Evening so far I Want to talk
about God's judgments and how they started and why they started
and You know, we talked about God hardening for Pharaoh's heart
last week, but let's start reading together here in verse 14 and
the Lord said unto Moses I Pharaoh's heart is hardened. He refuses
to let the people go. Get thee unto Pharaoh in the
morning. Lo, he goeth out under the water, and thou shalt stand
by the river's brink against he come. And the rod which was
turned into a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand, and thou
shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent
me unto thee, saying, Let my people go, that they may serve
me in the wilderness. And behold, hitherto thou wouldst
not hear. Thus saith the Lord, In this
thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Behold, I will smite with
the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in
the river, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish
that is in the river shall die. And the river stink shall stink,
and the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the
river. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying unto Aaron, Take thy rod, stretch out thine hand upon the
waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, upon their
ponds, upon all their pools of water. that they may become blood,
and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in
vessels of wood and in vessels of stone. And Moses and Aaron
did so as the Lord commanded. And he lifted up the rod, smote
the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in
the sight of his servants, and all the waters that were in the
river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the
river died, and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink
of the water of the river, and there was blood throughout all
the land of Egypt. And the magicians of Egypt did
so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh's heart was hardened,
neither did he hearken unto them as the Lord had said. Pharaoh
turned and went into his house and said his heart to this also
and all the Egyptians dig around about the river for water to
drink but they could not drink of the water of the river and
seven days were fulfilled after that the Lord had smitten the
river Pharaoh Pharaoh tells us later
his name's Ramesses but Pharaoh had taken upon himself to withstand
God to withstand God Almighty. He took it upon himself to stand
toe-to-toe with God, face-to-face with God, refused to hear the
voice of God, refused to do what God said for him to do. And so
God justly, justly brings judgment upon him, upon his people. Now
while you hold this, look over here in Exodus chapter 9, verse
13. Look what it says over here,
Exodus 9, 13. And these judgments were known
as the plagues of Egypt. God sent 10 plagues upon Egypt,
10 judgments upon Egypt. And verse 13 says this, Moses
stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord
brought an east wind. I'm in the wrong chapter, I'm
sorry. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and
say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let
my people go that they may serve me. And I will at this time send
all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon
thy people, that thou mightest know that there is none like
me in all the earth. for now I will stretch out my
hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence and
thou shall be cut off from the earth and in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up for to show in thee my power and
that my name may be declared throughout all the earth so he
took it upon himself and God said I raise you up for this
purpose Moses I'm going to smite you I'm going to smite your people. I'm going to smite everything
that belongs to you. I'm going to smite it. And these judgments
were known as the plagues of Egypt. And I'm going to tell
you something personally. I'm going to quit preaching and
tell you something that I feel like. I feel like the judgment
of God has been on our nation for quite some time. And I've
seen a thing the other day. We need God in America. You know
where we need God? We need Him in us. We need Him
in our hearts. We need Him personally. God's
not the God of the Americans. God's the God of His people.
He's not the God over any one nation. He's the God of all of
His elect, no matter where they are. And so there were 10 of
these judgments. The first one, water into blood.
The first thing He did, He turned water into blood. Where our Savior
turned water into wine. Frogs, second one was frogs covered
the land. The third was lice was brought
to be on all the people and on all the cattle. Lice all over. And the fourth plague and the
fourth judgment was this. Swarms of flies covered everything
including the ground. Flies is nasty, lice is nasty. I remember somebody had all kinds
of lice and they never got rid of them. Swarms of flies covered everything
including the ground. There's nothing natural in a
fly. We just fight them all the time in the summertime. Oh flies
is awful. And then he sent a grievous,
grievous disease to smoke all the cattle and all of his horses.
Smoked them all. And the sixth judgment was this,
boils and sores were sent on man and all the animals. And
all the animals. And you know you think Pharaoh
would finally get the message, let's let these people get out
of here. These people, oh listen, this
God has got the power like I never had any idea He was this power. I had no idea that he would have
such judgments upon a people. But every time God sent him,
I ain't gonna let him go. I ain't gonna let him go. I ain't
gonna let him go. It's like Satan, you know, said
as long as he's got his goods and they're safe, They belonged
to him except a stronger man arm comes upon him and spoils
his goods Well a stronger man arm come upon Pharaoh And then
the seventh one was thunder and hail Came down God sent thunder
and hail and it came down and that hail went across the ground
just like fire It's like fire says here Hail and thunder God
thundered and hail fell and it just turned to fire on the ground And the eighth flag was locusts. Locusts ate all the herbs and
all the vegetables over all Egypt. Do you all remember, this has
been years ago, I don't know how long ago it was, but all
these locusts come out of the ground and out of all the trees
and they just, I mean they just took over everything. They just,
you could just hear them things just... Everywhere you went,
them things were just making all this noise. It was awful. It was just absolutely awful.
I went to Cincinnati and I was walking on the thing and it was
crunching under my feet. Locusts. And locusts eat everything. And then, this is one of the awfulest
ones he ever sent. And you know why he sent this
one? He sent thick darkness. And the scripture said, which
might be felt for three days. Darkness so dark that you could
feel it. Couldn't see. Darkness so dark
for three days. You want darkness? You don't
want God. You don't want light. You don't
want grace. You don't want mercy. Darkness. Men love darkness rather
than light. Light shined in darkness and
the darkness comprehended it not. And oh, he said he sits
such a darkness three days. And he said, Oh, listen, you
don't want me. I'll show you what darkness is.
Without me, there ain't no light. Without me, you're gonna sit
in darkness. Without me, and doing something
for you, you'll live in darkness, die in darkness, and spend eternity
in darkness. And here's the last flag. Y'all
remember what it was. He said, Pharaoh, since you wouldn't
let my people go, at midnight tonight, I'm going to send my
angel through Egypt. And I'm going to kill the firstborn
of everything in Egypt. I'm going to kill the firstborn.
Man and beast. There was such a wailing, such
a mourning, such an awful, awful thing to say. Look over here
at Psalm 105. Let's look at Psalm 105. You know, our Lord I can just imagine somebody going
up to Pharaoh and saying, now listen, Pharaoh, God loves you. He really does. He really loves
you very much. I wish you'd start paying attention
to him. He's just doing this, Pharaoh,
I mean, just to get your attention. But he really does love you.
That's what preachers would say. That's what they are saying. Put on the back of the ark, you
know, a great big smiley face. Smile, God loves you. Go through
Egypt, go through there and tell all them folks, oh listen, God
loves you, God loves you, God loves you, Jesus died for you,
come on, come on, let God have his way with you. Oh my, look here in verse 26. He sent Moses his servant and
Aaron among whom he had chosen. They showed his signs among them
and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness and made it
dark and they rebelled not against his word. He turned their waters
into blood and slew their fish. Their land brought forth frogs
in abundance in the chambers of their kings. He spake, and
there came divers, sort of flies and lice in all their coast.
He gave them hail for rain and flaming fire in their land. He
smote their vines also in their big trees and break the trees
of their coast. He spake, and the locusts came
in caterpillars and that without number, and did up all the herbs
in their land and devoured the fruit of the ground. And he smote
also the firstborn in their land, the chief of their strength."
Oh my! You know, this is something that
God has promises. He has promises. But He also
in them promises, He has judgments. Over here is love, over here
is grace, over here is mercy. over here is justice and over
here men that refuse to hear him, men that refuse to believe
him over here is nothing but judgment and just condemnation if he promises life he also says
there is going to be death if he promises life he also says
there is going to be darkness and let me tell you the purpose
of these judgments the purpose of these plagues that God sent
upon them The first reason was that they publicly manifest the
mighty power of God Himself. Listen, God's got all power.
And Shirley was talking this morning about being in the hands
of God. And I said, you couldn't be in a better place than in
God's hand. We can't be in a better hand
than God's hand. We're in the hand of the Lord
to do whatsoever He will with us. And there's not a safer place
in this universe to be than in the hand of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I tell you what, and this is the reason he raised up Pharaoh.
David said it this way, God has spoken once, yet twice have I
heard, that all power belongeth unto the Lord. Now if he's got
all power, that means nobody else has got any. Here's the
most mightiest man on the face of the earth, and God himself
just keeps on putting it on him. And the second thing was, there
was a visitation of God's wrath. God visits people in wrath. A
punishment of favor on His people to the cruelty they showed the
Lord's people. One thing you don't want to do
is you don't want to treat God's people bad. You don't want to
mistreat God's people. And that's what He did. They
mistreated the Lord's people. They were not only mean to them,
they were cruel to them. They treat them cruelly. And
I tell you when you treat the Lord Jesus' people cruelly, He's
going to get even with somebody. He said he would avenge his elect
which cry unto him day and night. And our Lord said unto them,
Woe unto them who should offend one of these, my little ones.
should hurt them, offend them, shame them, treat them bad, treat
them cruelly. He said it would be better for
them to have a millstone thrown around their neck and thrown
into the depths of the sea as to offend one of these little
ones. And that's what he calls us, his little ones. And beloved,
and that's what Pharaoh, Pharaoh himself, look what he said over
here in Exodus 10 verse 16. Look what Pharaoh said about
it. He finally admitted it. Ephesians 10, 16. And he said, let my people go.
I'm just going to make it harder on them, harder on them. Look
what Pharaoh said finally in verse 16. Then Pharaoh called for Moses
and Aaron in haste. And he said, now listen to what
he says now. I have sinned against the Lord
your God and against you." He admitted it. I've sinned against
the Lord God and against you. Huh? And you was reading tonight
about Paul and the Damascus Road. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
said. He said, Who are thou, Lord? He said, I'm Jesus whom thou
persecutest. Why did He say, whom thou persecutest? Because everything he did against
Christ and his people, he did it against Christ. Every child
of God that he put in jail, every child of God that he punished,
every child of God he delivered unto death, Christ said, you
did it unto me. You're doing this to me. Doing this to me. And then third
thing, they were judgments of God upon the gods of Egypt, the
demons of Egypt. It said over in one place, I
can't remember where it's at. But he says, you know, there's
always little gods. That there were lots of gods
in Egypt. Lots of gods. The Nile River
was a god. The sun was a god. Frogs were
gods. But they had lots of gods. Lots
of gods. And God, it says over, I think
it's in Numbers, He said He came down and brought judgments upon
the gods of Egypt. Upon the gods of Egypt. And there
is a lot of little gods in this world. You know where most of
them are manufactured? Right up here. And here's the
fourth reason. These flags, these judgments
showed that Jehovah was high above all other gods. High above
all other gods. I want to show you something
over here in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Look here with me in 1 Corinthians
chapter 8. You know, when Rahab, she heard
about God, when they was going to make
Jericho walls of Jericho fall down, she said, Oh, please remember,
I've heard about your God. I've heard about him. I heard
about what he done down in Egypt. I heard about how he destroyed
all those gods. I heard about all of his judgments.
Would you please, would you please, if I hide you, would you please save us? Would you save us from
your God? Oh, look what it says here in
verse 4, 1 Corinthians 8, 4. As concerning, therefore, the
eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols,
we know that an idol is nothing. It's nothing. It's got no life
in it. It's got no hope in it. It's got nothing. It's nothing.
It has nothing to do. It cannot help a man. An idol
cannot do anything for any man. It's nothing in the world. And
listen to this, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are
called gods, gods, as there are gods many and lords many, but
to us, but to us, there is but one God. the Father, of whom
are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom are all things, and we by Him." Oh my, he said, lots of Gods,
lots of Lords, but to us, to us, to us, and you know The Lord
Jesus, the Jesus that people this generation knows, he's not
even close to being the Jesus that we worship. The Lord Jesus
Christ that we call him. Don't even come close. They don't
even resemble one another. They don't even resemble one
another. The one today has no power. No power, he has no power. He's
bound by man. He's bound by man's judgments.
Bound by man's imagination. Bound by man's will. Bound by
man's thoughts. He's way too small. Way too small. He's so human that you can cause
Him to cry. He's so human that you can hurt
His heart. He's so human that He'll cry
over you if you don't let Him have His way with you. That's how small He is. But the
One we're talking about here, the One by whom are all things,
and we are in Him, we live in by Him, we move by Him, everything
we have comes from Him. It's Him. And I'm telling you,
beloved, He, He, He ain't never begged one time. He has never,
ever had to stoop one time. He ain't never had to ask a man
to do anything. He ain't never, ever waited on
anybody. He does according to His will.
He said, Thou hast given him power over all flesh. What does he do about that? He
saves everyone that's been given to him. Oh, thank God. And that's what we're talking
about here. He's done this to prove that he's God. That he,
his plagues, these plagues are showing us that God, he's not
a pretender. And then here's another thing
about it, these judgments. They were a solemn warning to
other nations that God curses those who curse these people.
You curse my people and you're in trouble. You're in trouble. That's what I said about Rahab
a minute ago. She said, I've heard about you,
God. They sent some spies down there to spy out and they went
looking for him. And Rahab said, listen, hide,
hide, hide right here. And she says, now when you leave
here, would you please tell those folks when they come in here
what I did for you and saved me and God saved Rahab and her
whole family. But you know why they know where
Rahab's house was? She hung a starlet cord out her
window. Blood's been applied here. This
is where Christ is going to visit. This scarlet thread, there's
a scarlet thread going all the way through this Bible. And where
God sees that scarlet thread, he said, I'll pass over. When
I see the blood, I'll pass over. And they got up there and they
saw that scarlet and said, now where you see that scarlet, go
up there and get them folks and save them. Then the rest of this
outfit's going down. Oh, God warned Pharaoh before
it's ever plagued that he said, God warned him. God warned him. That's what he told Moses. Pharaoh's
going to get up and go out to the river. You know why he's
going to the river in the morning? He's going there to worship.
He's going over there to worship the Nile. He's going over there
to stand before that Nile and see that great Nile River and
worship there and call on his God and do all the things that
people do. Have you ever seen that Ganges
River over in India? Where all those people, they
come from all over India. So they can get in that Ganges
River. Because that Ganges River over there, that Ganges River
is sacred to them people. They worship that river. And
if they can get in that river, they think that river is going
to cleanse them and make them more acceptable. And it's one of the nastiest
rivers on the planet. Google it one of these times
and watch some of them people. They just flock to get in that
river. Just walk, just get in at one time. That's all they
want to do. That's the way Nile was. And
God says, listen, God told Moses, Moses, Pharaoh's coming out there
now. I want you to be there before
he gets there. So when he comes out there, the
first thing he's going to see is he's going to see you. He said, I want to ruin his day. I want to ruin his day. And the
first thing he does when he gets out there, there stands Moses
and Aaron. And he said, this is what I want
you to tell him. That if you don't let my people go, I'm going
to take this rod. I'm going to smite this river
and it's going to turn to blood. Your fish is going to die. And
I'm going to smite every pond. I'm going to smite every vessel.
Everything that's got water in it. If this water glass would
have been down there, it would have been turned to blood. That's
what he said, I want it in every vessel, every pond, every spout,
any water, I want it turned to blood. I want it turned to blood. And
I tell you what, he warned him before every one of these things.
And God endures with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction. How many times have you said,
how many times have you said, how can God let that go on? How
can God let that go on? He's long-suffering. So long-suffering. We count the long-suffering of
God to be salvation. And here's another thing about
these judgments of God. They became progressively worse
and worse and worse and worse and worse. They got more and more severe.
They got to where they were inconvenienced without water. And so they started
digging around the river trying to get water, you know, fresh
water around the river. And when they did get that fresh
water, you know what happened? Those magicians, they turned
that water into blood. They found some good water and
they turned that into blood to show them that they can do it
too. And they got worse and worse
and worse. They went from being inconvenienced without water
to death. Death and desolation. And these
judgments were used to establish, and God uses things to establish
their faith, the Israelites' faith, and our faith. And our
faith. He strengthened their faith by
destroying all their gods. Their false gods. They worshipped
serpents. They worshipped the Nile. They
worshipped the Fly God. He was called Basil by them.
Lord of the Flies. Lord of the flies. But oh my
God. Do you know what it's going to
be like when God winds this thing up for people who don't know
God, don't know Christ? It's going to be awful. It's
going to be awful. It's going to be horrendous. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine
what it's going to be like. I can't. And you know this is
one of the mercies that God lets us have. All of us have lost
loved ones and they died without God and they died without Christ.
Every one of us have. But here's what's the thing.
God put something in us to let us not think of it or it would
just drive us nuts. It would burden us to where we
couldn't understand it. But He put something in us. And
I tell you what, when the judgments come, when the judgments come,
and all we say is, it's the Lord, let him do what seemeth good.
Here's the eighth thing. The conduct and work of these
sorcerers and magicians in these plagues. There was three things
they counterfeited. Three things. They could turn
their rods into serpents. They could turn the water into
blood. And then they could reproduce frogs and they could do no more
The devil is an imitator He's an imitator But one thing they
couldn't do about that water into blood now if they could
have turned that water That bloody water back into water That would
have been something but you can't undo what god does And oh listen,
they could do no more. He's an imitator If he can't
destroy by violence, he'll destroy by a lie. You know, he tried
to destroy. That's what the first thing that
old Pharaoh told him. He says, now listen, kill every
one of these men, children that come out of me. I want all these
Hebrews, men, children, I want them dead. I want them killed.
When Herod heard that he that was born king of Jews was going
to be born, that night he sent somebody down there and said,
go down there and find that king so I can worship him. Couldn't find him, so you know
what he did? He sent people down there to every child, every child
that's under two years old, kill them. That's a cruel man, ain't
it? How would you like to have a
king that come in, you had a two-year-old baby, one-year-old baby, and
the king come in and then they take that baby out of your arms,
stab him in the heart. That's what, that's what And
then they want to say God's not right to judge people. Oh my! And if he can't work by violence,
he'll work by subtlety. And he'll be a counterfeiter. He causes the tares to grow up
with the wheat. You can't tell the difference.
You can't tell the difference. And he said, as Janus and Jambres
withstood Moses to his face. These are corrupt men. Corrupt
men. Deceitful men. Reprobate concerning
the faith. Well, how did they withstand?
He's talking about Janus and Jambres. How did they withstand
Moses? Well, they didn't have him thrown in prison. didn't have him thrown out of
the palace, didn't have him slain, they just tried to duplicate
his work. And this tells us how perilous,
you know when you look at this it shows us what a perilous perilous
times we live in. And what's more perilous than
anything is the falseness and the emptiness of religion. It
resists the truth. It has a form of godliness but
it resists the truth. Revist the truth. Alright, the first flag. He turned
that water into blood. Let me give you a couple things
about that. Blood, first of all, speaks of
death. That's the first thing blood speaks of. Death. When
we talk about the blood of Christ, we talk about His death. There
wouldn't be no blood without death. And on that night that
God passed over Egypt, the firstborn died. Blood speaks of death. And not only does it speak of
death, but it also speaks of salvation. Wherever God applies
the blood and God sees the blood, when He had the blood applied
and the Lamb was slain, that blood represented death. But every one where death was
inflicted, where God had the blood, He passed over. and all
of God's, all of Israel, the firstborn of every Israelite
and every whole, they died too, but where did they die at? They
died in a substitute. They died in their lamb. They
died in their lamb. And then another thing is that
this water is an emblem of God's blessed word. God's blessed word. And the word is a saver unto
life and a saver unto death. But oh, here's the thing about
it. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ. They turned
water into blood. But our Lord Jesus turned water
into wine. You know what wine is? Speaks
of? It causes your heart to rejoice. Puts joy in a man's heart. And
oh, judgment came by the law. All Moses could do was show law
and guilt and sentence us to death. But grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ. And that water that he turned
into wine, they said, oh my. Said, this is the best wine ever
been. The best wine's ever been. And our Lord Jesus Christ. Now God's
judgments, we just went through a few of them. We're gonna go
through all of them as we go on in this book. But there's
one thing about God's judgments, as we believe and as God has
taught us, That we've been judged. We have been judged. We have
not one of us got by with any sin we've ever committed. Or
ever will commit. We've not got by with them. Christ
bore them. Christ was judged for them. And God's judgment fell on our
blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And all them judgments that fell
on them down there was just. And all the judgment that God
inflicted on His Son was just. How was it just? He said, I'll
do it. I'll do it. I'll bear their sin. I'll take their judgment. I'll
endure their wrath. I'll die their death. And now, God justly, when we
come to Christ and look to Christ in Him alone, God justly receives
us because we've done been punished. We've done been judged. And that
judgment of God will never, ever, ever, ever fall on one for whom
Christ died. Never. Never. Never. It don't go fall on those outside
of him, but not on those that are in him. Our precious, precious master,
our dear Lord Jesus Christ, oh holy, holy master, our Lord,
our gracious God in heaven, blessed be your name. Lord, we're thankful that you're God and
you've got the power that you have. And you execute your judgments
and they're all just. Every one of your judgments is
just. You can bless or you can curse. You can give life or you
can leave death. But Lord, we come to you. Come
to you, thanking you, praising you. That you've already bore
all of our judgment. And we've already been brought
up out of Egypt. We've been set free. You passed
over us. We bless you for that. Oh how
we bless you for this salvation. In Christ our Lord's name. Amen. Amen. Well. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things See you Wednesday,
God willing.