Christ in the plagues. Now in Exodus 7, God begins to
pour out judgment in the first of ten plagues. There will be
ten plagues that He is going to pour upon Pharaoh in Egypt. And we are going to see three
things that these plagues represent. First of all, they represent
the judgment of God poured out on all who reject Christ. That's the first thing. They
reject the judgment of God upon all who reject Christ, who will
not believe on Christ. And then these judgments also
show us something of what Christ bore in the room instead of His
people. When we look at these plagues,
we're going to see something of what Christ bore on the cross
in place of His people. We're talking about judgment
being poured out Christ bore the judgment of His people. And
then the third thing we are going to see is we are going to take
the negative effect as we see these plagues poured out. We
are going to see a negative effect God brought to pass by these
plagues. And by taking that negative effect
and looking at the positive of it, we are going to see the positive
fruit that Christ produces for His people by His death. Are
you with me? Are you following me? All right.
So in the ten plagues, we are going to see the judgment of
God and effects upon those who reject Christ, and we are going
to see the judgment of Christ bore and its effects upon His
people. First of all, the water turned
into blood. Now this represents the judgment
of death because of our sins. The judgment of death because
of our sins. Exodus 7.14 says, And the Lord
said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuses to let
the people go. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the
morning, lo, he goeth out into the water, and thou shalt stand
by the river's brink, against he come. This is that same river
where he started throwing all the male babies in Israel in
the river. Now God is going to meet him right there. He said,
and the rod which was turned to a serpent, Shalt thou take
in thine hand... Remember the rod that was turned
to a serpent? Moses' rod? Represents Christ
crucified preached in the Gospel. He said, You will take it in
thine hand, and thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the
Hebrews has sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that
they may serve me in the wilderness. And behold, hitherto thou wouldest
not hear. Thus saith the Lord. In this
thou shalt know that I am the Lord. In this thou shalt know
my name. Behold, I will smite with the
rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river,
and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that is in the river
shall die, and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians shall
loathe to drink of the water of the river." Verse 20, And
Moses and Aaron did so as the Lord commanded. The end there
says, And all the waters that were in the river were turned
to blood. Verse 21, And the fish that was in the river died, and
the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water
of the river, and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
Verse 24, And all the Egyptians dig round about the river for
water to drink, for they could not drink of the water of the
river. Now this is the righteous judgment
of God poured out upon all men for our sins. Judgment is in
Christ. Just as the Nile River was the
life in Egypt, they depended on that river for life. Christ
is the life of God's elect. And God smoked Christ when he
bore the sins of his people just like he smoked that Nile River.
He smoked Christ just like he smoked that Nile River. It was
the judgment of death that justice demanded. That's what this smiting
was, the judgment of death that justice demanded. That was so
in smiting it against Pharaoh in Egypt, and that was so when
he smote Christ in place of his people. As Christ bore our sins,
God smote him because it was judgment of death that justice
demanded. And that was demanded of us,
his people. And yet Christ bore it as our
substitute. Remember in John 12, 31, when
Christ was going to the cross, He said, Now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of the world
be cast out. And if I be lifted up from the
earth, if I be crucified on a cross, I will draw all men unto me. He is talking about all those
He draws, all His elect, those He redeems. This He said signifying
what death He should die. He told us what His death means
and what it accomplishes. Look at verse 20. All the waters
that were in the river were turned to blood, and the fish that was
in the river died. You remember Christ called His
people fish. He made His apostles fishers
of men. All who were in Christ died when
God smoked Christ. All God's elect that He put in
Christ died. Just like those fish in that
river died, when God smoked that river, those fish died. When
God smoked Christ, all His people in Christ died. We died to sin,
we died to the law, and the law died to us. We died. And then
by God's effectual grace, what does He do? He takes that blood
of Christ that came from that smiting. That Nile River was
smitten and blood came from it. And those Egyptians wouldn't
wash in it. They wouldn't drink it. God, by His grace, makes
us wash in the blood. He makes us drink the blood of
Christ by believing on Him. And so His people rejoice. We
rejoice. We're happy to hear this gospel
declared about how God smoked Christ because He did it in our
place. And we're saved by what God did
in satisfying His own justice. and having mercy on us. Now this
is the first miracle that God worked in Egypt in the first
of these plagues. This is the first miracle of
these plagues that He worked. You know, when Christ came to
this earth, He worked a miracle first. He had a first miracle
He wrought. When He wrought His first miracle
at the wedding at Cana, He didn't turn the water into blood. He turned the water into wine.
And that's what He does for us when He makes us hear the Gospel.
He turns the water into wine. We rejoice in it. God said, Thou
shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. But notice
this smiting. It says it was done, verse 20,
in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. Verse
21 says, And there was blood throughout all Egypt. You see,
this thing wasn't done in a corner. God didn't crucify Christ secretly. He crucified Christ for all the
world to see. And by this day in which we live,
all this world has heard of Christ and Him crucified. So men are
without excuse. This thing wasn't done in a court.
It was done in our sight. Verse 14 says Pharaoh's heart
hardened. He refused the word of God. Verse
18 said the Egyptians, to them the river stank and they loathed
to drink of the water of the river. Verse 21 says the Egyptians
could not drink of the water of the river. Sinners are inexcusable
for not believing on Christ. That's what we see here, a picture
of. Sinners won't wash in Christ's
blood. Sinners won't drink Christ's blood by nature. And God said
this, go back to Exodus 4 and look at verse 9. It shall come to pass if they
will not believe also these two signs. Remember the rod turned
into a serpent and then turned back into a rod, pictured Christ
crucified, the righteousness of God. And then that leprous
hand that was put in the vest and had taken out and it was
cleansed. Put in, it came out, leprosy. Put it back in, it was
cleansed. It was a picture of sanctification
of the heart by Christ. If we won't believe that Christ
is our righteousness and our sanctification, God said this,
He said, and neither will they hearken unto thy voice. You won't
hearken to the voice of Christ's preacher preaching the gospel.
And He says, Then thou shalt take of the water of the river,
and pour it upon the dry land. And the water which thou takest
out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land. Now
get the picture here. Due to sinners rejecting Christ,
you see it is Christ's blood men reject. And due to sinners
rejecting Christ's blood and His gospel, the same blood The
same water that cleanses God's people, the blood and the water
that came from inside that cleanses God's people, that same blood
and that same water must be poured out on dry, dead sinners. Justice has to be poured out.
You and I are guilty, so justice has to be poured out. It is either
going to be poured out on you in Christ so that justice never
touches you, it only touches Christ, or it is going to be
poured out on you. That same gospel that's life to the believer
becomes death to the man that will not believe on Christ. Christ
said, except you drink my blood, you have no life in you. And
we see here the Egyptians loathed to drink of that river. That's
a picture of believing. That's what that is. A picture
of believing that Christ's blood is my only salvation. Christ
and His blood. Men loathe Christ. They won't
drink. They won't wash in Christ. And
so God makes it so in judgment. He makes it so they cannot drink.
That's called reprobation. It's because they would not.
The end there of our text says they could not. God makes it
so men cannot drink the blood. And so the very blood that condemned
Christ's blood is the very blood that condemns them. And it is
right for God to do it. Turn over to Revelation 16. You
see, you might think, how does this apply to me in my day? Well,
God is doing this right now. He has been doing this since
Christ judged this world at Calvary. The Gospel has been going forth
and God has been judging this world ever since. And it is going
to culminate in a final judgment. Look here. And these seven angels
are sent by Christ and verse 1 says, He told them to go your
ways, listen to what He is pouring out. Pour out the vows of the
wrath of God upon the earth. This is God's just judgment upon
men who will not believe Christ. Look at verse 3. And the second
angel poured out his vow upon the sea and it became as the
blood of a dead man. You see the sea represents the
great population of people. And then we see how fully God
pours His judgment out. And every living soul died in
the sea. And the third angel poured out
His vow upon the rivers and the fountains of waters. And they
became blood. All are going to receive justice. It doesn't matter if you are
off to yourself like the river and the fountain. I heard the
angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord. Thou art
righteous. This is righteous. which art
and wast and shall be, because thou hast judged us. For they,
notice this sea and this river and these fountains represent
people. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,
and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy.
You might say, well, I've not shed any blood of any saint or
any prophet. When you walk in here and you
hear the gospel preached, and you walk out not believing on
Christ, that is exactly what you have done. That is exactly
what you have done. And if you continue in that,
God says they are worthy. And I heard another out of the
altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous
are thy judgments. And I ask every unbeliever to
please hear this warning. If you do not believe on Christ,
hear this warning. And I pray God to quicken your
heart. God will pour out these plagues
on sinners. You're going to see here as we
go, we're going to go back one day and look at all of these
in more detail, and you'll see this, as Pharaoh went through
this, his heart got harder and harder and harder. And God's
plagues upon Pharaoh became more and more and more severe. You
see, when you hear the gospel preached, To not believe on the
gospel is to harden your heart against it. And the more you
hear and refuse to believe, the longer you go refusing to believe,
the harder the heart becomes against God and against His Christ,
against His way of salvation. And it just might be that God
will do what He did here in Egypt. God turns men over to reprobation. He makes it so you cannot believe
on Christ. And then there is no hope. I pray that you believe on Him
now. Apply your heart to wisdom. Take the book and go and download
the sermons and go and get the bulletin and go and get everything
you can read. We got all this on the website
readily available for you. Go there and get it and apply
your heart to wisdom. Seek God now while He may be
found. It just might be God will have mercy on you. Now let's
go to the second judgment. Now Exodus 8 and verse 3. When God has passed the judgment
of death upon a sinner, next we see the judgment by which
God leaves the sinner to the will of his own corrupt heart. He leaves the sinner to his own
will. that will that is governed by
a sin-dead heart. Look here in verse 3. He smoked
the river again and it says, 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 thy ovens, and
into thy kneading troughs. And the frogs shall come up both
on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. Can
you just imagine that? One time when I was living in
a little town down in South Arkansas, when I was in school, junior
high, we had a plague of grasshoppers that hit our town. And they took
a picture and put it in our yearly annual, and you could see Main
Street, and I mean from the very foreground of the picture to
as far as you could see was crickets. grasshoppers. They were in the
school. They were in the cafeteria. They
were in a stump. They were everywhere. We had
to shut the school down. They almost shut the town down.
And that's what he said he would do here with frogs. Now, what's
the significance of that? Well, in Psalm 78, 45, it says
he sent frogs which destroyed them. And that word destroyed
means corrupt. It means marred. It means pervert. You see, when a sinner rejects
Christ, when God finally turns him over to reprobation and passes
that sentence of death upon him, then God leaves him to himself. He leaves him to his own will.
And all you and I have governing our will by nature is a sinful,
fallen nature so that what we will is not righteous and is
not holy. according to God. 2 Thessalonians
2.10 says this, now listen to this, they received not the love
of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause,
for this cause, because they received not the love of the
truth, for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that
they should believe a lie and be damned. What does God have
to do to send you a strong delusion and make you believe a lie? Just
leave you alone. Just leave you to yourself. That's
all. Men go around boasting about
our will. Well, I think I have a free will. You have a will
that's in bondage to your nature. Your will is always bound to
your nature. The believer's will is bound to his new nature. And
an unbeliever who doesn't have a new nature, his will is bound
to that sinful nature. So you're going to do what that
nature dictates. Every creature is bound by his nature. That's
why a cow eats grass and he doesn't go out there and eat roadkill
off the highway. And it's why a buzzard eats roadkill
off the highway and don't go eat grass out of the field. He
does what his nature dictates for him to do. And that's what
every man does. And also in Revelation 16 it
says, he said, I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of
the mouth of the false prophet. So these frogs also represent
all lies, all false gospel. You see, if God leaves us to
ourselves, we will corrupt everything including the gospel. So we will
preach a corrupt gospel. This is ungodliness and it shows
us here the complete effects of it in a nation when God leaves
all men to themselves to have their own will. It says they
were in the house, they were in the bedchamber, they were
in the bed, they were in the house of your servants, your
people, your ovens, your kneading troughs. They were on thee and
upon all the people. They covered the land of Egypt.
See, when God gives men to themselves, it is thorough. It is a complete
corruption because that is all we are by nature. We are conceived
in sin, Scripture says. See, Adam, he fell. He fell. The first man fell.
And so all men born of him were born of his corrupt seed and
we were corrupt therefore. That's why we've got to be born
of the Spirit of God, born anew. And so we have a corrupt nature
normally. Now, go to Romans 1. I want you
to see this as it applies to our world today, our nation particularly. Look at Romans 1 and look at
verse 21. Because that when they knew God,
they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became
vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened,
professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping
things. We've seen that in religion, haven't we? You see, they have
to have images, and God said, don't make any images that represent
me. But it's everywhere. And look,
what happens? Wherefore, because their religion
is corrupt, it starts with Christ, but they wouldn't believe on
Christ, wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through
the lust of their own hearts. That's what we're seeing by these
frogs. God giving a man up to the lust of his heart. What's
the result of it? See if you've ever seen a nation
that sounds like this nation. Listen to this. To dishonor their
own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God
into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than
the Creator, who's blessed forever. You could kill a man in this
nation and that's bad. But if you kill a dog, or you
kill something in nature, You're the devil. That's far worse to
men these days. Worshipping the earth. Look at
this. For this cause God gave them
up to vile affections for even their women to change the natural
use into that which is against nature. Lesbians. And likewise
also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their
lust one toward another. Homosexuality. Men with men working
that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense
of their error which was meek. And even as they didn't like
to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate
mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers,
backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of
evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing
the judgment of God, you've heard it here today, this is the judgment
of God, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit
such things are worthy of death, Notwithstanding knowing that,
they not only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that
do them. That's a description of our people, our world today,
our nation today. What's the result? Why did that
happen? Men didn't like to worship God. So God passed the judgment
of death on them and then passed the judgment of leaving them
to themselves, to the lusts of their flesh. And that's what
we see here. But now let me tell you this.
There came another man into this world. who represented a people,
just like Adam did. But this man wasn't born of Adam's
corruption. This man was called the holy
thing that was of holy God, holy God in the flesh, conceived of
the Holy Spirit and come forth from a virgin. You know the significance
of that is He wasn't born of corrupt seed. So He wasn't corrupt. He was a holy man. The only other
holy man that walked this earth besides Adam before He sinned. So these two men represent their
respective people. And we all fell in Adam, so we
need that new head to represent us, Christ. Christ came into
this world and under the holy law, He walked perfectly from
a holy heart. And He even bore the sin and
judgment of His people. And while He bore the sin and
judgment of His people, He was still holy in His heart to God. He never ceased looking to the
Father. And by His one offering, He perfected
forever them that are sanctified. He perfected His people. Everybody
He died for, He perfected them. Scripture says, by one offering.
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And so Christ
is the believer's sanctification. How so? Well, Christ, our sanctification,
makes His preacher holy with holy motives, pure motives, and
Christ sends him forth preaching the truth in spirit, in spirit
and in truth, not lying, in truth. And Christ, our sanctification,
prays the Father and He sends forth the Holy Spirit. Everything
involved in this is holy. And the Holy Spirit enters into
the sinner as he is hearing the Gospel preached. Oh, I hope that
happens to you here today. The Holy Spirit enters the sinner
as the Gospel is being preached and creates a holy and righteous
new man within. And you are born then of holy
incorruptible seed by the Word of God which is preached unto
you. That is in 1 Peter at the end
of chapter 1. So this whole new creation is
of Christ and that is when we become constrained, not by law,
not by flesh, not by men. We become constrained by the
love of Christ to live to Christ. because He loved us and gave
Himself for us. Do you see that? So this is the
only way we can be saved. But a man who rejects Christ,
God says, you want your will? You want your will? You want
the corruption of your will? You can have it. Oh, that's the
worst thing that can happen to a sinner. I pray that doesn't
happen to anybody here. Now let's go to this third judgment. This is the judgment of being
left under the curse. The judgment of being left under
the curse. Exodus 8, verse 16. The Lord said unto Moses, say
unto Aaron, stretch out thy rod and smite the dust of the land,
that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they
did so. And it says it became lice in
man and in beast. All the dust of the land became
lice throughout all the land of Egypt. This represents the
judgment of being left under the curse of the law. Lice was
made out of dust. The lice was made out of the
dust to attack their persons and even their beasts. When God
pronounced the curse to Adam, you know, Adam sinned first. He rejected God first, just like
men reject Christ. And God came to him and He said,
Cursed is the ground for your sake. Dust thou art, and to dust
thou shalt return. And that is what these lies represent,
the judgment of the curse. The curse because we broke the
law of God. The breaking of one law of God
brings a man under the curse. We see that in Adam. He broke
one law and it brought us under the curse. And all his people
came under the curse. So when we come into this world
without even having sinned yet, we are under the curse. We are
under the curse because we have sinned in Adam. Yet the one way
God's elect are saved from the curse is found in Galatians 3.
Go there with me. Galatians 3.13. This is the one
way God saves His elect from the curse. See, God knew beforehand
everything that would take place. For this cause He raised up Pharaoh.
For this cause He raised up Satan, that his name might be declared
and his power might be made known. God knew everything that would
take place. But before He made the world, He chose a people.
And Christ came forth and represented that people. That's who the us
are and the we are. And when you read about what
God's done for us. Now look here, Galatians 3.13. How we save from the curse of
the law? Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. God said in our text
in verse 16, he said, Stretch out thou rod and smite the dust
of the land that it may become a curse, may become lice. And
Christ when he was made sin for his people and he hung on the
cross, God took the rod of justice, and he smoked Christ with the
fierceness of his wrath, his only begotten Son. That shows
you God is just. He won't clear the guilty. He
smoked his own Son. He spared not his own Son. He
smoked Him. And because he smoked Him in
the place of his people, will no more be cursed. His people
will no more be cursed. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes, with the rod of justice that
He bore, we are healed. As Scripture, Isaiah 53, we're
healed by Christ's suffering. You know, I'm thankful for this,
that God is a righteous and just God. This is what I mean when
I talk about imputation being a fact. It's because God will
not impute sin to us now, because Christ put away our sin and He
put away our curse. And God won't do it. He will
not punish the innocent. God won't. He is righteous and
just. And He will not. So now we will
not be cursed. But believer, outside of Christ. Unbeliever, outside of Christ. You are under the curse right
now. You are under the curse right now. I tell you, proof
of this is that it doesn't strike us in our heart and bring fear
upon us to hear that. We can just scoff at it, laugh
at it, joke at it, walk out doing nothing about it. You are under
a curse. You are under a curse. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
said, God in human flesh, that's what He said. The wrath of God
abides on the man that will not believe Christ. And the same
righteous and just wrath that fell on Christ on the cross shall
fall on you. But you won't have a mediator.
You'll bear it yourself. Knowing the terror of the Lord,
we persuade men, believe on Christ right now. Call on Him while
He's near. You can't come to Christ bringing
anything. You can't come with any of your
works or any of your wisdom or any of your way. You come to
Christ empty, as a sinner, helpless, who cannot do one thing beginning
to end to save himself. That's the only kind Christ will
receive. But all who come that way, Christ
will receive. And He'll save. And that's the
only way to be freed from the curse. The curse of the Lord
is in the house of the wicked, but He blesseth the habitation
of the just. How are we made just? Only in
Christ. Believe on Christ. Alright, we'll
come back for part two. Let's stand together. Father, we thank You for this
beautiful picture of your judgment, your righteous judgment. We are
thankful that Christ bore this in the place of a multitude that
no man can number. We pray, Lord, now that You would
reveal it to one of those that He died for here. Make them to
know, make them to believe on Him and give You all the glory
for salvation. Lord, we want that. We who believe
want to give You all glory and all the praise. We don't deserve
any. And we pray you help us to do
that in truth. Meet with us now. Bless us now. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.