worshiping false gods.

people were, a lot of times it wasn’t just the fact that they were worshiping false gods, sometimes people were sacrificing children and other innocent people to these false gods. When God wiped out humanity with a flood in Noah’s day, it was because of the violence and the wickedness. Same thing with Sodom and Gomorrah.

It wasn’t just that God was offended, but God punished because he was offended by our sin and our violence, our sinfulness toward one another as And so it’s a mistake to look at the Old Testament and say, well, God’s just ruthless. And to take it out of context and say people didn’t deserve that. When God didn’t act in a reckless manner, God gave people chance after chance to repent.

God gave people chance after chance to stop hurting themselves and other people before he finally stepped in with the judgment that was necessary to get people’s attention. And so the reason I say that is let’s try to put ourselves in Pharaoh’s position and say, we can look at Pharaoh and say, oh, he’s so awful, he never would listen to God. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes and say, how hard is it for God to get my attention when he tells me to do something?

Let’s look at these first nine plagues this morning. It’s hard to break these up any smaller than the nine and say we’re going to take several weeks on it. I’d love to take several weeks on it, but we’ll just talk about the story and move on from there to Pharaoh’s response.

We’re going to start in verse 19 where we left off two weeks ago. Chapter 7, verse 19. And the Lord spake unto Moses, if you’ll recall, he said, Pharaoh, you have one last shot.

And if you don’t, I’m going to strike the river. I’m going to turn the waters of Egypt into blood. And the people will not be able to drink the water.

The fish will die, the river will stink, and the people will not be able to drink the water, is what it says in verse 18. So we go to verse 19, And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, upon their ponds, and upon their pools of water, that they may become blood, and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone. This is pretty serious business here.

He says, strike the river and all the water in Egypt. Not just the Nile would be turned to blood. All the streams would be turned to blood.

All the ponds would be turned to blood. The water that they were storing away would be turned to blood. In our day, yes, those little bottles of Dasani at Walmart would be full of blood.

So the people were in a dire situation. And it says, and the fish that was in the river died. Just like God said they would.

Some people have suggested that this was an algae bloom, a bloom of red algae, which again, if God chose to use that, he’s more than welcome to. It’s still miraculous because it happened when God said it would. But I go back to the fact that the Bible doesn’t say the waters would be like blood.

It said that they were blood. There’s a difference between being blood and being like blood. I am like Bill Gates in the fact that I am a living, breathing human male.

But I am not Bill Gates. Anybody who’s seen my checkbook knows that I’m not Bill Gates. There’s a big difference between being Bill Gates and being like Bill Gates.

There’s a difference between being blood and being like blood. And God said the water was turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died.

And the river stank. God said that would happen. and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Neither did he hearken unto them as the Lord had said. So the magicians pulled out some trick and said, see, we can make water look like blood also.

And so Pharaoh, when the Bible says it hardened his heart, what’s the phrase I use? He dug in his heels. He said, you can’t treat me like this, I’m Pharaoh.

And neither did he hearken unto them as the Lord had said. God said it would be that way. Did God make Pharaoh disobedient?

No. But God pointed out that when Pharaoh, in his pride and arrogance and disobedience, when he’s confronted, he’s going to dig in his heels even more until the point that he’s broken. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also.

And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the river. Well, all the water in Egypt was blood. I don’t know that the aquifers under the ground were spared from this.

And seven days were fulfilled after that the Lord had smitten the river. Seven days they had no water to drink. Now, we know that the Egyptians did other things.

We know they had wine. Apparently, according to some historical evidence, the Egyptians brewed their own beer. I don’t know that they had nothing to drink for seven days, but they had no water.

This was a dire situation for them. Seven days were fulfilled after that the Lord had smitten the river. And the Lord spake unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh, this is chapter 8 verse 1, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me.

And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And we’re not talking, oh, cute little frogs here. We’re talking a multitude, a myriad of nasty, stinking frogs.

They’re going to come and they’re going to be everywhere. The river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house and into thy bedchamber and upon thy bed and into the house of thy servants and upon thy people and into thine ovens and into thine eating troughs. Now, when I lived in Arkansas, we were not too far from the river.

I mean, it ran just behind our house. And I never went back there because it was on somebody else’s property. But from my driveway and from my backyard at night, when everything was quiet, you could hear the babbling of the water and you could hear the croaking of the frogs and it was just such a nice, peaceful, calm thing to listen to.

And yet the moment those frogs start coming up out of the river, and they’re everywhere, and suddenly they’re in my house, they’re in my bedroom, they’re in my kitchen, this didn’t happen. But the moment that happens, I’m letting the frogs have the house and I’m moving. I’m not scared of frogs.

I just don’t want them everywhere in my house. And so he says they are going to be everywhere. You’re not going to be able to step for the frogs.

And the frogs shall come up both on thee and upon thy people and upon thy servants. Now, usually frogs try to get away from you. But they’re going to be so many they can’t and they’re just going to be on you also.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, verse 5, saying to Aaron, stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.

So the musicians, excuse me, the magicians, not the musicians, they might have been both, But the magicians made frogs to come up out of the water also. And they said, See, we can do this. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take the frogs away from me.

And it might appear here that we’re starting to see the first little signs of softening from Pharaoh. Entreat the Lord. Go beg the Lord that he will send the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let the people go that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.

And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me. When shall I entreat for thee and for thy servants and for thy people to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only? And he said, Tomorrow.

And he said, Be it according to thy word, that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God. So Moses said, When do you want me to ask God to send the frogs away? So that you’ll know that because it happens on this timetable, that you will know it’s not a coincidence, that it was God who sent them away.

And Pharaoh said, Tomorrow. I want them gone tomorrow. And he says, all right, be it unto me as you have said.

And the frogs shall depart from thee and from thy houses and from thy servants and from thy people and shall remain in the river only. And Moses and Aaron went out unto Pharaoh and Moses cried unto the Lord, went out from Pharaoh. And Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh.

Moses cried out to God and said, please take the frogs away. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. And the frogs died out of the houses out of the villages, out of the fields.

Okay, at that point, wait, I wanted them to go back to the river. I didn’t want them just to die here, but he said God would deal with the frog problem, and he did. But verse 14 says, And they gathered them together upon heaps, and the land stank.

I bet. But when Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto them, as the Lord had said. When he saw that God gave him a break.

I don’t know if he thought this was weakness on God’s part, that, hey, I asked for the frogs to be gone, and they’re gone. He works for me, so I don’t have to do what he says. Or if he just dug in his heels even more.

I don’t know what the cause of it was here. But for whatever reason, whatever his thought process was, the frogs were gone, and he said, no, they’re not going anywhere. He dug in his heels.

And so God sent Moses again. And from here, we’ll look at a few verses. I want to encourage you to go and read this for yourself.

Re-familiarize yourself with the story. Because every time I read through this, there are things that I go, I didn’t see that before. I learn something new every time I read this story and so many other passages from the Bible.

So I encourage you not just to remember what you were taught in Sunday school or remember what it showed in the movie, The Ten Commandments, but go back and re-familiarize yourself with the story sure I’m telling it to you accurately. But for the sake of time, I don’t think we’ll go through every verse this morning. But next, God called Moses and said, Moses, you and Aaron, go stretch forth your hand over Egypt, and there will be lice all over the land of Egypt.

And they did this, with his hand and his rod, they smote the dust of the earth, it became lice. And the people of Egypt were afflicted with lice. The animals of Egypt were afflicted by lice.

There was just lice everywhere. It’s gross. You want it gone.

It’s hard to get rid of. And it was everywhere. It’s not just small pockets of outbreak that they had to deal with.

How do you get rid of it when it’s the whole country? We heard that somebody in our neighborhood had lice and we immediately went out and bought some of that, not even the stuff that kills them, the stuff that tries to prevent it, and started soaking my children in this stuff to try to prevent it. You don’t want it to spread, because the more it spreads, the harder it is to deal with, and it was the whole country was afflicted with lice.

And yet the magicians convinced Pharaoh, oh, we could have done that. I don’t know what kind of sleight of hand parlor tricks these guys were up to. But when we get to the end of the 10 plagues and Pharaoh is broken and defeated and realizes he’s been lied to by his magicians all along and that the power of God really is greater than any force on earth.

Those magicians would be executed for lying to me if I were Pharaoh. Oh no, we can do that too. And so Pharaoh hardened his heart and did not hearken unto them as the Lord had said.

Verse 19. So the Lord told Moses, go early in the morning stand before Pharaoh and tell him again to let my people go. Pharaoh refused to do this and he said tell Pharaoh that if he won’t let my people go I’ll send swarms of flies upon him.

Swarms of flies on everything in Egypt everywhere. If you do not those of you in the room who have not farmed have not seen flies you may have flies in your house but you have not experienced flies. You may be thinking, well, you’re not a farmer either.

Why are you telling us about flies? Again, when I lived in Arkansas, on one side of my house was a chicken farm. On the other side was a farm where they kept zebras and camels, and I have no idea why.

You’re just driving through the Ozarks, and, oh, there are zebras. Some days, when we were really lucky, both farms would clean out their stalls on the same day. and you talk about flies in the house.

It was awful. And they just get it. They get all over your house and they land on stuff and you have to cover everything and they die just wherever they want to and you’re having to vacuum up flies from the windowsills.

It’s just, it’s disgusting. And they’re just everywhere. And sometimes they bite.

Oh, biting flies. No. And he said, these flies are going to be all over the place.

As bad as it was, at some points in what I experienced, I have to think if God decides to afflict you with flies, it’s going to be worse than that. And I’ll send flies all over your country. I will.

And he says, I’ll sever away the land of Goshen. He said, this part of Egypt where it had been given to the Israelites, where they lived, he said, I’m not going to afflict them with flies. It’d be like flies coming right up to the county line and stopping because it’s the county line.

There’s And yet that’s what happened. And I’ll put a division between my people and your people so that even in the midst of your people, my people will not suffer the things any longer that are being brought on you. And Pharaoh, you know what?

Guess what? He refused. So God sent flies.

And Moses came again to Pharaoh, at Pharaoh’s insistence because the flies were awful, and said, let my people go. We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he’s commanded us. Just let us go three days journey into the wilderness so that we can sacrifice and worship.

And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, but you can’t go very far. Pharaoh is trying to make a deal with God here. Yeah, I’ll let him go, but not as far away as you want him to go.

And Moses said, well, I will go talk to the Lord. I’ll go talk to the Lord about this, but no more tricks. Because see, he said earlier, take this, take the frogs.

Is that what I said, the frogs? Pharaoh asked for the frogs to be taken away. He said, I’ll let your people go.

And as soon as the frogs were gone, you’re not going anywhere. Moses says, this better not be a trick again. I’ll go talk to the Lord about this, but you better be a man of your word, or it’s going to get much worse for you.

Moses went out from Pharaoh and asked God, and the Lord did according to the word of Moses, verse 31. and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people, and there remained not one. That’s a pretty big deal. There are no flies in Egypt now.

And Pharaoh, verse 32, Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go. What an awful human being. Then God said to Pharaoh, or God told Moses, go tell Pharaoh again, let my people go.

Because here’s what’s going to happen if you refuse. My hand is on your cattle. You know that song, he’s got the whole world in his hands?

That is not just a children’s song. He really does have the whole world in his hands. And I’m going to lay out for you in a few minutes here that I think a lot of this stuff God smote Egypt with, God didn’t have to lift a finger.

God didn’t have to make these things happen. That God simply set the things in motion and took his hand of protection off of Egypt. Now, that doesn’t mean that God was passive in all this, but God is so powerful, he orchestrated all of this and then just took his hand of protection off of Egypt and they were done for.

But he said, my hand is on your cattle, your horses, your donkeys, your camels, your oxen, your sheep, and there’s going to be a very grievous, the Bible uses the word moraine, that means sickness. That’s not that delicious egg white and sugar dessert thing for pies. That’s a sickness.

And again, it’s not going to afflict the cattle of the Israelites. It’s going to afflict the cattle of the Egyptians. And the Lord said, it’s going to start tomorrow.

And Pharaoh refused to let his people go. And so God did exactly what he promised. And all the cattle of Egypt died.

But not one of the cattle, it says in verse 6, not one of the cattle of the children of Israel died. Not one. And if I’ve skipped ahead too much where you’re going, verse 6, where?

I’m in chapter 9 now. We’re moving right along here. And Pharaoh looked around and sure enough, all of his country’s cattle were dead and the Israelites’ cattle were fine.

Verse 7 says, and the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people go. So, God calls up Moses again and says, take handfuls of ashes from the furnace. And Moses, you sprinkle them in the heavens in the sight of Pharaoh.

You throw them up in the air. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt. And there are going to be boils that break out all over everybody.

All the Egyptians. Throughout man and beast. Well, what beast? All the livestock died.

Well, there were other animals that were not necessarily livestock. I know for a fact the Egyptians kept cats and loved them and worshipped them. Which is why I’m a dog person.

But the rest of your animals and the rest of your people are going to be afflicted with these boils. And so they did what God said and they took ashes from a furnace. Now, I don’t understand how ashes from a furnace caused boils.

Maybe it was a faith thing. Moses, I know this makes no sense to you, but throw these ashes in the air, demonstrate your faith in me. And by the way, I’m going to cause the boils.

Moses sprinkled it up toward heaven and it became a boil, breaking forth with blains upon men and upon beasts. suddenly we see in verse 11 the magicians are going yeah we can’t do that the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils for the boil was upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians now they said we can’t make those boils happen and by the way we can’t do anything right now because we have boils I have not had a boil but I understand they are intensely painful I’ve had blisters on my feet before and that’s miserable and from what I’ve heard boils are worse than that. So the whole country is afflicted with these intensely painful skin afflictions.

The Bible says that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he did not hearken to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses. He still refuses to do what God told him to do. And so God calls on Moses again and says, get up early in the morning, go to Pharaoh and tell him that God says, let my people go so that they can serve me and tell him that if he doesn’t, that at this time I’ll send all of my plagues, excuse me, for I will at this time send all my plagues upon my heart and upon my servants and upon my people.

He says, basically, I’m going to unleash even greater things. You think you’ve suffered up to this point, your suffering is just beginning because what you have left is going to be gone. He said, I’ll strike you with a pestilence.

He said he would send down a plague of hail and fire that would destroy much of the country. I don’t know how the hail and fire work together. I understand hail.

I understand fire. I don’t understand how one leads to the other, unless these were massive hailstorms and lightning was breaking out and setting things on fire is the only thing I can figure out. But you know what?

He’s God. If he says he wants to send hail and fire, it doesn’t matter if I can figure out how he did it or not. He can do it.

And Pharaoh, as we would assume, refused. And so God sent down hail and fire. It would have damaged and destroyed houses and crops and everything.

Animals are dead. The country is piled up with stinking dead frogs. They’re recovering from having no water.

All their livestock are dead. And now the houses and the crops and everything else are being beaten to dust with hail. God has essentially crippled the country and still Pharaoh will not bow his knee.

And stop with the idea of owning people. Never get that out of context again. We can look at this and say, wow, God really was harsh.

Pharaoh thought it was okay to own other people. Let’s not give the Egyptians a pass. on this because of God’s response and say, oh, the poor Egyptians.

Or why was God so mean? What were the Egyptians doing thinking it was okay to own other people as property? And yet they were so set in this idea, they were so set in this idea that God has brought their country to a grinding halt and Pharaoh’s still digging in his heels and saying, I will not obey.

Like a little child. Like a little child who as you swat them is still going, I’m not picking up my toys. You can’t make me.

and so there was the hail and the fire and crops were damaged destroyed homes were broken down and still pharaoh’s heart was hardened and god called to moses again and says go in unto pharaoh for I’ve hardened his heart again I don’t think that means god said okay I’m going to make you disobey I think that means god god I understand this to to mean that god looked at him and said okay because you’re such a prideful man the fact that I’ve tried to humble you has made you even more prideful but I’ve hardened his heart and the heart of his servants that I might show these signs before them so you go and tell him you go and tell him that I’m going to send a plague of locusts and he said you ask how long I love this in verse 3 you ask him how long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me how long Pharaoh just give it up. Just stop fighting.

I have a student who’s a good kid, but every once in a while he will break rules that he knows. I mean, it’s not a hard rule to follow. It’s the same rule every time.

It is not a hard rule to follow, but he breaks it at least once a week. And there are consequences. At first, you know, I send a note home.

Then we’re talking detention. Then we’re talking office visits. I don’t know what to do beyond that because he just can’t get it through He always wants to blame me.

Or he wants to blame Charla. Or he wants to blame one of the other teachers, whoever happens to. .

. And he will not take responsibility for it. And he acts like we’re trying to ruin his life by giving him detention.

No, we’re trying to teach you to follow the rules. Because you learn to follow rules now when the consequence is detention. Or you can learn to follow rules later on when the consequence is jail.

I mean, it’s your choice. And finally, it was just a week or two ago, I had a long conversation with him and said, you can continue to fight as long as you want. You know what the rules are.

And you can continue to fight the rules as long as you want. And you’re going to make it more difficult on yourself. It doesn’t affect my life or hers or anybody else’s here.

But you know the rule, you know the consequence, and you can fight as long as, hey, if that’s what you want to do, you’re making that choice. but you’re only making it tougher on yourself. And I looked at him, I said, how long are you going to fight?

How long before you just get tired of fighting and give in and do the right thing? I still don’t know that we’re there yet. We have two and a half days of school left.

I still don’t know that we’re there yet, but I’m doing the best I can. How long are you going to fight? How long before you just accept that that is the rule?

How long are you going to keep making these choices and doing this to yourself? And I see that in here with Pharaoh. How long?

You know the command here, and you know that there will be consequences, dire consequences for violating this command, and you can keep fighting me, God says, if you want, that’s your choice. But when are you just going to get tired of fighting and give in? How long until you humble yourself?

Then he tells him, again, let my people go. And he says, if you don’t, there’s going to come a plague of locusts. He refused.

the plague of locusts came. Now what that means is these crops that have already been pulverized by the hail, these crops that have already been pulverized are there, they’re bent, they’re broken, they’re bruised, but these locusts are going to come through and there’s going to be nothing left. They eat everything.

They get everywhere. We still get plagues of locusts and grasshoppers and all these every few years. I don’t see them a lot up where I live, but I remember a few years ago being down in the Durant area where both sides of my family are from.

And we were visiting a family cemetery down there. It was a very dry year. We got out of the car.

You took a step out of the car, and things just started flying everywhere. You couldn’t take a step without 50 things flying off away from you. And then it wasn’t like the whole field of them cleared because you took another step and 50 more things took flight.

But this is bizarre, seriously. Sometimes Oklahoma is like the Old Testament. These things were everywhere.

They were eating the grass. They were eating trees. They were, I mean, they were just eating everything.

And I’m sure Egypt was worse than that. And so what might have been left in the fields for them was gone. Pharaoh, as he’s done so many times already, hardened his heart.

God sent a mighty, strong west wind, verse 19 says of chapter 10, which took away the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea. Because here again, Pharaoh is saying, would you please get rid of the locusts? In verse 16, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste, and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.

Wow, finally a breakthrough here. And now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death only. And he went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord, and the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind which took away the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea.

And there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the children of Israel go. So again, once the locusts were gone, Pharaoh was broken and he was humbled.

But as soon as the locusts were gone, he looked at God and he became bitter against God. Now again, some people say this means God made Pharaoh hard and disobedient so that he could punish him. That is not how I see and understand God in the scriptures.

What I see here is that Pharaoh looked at it, and still, even though God spared him the third time, the third time just in these plagues, God sent him away at his request because he humbled himself. Pharaoh still became embittered at God because of what had been done to him. He failed to see that it was his own fault, and he hardened his heart.

So God said to Moses, here we are, the ninth plague. Stretch your hand out toward heaven so that there will be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. Now there’s darkness and then there’s darkness.

And this was darkness. That moment I wish I had a James Earl Jones impression I could give you. Darkness.

Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. Three days. Three days.

They couldn’t even see each othe