So we're going to be reading
Exodus chapter eight and verse 20 through to verse 32. And the Lord said unto Moses,
rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh. Lo,
he cometh forth to the water, and say unto him, thus saith
the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou
wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon
thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into
thy houses. And the houses of the Egyptians
shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they
are. And I will sever in that day
the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms
of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know that
I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And I will put a division
between my people and thy people. Tomorrow shall this sign be. And the Lord did so, and there
came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and
into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted by reason
of the swarm of flies. And Pharaoh called for Moses
and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the
land. And Moses said, it is not meet
so to do, for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians
to the Lord our God. Lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination
of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone
us? We will go three days' journey
into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall
command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let
you go that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness,
only ye shall not go very far away, entreat for me. And Moses said, behold, I go
out from thee, and I will entreat the Lord that the swarms of flies
may depart from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people
tomorrow. But let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully
any more in not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses went out from Pharaoh
and entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according to
the word of Moses, and he removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh,
from his servants and from his people. There remained not one. And Pharaoh hardened his heart
At this time also, neither would he let the people go. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. We have had a plague where water
turned to blood. We have had a plague of frogs
and a plague of lice. and now we have a plague of flies. This was another terrible experience
for Pharaoh and for the Egyptians. And the word swarms that is repeated
here in this little passage suggests a mixture. Sometimes we think
about a swarm of flies or a swarm of bees even, and they're all
of a kind. But these swarms suggest that
there was a multitude of different kinds, a mixture of different
flies. So perhaps in these swarms, there
were wasps and hornets and dog flies and horse flies and mosquitoes
and all kinds of biting insects that stung and nipped and sucked
the blood. God told Moses to go again and
confront Pharaoh with the demand, let my people go. It's a very powerful phrase when
we think about it, let my people go. And we're reminded that the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to bring liberty to the
captive and to set free the people of God. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ can be seen even in this little phrase, let my people
go. But then the plagues of sin fell
upon our Saviour's own soul. And it was He who bore the pain,
and He who carried our sorrow. And it was God Himself who brought
suffering into Christ's soul. For we're told in the book of
Isaiah, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him when the Lord Jesus
Christ died in our place. But this plague of flies that
were sent into Egypt remind us again that here was the command
of God affixed to a threat. A threat that would be applied
if Pharaoh will not listen. And how foolish a man this Pharaoh
proved to be to so resist the will of God. As such, he is a
picture or he is an object lesson to all proud sinners of what
is yet to come. There will be a plague upon the
souls of men and women and boys and girls. if they will not do
the will of God. So may all who listen today be
given grace to obey the Lord and to flee from hell and to
flee from the wrath that is to come and the plague of God's
judgment upon our souls. There are some differences in
this little account of this plague which separates it from the previous
plagues that we've seen. I wonder if you noticed that
it was God himself who brought this plague upon Pharaoh and
it wasn't that he used Aaron's rod or Moses' rod in order to
effect the plague which he had done in the previous occasions. Here it is God who speaks and
the flies come up into the country. This was perhaps to show Pharaoh
and to confirm to the magicians that indeed it was the power
of God. Remember the magicians had said
it's the finger of God when they were not able to replicate the
plague. And this proved to these men
that the power was not in Aaron's rod, but the power was in the
voice of the living God. And so too, the power of the
gospel is not in the preacher's speech. It's not in the preacher's
delivery. but in the voice of the Holy
Spirit applying the truth of the gospel to the hearts and
to the minds of men and women and boys and girls and the Holy
Spirit calling dead sinners to spiritual life. And there's another
difference that we see here in this plague. And that is that
the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel lived, is
expressly said to be preserved from the plagues, or the plague
of flies. So that while the flies swarmed
through the whole of the land, they did not come to that area
where the children of Israel lived. Now this distinction has
not been mentioned before in any of the plagues and that has
led some people to think that the earlier plagues had fallen
on the children of Israel as well, although that is never
explicitly said. but it definitely did not fall
upon them on this occasion. And such was the discomfort and
the pain that these flies, these swarms brought on Pharaoh, that
he quickly makes a proposal to Moses. And he says that the children
of Israel can sacrifice in their own land. He said, you don't
have to go out of the country. You don't have to go into the
wilderness to sacrifice to your God. Just do it in your own,
land of Goshen. You know it's interesting because
very often people say it doesn't matter where you worship, It
doesn't matter who you worship, as long as you worship. And that's become a popular idea
today. It doesn't matter who you worship,
doesn't matter how you worship, as long as you worship something
in some way. Of course, that basically just
makes every religion equal. But Moses has to tell Pharaoh
that that will not do. This is a question of obedience
to God. And it is a question of doing
that which God has commanded. God had specified what was required
in order to worship him properly. And for true worship, Israel
must approach God exactly by the means and method that God
had decreed. And nothing has changed. For
us as sinners to approach God, we must come to him precisely
in the way that he has decreed, exactly by the means and method
that he specified, and that is by faith in the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. So at last, Pharaoh agrees. You can go, he says, you can
go. Just entreat for me with God. Just get rid of these flies from
me. Anything to be rid of these swarms. But what do we find? No sooner
have the flies been taken away than Pharaoh hardens his heart
once more and refuses to let God's people go. Moses had said,
let not Pharaoh deal deceitfully anymore. But that is exactly
what Pharaoh did. Hard hearts cannot help. but rebel against God and Pharaoh's
heart was hard against God. There are a couple of interesting
points that I want to draw to your attention from this passage
just by way of application. I wonder if you noticed with
me as we were reading it down, how the Lord separated between
his people and the Egyptians. We could call this a miracle
within a miracle. There was the miracle of the
plague of flies, And there was also the miracle that these flies
stayed in one part of the land and did not go into the land
right beside where they were, which was the land where the
children of Israel lived. God set limits and boundaries
on these swarms of flies so that while the Egyptians suffered
under this plague, the children of Israel were free from all
infestation. And that separation or that distinguishing
between these two is a feature of God's dealings with men and
women and boys and girls. The Lord said in verse 23, I
will put a division between my people and thy people. I will put a division between
my people and thy people. You see, not all men and women
are the same in God's sight. From the beginning of God's purpose
of redemption, he separated between those whom he chose to save and
those who were outside of the covenant privileges of his grace. It was God's choice to do with
his creation as he wished. And God chose to forgive the
sin of some and to leave others to the proper
judgment of their hard hearts. He showed himself thereby to
be both merciful and just against sin. And the Lord also gave Pharaoh
the reason for this division. He would make this distinction
between his people and Pharaoh's people. Listen, to the end thou
mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. This is one of the strongest
statements of sovereign grace anywhere in the Bible. This is telling us that God would
make a division between his people and Pharaoh's people to this
end. that thou mayest know that I
am the Lord in the midst of the earth. Grace and salvation isn't
to do with our power, but God's power. And God divides between
two, a people whom he will save and a people whom he leaves in
their sin, in order that we may see that he is God in the midst
of the earth. Here God is explaining why he
acts as he does. And that fact in itself is quite
wonderful because here is God explaining to men the reason
why he's doing the things that he's doing. That in itself is
quite beyond anything that we deserve. Indeed, Daniel tells
us that God does according to his will among the inhabitants
of the earth and no one can stop God's hand or say to him, why
are you doing what you're doing? And yet here God explains to
Pharaoh that this division between these people, his chosen people
and Pharaoh's people, is so that Pharaoh will know that the Lord
is God over all the earth. That the Lord rules as a king
in the midst of his people and does whatsoever he pleases. God chose to protect and bless
and to show his kindness to his chosen people in the midst of
the Egyptians' distress and that could only aggravate their suffering. It ought to have humbled Pharaoh
but instead it caused him to hate God even more and to harden
his heart against the Lord and his people. And here's just a
final thought on this little passage of the plague of the
flies. How do you and I react to this
fact that God has made a division between people? Will we say that
it's not fair that God should do that? Or say that God has
a right to do with his creation as he wills? What will be our
answer? Let us be wise as we think about
this. A little later in the book of
Exodus, God tells Moses, You see, it's God's prerogative. to show mercy to whom he will. We are all sinners and none of
us deserve God's goodness. But God says, the Lord says,
to the end that thou mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst
of the earth, I will put a division between my people and thy people. Grace and mercy is God's prerogative. He will judge the wicked as he
judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and he will show grace and mercy
to his elect in Christ, to those that he has redeemed by blood
and those that he has made holy for his presence. May the Lord
bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.