Exodus chapter 9. Exodus chapter
9. As I keep saying, I don't want
these to be merely interesting stories. But I hope and pray that God
will be glorified. This story will exalt God's mercy
to Israel, His power, And I hope it will instill in us fear and
thanksgiving, both fear and thanksgiving. Egypt, as you know. Throughout
the Old Testament represents the world. Egypt was the world
in that day. Modern technology and they had
everything we have today. Sports and science and politics
and you name it. Recreation, it represents the
world. Pharaoh, as you know, represents
the God of this world. Small g, Satan, the God of this
world. Pharaoh ruled the land. He held
everyone in captivity. Right? Egyptians were willing
captives of him. They served Pharaoh willingly.
But God's people were held against their will. And God is bringing
them out. God is bringing His people out
from that captivity, that bondage. And our Lord Jesus Christ, Scripture
says, came to to lead captivity, captive. We want to be His bond
slave, don't we? But God sent the truth. How He
removes His people from the world is He sends the truth. He sends
a preacher like Moses, like Aaron, to deliver the captives by the
truth. Israel just didn't realize how
good God was to them. God chose them. The only difference
between them in the beginning was God chose them. They were
living in Egypt just like the Egyptians. But God chose them,
revealed Himself to them, had mercy upon them. And all of these
plagues that were sent were for the judgment of Egypt, but the
mercy of God for history. And we just don't realize, we
really don't realize, someday we'll realize fully what, how
merciful God has been to his people. We believe, you know,
election, many people believe it in their heads, but my, my,
if we realize it fully that God chose me and not this person,
like Jacob and Esau, Jacob, God loved me and not my brother. Jacob thought, we're the same. But God chose me. God delivered me. God revealed
the truth to me. Let's never forget that, okay?
It's not doctrine. It's our salvation. How good
God is to us. Oh, how good. These plagues he
sent upon Egypt, ten plagues, were the judgments of God upon
an unbelieving, sinful world. The Egyptians deserved it. So
did the Israelites. But God spared him. Romans 1.18
says this, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness, for unrighteous purposes. They suppress it, they
hold it, they use it for advantage or whatever, but not for the
glory of God and for their own conviction. But the wrath of
God revealed from heaven, Romans 1.18. Then and now, the wrath
of God is still poured out from heaven. And the Egyptians back
then didn't acknowledge it. They did not call on God. They
didn't acknowledge that these things were the judgment of God
upon their world because they didn't believe in God. Didn't
believe there was a God, an owner, a judge, a ruler. Didn't believe
in the law of God. There was no right, no wrong.
Does that sound familiar? That's today. And these things
are just natural phenomena. We're just unlucky. Floods and droughts and hurricanes
and tornadoes and calamities and pestilence and diseases wiping
us out left and right. It's just bad luck. No, it's God. It's God. God of the Bible. God of the
Bible. All right? Let's look at it.
Exodus 9, verses 1 through 3. The Lord said to Moses, go in
unto Pharaoh and tell him. And God does everything by His
Word. Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, let my people
go, that they may serve me. For if thou refuse to let them
go, and wilt hold them still, behold, the hand of the Lord
is upon thy cattle, which is in the field. Upon the horses,
upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, upon the sheep,
there shall be a very grievous moraine. Moraine, now that's
a word not used today, but it's only used one time in scripture.
But what it is, is it stands for all the plagues really. Pestilence, disease, plague,
something. God sent some kind of disease
that killed all the cattle. Do you know how many times that's
happened in the history of the world? Hoof and mouth disease
or whatever you want to call it. They had to slaughter all
the cattle. It was just a few years ago in
England. It just decimated the cattle industry in England. They
were worried about it coming over here. Nobody thanked God
that it didn't. But God sent this pestilence,
this plague, this disease that killed all the cattle, but not
one of Israel's cattle died. Not one cow. Not one sheep. Not one camel. Not one ant. Turn with me to Matthew 6. Matthew
6. Now, long before the industrial
age, you know, big cities and smokestack industries and industry
of all sorts and cars and all that, the world lived on and
lived for livestock. Livestock. lands, cattle, the
riches of everyone were cattle, sheep, asses, horses, all of
a sudden. Those were the treasures of Egypt.
That's what made a man rich. What made a man rich back then
was all the cattle that he owned. It was said of Job that he was
the greatest man in all the East, and you've read how much cattle
he owned. How many camels, how many asses, how many sheep. He
was rich beyond measure in those things. Abraham was said to be
rich in cattle and in land. So those were the riches of the
world back then. Today, The riches are changed
a little bit, but not much, not much. Horses are now cars. Cattles are clothing, gold and
silver and houses and so forth and land. All right. But these
are not the riches of God's people. These are not the riches of true
Israel. He that is a Jew inwardly. Okay? These are not our riches. Our riches cannot be taken from
us. Not one of the riches God gives
us will be taken from us. Everything else will. Look at
Matthew 6. Matthew 6, verse 19. The Lord
said, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where
moth and rust. It doesn't take much for God
to take away our earthly treasures then, a moth. Someone gave me a wool, what
was it, from England, imported from England, a wool cardigan
sweater. Boy, I really loved that sweater.
Beautiful, you know. And I kind of wore it with a
little bit of pride, too, you know. Well, I put it up for the
winter, I mean for the summer. And next winter, I got it out
and it had holes on it. It's useless. My prized sweater,
my sweater I was proud of, God sent a moth to ruin it. Rust. I've had some, oh man,
our car is that much to you. Can you keep rust away? Not possible. Not possible. It doesn't take
much for God to destroy our little treasures then. Read on. He says,
verse 20, thieves break through and steal. Lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves do not break through nor steal. Where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. And he went on in verse
31 to say, take no thought. Don't be consumed with eating
and drinking and clothing and all that. That's what the Gentiles
are saying. We sing the song, Oh, the unsearchable
riches of Christ. Riches exhaustless of mercy and
grace. Wealth that can never be told.
He is the treasure of God's people. He is that pearl of great pride.
The clothing that He gives us is what we love. Precious. More precious than gold. So the
Lord sent a plague to destroy all of Egypt's riches. And he
often does the same today. But Egypt didn't call on the
Lord. Look at verse 7 of our text.
Go back to Exodus 9. Verse 7 says, Pharaoh sent, behold,
it was not Pesah. Not one of the Israelites' cattle
was dead. But it didn't matter. The heart
of Pharaoh was hardened. It didn't touch him. It had no
effect on him whatsoever. This was a grievous plague that
killed everything in Egypt. Amazing. It didn't move him. See, these are not the things
that pierces a man's heart. These are not the things that
softens his heart, a hard heart. These are not the things that
makes a man cry, call upon God, really. It's conviction of sin. Conviction of sin. You know what
really the only thing that will truly convict a human being of
sin is? Christ crucified. When you see,
ever see, that He did that for you. That what He received, you
deserve. That's what we're going to look
at in the second message. So plagues and all that, they don't
touch the world. It means nothing. If it does, like Pharaoh, he
had a little bit of conviction, didn't he? But it didn't last.
As soon as the hail of fire stopped, so did his conviction. His repentance
stopped as soon as the plagues stopped. Same with man. Alright,
look at the next thing. Verse 8. The Lord said to Moses
and Aaron, take handfuls of ashes of the furnace that Moses sprinkled
it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. Now, we came from
dust. You remember the last dust. And to dust we will return. But
the world and everything in it is going to be reduced to ashes,
like thrown in a fiery furnace. The world scoffs at this. They
scoff at this. Any mention of hell's fire and
brimstone. What ignorant mountain lore that
is. That's what the world thinks.
That's just a silly superstition to Jews and Appalachian Baptists. No, the Lord Jesus Christ said
that more than anybody else. He's the only man on earth that
didn't lie. So, everything, turn to 2 Peter,
2 Peter 3. Everything in this world is going
to be reduced to ashes. This is what the Scripture said.
As in a fiery furnace. And that's exactly what's going
to happen. Fiery wrath of God. I need to preach this, I need
to teach this with a heavy heart and with a broken heart and great
deep concern for people. It's not a fable. Peter said
here in 2 Peter chapter 3, earlier he said, this is no cunningly
devised fable. In verse 10 of chapter 3, it
says, The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned up. This is no
fable. This is fact. Now look at the
next verse. 2 Peter 3, 11. Seeing them. He's talking to God's people.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, shall be
burned up, turned to ashes, what matter of persons ought ye to
be? What should we be thinking about in all holy conversation?
Our conversation, our communication and our thoughts and all should
be, our affections be set on things above. Everlasting things, eternal riches.
And we're looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God,
verse 12. The heavens being on fire shall
be dissolved, the elements shall melt with fervent heat. That's
not a fairy tale, that's not a fable, it's the word of God.
And he told that through Moses and Aaron to Egypt and Pharaoh,
and they didn't believe him. We don't believe that. Like the
Lord says it's going to rain, rain in the day of Noah. It never
rained water from the sky and nobody in the world, somebody
might have believed it at first, but when it was all over, eight
people believed God that water was going to fall out of the
sky and flood and kill everybody on earth. And there's only one
way to be saved is to be found in that ark, which is Christ. Eight people. Why did they believe? Why did Noah believe? Why were
they in the ark? God chose them. It says, Noah
found grace. By grace are you saved. Through
faith. And it's not of yourself. It's
a gift of God. Amen. So, back in our tape. It says, let Moses sprinkle these
ashes toward heaven, the sight of Pharaoh. And verse 9, it shall
become small dust in the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil
breaking forth with blames upon man and upon beasts throughout
all the land of Egypt. And he did. He sprinkled this,
and there was a boil that broke out with blames upon every man
and beast. throughout the land. What is
it? Go with me to Isaiah 1, Isaiah chapter 1. Now this boil, you've
seen them, you've had them maybe. Have you ever had one? There's
nothing, there's nothing more painful. And it sounds like this
was just one, the whole body was just one infected mass of
pain and tender flesh. It doesn't say it's boiled. In other words, the whole flesh,
their whole body was infected. Do you see what we're getting
at here? Their whole body was infected, so much so, until these
blains, means it erupted. The infected boil bursts. Have you ever seen that? These
nurses, everybody, we've all seen that. It's putrefying, corrupt,
it's awful. What does God say about flesh?
Isaiah 1, Isaiah chapter 1, this is exactly what God says about
all flesh, mankind by nature, doesn't it? The poor beasts,
look at Isaiah 1, it says in verse 2, Here, O heavens, give
ear, O earth, the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought
up children, they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his
own. They ask his master's crib. Israel does not know. My people
don't. They do not consider. Sinful nation, a people laden
with iniquity, full of iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
that are corruptors. They've forsaken the Lord. They've
provoked the Holy One of Israel. And the anger, they're going
way backward. Why should you be stricken anymore?
God keeps sending these things. You'll revolt more and more.
Here's the problem, verse 5. The whole head is sick. The mind. Our society is sick, isn't it? What used to be called perversion
is normal now. And they're trying to force it
upon us. The whole head is sick, the whole
heart is fainting. Listen, read it with me. From
the sole of the foot, man's walk to the head, to his thoughts
and his talk, there's no soundness in it but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores that have not been closed or bound up,
neither mollified with ointment. That's what people would say
now. Gross, isn't it? That's what God says about mankind.
This is what the Bible says about man. You know, man's speech and
ways are so graphically gross today. They use words like, a
four-letter word for fornication that children use it. It's just
filth. I don't think a thing about it.
Right? It's a filthy word. But when God says something about
man in graphically gross language that really tells us what man
is like, people say, oh no, not me. I'm not that bad. Right? You let God say the truth
about man and he won't hear it. But man can just spew, his mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness and filth and all that. God's
Word does not mince words. He does not gloss over the infection,
the filth of man. The man knows, that's not me.
I'm not that bad. I've done some bad things. I'm
not as bad as that man. Whenever God ever speaks to you,
you'll say, I'm Mary Magdalene. I'm a thief on the cross. I'm
the prodigal son. I'm Barabbas. I'm not fit to live. And you'll
smell yourself. You'll begin to smell the putrefying
soy oil. But here's the difference. It
says that none of the cattle of Israel died. And none of the
people had these spoils. If they did, they were mollified
with ointment. They were bound up and closed
up and covered and mollified with ointment. What is that?
That's the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the robe of His righteousness. God in great mercy. And he does
that through the balm of Gilead. He sends the gospel which is
the balm of Gilead to his people that feel and smell this boil
of putrefied flesh. And God in great mercy tells
them how filthy they are. And they run to the fountain
and plunge in that fountain filled with blood. And come out like
old Naaman, clean as a baby. Look at verse 11. The Egyptians
are the magicians. We've seen this, that the magicians
represent false preachers and magic. They've got all their
magic and they try to duplicate the things. And they did some
things, strong delusions. But they're not, they're just
sorcerers. And they couldn't stand, it says,
before Moses. Couldn't stand before Moses.
And men, false prophets, no one can stand before God's Word.
When accused before God, you cannot stand before God. They
literally could not stand before Moses and men like Elijah. There were 850 false prophets
and one true prophet. 850 against one, and none of
them could stand. In the end, 850 prophets were
slain by the Word of Elijah. Kill them all. Oh, that's severe. I'll kill them all. And one man's
left standing. One man. Who? The man that stood
for God. Stood for the truth. So, boils
and blames. And look at the next thing. Next
thing. Look at, well, let's look at
this verse. I'm running out of time. I may
have to split this up for the time sake. He said in verse 13,
Rise up early, Moses, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto
him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews. You know, people
don't believe this is God's Word. They don't believe that. It's
the words of men. But we do, don't we? We know
it's Him. He says in verse 14, I will at
this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy
servants, upon thy people, that thou mayest know there's none
like me in all the earth. Nobody's God. God is saying,
everybody's going to know that I'm God and there's no one else. Man's not God, Satan's not God,
no one has any power over anything, no one sins anything but me,
God said. No one and nothing, not natural
phenomena, it's not bad luck, it's me, God said. You're going
to know, the whole world, Egypt's going to know, I'm God and beside
me there's none else. What does that create? What should
that create? Fear. Fear the Lord. The God in whose hands our breath
is in all our ways. That created fear. Make a call on Him. I've sinned against this God.
And you'll cry out, God have mercy upon me. And he'll show
you the substitute. He'll show you Christ. Like all
of Israel, in the end they all saw that one great reason why
the Lord spared them all and brought them out of Egypt and
didn't kill them was the blood of a lamb. That's it. That's it. And they kept doing
that, remembering that, worshipping God around that shed blood all
their life. All their life. So he said in
verse 4 and 15, I'll stretch out my hand and smite thee and
thy people with pestilence and thou shalt be cut off from the
earth. And he said, tell Pharaoh this. that in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up, to show in thee my power, and
that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. Have
you read that before? See, all this is written and
remembered and rehearsed again in the New Testament. Look at
Romans 9, and I'll quit. Romans chapter 9. I already quoted
some of Romans 1. It talks about the wrath of God
revealed from heaven because that which is known of God or
should be known of God, the invisible things, is eternal power in Godhead. They're all without excuse, but
they don't know God. They don't glorify God. They
profess to be wise, but they're just fools. And it changed the
glory of God into the corruptible thing. It changed the truth of
God so God gave them up to vile affections. And on and on it
goes in Romans 1. And it ends in Romans 1 saying,
knowing the judgment of God against those that commit such things
that are worthy of death, yet they do the same and they take
pleasure in those that do. It doesn't matter. Harden their
heart. Well, Romans 9, and all the way
through Romans, for God's people, He shows them that, is there
any difference between a Jew and a Gentile? Huh? No, they're
all come short of the glory of God. They're all by nature. None
good. No, not one. None righteous. No, none that
seek after and call after God. None. But God chose a people. convicted them of their sin,
sent the gospel, which is Christ, a substitute for His people,
their righteousness. Not our good deeds, it's His. It's not our works, it's His.
It's not even our faith, it's His. That's what Romans said,
doesn't it, Brother John? From chapter 3 all the way through,
oh my, I'd love to read some of those verses. And he gets
to Romans 9, he starts talking about the sovereign election
of God. Look at it, Romans 9. The world
hates this. Oh, Israel doesn't. God's people
don't. Read it with me, verse 13. It's
written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Who hated
that? Esau did. Who loved that? Jacob. Jacob. And the Word of God is
not, the promises of God are not to one single Esau, but they're
to every son of Jacob. True history. Read on. What shall we say then, is there
unrighteousness with God because he loved one and hated the other? This was mercy to Jacob. Jacob deserved the wrath of God
as much as Esau. Verse 15, He said to Moses, I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. What does mercy mean?
Mercy means not getting what you deserve. In other words,
you're guilty. The soul that sins shall surely
die. That's what the Scripture said. You're guilty. Whatsoever
things the law saith, saith unto them that under the law of the...
All the world, every human being, mouth stopped guilty before God. The wages we've earned as well. But God, who's rich in mercy,
says of some, I'm going to have mercy on her. See, mercy, by
definition, is sovereign. It's not up to you to accept
it or decide upon it. It's up to the person you've
offended to show that mercy. And it's God that we've sinned
against and it's up to Him. It's not, well, I've decided
to let you It's not funny. What if a hardened criminal,
committed murder, walked into a court of law and said, Judge,
I've decided to let you forgive me. Yeah, last night I made my
decision and I've decided for you to be my personal judge.
I'm going to let you be my savior, and later on I'll let you be
my lord. What would that judge do? Bailiff,
bind him hand and foot and cast him out of here. That's what men say about God.
Read on. He says in verse 15, I will have
mercy. That's amazing that God would
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will have compassion
or be gracious. on whom I will have compassion.
So then, man talks about his free will. That's a myth. That's a fable. That is blasphemy. To have free will is to do whatever
you will, when you will, because you will, and nobody can do anything
about it. There's only one that has free will. It's God. He said, I will. So then, it
is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, It's of
God that showeth mercy. Don't care what you will do,
or run, or do, or what you do. It's of God that showeth mercy.
Verse 17, the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this same purpose
have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, the most
powerful man on earth, that no man on earth could stand before
him. God sent a shepherd named Moses and stood right in his
face. Why didn't this man just say,
kill that shepherd, Moses? He couldn't. He couldn't touch
him. God wouldn't let him. And Moses said, thus saith the
Lord, let my people go. If not, God's going to kill you. He laughed like Pilate, like
Herod. What is that? What is that? He said, I raise thee up, show
my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout
all the earth. Verse 18, Therefore hath he mercy
on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. Now, we've been reading that,
Edwin. It says that Pharaoh hardened
his heart. And it says God hardened his heart. Which is it? Both.
No. Because God didn't choose him. And God kept sending these things,
and the more things he sent, and then when God removed it,
the harder his heart got. And that's man. God sends a plague,
like COVID, and everybody, oh, oh, oh. Maybe some people calling
on God, maybe, I don't know, but when God removes it, where's
all that? fear and worry. It just hardens people. And He's
going to send something in. You know, He's going to send
something in. It won't take much to put man in a frenzy. It's hard, hard. And the only
thing that will soften God's heart is God in mercy. It says, you're mine, and I've
chosen you, and I've come to reveal the truth about me and
about you and about your salvation. And it'll break your heart. From
then on, you'll live with a broken heart. Okay.