Lord's help for you and the family
at the lost of Tommy Husky. Yeah, we got some friends down
there. Greg Alquist lives in Apopka,
which is outside of Orlando. And all of Florida is going to
get smacked around pretty good this in the next couple days.
So how's your melanoma doing? Good, he had to have a melanoma
taken out of his ear and about four pounds of brain lift out.
So it's no, you know. But he's doing well, we're thankful
for that, as melanomas can be. They're caught early, they're
very curable. If they're not, they're very dangerous. So we're
glad they got it in early stage on that situation. Let's begin
our worship service. Let's just sing one hymn tonight,
hymn number 126. We'll just sing one hymn tonight. Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from
thy wound inside which flowed be of sin a double cure. ? Saved from wrath and made me
pure ? Could my tears forever flow ? Could my zeal no longer
know ? These four sin could not atone ? Thou was saved and thou
alone In my hand no price I bring Simply to thy cross I cling While
I draw this fleeting breath When mine eyes shall close in death
When I rise to worlds unknown And behold thee on thy throne,
rock of ages cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. If you have your Bibles, turn with
me to Exodus chapter 8. I'm going to read the first 24
verses of Exodus chapter 28. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let
my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let
them, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the
river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up
and come into thine house. into thy bedchamber, and upon
thy bed, and to the house of thy servants, and upon thy people,
and into thy own ovens, and into the kneading troughs. And the
frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon
all thy servants. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the
streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs
to come upon the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand
over the waters of Egypt, and frogs came up and covered the
land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with
their enchantments, and they brought up frogs upon the land
of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said,
Entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me and
from my people, and I will let the people go that they may do
sacrifice unto the Lord. And Moses said unto Pharaoh,
Glory over me, When shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants,
and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy house,
that they may remain in the river only? And he said, Tomorrow.
And he said, Be it according to thy word, that thou mayest
know that there is none like unto the Lord our God. The frogs
shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from the servants,
and from thy people, and they shall remain in the river only.
And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried
unto the Lord because of the frogs which he had brought against
Pharaoh. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses, and the
frogs died out of the houses, and all the villages, and out
of the field. And they gathered them together in heaps, and the
land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there
was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto
them, as the Lord had said. 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 and his rod, and
smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in the man
and in the beast. 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 the 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. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, lo,
he cometh to the water. And say unto him, Thus saith
the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou
wilt not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies upon thee,
and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into the houses,
and the houses of the Egyptians, shall be full of swarms of flies,
and also the ground whereupon they are. And I will sever in
that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that
no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know
that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. And I will put
a division between my people and thy people. Tomorrow shall
this sign be." The Lord did so, and there came a grievous swarm
of flies into the house of Pharaoh, to his servant's house, and all
the lands of Egypt. And the land was corrupted by
reason of the swarm of flies. Let us pray. We bless you and thank you for
your blessed word. It is the truth. It's a lamp
unto our feet, a light unto our path. It issues great encouragements,
stern warnings. It sets forth the glories of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of his people. We thank
you, Father, that this whole story of the deliverance of Israel
from the captivity in Egypt is the picture of our salvation
from sin. We praise you that we can look on these things and
see it to be so. Father, we ask tonight as we
look at this Word that you'd be pleased to open it to our
understanding. Cause us to believe and to rest in that which was
accomplished by our Lord. Pray for those who are sick.
Remember those who are shut-ins, Brother Wayne and Sister Ethel,
Peggy Lambert. Ask Lord your help for them,
your strength for them. Pray for Brother Fred as he's waiting
for the next step he's to take in his treatment for this cancer
and this heart trouble. We ask the Lord you'd be with
him, be with Arlene. We ask you to be with the Husky family at
the loss of this loved one. Pray you'd be with that family.
Give them peace in Jesus Christ. Pray for ourselves tonight, Father,
that you'd help us. Remember also Brother D. Parks, as he's still battling
with this cancer, we pray you'd be with him. He was Sarah and
Chris and their babies. Help us all to look to you and
trust you. We know, as life experience teaches
us, as the Bible shows us, that we are always shut up to your
grace. We find ourselves as we grow older and more, have more
wisdom, and we find ourselves totally impotent in almost all
matters. We must rely upon the helpless Lord to do so. We pray
in Christ's precious name, Amen. Now, this is the record of the
three plagues that followed the water being turned into blood.
The plagues were frogs, lice, and flies. Now, warning from
God preceded the plagues of the frogs and the flies, and though
this is part and parcel with the ordained measures that God
has prescribed, for the final release of Israel the fact that
he warned Pharaoh reveals his long-suffering and endurance
with those vessels which he has fitted to destruction in the
same passage of scripture that he talked about raising up Pharaoh
just to put him down in Romans chapter nine he speaks of that
very thing by asking the rhetorical question what if God were to
do this and he's saying what could you do about it? What would
you have to say if God did this? He said, what if God, in chapter
9, verse 22 of Romans, what if God, willing to show His wrath,
His vengeance is in His heart, He said in Isaiah 63, now is
the time of His redemption has come, or Isaiah 63, rather, but
vengeance is in His heart, what if God, willing to show His wrath
and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering
the vessels of wrath that he had fitted to destruction. What if God did that? He'd be
God. That's what he's doing here.
He's giving warnings to Pharaoh though he is the one who has
actually hardened Pharaoh's heart. It is a wondrous truth that behind
the many facets of time and tide and circumstances the face of
sovereign rule over all things Nothing occurs that falls outside
the realm of His sovereign will and purpose. Nothing. Nothing
at all. We as creatures are reactors,
often slaves to our own sentiments and emotions and upbringing,
and thus often are overcome by what comes our way. God Almighty
is not so affected. He is the cause of all things
and the sole actor in every circumstance and in everything that happens.
We live in a strange world, often a cruel world, often a foolish
and stupid world, yet God has not left his throne nor seized
his control from the things that go on. We might be befuddled
at providence and wonder at it, and it might confuse us and cause
us pain, but we know this from the Word of God and from our
own experience that providence is always good for God's people
and is always true and sure. The one whom he warns in this
passage is the one whose heart he himself
has hardened. He said this four times thus
far in this book. You ask, well, that being the
case, was the warning sincere? Or rather, was the warning insincere?
No, it was sincerely put forth to reveal something, to reveal
the rebellion. A warning may be used to bring
one to consider it sinful estate, and the same warning will suffice
to awaken further rebellion. In Isaiah chapter 28, we have
a prime example of that. Our Lord here speaks to the prophet and says this in verse 9, Whom
shall you teach knowledge? And whom shall you make to understand
doctrine? Them that are weaned from milk
and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept,
precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a
little and there a little. for with stammering lips and
another tongue shall you speak to this people to whom he said
this is the rest wherein you find wherein you may cause the
weary to rest now that's what our Lord spoke in Matthew chapter
11 come unto me all you that are labored heavy laden I'll
give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn of me you shall
find rest unto your souls he says with stammering lips and
another tongue if you're weary Come and rest in Jesus Christ.
Come and be refreshed. This is the refreshing. Yet they
would not hear. They would not hear. But the
word of the Lord was unto them still, precept upon precept,
line upon line, here a little and there a little, that the
same word that was an expression of God's goodness in saying to
people, Come and rest, The same word now is given that they might
go back and fall backwards and be broken and snared and taken. The same word. Wherefore, hear
the word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people in
Jerusalem. Because you have said, and this
is their response to this stammering lips and another tongue saying,
here's the rest and here's the refreshing. You said, we've made
a covenant with death. We're not afraid to die. With
hell, we are in agreement. We know that bad people go to
hell. When the overflowing spirit shall come pass through, it shall
not come unto us. We're God's people. We're okay. For we have made lies our refuge,
and under falsehood we have hid ourselves." We have hid ourselves. Our Lord gives a strong warning
here. If you won't hear, the Word's
going to drive you backwards. Their response is, we're okay.
We're okay. Because we've made lies our refuge,
and in falsehood we have hid ourselves. He gave warning for the flies
and gave warning for the frogs. Now for the lice, there was no
warning. Personally, I think it was just
a response to the fact that his heart was hardened when there
was a general respite after the frogs went back into the creeks.
Some commentators, however, have conjectured that the reason for
no warning was that the lice plague also affected the land
of Goshen, where the Israelites were. The reason that is given
for that is that the plague preceded the declaration of God severing
Goshen from the plague of flies, because that's mentioned just
before the plague of flies. But there's no indication either
way, and the plague upon Goshen would be justified, however,
because of their idolatry, which our Lord addressed and sternly
forbade when the law was given at Sinai. However, it's also
true that Goshen was blessed while the remainder of Egypt
was cursed. so i don't still i don't know whether the last
made it to goshen or not it doesn't say but regardless the plagues
were vicious and each one to some degree brought egypt to
despair and pharaoh to his knees and pharaoh is beginning now
to get a notion of god but it's ever true that no one is ever
brought to true repentance by judgment Preachers make a life
of trying to scare the hell out of people. That's what they try
to do. Try to scare them out of hell and hang the judgment
of God over them. They got me when I was 12 years
old. They get a lot of children scared to death and run down
an aisle and shake somebody's hand and the preacher tells them
they're saved and never doubt it. They go through life rebelling
against Christ and having no interest in Him. believing that
they are okay because they did what the preacher said years
ago and went down an aisle. Judgment never brings someone
to repentance. Our Lord said of Israel, Why
should I judge you more? Why should I punish you more?
You just rebel more and more. Judgment and wrath may cause
a change in behavior but it will never touch the heart. because
the heart is what must be addressed for it is the cesspool of man's
depravity. What comes out of us, God says,
is what defiles us, not what goes into us. But what comes
out of us, out of the heart, precedes evils and murders and
thefts and evil eyes and all these things and adulteries.
These come out of the heart, out of the inward man. And that's
what defiles man. And judgment, no matter how it
comes, will never touch the heart. I'll guarantee you this about
the hurricane down in Florida, and as it proceeds up through
the eastern states, I'll guarantee you this, their people will be
calling on God like crazy, and they'll be making promises. Tonight,
as the waters rise toward their houses, they'll be making promises
that, Lord, if you'll just help me through this, I'll serve you
the rest of my life. And they'll try their best to
keep their promise. They will change their behaviors. The guy
who wrote the book on soul winning for Jerry Falwell's campaign
way back when. He used to come to this church
until he heard the gospel and then he quit. But he told me
his conversion was that he made a deal with God that he would
serve God better than he served the devil if God would save him.
He told me that was his salvation. I told him he'd missed it. You
don't make a bargain with God, but I guarantee you in the days
to come. You'll hear about God a lot.
You'll hear about on news stations that never mention God. But they'll
talk about God. And they'll change their behavior.
But they'll never repent. Because you know what brings
repentance according to Scripture? The goodness of God. It's the
goodness of God that leads men to repentance. Romans chapter
2. What does that mean? If God convinces you of how good
He's been in saving your old rotten soul, you'll repent of
your sins. You'll repent of your righteousness
and you'll turn to Him. Pharaoh changed his behavior
several times. He never repented. He never repented. Now in this passage, the Lord
finally checks the hubris of the magicians and the sorcerers. They've duplicated some things. He suffered them to duplicate
the rod that became a serpent. He allowed them to duplicate
the water turning to blood and the plague of frogs. He allowed them to duplicate
that. But then it says when it came to the lice, and I can't
imagine what that was like. He said he cast a rod on the
dirt and the dirt is going to become lice. Debbie used to teach
school, you did too. Some kids come to school with
lice, it's just a horrible thing. You have to rake that comb through
their hair and look for those things and give them that shampoo
to take home and tell you, it's just an awful thing. Nasty, you
have to wash your clothes, all that. Can you imagine the dirt
becoming lice? I can't imagine. But it was in the houses, on
every man, on every woman, on every child, and every beast
was covered in lice. And the magicians said, well,
we can do that too. And they tried to, but they couldn't do
that. They couldn't do anything about it. They drew a blank.
All their prestidigitation and spells and chicanery could not
reproduce the plagues of life. Sooner or later, religion is
going to come face to face with their impotence to reduce that
which is absolutely necessary in order to please God. And that
which is necessary to please God is God-given faith. Without faith, Hebrews 9 or Hebrews
11 says, without faith it's impossible to please God. It's impossible. Now faith is invisible, for it's
the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things that
are hopeful. Those things are not seen, they're hopeful. That's
where faith rests. What does it rest in? What you
can see? No. What you can feel? What you can touch? No. It rests
in what's been spoken by God in this book that has started
to be written 3,500 years ago. That's where faith rests. It
don't rest in how you feel. People say, well, I'd rather
see a sermon than hear a sermon. You can't see a sermon. There's
no such thing as seeing a sermon. You either hear a sermon or you
ain't gonna get a sermon. It's that simple. Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. And what religion cannot produce
is true faith. God-given faith. And sooner or
later, they're gonna come to terms with that. Just like these
magicians finally came to terms with the fact that they couldn't
do what God did. God allowed them or suffered them to do some
things that looked like what Moses was doing. Religion speaks
of faith. They laud it. They applaud it. People talk about my faith got
me through this. Our faith got me through this.
I hear this all the time. They speak of it and laud it
as a means of motivating God. You know, if we get together,
and become what they call prayer warriors. You know, you hear
that a lot. Prayer warriors. Well, who's
the fight against? Who you warring with? If you're praying, who you warring
with? If you think you can get together,
and a whole number of you get together and assault heaven with
your prayers, and that's going to motivate and change God to
do something, you're wrong. You're flat wrong. You're at
war with the wrong person. You're warring as yourself, and
that's the truth. But they talk about, they get together, they
can, this faith they talk about, it's so powerful they talk about,
but it doesn't believe God. They believe they can get God
to do something they want, they blame the lack of faith for sickness. That's how these faith healers
work, they bring them in by the tons. My dad used to work as
a police officer years ago with Oral Roberts, who was traveling
around in tents and passing around, not collections plates like these
little things, he was passing around bushel baskets. two or
three times during the service and they'd all get filled during
them services too. He'd make your money hand over fist. And
if people didn't get healed, you know what he said? Your lack
of faith. You didn't have enough faith.
That's what he said. So faith gets blamed, or lack
of faith gets blamed if a person remains sick. We have a sick,
sick people in this congregation and we're praying for their healing.
But we know this, our prayers ain't gonna heal them. If God
hears our prayers, and he has purpose to heal them, then they
will be healed. They will be healed. I've seen
him do it. I've seen the results of that. But people say, if you've got
enough faith, all that'll happen. They speak of it. They say it'll
get rid of sickness, get rid of poverty, and multitudes of
malady that faith will undo if it is strong enough. That's what
they say. How strong is your faith? I wouldn't
put it up against nothing, to be honest with you. I'm a weak,
impotent individual. The faith I have is the faith
that God has given me. I can't increase it or make it
any different. All I can do is use it. All I can do is believe
God. They sell it as some sort of
heavenly spigot that pours out health, wealth, and a Tesla if
only exercised. But their faith is not faith.
Because it feels free to deny any portion of God's words that
denies their freedom and power of their sinful will. Those who
say, I have faith and I've talked to them in churches over the
years. I've preached in many places. So many places people
didn't believe the gospel. And they talk about, they hear
the sovereignty of God. They hear predestination and
election. They say, I don't believe that. Well, that makes them an
unbeliever. Because that's taught in the
Bible. You don't believe the Bible, and you say you have faith.
No, you don't have faith, because faith is based on the Word of
God. That's where it's at. It's nowhere else. It's nowhere
else. Why do we believe what we believe?
Because it's what God said. Not what I come up with, not
my opinion. It's what God has said. One day, in time, or at the end
of time, All religion will come to the same undeniable persuasion
that these magicians did in this passage. Look at verse 18. And
the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth the
lice, but they could not. So they were lice upon man and
upon beast. Then the magician said unto Pharaoh,
This is the finger of God. They finally come to a conclusion
that what they THOUGHT they had and the power they THOUGHT they
had actually was no power whatsoever. Their testimony was, this is
the finger of God. What did David say? I look at
the stars and the moon and all your handiwork that you made
with your fingers. What did he say to those who called and said
he had a devil? He said, if a house divided,
it cannot stand. He said, I, with my finger, cast out Satan. With my finger. This is the finger
of God. They said, this God's in this.
What do they finally admit him? They can't do anything. there's
this magic there's this play pretties it don't have anything
to do with truth this is the finger of God scripture makes
it clear in Isaiah 45 and repeated in Philippians chapter 2 this
is how it's going to end every knee shall bow and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father
that's how it's going to end all Babylon's going to do it
The great whore of religion, the world and all its religions
are going to do it. They're all going to bow down
on their knees and say, Jesus Christ is Lord! What are they
saying? This is the finger of God! We
don't have any power. Every knee shall bow. And it's
informative that these plagues are of the power of God over
all that's inanimate and animate, over nations and peoples. It
is the election of grace here described in magnificent terms
that tell the entire story of the distinction of the world's
religion from the people whom God has chosen to save from all
eternity. Concerning these plagues, the
Lord makes it clear that they will not touch His people. He
says in verse 22, I will sever, I like that word, I will sever
in that day the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, that
no swarms of flies shall be there, to the end that thou mayest know
that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth." I'm not out there.
I'm right here running and controlling things. What are you controlling?
Well, I'm controlling the minds of little flies. What? Swarms of flies! I'm controlling
their minds. I mean, God's involved in that.
God's in the details, folks. He's in the details. Concerning
these plagues, the Lord makes it clear that these will not
touch His people. Now, this is not a general rule.
This is specific to this situation because the people of God often
suffer the calamities that befall all men, that are common to men.
But the intent and design is different for the children of
God. For the infidel, trials will sink them deeper into rebellion.
For the child of God, trials will bring them to the feet of
the Savior. That's the way it always works. It always works
that way. There's a common saying in religion
that God will not put on you more than you can bear. That
sounds real nice, but it's a lie. It's not true for the child of
God. Let me tell you something about your trials. God always
puts on His people more than they can bear. More than they
can bear. Why? Because it will always drive
them to call on Him. That's the design in this whole
thing of providence. These trials that come, they
drive us to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're more than
we can bear. He says He gives them a way of escape, not that
they can escape, but they're able to bear it. They know where
the escape is. They know that Jesus Christ is
the escape, and they know one day they're going to escape it.
I read about an old saint the other day who died, and as he
lay on his dying bed, his last words were these. I'd like them
to be my last words. He said, goodbye, sin. Goodbye, sin. Wouldn't that be
something, to say goodbye to sin? never sin again. What a thing! Listen, if you
can bear your trial, you'll never call on God, because I know what
we are. He employed Egypt to put heavy
burdens upon the people of God, and they finally cried out to
the Lord. Why? Because He put heavy burdens on them. They could
not bear any longer, and they cried out to God. But in this case, here, as in
many others, the Lord does not allow the plagues of men to touch
His people, because He will have the enemy to acknowledge that
He has chosen His people. And He severs them, separates
the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt, and erects, as it were,
an invisible barrier that no fly can penetrate. He convinces
the mind of flies. He controls the destiny of lice.
He makes frogs do His will. he makes rods turns to snakes
he makes water turn to blood he just runs everything don't
he he just runs the show he said to those flies as they approach
Goshen hither shalt thou go and no further and they couldn't
they couldn't he did that so men would know that he is the
Lord in the midst of the earth and Zephaniah says he is the
Lord in the midst of thee is mighty to save. He said where
two or three are gathered in my name I'll be in the midst
of them. He's the Lord in the midst of the earth and he will
put a division between Israel and Egypt. He said I'll put a
division and this is divine election of that remnant according to
the election of grace spoken in Isaiah chapter 1 and it's
done so that the world will one day know that God has chosen
whom he would save and he's chosen them from the foundation of the
world in our Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17. He says this in verse 8 and 9,
he says, I pray for them, that is his people, his elect, his
bride, those whom God has given him. I pray not for the world."
Wait a minute! I thought he loved everybody!
He said, I'm not praying for the world, I'm praying for those
that God has given me. But for them that thou hast given me,
for they are thine. Then down in verse 21 he says,
that they all may be one. As thou, Father, art in me, and
I in thee, that they also be one in us. That the world may
believe The world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the
glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be
one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be perfect in one." And that is a translation, an interpretation
of the meaning of this. The actual reading of it is,
I in them, and thou in me, perfect, perfect in one. That the world may know Here
again the world is going to know that Thou hast sent me and the
world may know that Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved
me. Well, what does that mean? He
says, Father I will that they also whom Thou hast given me
will be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which
Thou hast given me. You want to know what it means
when he says that Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved me? The
next phrase says, For Thou lovest me. from the foundation of the
world and I want the world to know that this rag-tag bunch
of miscreants these depraved, rotten, ruined, wretched enemies
of God that you've saved by your grace the world's gonna know
that as vile and unclean and as wretched as they were you
love them just like you love me and you've always loved me,
and you've always loved them. I'll make a division, he said,
between my people and Egypt. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.