me if i have to get the title
then i can see the message i can get i can get the understanding
of direction i'm going to go and this morning i changed the
title again to christ is our goshen you see in verse 22 those
flies were not allowed to enter the land of goshen where god's
people were And as all the ones that I've read, and I believe
so, none of those plagues affected Israel. It was the plagues on
Egypt. He sent Egypt into their houses, their servants. But Christ
is our Goshen, and I'll get to that here in a little bit. It
is written in Psalm 24, and I quote this quite often from this pulpit. THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND
THE FULLNESS THEREOF THE WORLD, AND THEY THAT DWELL THEREIN.
IT IS VERY CLEAR WHO OWNS ALL THINGS, ALL PERSONS, EVERYTHING
THAT EXISTS, HE OWNS IT, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST OWNS IT. ALL
ARE HIS TO DO AND TO USE AS HE WILL, TO DO WITH AS HE WILL AND
TO USE AS HE WILL. Almighty God can raise up an
army of angels. Our Lord said, I can call 12
legions of angels right now. Almighty God can raise up frogs,
lice, and locusts as He will and send them to accomplish His
purpose. He does not need our military
to accomplish His purpose. All he needs to do is call up
an army of flies. Isn't that amazing? He just called
up an army of flies to accomplish his purpose. Pharaoh, the greatest
king on the earth at that time that we know of. Great army,
strong nation, but he could not stand up against the frogs, the
lice, and the flies, and the plagues of God's sin. He couldn't
stand up against them. God could take and use a germ,
just a germ, microscopic germ to bring down the strongest nation. We saw that in COVID, didn t
we? About shut everybody down. God can do that. You see, all
things serve Him, even the wicked serve Him. Surely the wrath of
man shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain
as it says in Psalm 76 10. Now verse 1 tells us that God
has a people on this earth. That's why the earth is still
standing. That's why we are still here. God has a people on this
earth. They are a people enslaved THEY
ARE ENSLAVED BY THE LUST OF THE FLESH, THEY ARE ENSLAVED BY THE
LUST OF THE EYES, THE ADVERTISING WORLD KNOWS THAT! THEY KNOW HOW
TO REACH US! THEY REACH US THROUGH THE LUST
OF THE FLESH, LUST OF THE EYES, OR THE PRIDE OF LIFE! WE ARE ENSLAVED TO THESE THINGS! And not only are we enslaved
to these things, we are under the power and spirit of darkness. Everyone is until God saves them.
They are under the power and influence of Satan. All God's
children are called children of wrath by nature, even as others
in Ephesians chapter 2. We're no different. There's no
difference in us by nature than everyone who winds up in hell.
There's no difference by nature. We're all born of Adam. well
we are all born uh depraved and lost and and uh gone astray every
one of us every one of us but the lord here in verse one he
and the lord spake to moses and i'm not going to do every one
of these verses be too much go unto pharaoh and you say to him
you speak to him and notice how it starts out,
Thus saith the LORD. Moses did not go in there on
his own or on his own word. He went into Pharaoh on the authority
of God's Word, speaking God's Word. Thus saith the LORD, Let
my people go, that they may serve me. As I said in the opening
of this message, God has a people on this earth. I described them
in their bondage, but let me describe them this way now. They
are His by election. Everyone whom God saves, He chose
to save. No one is saved by God giving
them a chance. We are saved because God chose
to save us in Christ. WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE. EVERYONE
WHOM GOD SAVES ARE SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD. YOU AND I DON'T
DESERVE ONE OUNCE OF MERCY. WE DO NOT MERIT ANYTHING FROM
GOD EXCEPT PUNISHMENT. THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. HE
WILL PAY THAT. BUT WE ARE SAVED, WE ARE HIS
BY ELECTION, WE ARE HIS BY GRACE, WE ARE HIS BY COVENANT. TOMMY
BROUGHT YOU ALL A MESSAGE HERE LAST WEEK. on the covenant. God's a covenant
God and we are His covenant people. We are His covenant people and
we are His by ADOPTION. He adopted us into His family
and we are His by BIRTH, born of God, birth of God, and we
are His by PURCHASE. HE HAS PURCHASED US WITH HIS
OWN BLOOD. GOD PURCHASED US WITH HIS OWN
BLOOD. That's what it says in Acts 20,
28. 28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed
the church of God, to feed the church of God, which HE, GOD,
hath purchased with his own blood. We have been purchased by the
blood of God. I can say that because the Bible says that.
And this command that He tells Moses to give to Pharaoh is not
a suggestion, it is just what I said. It's a command. And it's
going to be followed. It's going to be followed. When
God gives a command, it's going to be followed. Now, of course,
we know the end of this. But some things have got to happen
before this command is followed. God is going to demonstrate His
power in Pharaoh, in over Pharaoh. He's going to show that Pharaoh
is NOTHING and that the nations of this world, as it says, are
a drop in the bucket to God. But He's going to follow this
command, it's just going to take Him a little while to come around
to it, but He's going to do it. It just, you know, it really
amazed me as I read this over again that God, at first it amazed
me that God would speak to Pharaoh. He could just crush him and deliver
Israel, but He's teaching us, this is for us. This is why God's
doing this. He's showing us His power, His
ability to save. He's showing that to us and He's
doing so in Pharaoh. Now verse 1 through 15 we have
the plague of frogs. God's going to send frogs. this
is really interesting when you really start to study these things
it gets really interesting because some of the plagues have reference
to the gods worshipped in egypt they have reference to the gods
worshipped in egypt the egyptian goddess he gt i think it's heck
heck i thought something like that but anyway that's the goddess
they worshipped She's the goddess of fertility, and she's always
pictured with the head of a frog. They worship that. They worship
the frog. They wouldn't kill a frog. It
was sacred to them. It's crazy, but it was. They
were sacred to them. And what God does is He takes
the very thing they worship and makes them sick of it. He makes
them sick of it. going to worship the goddess
of fertility, the goddess of the frog? Well, here you go,
here you go, they're going to be in your house, they're going
to be in your bed, they're going to be in your food, they're going
to be everywhere you are. He makes them sick of it, so
the Pharaoh says, and the goddess they worship couldn't remove
them. He had to ask Moses, Go pray to God that the Lord, the
one you worship, will remove the frogs. And they ended up
killing them and stacking them up until the land smelled. It smelled so bad because of
dead frogs which they worshiped. Isn't it interesting how God
shows the foolishness of man's false worship? Man will worship
anything and many of these things God used because they worshiped
them and God showed to them they're nothing. Nothing can stand before
Me. There is no God beside Me. No
God beside Me. God's the only God there is.
And also, now here's something else that's interesting. In the
Scriptures, frogs represent evil spirits. Turn over to Revelation
16. In Revelation 16, look at 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 PROPHETS, AND EVIL SPIRIT WAS IN ALL THREE
OF THEM. 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.
BUT THESE FROGS ARE USED TO REPRESENT EVIL SPIRITS. And you notice something here
about these frauds, they represent EVIL SPIRITS and they were EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHERE! And this
is just, I mean it really gets interesting when you really start
to study this. So are FALSE PREACHERS! They
are EVERYWHERE! They're EVERYWHERE! You can't
go anywhere where there's not a FALSE PREACHER! They're EVERYWHERE! EVERY ONE
OF THEM ARE UNDER THE POWER OF AN EVIL SPIRIT, EVERY ONE OF
THEM. THEY'RE UNDER THE POWER OF AN EVIL SPIRIT. THEY'RE EVEN
AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE. 2 Peter 2 on, But there were false
prophets also among the people, speaking of Israel, even as there
shall be false teachers among you. who will privately shall
bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought
them, denying the gospel, preaching another gospel. They're not atheists,
they're not atheists, but they're preaching another
gospel, another spirit, as Paul said, another Jesus. Beware of false prophets, the
Lord said in Matthew 7, which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Our Lord said this in
Mark 13, For false Christs and false prophets shall arise, and
they shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible,
even the elect. What did those magicians do?
They brought up frogs also. Moses had Aaron throw the rod
down and it turned into a snake, and the magicians threw the rod
down and it turned into a snake. God allows Satan certain power
to deceive Because those who won't believe
the truth, God said He'll send them a strong delusion that they'll
believe a lie and be damned. They will. You see, when the
truth is preached and people turn from the truth, God's going
to send them evil spirits and they're going to believe, or
false prophets, false preachers, and they're going to believe
their lie and they're going to be damned. God, would God do that? Listen to this. Let me read it
to you out of 2 Chronicles 18. Let me read in verse 19, And
the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he
may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake, saying, After
this manner, and another saying, After that manner. Then there
came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I
will entice him. And the LORD said to him, Wherewith? How are you going to do so? And
he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit. I'll be a lying
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets, all his false prophets. It's dangerous to turn away from
the truth. It's dangerous. God said He'll send them strong
delusion, they'll believe a lie and be damned. It's dangerous
to turn away from the gospel. And there is something else about
these frogs. They represent evil spirits and
they worship the frogs. They do their work. When do frogs
do their work? In darkness. I don't see any frogs at the
house during the daytime, but boy at night time, they are on
the carport, they're on the porch, Gus is chasing them out there
in the yard, they're everywhere, they're everywhere, but where
are they at when the daytime comes? Like these false preachers,
they do their work in darkness, they're under the spirit of darkness,
and they do their work in darkness, and that's who they represent. And there's something else here
about these frogs, I thought. They came out of the very thing
they looked to for life. They came out of the Nile River.
The Nile River was everything to the Egyptians. And they came
out of the Nile River. The very thing people look to
for life in false religion, which they don't know that it's false,
but in false religion, they're going to find out it's going
to be death to them. LORD, WE PREACHED IN YOUR NAME,
WE CAST OUT DEVILS IN YOUR NAME, WE'VE DONE MANY MIGHTY WORKS
IN YOUR NAME, and He says, DEPART FROM ME, I DON'T KNOW YOU, I
NEVER KNEW YOU, I NEVER KNEW YOU. THE VERY THING THEY THINK
THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE LIFE BY, THEY'RE GOING TO END UP HAVING
DEATH BY. And I notice here that the magicians,
they brought up frogs also, but you know what? They couldn't
take them away. Only God can do that. Only God can deliver
us from false prophets because He said if it were possible they
would deceive the very elect of God. Only He can do that. But what they ended up doing
was adding to their misery. He just added to their misery.
He said, Let them bring up more frogs. He just added to their misery.
But they couldn't take the misery away. FALSE RELIGION ADDS TO
THE MISERY OF MEN AND WOMEN. THEY CAN'T SET THEM FREE. IT
CANNOT GIVE YOU REST. IT CAN'T GIVE YOU FREEDOM. YOU
ARE IN BONDAGE. IT IS JUST BONDAGE. And then we see in verse 8, a
FALSE REPENTANCE. Pharaoh said, he said, I will
let them go if the Lord will take the frogs away. If He will
just take them away. And Moses said, will you tell
me when Tell me when you want him taken away and I'll pray
the Lord and he'll take him away at that time when you'll know
he's the Lord. This is how this is brethren when you read these
scriptures you understand salvation is of the Lord. All this that
happened to Pharaoh still hardened his heart. He never did believe
all that he saw. He said, All right, tomorrow,
pray that the Lord will remove them tomorrow. And when tomorrow
rolled around, that's exactly what happened. And what did he
do? He says, He hardened his heart
when there was respite. He said, But when Pharaoh saw
that there was respite, he hardened his heart. You know, I've seen
this. Trouble comes. Trouble comes
in a person. they find God they find religion
they want to get they want to get saved but when but when all
that trouble leaves they leave too they leave too the repentance
is that of the world they got in trouble they got in trouble
and when the trouble is gone so were they I've seen that happen
over the years And then the next plague is lice.
Lice. What do lice feed on? Flesh. Flesh. That's what these false
prophets feed on. Flesh. They're flesh merchants. That's what Paul warns about
in Philippians 3. They're flesh merchants. That's
what they are. They're after you. They're after
your billfords. That's what they're after. But
they're flesh merchants. Lice feed on the flesh, especially
unclean flesh. That's what it feeds on. But you'll notice something here.
The magicians, you know, they threw down their rod and it became
a snake. It says they brought up frogs
also. But they could not THEY COULD NOT BRING FORTH LIFE OUT
OF THE DUST! THEY COULDN'T DO IT! THEY COULDN'T
CREATE LIFE! ONLY GOD CAN CREATE LIFE! SEE,
THEY BROUGHT UP FROGS THAT WERE ALREADY THERE! BUT LIFE FROM
THE DUST, ONLY GOD...ADAM WAS MADE FROM THE DUST OF THE GROUND
AND GOD BREATHED IN HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE! WE HAVE FALLEN,
WE ARE DEAD IN SINS, TRESPASSES AND SINS, FROM DUST THOU ART,
AND WHAT? DUST THOU SHALT RETURN, AND YET
GOD HAS BROUGHT LIFE OUT OF DUST. Only God can do that. Only God
can bring life out of something. They had no power to do that
at all. They could not bring life from
the dust. But Pharaoh here, after this plague, Pharaoh hardened his heart again
after the lice were taken away. And these lice, it says, were
up on the people and up on the cattle. They were everywhere.
They were everywhere. And then the next plague was
a swarm of flies, and over in the margin it's a swarm of beasts,
a swarm of insects. You know, this swarm of the flies
is added by the translators. Everybody that I've read said
that these are just a multitude of different insects, biting
insects. They afflict pain, but they were
all over the place. They were all over the place.
You know, the Canaanites and the Philistine people, they worshiped
Beelzebub, who was called the God of the fly. But here like frogs and lice,
the flies, the insects were everywhere, and it says they corrupted the
land. But you notice here in verse
22, the swarm of flies were not in Israel. He makes it a point
here to point out to Pharaoh they will not be in Israel. Verse 22, And I will sever in
that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that
no swarm of flies shall be there. To the end thou mayest know that
I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. And I have looked
at this, and the thought that hit me this morning, that no
flies, no swarm of insects, because I have a swarm of sins, do you?
I have a swarm of them, a swarm of them. But in Christ, they're
all gone. In Christ, they cannot touch
me. In Christ, I have no sins. In Christ, my Goshen, I have
no sins. Paul said in Romans, sin shall
have dominion over you. When God sent these frogs, lice,
and flies, they had dominion over the Egyptians. And Pharaoh
begged Moses to ask the Lord to remove these things. But in
Christ, we have no sins. He's removed them. He has removed
all our sins. They're all gone. EVIL SPIRITS
which are represented by these frogs, they can have you. Brethren,
this world is full of evil, it's full of evil spirits, but they
can't touch you, they cannot have you. As the Lord said to
that evil spirit, He said, COME OUT OF HIM AND ENTER HIM NO MORE! He's mine, He's mine. God saved you, has God saved
you? You're His. He you're his and the evil spirit
Satan cannot enter in and take you over no more Because the
stronger man has entered the house and taken it over And he's
and he's overcome Satan He's overcoming None of them can have you in
life. I thought of the sins of the flesh They can't have you
They cannot have you They must let my people go. Every one of these plagues, the
flies, the frogs, and some more yet to come, they can't have
you. You're his. You're his. They can have the Egyptians.
They can be in their homes, their beds, their needing troughs. I mean, there was no place that
they were not. but they're not in you, they're not on you in
Christ. Brethren, that's a reality. That
is a reality. They can't have you no more. Christ said, LET MY PEOPLE GO!
That's what this is all about. LET MY PEOPLE GO! That's what
it's all about. God's got a people and He's going
to have them. And in this plague here, the
magicians in verse 19 are FORCED TO ADMIT THIS IS THE FINGER OF
GOD. God will make, every knee is
going to bow. Every knee is going to bow to
Jesus Christ and they are going to ADMIT that He is Lord to the
glory of God the Father. They are going to admit THIS
IS OF GOD! Salvation is of the Lord. For
some, when they admit it, it's going to be too late. But you're
going to admit it. Everybody's going to admit it.
Everybody's going to bow to Jesus Christ. And they went to Pharaoh
and they said, This is the finger of God. This is of God. Only the God
of the Hebrews can do this. Only He. Only He can create life
and only He can remove it. Only He can remove it. And then Pharaoh tries to compromise. I'm going to wind this down. I preached at Fairmont last week. I preached the longest sermon
I ever preached in my life. 51 minutes. I got home and I
thought, What did I do? I thought, I've never done that,
that long. So I'm going to try not to let
this one be 51 minutes. I want us to see a few more things.
Pharaoh tries, now he tries here to make a compromise. He tries
to make a compromise. You know why all these seats
are not full? Because we've never made a compromise.
We can compromise and fill this place up. That's all we've got
to do, compromise. Brethren, if it just comes down
to just three of us here, that's all right. That's all right. Christ said we're two or three
gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst. And Pharaoh called for Moses
in verse 25 and for Aaron and said, Go ye and sacrifice your
God, your, listen, your God, not mine. You see, they worship
many gods. But there's one thing Pharaoh
noticed here, and there's one thing he admits here. Your God
is one God. He doesn't say, he does not say,
go ye sacrifice to your God's many. He said, God. Pharaoh knew
that Israel had one God. Egypt had many so-called. We only have one God. We only
have one God. BUT THIS IS A TACTIC OF SATAN
IN TRYING TO GET FALSE RELIGION AND THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION TO
GET ALONG, TO MIX AND MINGLE. Boy, this jumped out at me when
I read this. I thought, I thought, He's just trying to make a compromise
here. We're going to compromise here.
You worship your God and we'll worship our gods and we'll do
it all together right here in the land. You go ahead. You go
ahead. We will all get along. But here,
listen, Moses told him, he said the sacrifices that Israel would
offer to God was an ABOMINATION to the Egyptians and they would
STONE THEM! He said, We can't do this with
each other, it's too offensive! Our gospel is too offensive! You see, the Egyptians are offended
by this and they'll stone us! I bet a lot of people would like
to stone you, wouldn't they? There are people like Stonis. This gospel we preach here is
an abomination to the world. It literally is an abomination
to the world. The gospel is said to be foolishness
to the Greeks. It�s Moses tells him we can't
do this here. We can't do this here. It'd be
it just won't it don't work It don't work Pharaoh was willing
to let them worship right alongside the Egyptians You see how crafty
Satan is if he if he can't get you in this corner. He'll get
you in this corner He never stops working an angle never stops
working an angle But this can't be, there has
to be a separation from the unclean thing before we can worship God,
before God will receive worship. Listen here in verse 23. And
I will put, God's saying, and I will put a division. This is why we all can't get
along. We all cannot get along. God
said, I will put a division between My people and Thy people. God says, My people and your
people are not the same. There is a difference. There's
a difference. There's a division. Christ said,
I didn't come to send peace on earth but a sword. I'm going
to divide the sheep from the goats, tear from the wheat. The Lord's sheep and the Lord's
goats can't worship together. THIS IS WHAT HE SAID IN GENESIS
3.15, AND THIS HAS BEEN SO SINCE THE BEGINNING. GOD SAID IN GENESIS
3.15, AND I WILL PUT ENMITY BETWEEN THEE AND THE WOMAN, SATAN AND
THE CHURCH, AND BETWEEN THY SEED AND HER SEED, SATAN HAS A SEED
ON HIS EARTH. and God has a seed on this earth.
Now we know Christ is the seed, but we are that seed too in Him.
We are that seed in Him. I'm going to put enmity between
thy seed and her seed. We can't get along. We can't
compromise. Pharaoh says, Look, we'll just
compromise this thing and we'll all get along. And look here
in verse 26, And Moses said, It is not fit to do so, 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? The gospel is offensive. This gospel, the true gospel,
is offensive to the world. It's offensive to the natural
man. And God said, I'm going to separate My people from thy
people. MY seed from the seed of Satan. Verse 28, Pharaoh, he says here
in verse 28, there's this constant compromising, you've got to be
careful, we have to be careful. Here's another compromise, He
says, You can do it in the land, and Moses says, Can t do it.
We can t do it. God can t be worshipped here,
and we can t offer sacrifices here in Egypt. Pharaoh said,
Well, all right, I ll let you go. You may sacrifice to the
Lord your God, your God, he keeps calling Him your God, in the
wilderness. Only you shall not go very far
away, you see. He still wanted to control the
worship. Satan still wants to control this worship service.
He still wants to. The rulers of the world do not
dictate the worship of God. They don't do it. That belongs
to God. And true worship is in spirit
and in truth, not in bondage. They've got to be out of bondage.
You can't worship God in bondage. You worship God when the Lord
sets you free, you are free indeed, and you are free to worship the
Lord. You are free. And again, Pharaoh,
it says, Pharaoh hardened his heart. Without grace, without grace,
what you heard this morning will harden your heart. Apart from
the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, what you
heard this morning will harden your heart. I guarantee it.