All right, if you wish to follow
along, turn to Exodus chapter 11. Exodus chapter 11, I'll read
one verse as a text, but my message this morning will cover the events
of Exodus 7, verse 14, all the way through chapter 11 and verse
1. I will not deal with the last
plague as of yet. But remember, the plagues have
fallen, on Egypt. It says in verse one of chapter
11, and the Lord said unto Moses, yet will I bring one plague more
upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards he will let you go
hence. When he shall let you go, he
shall surely thrust you out hence altogether. Think about this,
Egypt's plagues, but Israel's deliverance. That which condemns
this world is the very thing that saves
God's people. The rejection of Jesus Christ
as Messiah by both Jews and Gentiles. The rejection of Jesus Christ
as Messiah will be to their eternal damnation. But it saved us. He saved us. Now remember, we
often, we know these accounts at least fairly well. We've heard
them often, heard people preach from them. And we often, I know
I had this thought, and I don't know why I had this thought,
is though Moses goes into this thing and he knows exactly what
all's going to happen, Moses did not know the number of plagues. Moses did not understand at first
the severity of these plagues. Moses did not understand the
immediate impact of these plagues. Moses knew this one thing. And
you'll read of that, you don't have to turn, but chapter three,
verse 20, it says, and I will stretch out my hand and smite
Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in the midst thereof,
and after that, he will let you go. He also knew from what we
read in chapter six and verse one, then the Lord said unto
Moses, now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with
a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall
he drive them out of his land. Also in chapter seven, you'll
see basically the same thing again. Verse one, and the Lord
said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and
Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shalt speak all
that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto
Pharaoh that he send the children of Israel out of his land, and
I will harden Pharaoh's heart. God doesn't have to put anything
evil in a man's heart to harden a man's heart. Our hearts are
hard by nature. But what God does in hardening
a man or a woman is when he presents them with the absolute truth
of God. And they cannot respond to it
in faith and love. That hardens the heart. And I
will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and wonders
in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken
unto you that I may lay my hand upon Egypt. Let me just stop
there. This God that is perpetrated
on men and women in our day is nothing but a figment of evil
men's imagination. God Almighty is exactly that. He is God Almighty. And he does with his creation
as he wills. Well, I will not go into it in
detail now. I may not go into it in detail at all. You remember,
and when that 10th plague came through, when death came through,
firstborn sons, or even firstborn daughters, were dead. And some
of them may have been that big. Do you understand that? I mean,
I remember watching the movie, and it's just a movie, it's Hollywood,
it has no truth in it, but I remember watching the movie of this account
of the plagues. And Pharaoh's standing there
with this little baby, limp, dead in his arms, and he said,
your God did this. And that's exactly right. You
hear me? That's exactly right. You see,
God's gospel as seen in this account. Yes, there are types
and symbols here, but this is still God's gospel. I'm coming
down to visit you and I will deliver you. That's the gospel.
That's the gospel. And whether, Joe, it's a physical
deliverance or spiritual deliverance, he does both for us all the time. All the time. God's gospel, as
seen in this account, is something to all who hear it. It is something
to all who hear it. But that same gospel is never
the same intent by God to all who hear it. Israel's plagues. I'm sorry, Egypt's plagues, but
Israel's deliverance. Three examples. The word of God
tells us that eight souls were saved by water in the days of
Noah. It means that that water lifted up that ark that they
were in above all the judgment of God, but that same water killed
thousands. Thousands. You remember the angels
coming into Sodom? It only added to the consternation
and rebellion of the wicked sodomites. They wanted to lay down with
them. Did they not? And yet those same angels were
deliverance to Lot. And then the actual gospel messengers.
The apostle Paul says this about gospel preachers. Those he sent
to preach his gospel, He said, we are, we are, they are, because
people see us. That's what they see. When they
hear the gospel and that's God Almighty's opened their eyes,
all they ever see and hear is us. But he said, we are this,
and we always triumph, whether somebody hates me for it or loves
me for it. Always causes us to triumph in
Christ. But guess what, we are to one
people, death. We are to one people, death.
Death unto death, he says. But that same person, because
he's preaching the message of God Almighty, is life unto others. Is life unto life. You see, the
difference is always God's purpose. It's God's intent. That's the
difference. That which fell upon Egypt and the Egyptians. Remember,
he's not, people talk about the world society. Society is made
up of people. The judgments did not merely
fall upon this world order, it fell upon men and women and boys
and girls and animals. The difference is always God's
purpose because that which fell upon the Egyptians is what God
intended to use to deliver the Israelites from that Egyptian
bondage. God's purpose and intent makes
the difference, never man's action. Remember last week, we've seen
even the action of some of the Jews, did we not? We've seen
their action. Think about it, here they are.
Water made blood, frogs, lice, swarms, grievous murray, bulls
and blames, or that is blisters. Hail and fire running along the
ground. Locusts felt darkness. I remember Penny and I being
with the grandbabies. One time we took them to a cavern.
And they cut the lights off. Well, you couldn't even see your
hand in front of your face. But Mason, I don't even think
that come close to that darkness. because this was a different
kind of dark. It was a felt darkness. And then lastly we read the firstborn
death. The firstborn death. Now my intent
is not the particular plagues this morning. My intent is to
show forth some of the discriminating results that took place with
these plagues. Four things. We'll look at the
Nine plagues in four different areas. First of all, water made
blood. But it wasn't just made blood.
Everything in the water that lived in the water died. And the blood and the dead creatures
stank. It's probably a stink you just
cannot imagine in your mind. But false religion can copy that. False religion can copy that.
They can copy the blood, the death, and the stink for sure.
Antichrist religion, and let me give you something. When we
say the Spirit of Christ is here, do we mean any less than Christ
himself is here? When we say the Spirit of Antichrist is here,
do we mean any less than the Antichrist himself is here? I'm
telling you, Antichrist is all around us. False religion can copy that.
They love being against sins. They love being against sins.
They love to talk about men stink, but they don't talk about why
men stinks like he stinks. They love to hammer on certain
things that are wrong, but they don't want to preach to a man
or a woman, you got an evil, corrupt heart. Your heart is
the cesspool, and the stink comes out of the cesspool. We lay our
minds and our hands and our hearts to evil things because we love
them deep down in here. Let's also think about the frogs.
Frogs. But even here is more imitation.
I can explain this. The magicians didn't create frogs.
Neither were frogs created, they were just called out of the water.
And there was thousands and thousands of them. And they piled up in
heaps and did what? Stank. Stink. One thing about
it, God shows us about ourselves, we are stink personified. That's what we are. and yet God
is pleased to have mercy upon some of us. Isn't that amazing? That God would even consider,
let alone actually choose me in Christ before the world began.
Mason, that boggles my mind. Because I know, people say, well,
he looked down into the future and seen what you would do. Anything
I do of value is because God Almighty made me willing in the
day of his power. He gets the credit, not me. He
tells us what he's seen in us. When he looked down, he said,
there's none righteous. No, not one. There's none that doeth
good. None. Altogether, we are unprofitable. Unprofitable. But, again, more
imitation. The concern of false religion,
just like Pharaoh, is always tomorrow. Now, think of what
I'm saying here. Most preachers are not preaching
to men and women about where they are today and what God has
to do today. They're always telling you to
prepare for what? Tomorrow. Are they not? Eternity. You might die tomorrow. Or you might die this evening
sometime. You better get right with God. There's nothing you
can do to get right with God. God has already made right his
people, his elect, his chosen, his saints, in Christ Jesus by
his sacrifice. He's already made them right.
Now do you believe him? Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? Frogs. You know, religion, when
it finds just the least bit of what? Respite. Pharaoh said,
oh, I can breathe again. I mean, literally, breathe again.
Can you imagine what it's like? Every breath you took, the stink
of those heaps of frogs. You go to eat a meal, what do
you smell? Stinking, rotten carcass of frogs. But when Pharaoh gets
a little respite, he says, Not gonna do it. Not gonna let them
go. Think about it, lice. Lice. I can't imagine what this was
like. This wasn't just a bad case of a few children having
head lice at school. This was an infestation of the
whole of the Egyptian people. Lice. But think about this. Even irrefutable gospel truth
never converts the unregenerate. Pharaoh's magician says this
is the finger of God because we can't create lice. They could
charm the frogs out of the river. They turned water into blood.
It says they did that. They had sticks, which wasn't
one of the plagues, but they had sticks. They became snakes.
I'm not here to try to explain that. That's just what this book
teaches, is it not? But they couldn't create vice.
They couldn't create life. But even in the midst of irrefutable
gospel truth, the unregenerate always hardens their heart. The spirit of God testifies to
anyone that he comes upon when the gospel's being preached.
And he testifies to them that this is the truth of God. And
the heart says, I will not have it. I will not have it. But then we see, lastly, here's
number four, we see swarms. It says swarms of flies that
may well have been what it actually was. We don't, it just says swarms
in the actual Hebrew. Swarms, grievous murren, boils
and blains, hail and fire, locusts, and felt darkness. But I want
you to consider this. On at least one, two, three,
four, that's chapter eight, verse 22 and 23, chapter nine, verse
three and four, chapter nine and verse 26, and chapter 10,
verse 21 through 23, we see God's discriminating grace. You hear what I said? I know
discrimination amongst men is wrong. because we always discriminate
against others because we think we're superior to the ones we
discriminate against. But God is superior to us. He
has the right to discriminate when it comes to his grace. Because
none of us deserve it. We deserve his wrath so he can
be pleased to give grace to whom he will. And on those four occasions,
you hear these words, may not always been this, I will put
a difference. I will put a difference between
the Egyptians and the Israelites. And I can see Egypt falls dark. I can't explain what that was. Egypt fell dark, but down there
in Goshen, was light. Isn't that amazing? Well, how
could God do that? Why is God not merciful to the
Egyptians? Because God has mercy on whom
will have mercy. God has compassion on whom will
have compassion. And God hardens whom he will. I don't like that. I know you
don't. I didn't at one time either. But if you're an Israelite, by
God's choice, Bless God one day the light will turn on in your
house. You will find yourself in God's Goshen, given to you
in this world, and all of a sudden the light will turn on. Here's
another thing. Here's the second thing. Under
number four, the swarms, the murren, the boils, blains, hellfire,
locusts, felt darkness. God always discriminates when
he shows grace, always. Never, ever, ever forget that.
We can pray and pray and earnestly pray and be heartfelt and pray
for someone, and they die and they go to hell. And then there's
somebody over here we don't even know. Maybe nobody even praying
for them, Mason. And God Almighty will send the
gospel truth to them. Give them life by His Spirit, and that
life and that gospel join together, and here they stand, believing
Christ. But here's number two. Let's
look at the opposite reactions of both sides. I have 10 quick
things. Gospel worship cannot be compromised. We'll see that in the swarms
if you read chapter 8 verse 25 through 28. Pharaoh said, we'll just worship
in the land. You see, Antichrist religion
always wants to compromise. Okay, we don't care if you hold
to your superstitions. We don't care if you hold to
your old wives' fables. We don't care if you hold to
some of your old idolatrous religious practices. Just give your heart
to Jesus and accept him as your personal savior. Are they not
teaching that very thing and bringing about that? They just
don't want to get people down the aisle to pray a prayer. That's
all they care. They don't care about the person's
true everlasting soul. and being right before God. Because
if they actually cared about a man or a woman being right
before God, they would tell them the only one who ever accomplished
that, and that's Jesus Christ the Lord. You can believe the death, burial,
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ still die and go
to hell. You can accept him as your personal savior and still
die and go to hell. Salvation will come when God
comes down to visit you in mercy and grace in Christ. Gospel worship. We must not compromise. Moses said we're going out of
this place. Unless something fall on us.
Isn't that what he said? You remember reading it? Number two, sometimes the gospel
is just consternation to God's enemies with no results but to
confound them while God's people just have to sit back and wait.
Let me say that again. Sometimes the gospel is just
consternation to God's enemies with no results other than their
rebellion, but I mean positive, you know, faith, love results.
Sometimes the gospel is just consternation to God's enemies
with no results but to confound them while God's people just
have to sit around and wait while God does that. We've seen this
happen here the past several years. God's gospel, even by
your gifts, We put this gospel message out, and we just sit
here and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, and we hear people
talking about it, but nobody's ever moved by it. Nobody's ever
moved by it to love and faith in Christ. So Mason, we just
keep on, we don't go compromise. If I toned it down a little,
maybe if we had some singing things, maybe if we had high
power soccer or high roller soccer or whatever, yeah, we'd draw
people in, but we'd just be entertaining men and women on their way to
hell. Number three, God's sovereign
right to choose is never to be kept secret. Chapter nine, verses
13 through 17, he said, Moses, you go tell Pharaoh for this
same purpose have I raised you up. What's happening to you and
everything that will happen to you is exactly what God Almighty
ordained to be done. And as I told you before, I remember
the account, I heard Henry preach it and say it himself. He said,
a man come to me and said, your God's a monster. Then prepare
to meet a monster. See, don't start, He is a monster
to them. Do you think these Egyptians
loved the Israelites' God for all he was doing to them? Huh? No. No. No. But God's people
love him. Even if they're just sitting
back and waiting while God's doing his work. Even if it's just adding
to men's consternation and hardness. God's sovereign right to choose
is never to be kept secret. Well, if I believe that, but
if I preach that it'd tear my church apart, then your church
needs to be tore apart then. If the truth of God would tear
apart your assembly, then you ain't got the assembly Joe was
preaching about just earlier. It ain't God's assembly. It's
a man-centered assembly. Number four, men should fear
God. Did you read chapter nine, verse
18 through? There were some, hell was coming. There were some
Egyptians that feared God. They, I think, just understood,
this has already happened. This crazy man Moses and his
brother Aaron showed up and look what's coming down the pike.
So they took their animals inside. Isn't that what it said? But
everybody who didn't fear the Lord didn't realize God will
do what he says he's going to do. He's not, our God has never
tried to do anything. He's not trying to win your heart
by my preaching. He will either harden your heart
or he'll give you a new one, one or the other. And you'll
believe what I preach or you won't believe what I preach.
And that's just the way it'll be. God will do what he intends to
do. Number five, there is a time to let someone go. Take your
hands off of it. This is not us saying, I know
they're not one of God's. It's just time you just take
your hands off the deal and let God deal with it. You'll read
that in chapter nine, verse 27 through 35. Number six, gospel
discrimination always continues, and I'm gonna read that one to
you. Chapter 10, and the Lord said unto Moses, go into Pharaoh,
For I have hardened his heart. That doesn't sound like very
great prospects. Moses wasn't going in to win Pharaoh over.
He was going in to stick it to the face of that man. That's
what he was going for. This is, the Bible even says,
one of the meekest men that ever walked. Meekness is not touted. cowtowing down with God's truth.
Meekness is understanding what you really are, but proclaiming
who God really is in spite of my faults and sins and failures. And the heart of his servants,
that I might show these my signs before him. God's not trying
to win him over, God's just breaking him down. And that thou mayest
tell, look at it, in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's
son, what things I have wrought in Egypt and my signs, which
I have done among them, that ye may know how that I am the
Lord. In other words, you keep telling
your kids about who this God is. Exactly, don't soft pedal
it. And this, Joe, is words to me. and to you, and to you, to you
out there. Don't soft pedal God's gospel
because if you do, it ceases to be his gospel and is nothing
but a perversion of the gospel of Christ. And that's one of
the rare times that that word perversion is used. You know,
we think about child molestation, perversion, it is perversion.
That's what God calls a false message. He equates it with stuff
like that. Homosexuality, perversion, that's
cause it is. But he equates a false message
with that. Our God is holy. He says you
will worship me this way or you worship me not at all. Does he
not? You know? Cain worshiped the
Lord. Did he not? He even brought an
offer, worked hard, no doubt, tilled the soil, kept back the
weeds and the briars. And it's God's food. God made it to grow, did he not?
And he offers that to God, God said, I won't have it. Is that
not the truth? You will worship God at the feet
of Jesus Christ or you don't worship God at all. Number seven. Compromise is the
continual cry of the reprobate. Look at chapter 10 and verse
eight, well, Pharaoh says, well, just the men go. Isn't that what
he said? Who shall go? That's the way
he put it. Well, let's talk about this, Moses. Okay, okay, this
is bad. I mean, we've done ahead. Water
made blood, frogs, lice, swarms, urine. Just the men go. Moses says no. He said, we won't
even leave a hoof behind. Isn't that what he said? There
shall not remain one hoof, Pharaoh. This is Pharaoh! And finally,
Pharaoh's at his wit's end and said, if I see you again, you're
a dead man. Isn't that basically what he told him? Isn't it amazing
how even while God was hard in his heart, he kept him from doing
that right at the first? You see, if you think our God
don't control everybody in this world, he does. Pharaoh was God in that country,
was he not? He could say, I want that man
dead or that woman dead just because I don't like them, and
guess what? They would kill you. And here Moses stands before
him and keeps coming in, going, keeps coming in, going, keeps
coming in, going. The king's heart is in the Lord's
hand. He turneth it, it don't matter whether it's the evil
wicked heart of unregenerate or the regenerate heart, the
king's heart's in the Lord's hand, he turns it whithersoever
he will. You see until God's people finally
by faith just say no, we're going to worship God this way, this
is how it's gonna be. And I knew I gotta say it, not
a hoof. I can see Moses, I believe Moses. Inside, he ain't bragging about
it. He's, I believe God. God said I've come down to deliver.
He's going to deliver. Not just us, but everything we
own. Everything we own. Because it
wasn't just about, okay, we gotta have ours. They had to worship
God with blood. And the blood of certain animals.
And them animals would go with Moses and the Israelites out
just like everything else. Number eight. False religion
wants one more chance. Chapter 10, verse 16 and 17.
Oh, I've sinned. Let this pass just one more time. The false religion that's down
in here just says, one more time. I mean, it's almost like, it
is, they were saying, the frogs weren't that bad. Even though he tells Moses, please
entreat the Lord that this stops. And it did. The frogs quit coming
out, but they died and had to pile up in heaps. Then they had
to smell it for days. And it just keeps on going. Remember,
frogs, lice, swarms, grievous mirrored, balls and blames, hell
and fire, locusts, and felt darkness. But now we see God finalize.
You know, at one time, I forget which one it was. You go back
and read it. Pharaoh said, I'll let you go. And Moses said, glory
over me. Mason, I think he thought this
was it. He didn't know he had several more to come through. But now see, God finalized. And
the Lord said unto Moses, yet will I bring one plague more. So there was not going to be
two. It wasn't going to take two more. Because God has been
working himself up, and that's not the right way to put it.
God has been doing his work up to this 10th one. Which is the
quietus. They're coming out. And this
one's gonna be severe. I'm gonna touch them right where
they live. They're first born or gonna die. Isn't that what
this book teaches? Now if you don't like that God,
this is tough. That's who God is. I don't apologize for my
God. I have to apologize for myself
all too often, but I will not, by his grace, apologize for my
God. He don't need forgiveness or
say so from anybody. What he does is right because
he does it. And there's just where it stands. And the Lord said unto Moses,
yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt and
after that, He gonna kick you out. But we know according to
the account, God wasn't done with Pharaoh even then, was he? Pharaoh was hardened one more
time once the people had already left. Even after seeing the death
of all the firstborn, he persists on pursuing God's people to bring
them back into bondage. Now you talk about how bad our
hearts are by nature? That's bad. And that's the way
you and I conduct ourselves toward God's truth, apart from the regenerating
power of the Spirit of God and the power of the preached gospel
of Jesus Christ. That's the way we are. Hard-hearted. Stiff-necked. Uncircumcised in
heart and ears. And in that condition, we'll
always resist the Holy Ghost. but if he ever circumcises you,
if he ever breaks you down, you will find yourself delivered
by blood and death. Because remember, God willing
we'll look at it later, the death of the firstborn happened in
every house. A firstborn died everywhere,
in every house. It was either the firstborn himself
or herself, or it was a firstborn lamb. Was it not? A substitute. And I love, God said, when I
see the blood, not when you see the blood. Now you will see the
blood. But that's not the important part. When I see the blood, what
did God say? I will pass over you. I like
that. I wanna be one of those that
God sees the bloodshed for. and he passes over me, he goes,
Paul Pendleton, I deserve the plagues of Egypt. Because my
heart by nature is the plagues of Egypt. The Israelites were
no better than the Egyptians. Remember how they got down there
in the first place? Remember? Their 10 great, great, great
granddaddies? Huh? That's how they got down
there in the first place. Wanted to kill one of their own.
and yet God showed him mercy and grace. Mac Hatfield, that
is mercy and grace. Free, sovereign, discriminatory,
God forgives whom he will. I thank God he forgives anybody.
But he didn't have to forgive me. Let's stand and sing.