Let's go back to the book of
Exodus now. I'm going to go over to chapter
8 again tonight. Last week I spoke to you on one
word, frogs. And tonight I have another one
word title and it's lice. Lice. Elementary school teachers
dread when it infects the students in the classroom. Lice. Our Lord determined and purposed
to send ten plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian people. He said
he didn't know the Lord. This was his confession before
Moses. When Moses said, the Lord said,
thus said the Lord, let my people go. Pharaoh says, who is the
Lord? I don't know your God. I know
all the gods that I worship and bow down to in reverence, but
I don't know your God. Well, he's beginning to commence
to find out who the God of Israel is. He's the God who turned the river
into blood. Why, Pharaoh reverenced the Nile
River, as did all of the Egyptians. And Moses, you will remember,
was sent by the Lord early in the morning. He went down by
the river's edge. He got there before Pharaoh did.
Pharaoh's going down to render his morning homage to the Nile
River. And there, when he got to his
favorite place of worship and reverencing and whatever else
he did there at the River Nile, when he got there, he found a
very courageous and brave preacher standing between him and his
God. And Moses spoke to him about
the God of glory. And then, of course, the river
that Pharaoh reverenced and idolized, it was turned to blood. There
was no life in it. Because, you see, the river pictured
false religion. There's no life in false religion. False religion, certainly it's
very popular today. I recognize that. And droves
of people are encompassed by false religion, but there's no
life in it. It's a river of death. That's
what it is. It's a river of death. And Moses dared to come between
the king and his God. And in a sense, the Lord enabled
him to kill Pharaoh's god for a little while. And that's what led me to read
that passage of scripture out of 2nd King about Hezekiah because
he was an idol smasher. And you see, that's what Moses
was doing when he stood before the Nile River, standing in between
Pharaoh and his God. Moses was an idol smasher. And really, every preacher of
the gospel, we stand before people and we try to expose the foolishness
of and the death of the gods that they worship. There's only
one true and living God. He's the God of our salvation.
He's the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God of grace.
He's the God of mercy. He's the God of salvation. He's
the God who's sovereign, all-powerful, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He's the God who reigns over
everything and everybody. That's the God we preach. And
we try to expose the foolishness of worshiping
the gods that people worship today. They worship God, they
call him God, but he's weak, he can't fulfill his will, he
can't accomplish his purpose. They call him Jesus, but he's
a helpless Jesus. He has no hands but your hands.
He has no feet but your feet. He has no eyes but your eyes.
He needs you. That's their God. And if you try to kill that God
that people worship, though they may call Him Jesus, you try to
kill that God, they're going to get upset with you, just like
Pharaoh got upset with Moses. and they worship the Holy Spirit,
that's what they call Him, but it's a Holy Spirit who can do
nothing toward the good of the sinner unless the sinner says,
it's okay, I give you permission to work with me. And we're trying
to kill people's God. And if I've described the God
that somebody out there watching tonight, or listen to this CD,
or somebody in here, if I've described the God that you worship,
I'm trying my best to smash that idol. Of course, only the Holy
Spirit can really do that and show you that the only God, the
only God to be worshipped is the Lord God of glory, the Creator,
the Preserver, The sovereign, the one who works all things
after the counsel of his own will, the God who saves sinners,
not by their works, not by their will, not by their ways, but
by free and sovereign grace. That's a God we worship and that's
a God we preach. And I'm trying to tell people,
God doesn't need you. A fellow told me when I was in
the hospital, he said, he said, I've given my heart to God. What's
he gonna do with it? What's he gonna do with your
defiled heart? What's he gonna do with your
corrupt heart? He has everything. He has everything
and you have nothing. Now who needs who here? It's
the Lord who gives and we're the ones who are beggars. What
your father-in-law said, we're mercy beggars. That's what we
are, mercy beggars. We don't have one thin spiritual
dime. We can make no contribution to
our salvation. Oh God, show me mercy for Christ's
sake. That's our plea, isn't it? were idol smashers, following in the line of Hezekiah. Well, that didn't change Pharaoh's
heart, because you see, judgments never will. Judgments will never
bring about repentance. Hold your place here. And I'll
read the passage. I want you to hear it a little
bit. But go over to the book of Revelation. Chapter 16. Revelation chapter 16. Judgment
won't bring about repentance. It won't bring about salvation. Now God may use them in a way
to get your attention. But they won't give you spiritual
life, and they won't lead you to Christ. Let me show you this. Look here. You're in Revelation
chapter 16. Look at verse 8. And the fourth angel poured out
his vial upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch
men with fire. and men were scorched with great
heat and blasphemed the name of God which hath power over
these plagues, and they repented not to give Him glory." Throughout all of these various
judgments, ten judgments, ten plagues that God brought upon
Pharaoh, did any of them, did any of those plagues break his
heart? and lead him to cry out to God
for grace and mercy and salvation? Did any of those judgments do
that? No. They weren't designed to. Only one thing is going to break
the heart. That's the grace of God through Christ Jesus. Oh,
grace. Grace is a powerful thing. And
it'll do the work. But judgments won't. Judgments
won't. So God sent the, then he sent
the frogs. And we talked about that last
week. There are frogs everywhere. In the bedroom, in the bed, in
the kneading trough, in the kitchen, in whatever kind of ice box they
had. Jumping up on the table. When moms went to make bread,
frogs was in the bread dough. Tell you what, I like a lot of
things on bread. I like butter on bread. I like
honey on bread. I like jelly on bread. I like
peanut butter on bread. In fact, the other day I made
myself what I consider a delicacy of a sandwich, peanut butter
and mayonnaise sandwich. I like peanut butter and mayonnaise
on bread, but I don't think I want frog juice on bread." The frogs
were everywhere. And Pharaoh said to Moses, Pray
to your God, entreat from me what you want me to pray, Pharaoh. You know, a lot of times people
will call me, I'm sure Bill's got Good number of calls, too,
and people say, I want you to pray for so and so, won't you?
Well, you want me to pray? I'm gonna pray the Lord's will
be done. That's what we'll pray. Pharaoh said, entreat the Lord
for me. What do you want? Take the frogs
away, okay? When do you want them taken away?
And we talked about this last week. He said, tomorrow. Tomorrow,
you'd think any sane person would say, I'd like for him to be gone
yesterday. I want him to be gone right now.
But he said tomorrow because he hoped that he wouldn't have
to acknowledge that the Lord took the frogs away. He still
hoped his magicians could somehow or another take them away or
some kind of natural disaster or whatever could take the frogs
away. He said tomorrow. Well, and the Lord did. He took
the frogs away and gave him respite. And you'll notice here, look
at verse 15 of chapter eight, but when Pharaoh saw that there
was respite, that God took the judgment away, now it's quiet
again. I told somebody, I started to
entitle that message last week, Ribbit Ribbit by Frogs. Everything's quiet. No more frogs
in the house. But when Pharaoh saw there was
respite, he hardened his heart. And he hearkened not unto them
as the Lord had said. He's not going to let Israel
go. They're his slaves. They're his servants. You see,
Egypt is always a picture of the world, and Pharaoh's a picture
of a portrait of Satan. Satan's not going to let us go.
He holds all men captive at his will. You go ahead and exercise
your free will all you want to. That don't bother Satan. The
only thing he fears is the sovereign will of God. Because that's the
only will that can drive Satan out when Christ comes in and
establishes His throne in the heart of a sinner. Only one Satan
fears is the will of the Son of God. He's not afraid of your
will. Well, your will is easily manipulated
by Him. And here's Pharaoh. He hardened
his heart. And he was enjoying the respite. But look at 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 smote the dust of the earth. And all of the
dust of the earth became lice in man and in beast. And all the dust of the land
became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians
did so with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they
could not. So there were lice upon man and
upon beast. Then the magician said unto Pharaoh,
this is the finger of God. And Pharaoh's heart was hardened
and he hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said. Lice, lice. It's an interesting study when
you think of lice. These are parasites. And they latch on to humans and
beasts or animals because they like warm-blooded hosts. And these lice with their, and
they're just little bitty fellows. They take hold of flesh, and
they're bloodsuckers. They're parasites. And they won't let go. The only
thing you can do, and we've got some elementary school teachers
in here, retired, and some active. When that happens, when one kid
in the class gets lice, everybody's got to get that medicated shampoo. My kid doesn't have lice. We
keep our house clean. Because you see, lice is associated
with uncleanness, whether right or wrong. That's what it's associated
with. And you can't get rid of them
except through a special kind of medicated shampoo. And you
see, lice really represents, it's a picture of you and me
because our sin feeds on our flesh. We're parasites. You see, the
lice, they are bloodsuckers. And the world is filled with
bloodsuckers, and we're among them. We're among them. The Scripture says that all the
dust of the land became lice. This is significant because they
worshipped the earth as a god. Just like they worshipped the
Nile River, just like they worshipped the frogs, so they worshipped
the lice. Lice are disgusting creatures. And God sent an army of them
to afflict the Egyptian people. You see, God often uses very
small things to confound the wise. And I'll have you know,
all of creation awaits the nod of their Maker to inflict any
kind of punishment the Lord ordains upon His enemies. They're all
His ready servants. Lice. I found out, I didn't know
a whole lot about lice. plural form of louse. Look it up. It's a biting, a
louse is a biting, blood-sucking parasite. And we often use a form of louse
in our conversation. We say, he's a lousy person.
That's not a really good thing to say about somebody. Because
what you're saying is, he's a blood-sucking parasite on society. And there
are a bunch of them around. If you're a louse, you're a despicable
person. You're a horrible person. Sometimes
we use the word louse this way. Well, he loused that up. Or if I said to you, I had a
lousy day, that means I had a horrible day, I had a miserable day. And
if somebody louses something up, he made a mess of things. In other words, really, lice
sets forth mankind in our true light in the Word of God. Because really, We're like parasites
in this world, taking from God all that He gives us and always
want more. We're like parasites. In that,
we're kind of like the hungry pigs that are eating the acorns
that fall from the oak tree and never look up to see where they
come from. That's all men and women by nature. We're like lice. The Bible sets us forth in a
two-fold way that really exposes our rottenness and our depravity. We're like lice and maggots. Boy, you think about that. You
say, Jim, you ought not You ought not to say things like that.
You're going to turn people against the gospel. Listen, the whole
need not a physician, but those that are sick. If God the Spirit
ever shows us, number one, the holiness of God, The strictness
of who He is and our own depravity as lice in this world and as
maggots in this world. If we ever learn who God is and
what we really are in ourselves, that's when we'll need a Savior.
That's when we'll come to Christ. That's when the gospel will be
more than just something we have a passing interest in. We'll
say, Oh God, this is the gospel I need. This is the Savior I
desire. To know Him. To be found in Him. To be washed in His blood. There's
the medicated shampoo that washes away our lice and our maggots
by nature. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the blood of the cross. And that's when we'll get interested
in righteousness. Me? I'm just a louse. I'm just a louse. I'm just a maggot. Well, Christ
Jesus is Jehovah Sid Canoe, the Lord our righteousness. What
about that? He died to put away our sins
and He did it. And in His death He established
for us a righteousness that He imputes to all who believe Him. Our sins were imputed to Him,
His righteousness imputed to us. Yes, I'm a wiggling maggot
and I'm like a louse in this world, but I have the Lord Jesus
Christ for my righteousness. What about that? So I don't mind
people telling me that I'm a sinner. because this is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Go ahead and call
me chief, that's fine. The more you can prove to me
I'm a sinner, the more qualified I am for the great physician
and that healing sweet balm of the shampoo that washes my lice
away. I tell you, a lot of synonyms
for louse. I got that word, Joe told me
where to find that word, program, put it on my computer, so I was
looking at the thesaurus. on the word louse. Here's some
synonyms. Scoundrel, see if any of these
fit you. Scoundrel, good for nothing. Parasite, villain, weasel, wretch, vermin, low life,
scuzzball, nuisance. It's not a complimentary way
to refer to anybody as a louse, but I'm a louse by nature, and
so are you. I will tell you this, You'll
find this interesting, the common louse. Remember, that's singular
for lice. The common louse is very productive. In the space of 12 days, a full-grown
female lays 100 eggs, from which, in the space of six days, 50 males and 50 females are produced. 18 days these young females are
at their full growth and each one of them will lay a hundred
eggs Which will all be hatched in six more days? So in six weeks
that the parents that started it all will see 5,000 of their
inhabitants and And I'll tell you the way it
is with lice. They're very contagious. And you know that, right? I know
Nancy sometimes comes home and says, oh, I found lice. And the
nurse found lice in somebody's hair. And now we all got to go
to the drugstore and buy this kind of medicine, because it
spreads like wildfire. That's sin. That's sin. And we're all infected with it. See, our father Adam, he sinned,
and he passed it on to the rest of us. I've got news for you. You're
a sinner whether you feel like a sinner, whether you think you're
a sinner. You're a sinner because God says
you're a sinner. And you're a sinner because of
the disobedience of one man. By one man's transgression, you
and I and the whole world became a bunch of lice. But the good news is by the obedience
of another representative man, Christ Jesus. He brought in righteousness for
all that he represented. We're made sinners through the
representation of Adam. And we're made righteous through
the representation and the one act, his death, of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lice. I was studying this today and
I kept doing this and I thought I had something crawling up my
leg. We're covered over with it. You
see, in a spiritual way, we're covered over with it. And our
only hope, your only hope, my only hope, you watching out there
in your living room or wherever it is, in your kitchen, wherever
you are, the only hope is the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
That's the only hope you got. Desire to do better ain't going
to get rid of the lice. You'll still be scratching. It's
an application of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. That's the
cure right there. That's the cure. And of course, despite their
so-called magic, the magicians of Egypt couldn't Couldn't take
care of the lice. When it comes to spiritual lice,
though, we're all unclean, we're all infected. But I'm telling
you, there's a cure for us vermin. Is that too rough? We're vermin,
aren't we? I remember Scott Richardson preaching
right here Years ago in a Bible conference, he said something
that some people went, oh. He said, all of us together not
worth a bucket of warm spit. Do you remember him saying that?
Do you remember that? I remember that. It kind of took
me back a little bit. Then I got to thinking about
it. That's kind of putting it mildly. The fact of the matter
is there are two things you can never, ever fully describe. Our own sinfulness and the glorious, matchless grace
of God to us through the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Those things are beyond description. Let me give you one more thing
here, and I'll quit. You know, it's very interesting
to study this, and if you've got A.W. Pink on the book of
Exodus, he does a really good job on this. But you know, there
are 10 plagues. Of course, the last one stands
on its own, because everything's building toward that. Because
everything always builds toward the death of the substitute. The death of the firstborn. The
death of the lamb. Everything's building toward
that. So that 10th one, that's in a category all by itself.
But as far as the first nine plagues, it's three sets of threes. And it's interesting in plague
number one and plague number two, God warned them. He said,
go tell Pharaoh, let my people go or else, God warn. But you know when it came to
the third one, the plague of lice, there wasn't any warning. And then you're going to have
four and five, there'll be warnings there, but the sixth one, the
plague of bulls, not going to be a warning. It's just going
to come. There's no Moses and Aaron saying,
the Lord said, let my people go, or else. No warning with
the third one, no warning with the sixth one, and no warning
with the ninth one, which is a plague of darkness. So I say all of that to say this,
God doesn't always warn you that the end is coming, that the judgment
is coming. It may come without warning. He that is often reproved and
hardens his heart shall be cut off, and that without remedy. I kept on thinking about it.
I can't get it out of my mind that Pharaoh said, tomorrow,
tomorrow. Scripture talks about today's
the day of salvation. Not tomorrow. I've talked to
people, said, well, you know, after I've sowed my wild oaks,
et cetera, et cetera, yeah, I'll get serious about these things.
Well, maybe you will, maybe you won't. Depends on the grace of
God. Depends on the purpose of God. And I'll tell you this. May God be pleased to give you
an interest in the gospel of his grace right now. Because you don't have any promise
about tomorrow. And I don't know what God's going
to do with you. He'll do as He pleases with you. But if I was
you, I'd seek the Lord while He may be found. Am I right? I'd call upon Him while He's
there. He's pretty close here tonight. Because we're talking
about the gospel of His Son. We're talking about substitution.
Talking about satisfaction. Talking about the blood. Talking
about righteousness. He's pretty close tonight. If
I was you, I'd do what I'm doing now. Lord, I'm coming to you all over
again. I'm just a poor old sorry, blood-sucking
sinner. But I sure need Christ, and I'm
looking to the Lamb of God for full salvation. May God enable
all of us. It's of God, isn't it? The Lord's
going to have to open our hearts. I was writing a Sunday school
lesson today on how God opened the heart of Lydia so that she
attended to the things that were spoken to her by the Apostle
Paul. May God open your heart and pour in His grace. And you'll never get over it.
You'll be forever praising His name for His marvelous grace. Well, get your psalm books one
more time. Let's close this out.