Exodus 7-10, the first 9 plagues, HTF 16th Jan 2005
David Heath-Whyte
NB: This is what I planned to say, what I actually said was different in places (check the audio version)
Intro
This week, we've got to know Prince Harry just that little bit more, haven't we?
We've seen what he's done - and that helps us to understand something about the kind of person he is.
But not much really, it was just a snap at a party, accompanied by reams and reams of well, gossip, really.
To know a person, it's helpful to see what he (or she) has done - but we need more, don't we? We want to know why he did what he did, and what he thought about it. That way we can really start to understand him.
And as we look through the events of the Exodus, with God's rescue of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, that's exactly what we get from God. We get to see his incredible acts - what he's done - but we also get insight into why, as God speaks to Moses and through Moses.
That's the case throughout Exodus, and particularly in chapters 7-10 that we're looking at today: we see what God does, and his explanation of what he's doing and why.
And that's going to help us to know this God, our God, to know him more today - to understand Him, so that we can trust him, (or maybe come to trust him in the first place) and live for him.
And there are two particular things that God is making known with the plagues.
Better than our idols
idols...
us
First, of all: God is better than our idols.
That is: God who is 'the Father, Son & Holy Spirit' - the Trinity, the same God who is the LORD (Capital letters) Yahweh in the Exodus account - this God is better than our idols - those other things that we turn to either to give our worship to, or to find satisfaction in.
Almost anything our culture sees as important is an idol
Oh David, you're just being extreme, aren't you?
No think about it -
Maybe it's your family, or your work, or your house and your garden, or your computers or mobile phones or music stuff or whatever:
we worship them, don't we? - singing their praises, honouring them, spending money on them),
we hope to gain peace or satisfaction from them, don't we? - that mobile will make my life complete - those curtains will do the trick.In other words, we do with them what we should do with God. Worship, seeking life - They are idols.
And God is better than our idols.
Ancient Egpyt
The Egyptians in the time of Moses had a vast collection of idols - gods they called them, like Ra the Sun god, Sothis the god of the Nile Floodwaters, Amon the wind god, and Thermuthis the god of the harvest - and lots of others.
And they worshipped these characters, and looked for help from them.
And the series of ten plagues, ten signs and wonders, that hit them when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, were designed by God to show them that he was better than their idols - that he, Yahweh, the LORD, was the real God, and no other.
(Remember that "Yahweh" is the personal name that God made known to Moses, based on the phrase "I am who I am", ch.3)
Plagues
you will know...
You can see this when the plagues begin, in chapter 7..
God has instructed Moses and his big brother Aaron to go and visit Pharoah, to demand their freedom.
So they do, and Moses turns his staff into a snake, but Pharaoh isn't impressed, so we're onto sign number 1 - have a look at v.14: "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go..." so Moses is to go and meet him at the Nile (remember that the Nile was worshipped by the Egyptians) - v.17 "This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I [Moses] will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood..."
"By this you will know that I am the LORD" - God is using these miraculous signs and wonders to prove to the Egyptians who he is. God is better than their idols!
but P doesn't...
And as the signs go on, it's seems to be only Pharaoh who can't see that!
To start with, the court magicians manage to copy Moses & God - they make a stick turn into a snake, they turn water into blood, and they make frogs appear - but then they start to stumble, and they can't get rid of the frogs, and when we get to sign number three, the dust of the ground becoming gnats - (8:19) "The magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said."
The magicians have worked it out - the LORD is better than their idols.
plague info
Now perhaps you've seen telly programmes that go through each plague, and claim that they're just naturally occuring phenomena - things that happen in Egypt from time to time anyway. So for example every year the Nile floods - and that can bring with it silt with a reddish tinge from somewhere upstream - making it look like blood. And so on.
And obviously from the text many of them were natural things happening - but equally clearly they were happening in an unnatural way, under supernatural control.
It was unnatural in that the scale is extreme each time. The Nile must have been very red - to the extent that many fish died. The quantity of gnats is extraordinary - even the locals say it's "the finger of God", God at work.
And the Bible text describes how these events were under supernatural control
It's God who is in control of what's going on. Sometimes God tells Moses to stretch out his hand and then the plague will begin, other times it's only when Moses prays to God that God stops the miraculous wonder from continuing. God is in control - so that he can show the Egyptians who is boss.
point of s+w
God spells it out before the seventh plague of hail:
Exodus 9:13 "Let my people go, so that they may worship me, 14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no-one like me in all the earth."
God is showing himself to be great - greater than the idols.
Jesus
Many years later, when the Lord Jesus came to earth, he did the same kind of thing - with many miracles, over forces of nature - healing people, calming storms, walking on water even - all of them signs to show us that this is God, that this God, Jesus, is better than our idols; that this God is the one to worship, the one to seek satisfaction from.
he's better!
And this is really good news, isn't it? Just think about it for a minute:
How much is a new conservatory going to improve your life? loads, yes?
Jesus will do better than that - 'how do I know?' - look back a the plagues- "there is no-one like me in all the earth" - fantasticHow important is it that you spend more time with your family? vital, vital, isn't it? it'll make such a lot of difference - for them, and for you.
It's more vital to spend more time with Jesus and his family the church - it'll make more difference: to you, and to your family.
'surely not, surely the family is the most important?' - no, sadly if you think that, then you've let it become an idol - and God is better than our idols - you giving more time for God will actually strengthen your family.Flying has always been a bit of an idol for me - and people sometimes ask me: "how could you give up flying to become a church minister?" And whatever I manage to say, in my head I always think to myself: flying is great, but in heaven there'll either be the best flying that ever there was - or there won't and it won't matter because being with Jesus will be better. So there's no problem giving up flying now - even tho it's great fun.
What is with you? Don't you realise that moving your worship away from that and onto Jesus will bring something better?
Isn't it work moving your focus, so that you seek 'life' from Jesus and not from your garden or whatever?God is better than our idols.
Judge of all of us
we like justice
The signs also have another very clear purpose: they demonstrate that God is judge of all of us.
God is judge of all of us.
Just in the last week there's been the news that new arrests have been made in the Damilola Taylor case - remember the young black boy who bled to death having stabbed after school. Why is it so important to us that there are new arrests? Why does that make us feel pleased somehow? Because so far there has been no justice for daminola. We want justice for him, and his family, don't we?
It's important to us that justice is done.
Well you'll be pleased to hear that God is bothered about justice too. God wants justice to be done. Even more than we do.
And who better to do it, and make sure it happens, than God himself?
So here's some really good news: God is judge of all of us: he'll weigh up everything we've done, and treat us with fairness and justice; he will see that justice is done.
God's judgement
judgement experienced by Egyptians
And the ten plagues in Egypt, as well as demonstrating God's greatness, are also signs of his judgement.
In 7:4 God says: "...I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites."
These events are God's "mighty acts of judgment"
And when you stop and think about it, it must have been a terrible time to be an Egyptian. It's like Mad Cow disease striking, then Boscastle getting swept away, then Foot and Mouth happening, and then Carlisle getting flooded - all in the course of just a few months.
And what's worse is that everyone knows it's God's judgment, because the Israelites are escaping the plagues - where they live isn't being affected - and everyone knows God would stop if Pharaoh would do what he asked.
Have a look at 10:7 - this is what Pharoah's officials say before the eight plague, the locusts - see?
Incidentally - the acts of judgement in Exodus are different from the events in Boscastle, or the Indian Ocean even - because God declares they will happen in a particular context for a very special reason, through Moses, someone is very clearly God's spokesman. That's what makes the Exodus events "acts of judgment", rather than natural disasters.
judgement on Pharaoh
In fact, Pharaoh did know what was going on - he was just totally stubborn: twice towards the end he said to Moses: (10:16-17) "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. 17 Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me."
What was his sin? 10:3 "Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, "This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?"
Psalm 105 sums it up as it retells the events: (Psalm105:28) "[God] sent darkness and made the land dark -- for had they not rebelled against his words?"
Pharaoh and the Egyptians had oppressed and mistreated God's people, they had refused to submit to Yahweh, the real God; they have trusted in false gods; God has judged them for that - with absolute fairness and justice. We want justice to be done - and that is what we're seeing - and it is terrible.
God is the judge.
And not just of the Egyptians - God is the judge of all of us.
judgement on us
Why don't we like that idea?
Some people say that a God of love can't judge. But that's ludicrous - how loving would it be if Damilola Taylor's killers just get off - not only in our courts, but in God's as well?
Some people think that his forgiveness means that he lets us all off, and so there's no judgement.
But his judgement is the very reason we need his forgiveness.
And the only way we can have that forgiveness is by his judgement happening, but someone else, a substitute, taking our place and taking our punishment for us - Jesus, with his death on the cross.
That's why it's so important that we understand and accept this characteristic of God: that he's the judge of us all.
It's a very positive doctrine: it means there's justice in the universe.
And even the negative side of it: that you and I and everyone will be judged: God has freely given us and everyone a way out from that - by trusting in Jesus.
You see - the scale of what we've done is different from Pharaoh, but we have sinned, as he did - we have "rebelled against God's words" - all that idol worship that we do - when God judges us, which Jesus has said will happen on the Day of Judgement, when God judges us, he will declare us guilty.
"I'm not that guilty", we protest - but ask yourself this: this week, have I kept my own standards? have I been the person I wished I was? how are my new years resolutions going? day 16 and you're a failure already. We're guilty by our own standards - how much worse before the eyes of God?
I took my car to a jet wash at a garage the other day - I paid £3 for 8 minutes. In the end I was dashing around, scrubbing away like mad - it was best exercise I've had for ages, and I was shattered at the end of it, exhausted - but the car was sparkling clean.
Well Jesus, by getting himself killed on the cross, has paid far more, and was far more shattered - but what he has done means that we can be sparkling clean before God.
He took on himself all of God's punishment for what we've done - past, present and future - and died for it. So when we turn to him, when we put our lives into his hands and accept his Lordship over us, then God's judgment has been fully met forever: we're forgiven and free to live lives of true worship.
Fantastic, isn't it?
And the plagues in Exodus show that important truth that helps us to see that we need Jesus' death, and that it is fantastic... God is the judge of all of us.
Conclusion.
"I will lay my hand on Egypt [said the LORD] and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it." (Exodus 7:3-5)
And not just the Egyptians - it happened so that we can know it too.
So that we can know and trust that God the Holy Trinity - Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit - He's better than our idols. And He's the judge of all of us.
He's better than our idols - let's honour Him with our praise and our time, let's seek our satisfaction from Him.
He's judge of all of us - and that's a great thing - let's just make sure that we've received Jesus' rescue, and make it known to others.