We're still in Exodus chapter
8, if you would turn there with me. In the course of these first
nine plagues, God literally destroyed the nation of Egypt. And then
in the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn, he destroyed
not only their nation, but their will, their work, and their way. When God was through with them,
they told Israel to leave, and they handed them their possessions
as they left. What a God. And though we're
not told exactly the length of the time that these plagues lasted,
we know that it was less than a year. We can figure that out
because Moses was 80 years old when the 10 plagues began. He
was 40 years in Egypt, 40 years as a shepherd. And then when
these plagues were over and Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go,
they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. The scriptures
then inform us in the book of Deuteronomy, that at the end
of the 40 years of their wandering, at the age of 120 years, Moses
died. So if Moses was 80 at the start
of Israel's deliverance, and they wandered for 40 years in
the wilderness, and then Moses died in 120, then the plagues
couldn't have lasted for more than a year. Simple math tells
us that. Most Bible experts and scholars
and historians think the time frame of the plagues was actually
around three to four months. I suppose that the time is really
not relevant, but only a mighty and a sovereign God could ruin
and put into shambles the greatest nation on earth at the time in
such a decisive way and in such a short period of time. And I
think in that we see the purpose of God in the plagues upon Egypt. First, the plagues were a public
display of God's sovereign power and purpose. When God got through,
there was no doubt about the fact that he was God and there
was none beside him. Secondly, these plagues were
a divine visitation of the wrath and the judgment of God upon
the unbelieving and upon the disobedient. Egypt knew that
they'd been dealt with when God was done with. Thirdly, it was
also a judgment in the exposing of all Egypt's false gods and
all their pagan idolatry. They worshiped the Nile. They
worshiped frogs. They worshiped just about everything. And God destroyed them all and
showed them that they meant nothing. Fourthly, these plagues were
a warning to all the world of God's love to his elect and his
power to save and deliver them. And fifthly, these plagues were
a divine revelation of who God is to the people of Israel. Now
you have to remember that Israel, living in this bondage and slavery
in Egypt for over 400 years, a great majority, if not all
of them, had been taken up with the idolatry of Egypt. Most of
them had been born into this slavery and the idolatry of Egypt
was all they knew. God was virtually unknown to
the people of Israel while in Egypt. There's great proof of
that, I believe, in the fact that in Exodus chapter 32, when
Moses went up into the mountain to receive the commandments of
God, and the scripture says that the people saw that Moses delayed
to come down from the mountain, that they gathered themselves
together. That's the exact language used in that chapter. That proves
they were in it all together. Even Aaron was influenced by
them. And they said to Aaron, they
said, make us gods that shall go before us. And they fashioned
a golden calf. Had to be one of the idols in
Egypt, which they worshipped. And when the golden calf was
fashioned, they worshipped it, and they attributed their deliverance
out of Egypt to a god of their own making. It's not much different
today. Men have made a God out of their
own imagination and they worship Him. Because I'm telling you,
He no way resembles the God of the Bible. And what was Israel's
words? They sit there and they looked
at that golden calf and they said, this will be the God that
delivered us out of the land of Egypt. And that's what an
idol is. An idol is anything that we put
in the place of the worship of God and attribute to our deliverance
and redemption. Everything besides Him, we make
an idol. And then the 10th and the final
plague, in particular, reveals that only those who are covered
by the blood of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be saved
from the wrath, judgment, and eternal death that comes. And
ultimately, all these plagues were given for the glory of God
in the deliverance and salvation of his people in, by, and through
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they're about, these
plagues. Now, before we get into the third
plague tonight, I also want to point out something that Arthur
Pink said concerning the arrangements of these plagues. There are 10
plagues in all, as you know. And in the first two plagues,
Moses was instructed by God to confront Pharaoh. He said, go
tell and warn Pharaoh what I'm going to do if he does not let
my people go. But here in the third plague,
the plague of the lice that we're going to look at tonight, God
told Moses just to curse the land without any warning. Moses didn't say anything to
Pharaoh. The first nine plagues are in
three groups of three. In the second group of three
that we'll see, it's the same. God instructs Moses to warn Pharaoh
in the fourth and the fifth plague, but in the sixth plague, there
again is no warning. In the next group of three, there's
warning to Pharaoh in the seventh and the eighth plague, but none
in the ninth. The tenth plague kind of stands
on its own. What's the spiritual significance
of this? Well, I think that it would be
that God doesn't always warn men and women of his impending
judgment. Sometimes without warning, God
just leaves men and women to themselves and they're hardened
as Pharaoh was. I'm telling you it's a great
act of grace when God does warn men and women and nations because
God is under no obligation to. He that being often reproved,
the scripture says, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed. And that without remedy, Proverbs
29 one. The 10th plague, as I said a
moment ago, the death of the firstborn stands alone, and it
shows us clearly the progressive severity of these 10 plagues. It seems that each one gets a
little more severe. So with all that said, let's
look at these verses tonight. After the second plague, the
plague of the frogs, when Pharaoh had enough, God took the frogs
away at his request. Moses said, when do you want
God to take these frogs away? And Pharaoh said, tomorrow. Pharaoh,
as we looked at last time, was hoping that these frogs would
go away on their own so that he didn't have to give credit
to God or credence to Moses. So let's pick up the story again
in verse 15 here in chapter eight. But when Pharaoh saw that there
was a respite, he hardened his heart and hearken not unto them
as the Lord had said. And that word respite means a
break in judgment or relief. When there was relief, when the
frogs were finally gone, Pharaoh hardened his heart. Judgment
never causes men and women to truly repent. It's the goodness
of God that leads men to repentance. Then without warning, verse 16,
and 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 for Aaron stretched
out his hand with his rod and smoked the dust of the earth
and it became lice. In man and in beast, all the
dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. Can you imagine? Suddenly the
dust of the ground becomes alive with the most disgusting form. You look up the word lice in
the dictionary, and the first thing you'll find is that lice
is the plural word for what is called a louse. The definition
of a louse is a biting, sucking parasite that feeds upon the
flesh of men and beasts. And that's exactly what they
did according to verse 17 here. Lice just have one purpose in
their disgusting life. Just one. That is to feed upon
the flesh of men and beasts. That's it. Lice are associated
with uncleanness, just as a maggot is, and I find it quite interesting
that man is compared to both lice and maggots in the scriptures. Now a louse, plainly put, is
a disgusting, blood-sucking parasite. And from the word louse, we get
our English word lousy. I had a lousy day, and that simply
means I had a horrible, terrible day. I remember years ago, my
dad calling someone. He said, that fellow's just a
louse. And I had no idea what he was talking about. I'd never
heard that terminology. But a louse is slang for being
a despicable person. That's what the dictionary says.
If you're a louse, you're despicable. Some of the synonyms for louse
in the dictionary are dirt bag, sleaze, sleaze bag, sleaze ball. You get the picture. It's not
a complimentary term. And when Aaron smote his rod
on the dust of the earth, that dirt dust turned into lice, plural
for louse, and they were everywhere. They were everywhere. To me,
that may be worse than the frogs, because at least you could see
and hear the frogs. Now, there are basically three
kinds of lice, giving you a little science lesson here tonight.
There are head lice, and there are body lice, and the third
kind I'm not even gonna mention. I think you can imagine without
me saying it. So what is the spiritual significance
of these lice? We saw what the spiritual significance
of the frogs were. What is the spiritual significance
of these lice? What do they represent? They
represent man and the lust of his heart by nature. The whole
of mankind is represented here in this little unclean, flesh-eating
parasite. And our first clue of who and
what they represent is found in the book of Genesis when God
in judgment pronounced upon the disobedient Adam the curse. God said in Genesis 3.17, cursed
be the ground. for thy sake." These lice came
from the ground. And again, as part of the curse
in verse 19 of Genesis 3, God said, for dust thou art and unto
dust thou shalt return. Now the lice coming upon the
Egyptians shows clearly that man by nature is unclean under
the curse of the lice. of God. And these lice represent
the nature of man, which feeds upon the flesh. I'm telling you,
it's not a beautiful picture, but it's a true picture. Fallen
man, like the louse, feeds and gorges itself on the flesh. And
that's all that lice and men by nature live for. The scripture
is very clear about that. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, the Bible says. That's all that flesh will ever
be, just flesh. Our flesh does not evolve into
something better, contrary to what many think. Flesh is flesh,
it never gets better. Nothing in our flesh will ever
contribute to the revelation of God. Nothing in our flesh
will ever contribute to our salvation. When the Lord asked His disciples
who men said He was, they answered and they said, some think you're
Elijah, some think you're Jeremiah, they think you're some great
prophet like John the Baptist. And the Lord just cut right to
the chase. And He said, who do you say that
I am? You see, that's all that really
matters, dear sinner. Who do you say Christ is? And
you know that Peter answered and he said, thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God. And do you remember what the
Lord said when he said that? He said, Simon, you're a blessed
man. You're a blessed man for flesh
and blood hath not revealed this unto you, but my father, which
is in heaven. And it's upon the profession
of who Christ is and what Christ has done that he will build his
church and the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.
Now, a sinner must be born spiritually from above. That's what the Lord
Jesus told Nicodemus. You must be born again. You've
got to be born again. And we're born spiritually from
above, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. nor of the
will of man, but of God. And again, that which is flesh
is flesh. And it's always going to be flesh.
The nature of the flesh is gonna always be the same. Paul said
in Galatians chapter five, verse 19, he said, now the works of
the flesh are manifest. Which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. They all come from the flesh.
envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time
past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God." It's serious. Serious. These are the works
of the nature of the flesh. And this is what we by nature
feed upon. Just like those lines. In Romans
chapter 7, Paul deals with the dual nature. I hope you know
that men have two natures. Paul in chapter 7 of Romans talks
about two men that reside within all of us. The old man and the
new man. And the new man desires to do
what's right, desires to do what's good, but the old man just won't
let him. And the old man desires to do evil, but the new man just
won't cooperate, so that neither do the things that they desire
to do. Now, do you know anything about that? I bet you do. Then Paul said this, he said,
for I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. You see, man is an unclean vermin. just a parasite that feeds upon
the flesh and its passions and its lust and all its desires. And summing up man's evil nature,
being under the curse of the law, if you would turn with me
to Romans chapter three, you can let your place here go or
stick your marker in there. We will come back to it towards
the end of the study, but look at Romans chapter three with
me. Going to walk a little through
Romans here. Romans chapter three. Notice what Paul writes here
in verse 20. He says, therefore, by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified. in his God's sight, for by the
law is the knowledge of sin." Now, why can't we be justified
by the law? Because of the flesh. All flesh
is under sin. In Romans 8 verse 7, you'd have
to turn there, it says that the carnal mind, that word carnal
means fleshly, The fleshly mind is not subject to the law of
God. And then he adds this, neither
indeed can it be. Turn over a page or so to Romans
chapter one. Look, or excuse me, Romans chapter
four, look at verse one. Romans four, verse one. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh hath found? For if
Abraham were justified by works, he hath wherefore the glory."
Or in other words, he has a reason to glory. If he could in and
of himself do something to merit God's salvation, he would have
reason to glory. But not before God. And that
simply means that he didn't have any reason to glory. For what
sayeth the scripture, verse three, Abraham believed God. Believed that Christ was God. Believed that God himself died
on the cross to redeem him from his sin. And it was counted unto
him for righteousness. Now Abraham put no trust at all
in what he did. And neither do we. We better
not. He put all his faith and all
his trust in what Christ did. And that's how and why God accounted
his faith unto him for righteousness. Faith is the gift of God. And that's the only way that
any of us can be made righteous. It has to be accounted unto us. That word means imputed. It has
to be imputed to us. We have to be made righteous
by Christ, by being in Christ who was made to be sin for us.
And Paul adds that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. It's only in Christ. 2 Corinthians
5.21. Now look at verse 4 here in Romans
4. Now to him that worketh, is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Salvation is for those who work
not. Isn't that wonderful news? But
for those who believe on Christ, those who believe that God justifies
ungodly sinners. And I believe that. And that's
the best news I ever heard, because that's what I am. And I have
an interest in how God saves ungodly sinners. Their faith,
their believing, which is God's gift to them, is counted for
righteousness. So we can't even glory in our
faith, brag on our faith, because it's God's gift to us. Turn over
a couple pages to Romans 6. Look at verse 19. Paul says, I speak after the
manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members,
servants, unto uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, even
so now yield your member servants to righteousness unto holiness.
For when you were the servants of sin, listen, when you were
louses, when you were altogether lice feeding upon the lust of
your flesh, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had
ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end
of those things is death. But now be made free from sin
and become servants to God. You have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And that word gift here
in verse 23 means deliverance. We could substitute that word
and say, but the deliverance of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. And it certainly is that. Now
in our text in Exodus chapter eight, we're told that the dust
of the ground, became lice throughout the land of Egypt. And as you
know, Egypt in the scriptures always represents this world. This world is where the lice
feed upon the flesh, but the scripture says this world is
going to pass away in the lust thereof. But he that doeth the
will of God abideth forever. Look at Romans 7, and you should
be right there, verse 22. You know these verses well, but
look what Paul says here. He said, for I delight in the
law of God after the inward man, that new man that we were talking
about. But I see another law in my members, speaking of that
old man, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me
into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord, So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God,
but with the flesh, the law of sin. Now just forget that it
says chapter eight there, and look at verse one. And this is
our hope. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after what? The flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the what? The flesh. God sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. condemned sin in the flesh, that
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that
are after the flesh do mine the things of the flesh." Listen
to me, just like those lice. They mind the things of the flesh.
They gorge themselves on the flesh. They run after the flesh's
passions and the flesh's promises. They constantly feed and they
glory in the things they do. And it's where their treasure
is because it's where their heart is. Read on verse five, but they
that are after the Spirit The things of the spirit, they mind
the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded, fleshly
minded, is death. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Because the carnal mind, the
fleshly mind, is enmity, hostile against God. For it's not subject
to the law of God, and neither indeed can be. So here's the
conclusion of the whole matter in verse eight. So then, they
that are in the flesh cannot, cannot. Please cut. Now, back
in our text in Exodus eight. I'm not gonna keep you long tonight. I'd have you to notice in verse
18, It says, and the magicians did
so with their enchantments. Here they are again with their
enchantments. They tried to bring forth lice,
but they could not. So there were lice upon man and
upon beast. Now listen to me. I hope that
I can make this clear. I'm going to be very slow and
deliberate and I'm going to read what I've written here because
I wrote it deliberately. The revelation and the manifestation
of God seen in these lice who picture the love and the lust
of our flesh, that's what they picture, is not something that
the magicians in Egypt or the false preachers and teachers
of this world can reveal with their enchantments, and that being man's sin nature. And you can tell a man that he's
a depraved sinner till you're blue in the face, and unless
God reveal it to him, he'll never see it, never, man or woman alike. Well, I'm not perfect, but I'm
not that good, not that bad, not that horrible. To the elect
of God, in His divine purpose, God manifests how these lives
came into being. It was by the fall of man, by
the disobedience of one man. All were made sinners, made ungodly. There's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none that doeth good.
All men and women have gone astray. There's none that seeketh after
God. How many? None. None. And when God reveals
to a sinner what they are, they'll see and know what was revealed
to these magicians. Look at verse 19. Then the magician
said unto Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. The lice came at God's beckoning. Salvation, my friends, is of
the Lord. He allowed sin to come upon mankind,
and He did so that He would receive all the honor and the glory by
His own sovereign will and purpose, and to put in the way of sin,
the sin of some. He said, I'll be merciful upon
whom I will be merciful. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious. And He's not that to everyone. only to those that He gave to
Christ before the foundation of the world. Now, the first
work in the Kingdom of God is the revelation of sin. If God
doesn't show you who and what you are, you'll never have a
need of the Savior, Jesus Christ. You just won't. Those who are
sick have need of a physician. We don't go to the doctor when
we're well. Several of you had doctor's appointments today.
It's because you needed help. You need help. I'll repeat that again. The first
work of God in the kingdom of God is the revelation of sin. God revealing and showing to
us who and what we are. Now we're not told, but I have
no reason to believe that these lies didn't go over on Israel
too. Before God saved His people,
if you're one of God's people, before God saved you, you too
were servants of sin and you were feeding upon the lust of
the flesh just like these lice were. But I'll tell you something
I do know concerning this. From here on out, from this point
on, When we see the flies and the locusts and all these other
plagues, none of them went to Goshen. None of them afflicted
the people of God. They all fell upon Egypt. You
see, by nature, religious men, they're going to brag on their
repentance of sin. A man's going to glory in his
decision to follow Jesus. A man's going to claim that he
made Jesus Lord. You've heard them say it and
so have I. Well, I made Jesus my Lord. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. A man will rejoice
in glory in his fleshly ideals of redemption by the work of
his own hands until, until, He sees the presence and power of
God in the dust. In the dust. And if God shows
him that he's nothing but dust, fallen, to be made a blood-sucking
louse, one who loves the lust of the
flesh, when he does, He'll know that his conversion was only
by the finger of God. Now, you know that's so, child
of God. When God showed me what I was,
I remember thinking, what must I do to be saved? And then I
found that I couldn't do anything, but that the Lord Jesus Christ
had done it for me. And that's God's doing, isn't
it? That's by the sovereign finger
of God. God took man from the dust of
the ground, and because of man's disobedience, Adam is our federal
head, God smote that man, and he made that man a despicable
louse in the eyes of God. And man became a plague. That's
what we see here. While in the days of Noah, the
scripture says that when God saw the wickedness of man that
was great in the earth, that his mind was only on evil and
on evil continually. The reason that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, my friends, is because the wickedness
that was in man was great. What plagues the man is sin,
and what plagues this earth is man. May God be pleased to show sinners
what they really are. And until He does, they'll never
have a desire for Christ. May God show us that we're just
like these lice. We're just blood-sucking parasites
that feed upon flesh. Isn't that, that's horrible.
How can you say that? It's true. A believer won't argue with you.
He'll say, that's exactly right. That's exactly what I eat. Those
lice, they love to eat upon it. And a man loves to feast upon
the flesh and the lust of it until God either turns them back
to the dust from which they came, or saves them by His grace. That's just true. Isn't it amazing
how throughout all the scriptures we see the truth of who we are
and who God is.