Exodus chapter 8. The slavery
of Israel and Egypt, it was pretty hopeless. For 400 years they
were in bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt. And they would have never
been freed. if God had not intervened and
interfered on their behalf. And the slavery of the sinner,
it's no different. It's equally hopeless. Unless
one who is infinitely greater than you and I deliver us, we'll
never be freed from the bondage of slavery and sin. We're helpless
and we're hopeless apart from a divine intervention from God. And that's something that I think
is quite evident in the book of Exodus, especially in these
beginning chapters. And this is our hope. And it's
found again in the first verse here of Exodus chapter eight.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh and say unto
him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go that they may serve
me. Now this is the third time that
Moses comes before Pharaoh with the same message from God. And
it won't be the last time. Some five to six times, I forget
exactly how many, Moses goes to Pharaoh with the same message. Same message. Same message from
God. What a picture here of gospel
preaching. That's what gospel preaching
is. It's preaching the same message over and over and over again. And the gospel's about deliverance.
It's the message of how God takes chosen sinners and saves them
by His grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, how He sets them free
from the bondage of sin. That's what the child of God
wants to hear over and over again. And the wonderful thing about
our salvation is this, that God will not stop. until every single
one of his people are delivered and made free from that bondage
of sin. Now, the first time, as you remember,
Moses came before Pharaoh. He said, thus saith Jehovah,
the Lord God of Israel, let my people go, that they may feast
before me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh basically laughed
in his face. With great arrogance and pomp,
he said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let
Israel go? And he continued and said, I
know not the Lord, and neither will I let Israel go. And then Pharaoh went on to say,
so you want a religious holiday? You're too idle. You've got too
much time on your hands. And we remember the story. He
said, that being the case, I'll give you something to do. You
can now make your bricks without straw. And Moses goes to Pharaoh
again and he says, thus saith the Lord, let my people go that
they may serve me. And as God had said he would,
Pharaoh again hardened his heart and would not let them go. And
therefore the command from God was repeated again and again.
Now some might say, well, it seems that God's purpose was
frustrated. It seems that Pharaoh resisted
the will of God and frustrated the will of God. No. His refusal,
the hardening of his heart, was the purpose of God. And it was
for this same purpose that God raised up Pharaoh. That's what
Paul tells us in the book of Romans, that he might show his
power in him. And that all the world, then
and now, may know that God is God and none can turn him. None
can question him, none can ignore him, and his will and his purpose
are never frustrated. God says to Moses with power
and omnipotent authority, he said, now you shall see what
I shall do to Pharaoh. He showed him, didn't he? That's
what we've been looking at. Now you'll see what I'll do to
Pharaoh, for with a strong hand shall he let them go. And not
only will he let them go, he's gonna drive them out of the land. And it's here, as we saw last
week, that God begins His work of judgment upon Pharaoh in Egypt. The first plague of judgment,
as we saw, the judgment that God sent was the turning of the
river Nile, which they worshipped into blood and made it to stink. Anything that man attributes
to his salvation, God will judge and make it stink, either now
or in the judgment to come, one or the other. In mercy and grace,
He'll make it stink to you now, and you'll trust in him and his
son alone, or either in the judgment you'll see that all your works
were filthy rags. God is going to destroy and judge
all the idols of man. God will reveal them to be useless
and worthless, and none of them will stand or prove to be a refuge. They're all false refuges. You
can't live by drinking the stinking water of Egypt, this world's
religion. That's the picture we have in
that first place. There's no sustenance of life
in it. I once drank from the stinking,
watered-down blood of a false Christ, and it provided no deliverance,
it provided no redemption, and it couldn't wash away the first
sin. Hear me when I say, when it comes to his elect people,
God will go to extremes to obliterate and utterly destroy the false
objects of our worship. That's what we see in these verses
before us. Now look at verse two. Moses
says, if thou refuse to let them go, this is God's message, this
is what God said. If you refuse to let them go,
behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And 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 thy kneading troughs. And the frogs shall come up both
on thee and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. And
the Lord spake unto Moses, say unto Aaron, stretch forth thine
hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the
ponds, and calls frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. And
Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and
the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. Now this second
plague of the frogs is given for the same reason and the same
purpose as the first one. God is going to expose and he's
going to make contemptible the vain religion and idolatry of
Egypt. And here's the significance of
the plague. Frogs were worshipped in Egypt.
They were worshipped as the gods of fertility. Frogs were a symbol
of life and prosperity to Egypt. And there really only a couple
times that other than in Exodus, that frogs are mentioned in the
scripture. Once in the book of Psalms, they're mentioned as
a direct reference back to the account here in Exodus. In Psalm
chapter 78, matter of fact, verse 45, speaking of God's powerful
deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, the Psalmist refers to
these frogs, and he says, frogs which destroyed them. Now, we
know that the frogs didn't kill them or eat them up, but the
frogs certainly did destroy them. Frogs were everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, I've tried to imagine
this in my... God brought forth the frogs,
verse 3 says, abundantly. And when God says abundantly,
that's abundantly. They were in the houses. They
were in the bedrooms. They were in the beds. They were
in the kitchens. They were in the ovens. They
were in the kneading troughs, and a kneading trough was a place
where they mixed their bread and left the dough to rise. They were there, everywhere.
Now there are a lot of things that I like on bread. I like
butter on bread. I like jelly on bread. I like
peanut butter on bread. I like honey on bread. I like
just about anything on bread, but not frog juice. These frogs
destroyed them. That word destroyed means wasted. These frogs drove them mad. They
drove them crazy, and rightly so. They destroyed their lives
and made them miserable. They couldn't sleep. Why? The frogs were in bed with them.
I suppose pound for pound, a frog may be the loudest creature alive. It's amazing how much noise one
little frog can make. Can you imagine the racket that
thousands upon thousands of frogs made, especially at night? I just tried to imagine that.
You won't hear much of a frog in the daytime, but they're creatures
of night, and they really crank it up. And you multiply that
noise by, as I said, multitudes of frogs. Well, you know they
couldn't sleep. Well, they couldn't prepare food.
They were in their ovens. You open up an oven, and there
was frogs jumping out. They were in their pantries.
They were on their tables. Frogs, frogs, everywhere frogs. I told Teresa today, that may
be what I titled this message, and I hope not. Frogs, frogs,
everywhere frogs. Croaking, jumping, slimy frogs. Look at verse 7. And the magicians
did so with their enchantments. There's that word again. And
brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. Now the magicians weren't
able to remove the frogs. All they could do was bring forth
more frogs. And we know by the word enchantments
that it was trickery through deception. Satan is unable to
exterminate the evil that he brings into the world. All he
can do is multiply the wickedness. Why did God bring forth the plague
of frogs? Later in this chapter, God uses
lice and flies. Why not lions and bears or wolves? Why these little despicable things,
frogs and lice and flies? The answer, that he might show
forth and magnify his power. He's the Lord of the host of
all creation. He makes use of what he pleases. All creation is at his beck and
call, at his disposal. God's will can be accomplished
by an ant or an elephant. He uses the little insignificant
things to humble Pharaoh's great pride. Pharaoh is brought to
his knees for a little while, as we'll see, by frogs, the mighty
Pharaoh. Well, what's the spiritual significance
of frogs? The only time, as I mentioned
earlier, that frogs are mentioned in the New Testament actually
tells us something about why God sent frogs and what these
frogs represent. So I want you to hold your place
here and turn with me to the book of Revelation chapter 16. Revelation chapter 16. Let's begin reading in verse
13. Revelation 16 verse 13. And I saw three unclean spirits
like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the
mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet,
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth
unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather
them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Now, I want you to notice here
that these frogs came out of the mouths of the dragon. The beast and the false prophet. That's speaking of Satan and
his servants. The dragon and the beast and
the false prophet. They are said to be the spirit
of devils working miracles just like the magicians in Egypt.
And their purpose here is to gather those who are deceived
by them, referred to as the kings of the earth, to gather them
to this great battle, this great spiritual battle of Armageddon,
which is mentioned in verse 16. Now, I hear folks talk a lot
about Armageddon. They've made movies about it,
and people have their ideas of what it is. They talk about a
great battle, an earthly battle that'll one day take place. Well,
I don't know much about that. But I am convinced that this
refers to a spiritual battle, not an earthly one. This is,
I believe, spiritual language used here. And Egypt is the world,
and these frogs are everywhere in Egypt, and they're also in
this world. These spiritual frogs are everywhere. Did you know that the Hebrew
word for frog means a swamp leaper? It really does. You look it up
in a concordance. A swamp leaper. I thought that
was appropriate. A swamp is a low lying, uncultivated
land, pretty much good for nothing. Maybe fishing and catching alligators. Not worth much, uncultivated,
low lying. And that is where the swamp leapers
of religion dwell. I think this is a good picture
of modern day religion, really. In the low-lying, unprofitable
swampland of man's free will and self-righteous way, these
swamp leapers come from. According to the verses we just
read, they come from the mouth of the deceiver and his servants.
And they are everywhere in this world, as they were everywhere
in Egypt. But it was God that allowed it.
Let's never forget that. God allowed this. God brought
this plague. God brought this judgment. And
they serve His purpose of judgment upon this unbelieving world.
Whatever takes place in the name of false religion, God allows. And in the end, He'll use it
all, even the evil of man. to his own will and purpose. Oh, they preach lies, they're
antichrists, they're deceivers, and they're everywhere in this
Egypt of a world in which we live. And this is the judgment
of God upon Egypt in our text, and this is the judgment of God
upon this world in which we live. They're called kings of the earth.
Well, who are these kings of the earth? I believe every sinner
apart from God's grace. The serpent said, you remember
what he said? You shall be as gods. And what does man say? Well, where do I sign? That sounds
pretty good to me. They say God saved me when I
exercised my will. They say I have decided to follow
Jesus. Well, you're a king. You're a
little K, but you're a king of the earth. It's a plague of frogs
upon this world. And that's what God is showing
us, I believe, in this second plague of the frogs upon Egypt. Turn back to 2 Thessalonians
2. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse eight. And then shall that wicked, capital
W, be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit
of his mouth. That's speaking of the gospel
right there. And shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
power and signs and lying wonders. Basically trying to imitate the
work of God, just like the magicians of Pharaoh. And with all deceivableness,
the delusion of their enchantments. That's what that word basically
means, delusion. All the delusion or deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received
not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for
this cause, God shall send them strong delusion, and they should
believe a lie. The delusion of deceit that they
preach is the delusion that this is speaking of, and they shall
die by, and that's the plague and the judgment of God that
we see in Exodus 8. And verse 12 says that they all
might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness. God sent these plague of frogs.
God sent this judgment. These spirits of devils are everywhere. They are prolific reproducers. What a picture of false religion. I saw a sign not long ago in
front of a church that said, 16 saved last Sunday. It's nothing more than frogs
reproducing frogs. They're jumping down an aisle.
They're croaking out a prayer. They're leaping into the waters
of baptism like frogs. They're everywhere you look.
There are churches on every corner of every town. Not long ago,
I counted up the ones just here. I forget now how many it was,
but a surprisingly large amount. Everybody you talk to anymore
is a Christian. Everybody today is blessed, being
blessed. Blessing others. Churches are
springing up everywhere you look. Well, isn't that a good thing,
preacher? No. No, it's not. If they don't tell
the truth about God, don't tell the truth about His salvation,
it's a curse and a plague of God. It's exactly what it is. They're frogs coming out of the
mouth of false prophets. It's a plague of frogs. But in
our text, There's no mention of any frogs in Goshen. Now there
may have been, but there's no mention of it. And I got to thinking
about that. And child of God, everything's
going to be all right. If you belong to Christ, everything's
going to be all right. These judgments of God are bringing
about your deliverance. Everything that God is doing
in these judgments, in these plagues, is working together
for the good of His people and for His own glory. Now, how are
we going to get rid of these frogs? I'm sure that was on everybody's
mind in Egypt. How are we going to get rid of
them? Well, you aren't. You're not. Pharaoh couldn't. Egypt couldn't. Why, even Moses
couldn't. Only God could. And we're right
back to what I said in the beginning. This divine deliverance is going
to have to be accomplished by God. Now look back at our text
in Exodus chapter 8. Look at verse 8. Exodus 8 verse
8. Then Pharaoh called for Moses
and Aaron and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away the
frogs from me and from 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. Moses said to him, be it according
to thy word that thou mayest know that there is none like
unto the Lord our God. Now in verse nine, when Moses
says glory over me, what he meant was, is I'm going to give you
the say here, Pharaoh, you tell me when you want the frogs to
be taken away. Now, I don't know about Pharaoh
and I don't know about you, but I believe my answer would have
been right now. Right now. But Moses almost seems
to be mocking Pharaoh here. He's saying, you tell me when
you want the Lord that you said you didn't know. Remember when
you said that? You tell me when you want the
Lord that you didn't know to take away the frogs. You tell
me when you want the Lord that you would not obey. to take away
the frogs. You tell me when you want the
Lord that you refuse to let his people go. You tell me when you
want him to remove the frogs. And what a change of events here.
And only the second plague. Pharaoh is now asking God for
relief. The God that he says, I know
not the Lord. And neither will I obey him.
Neither will I let his people go. Now he's saying, take the
frogs away. Moses said, glory over me, you
tell me when you want God to do it. And in verse 10, Pharaoh
says, tomorrow. Why wouldn't Pharaoh have said
right now? Don't you imagine that he was sick of those frogs?
Many speculate that Pharaoh had hoped that before tomorrow came,
the frogs might go away on their own. Then he wouldn't be beholden
to the Lord, and he wouldn't be beholden to Moses. And it's
called pride. When God saves a sinner, and
I'm telling you, I know this from experience and I know you
do too. Before God saves a sinner, He's going to knock pride out
of you. He's going to knock it plum out of you. And you'll say
with David, I am poor and needy. Make haste, O Lord. Make haste
unto me, O God. You'll say, oh God, thou art
my helper and my deliverer. Oh Lord, make no tearing. Save
me right now, right now. Like Jacob, you'll say, Lord,
I won't let you go until you bless me. But the proud sinner
like Pharaoh will say, well, I'll decide, I will decide when
I'm ready. Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow,
maybe tomorrow I'll submit to God. And like Pharaoh, the proud
sinner hopes that their problem will go away on its own, but
it doesn't. It doesn't. The problem's within.
The problem's within. God says now is the acceptable
time. Now is the day of salvation.
God says come now and let us reason together. But Pharaoh
said tomorrow. Moses told Pharaoh in verse 10,
he said, be it according to thy word. Oh, I read that and I thought,
oh Lord, please don't let me have my way. Don't lead me to
my will. I don't want it to be according
to my will, my word, my way. And whether God intervenes on
your behalf today in mercy and grace and salvation or leaves
you to yourself in the end, you'll know that there is none like
unto the Lord your God. In verse 11, Moses said, and
the frogs shall depart from thee and from thy houses, and from
thy servants and from thy people, and they shall remain in the
river only. And Moses and Aaron went out
from Pharaoh, and Moses cried unto the Lord because of the
frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh. And the Lord did according
to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses
and out of the villages and out of the fields. And they gathered
them together upon heaps, and the land stank. I don't know
if you ever pay much attention if we ever have a big snow. All
the snow that has piled up in the parking lots and shopping
centers is so high. Can you imagine frogs piled up
that high? Thousands upon thousands of frogs.
Can you imagine how they stunk? My. God's going to have to get
rid of the plague and the curse of the frogs. He's the one that
gave the plague, and he's the only one that can take it away.
But when God kills frogs, you can be certain of one thing.
There's always going to be a great stink. When God was pleased to
slay the false religion that I once loved, he made it stink
to me. And deliverance by the grace
and mercy of God alone stinks to the unbeliever. It goes both
ways. Now look at verse 15 and I'll
finish here. But when Pharaoh saw that there
was respite, he hardened his heart and hearkened not unto
them as the Lord had said. Now that word respite here means
a break in judgment. It means relief. It means a calm. When there was relief, when the
frogs were all gone, when there was a calm, a break in judgment,
a relief, Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not hearken unto
the Lord as he had promised. Now there's a great lesson here.
Judgment alone will never produce repentance. You just don't. Egypt and Pharaoh experienced
some relief from God's judgment. And Pharaoh's heart was again
hardened. Judgment never produces repentant. Only the grace and the mercy
of God does. I think about the prodigal son.
It was the judgment of God. that put him in the pig pen.
It was the judgment of God that had him eating pig food. But
it wasn't the judgment in the pig pen that made him return
home. You know what it was? It was
his thoughts of the goodness of his father and the benefits
that were found in his father's house. You see friends, it's
the goodness of God that leads men and women to repentance.
Never judgment. Israel set back in Goshen and
they watched these plagues. We'll see in some of the future
ones that they weren't affected. These plagues brought hardness
to Egypt, but it was God's grace that worked repentance in Israel.
These plagues of God brought resistance from Pharaoh, but
it was the grace and the mercy of God that wrought willingness
to Israel. And these plagues brought judgment
upon Egypt, but it was God's favor to them, to Israel, that
brought deliverance to Israel. It's never judgment that works
repentance. It's always the goodness, the
grace, and the mercy of God that does. Our God is a God of judgment
to those who do not believe, to those who are without Christ,
And He's the God of grace to those who believe and trust in
Him. My prayer is that God may enable us to trust Him and in
Him alone for our deliverance and salvation. May God make it
so.