The Second Plague: The Frogs

[0:00] We'll be in chapter 8. We ended up chapter 7 last week.

[0:19] ! We saw the beginning of the plagues, if you will, and that came as Aaron and Moses were instructed to go to Pharaoh and say to Pharaoh, let my people go so they can serve me and worship me, sacrifice to me, and so forth. And if you don't do that, then the rivers of Egypt are going to turn into blood. And so, of course, he would not let them go. He was not interested at all in what Israel's God had to say. And so God told Moses, take Aaron's rod or have Aaron smite the river.

[1:00] And the waters of Egypt and all the waters of Egypt turned into blood. And, of course, that resulted in fish dying and putrid smell coming from the waters and to the point that people could not drink the waters of the Nile River that even proceeded from the Nile in any shape, form, or fashion. And so Pharaoh instructed his magicians to come and imitate that miracle, just like they imitated the first dealings with Pharaoh of Aaron and throwing his rod to the ground and it turned into a serpent. They matched that. And now he said, do the same thing. And they do the same thing. Again, we questioned the idea of where did they get the water that wasn't already turned blood. And we thought, remember, that it was the pots that were filled with water already before the waters of the Nile were turned into blood. And so that was the beginning of the plagues, if you will.

[2:09] And so now we find that people couldn't find good water to drink. They began to dig around the river to see if they could find any untainted water. It didn't say whether or not they were able to, but they did that process. So you can begin to see, or you can see the beginning of the effect on the people of Egypt here. Not just Pharaoh, but the entire kingdom of Egypt affected by what's taking place in the plagues. So no doubt it's a terrifying thing here that's beginning in the hearts of the people of Egypt. But in all of this, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, didn't hearken unto the Lord, nor to Moses and Aaron, and just went his merry way.

[3:06] Now, we ended up with the idea, and we said we were going to save it for tonight, and that is that it seems strange to some extent that God would ever even enter into any kind of a challenge with the magicians of Egypt. Of course, he knew them. He knew the source of their supposed power. But it seems strange that he would do that because it would give them an opportunity to try to negate the things that Moses and Aaron did at the instruction of God and by God's power.

[3:43] But he had a purpose. God always has a purpose in what he does. Always keep that in mind. We might not understand what he does, but God always has a purpose in doing what he does, and we know that that purpose is always correct, it's always good, and that it will work out to produce the purposes and plans of God.

[4:08] Now, think about it just a moment. You've got it in your notes. And by the way, if you didn't get any notes from last week, there's a few copies over here on the table. Feel free to take those as you leave.

[4:20] First of all, we see that it was necessary for God to do these. So the magicians can show what they are.

[4:31] So they can exert all the power that they've got to try to imitate the things that Moses and Aaron do. And because always remember, they match it or they imitate it to some degree, but not to the full degree.

[4:51] They always come up short. And so in doing that and enabling them to use and exercise their power, in reality, God was showing that the power that Moses and Aaron have in creating the plague was different, more supreme, more powerful than that of the magicians. And had they not entered into that competition, if you will, these things that Moses and Aaron did would be attributed simply to the same things that the magicians used. Because it was not a strange thing throughout Egypt and other countries.

[5:37] Magical arts, satanic work was not unheard of. It was quite popular. In fact, most of the things like that that are done were done by those.

[5:47] And so that they did not want, God did not want the works of Moses and Aaron to be attributed to the skill of magic, but rather by God's own power.

[6:03] Secondly, consider the idea of Israel here. The people of Israel, the Jews, the offspring of Jacob in captivity and so forth.

[6:19] They're downhearted here. They want out of Egypt and they haven't gotten out of there. And so they're downhearted, no doubt. Faith begins to waver.

[6:30] And here comes Moses and Aaron, who have already been on the scene, Moses in particular, as a type of a hero for Israel. I'm going to, God's directed me to let you out of this place.

[6:43] That's kind of the idea here. But now, as they see Moses go to work here, their heart has to be encouraged by realizing that this, no doubt, was the work of God, the power of God, and not the sorcerers and the work of Satan at work here.

[7:06] And then thirdly, it was necessary so that after all this is said and done, that they would not be seduced again by evil spirits, by false miracles that would turn them away from Jehovah God and their true worship of him.

[7:25] But there's a fourth reason here, and always consider this. I know that most of the time there are specific targets that God uses or God points to when he does something.

[7:39] But he always has something in mind when he does that. What would that be? What is it that God would have in mind when he does all of this stuff?

[7:49] Ted? It's his turn. Us? No? No? No?

[8:00] No. No candy for you. The Egyptians were heathens. They're heathens.

[8:11] What better way for them to be able to have an opportunity to see the fallacy of the things that they worship than having God exercise his power through Moses and Aaron for them to see not only the power of God, but for them to see the fallacy in the gods that they worship and the power through which the magicians do their work.

[8:43] Because even though they were able to some degree imitate the miracles of Moses, they could not remedy the problem.

[8:54] They could not save the people of Egypt from the difficulties that have been arising here. What better way for them to come to a realization of that?

[9:05] And hopefully then some will see that fallacy and turn to the God of Israel, come to a saving faith in the promised Christ and all of those things that take place there.

[9:19] Even possible that some of these were turned away from some of these idol worships that they were in because of what they see in the power of God.

[9:30] The thing that we have as a resource that the world doesn't have is not only the power of God at work, but the ability of the Spirit of God to work through that power in the heart, life, and minds of people that don't know him.

[9:51] So that's why we should never, ever give up or think that something's not possible. Amen? Yeah. Because as long as God is God, there's nothing that's impossible.

[10:06] Everything is possible with God. And so that's what we need to recognize in something that we see. Then something else that we recognized last week is this.

[10:16] We know that the great things that God does here in the plagues are quite spectacular. And you and I that read the story, if you will, in the event, recognize that it is the hand of God and that only God can do the things that are being done there.

[10:36] But are we, do we, recognize the hand of God at work in our generation and what's taking place around us in our life and in our life?

[10:50] Do we recognize that? It's imperative that we do. It's imperative that we keep our eyes open and not let our eyes be glazed over, if you will, from the reality of God at work, even in the circumstances of the world today.

[11:07] So let's keep an eye on that. Let me ask you this question. When we see those things, if we're, you know, able to recognize, okay, this has to be the hand of God at work around us here.

[11:18] What should we do? Be grateful. Pray. Be grateful. Pray. Keep trusting. Keep trusting. What else?

[11:31] Give praise to him. Still one thing missing. No. That's true, but that's not it. That's good, but not it.

[11:43] That's good, but not it. How many chances do we get? The bell's done wrong. What if, and I'm sure all of us have gone through that, but what if some of the things that God does, some of the things that God does, affects us in a negative way?

[12:16] Either something he's done, or something he has allowed to take place, that affects us in a negative way. What do we do? Yeah.

[12:29] When we recognize it's not God, when we don't recognize it's the hand of God, we complain. Okay? We murmur. What's the difference in a murmur and a complaint?

[12:39] I like murmur. It's a biblical word. Okay. We should submit. Pardon? Submit. Commit. Submit. Submit.

[12:49] Okay. It's good. Submit to it, and then do what? As well. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

[13:03] 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

[13:20] Verse 17 says, Pray without ceasing. Never stop praying. And then verse 18 says, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

[13:39] Now, the interesting thing here is in Paul's letter to the church of Thessalonica here, he doesn't stipulate about what to give thanks for.

[13:51] It's just stuck in there. As an afterthought, like preachers do, I thought of something else. Spill it out. Yeah. Go over time.

[14:01] Yeah. And that's what Paul does here. In everything give thanks. The good things, we do. The bad things, we ought to. Amen. Why?

[14:12] Because this is the will of God in you concerning Christ Jesus, or concerning you in Christ Jesus. Good story that goes along with that. I had a dear pastor friend when I was in Claremore.

[14:23] He pastored in Pryor, so it's not that far, you know. And he, I may have told you this before, but Diane's forgotten it, so. He was from South Carolina, and he would go back there every summer.

[14:40] On vacation. One year, he was out there, and he was playing golf on the golf course, and lightning storm came up, and lightning struck right beside him, and knocked him to the ground, unconscious.

[15:06] Everybody was running. When he woke up, everybody was running toward the clubhouse, but there's one lady that looked back and saw him on the ground, and turned around and came back.

[15:18] She was a nurse. And, when he came to, he said, the first thing that crossed my mind was that passage of Scripture.

[15:32] In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you in Christ Jesus. Yeah. I mean, he had a cross, pen, and pencil set in his pocket.

[15:46] You remember how we used to wear those? Plumbers didn't, but good people. But the real people did. That cross, pen, and pencil were welded together.

[15:58] His clothes were literally in shreds. Yeah, and as embarrassing as it was, they never could find his underwear. Literally. Gone.

[16:09] Gone. But that's the passage of Scripture that came to his mind, that God spoke to him about when that happened. As if to say, don't worry about it.

[16:20] Amen. Yeah. This is the will of God for you, concerning you. In Christ Jesus. And that's what we need to do.

[16:33] Recognize things as the hand of God, either creating the situation or enabling it and give thanks for it. Amen. Surely, give him thanks and rejoice in the great stuff and the good things.

[16:47] But likewise, when those things are difficult, thank him as well. Because we know that he has a purpose and a plan for all of that.

[16:58] All right. Now, chapter 8, verses 1 through 6. Let's get going on that. Verse 1, The Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh and say it unto you.

[17:11] Don't you wonder what Moses felt? Of course, he knew what God's determined for him to go and deal with Pharaoh and, you know, to let the people of Israel go.

[17:25] He's told him again that he would not listen to him. But don't you wonder what he felt? Oh, not again. You know, here we go again. The Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord.

[17:37] Now notice, it's the word Jehovah. We mentioned that last time. Thus saith Jehovah, Let my people go that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all the borders with frogs.

[17:53] And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house and into thy bedchamber and upon thy bed into the house of thy servants and upon thy people and into thine ovens into the kneading troughs.

[18:11] And the frogs shall come up both on thee and upon the people and upon thy servants, all thy servants. And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds, and cause frogs to come upon the land of Egypt.

[18:30] And Aaron stretched out his hands over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land. Now I'm curious here about the statement here. He tells Aaron to stretch forth your hand with your rod, stretch it over the river, the streams, the ponds, everything.

[18:54] Now, did he just one fell swoop? Or did he go to each of them? Because if he did, it kind of gives indication here that there's some timing that goes along here.

[19:08] He goes to the river and stretches his rod over the river and frogs happen. Goes to the streams, the little outlets of the river.

[19:19] Stretches over that, frogs come out. The ponds, everything. So he may be walking from place to place and the people of Egypt watching Moses and Aaron knowing now what happened to begin with, with the river, the waters turning to blood.

[19:36] Now, what are they up to now? Pharaoh knows, but they may not know, probably. But here they go, walking to do that. And so, what happens?

[19:48] Frogs come forth. they proceed out of the Nile. That putrid, slimy water of the Nile that has a stench that they cannot stand.

[20:02] Recognize that any time a disaster strikes, now this wasn't a natural disaster, but any time a natural disaster strikes, whether it's storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever it is, it takes a long time to recover from that.

[20:18] All right? What did we say last week? Probably six days that this thing took place. But even after, after the thing changed, you still have the stench.

[20:34] You still have people being afraid to drink of that water. And now, here come frogs out of it. All right? Particularly, out of the marsh that's formed by the Nile River.

[20:46] That's their natural habitat. But now, here come frogs. Little bitty Nile frogs is what they're called. Gives you a name there in your notes. But, but, just small little things.

[21:00] You've seen some of these little baby frogs? Yeah. Maybe a little bit bigger than that, but they're small. And they're everywhere. They get in to the house.

[21:11] They get into the bedroom, into the kitchen, in the drawers where the silverware is. You open the door to your stove to put your meatloaf in there.

[21:25] And what do you got? Frogs. You're going to cook frogs with a meatloaf. All right? Yeah. They're everywhere. Now, but also, they get upon men.

[21:41] People. All right? Normally, frogs are just a very innocent creature. There's a lot of people just detest them.

[21:53] How many love frogs? I'm not saying, I'm not saying frog legs. I'm saying, how many of you, I said frogs. How many of you guys had frogs for pets when you were kids?

[22:07] I figured Ted did. He's from Louisiana. In Texas, we had horned frogs. Yeah, in Texas, horned frogs. That's different than a frog. Yeah. Now, what's the difference between a horned frog and a horny toad?

[22:21] None. Okay. That's what I thought. But anyway, anyway, it's amazing here. And the reason, the reason, this is such a miraculous thing here.

[22:36] You know, a little bit later, we see that the magicians once again imitate it. But it's a miracle here. First of all, because of the great quantity, the numeric quantity of these frogs that come out.

[22:52] And that just at the stretching forth of Aaron's rod. Second is the idea that they get everywhere.

[23:05] But most importantly, they attach themselves to man. You just can't get them off of you. Now, go home tonight and sleep and think about that.

[23:18] Dream about frogs jumping up on you. Yeah, yeah, picking them off. All right. Go about one jumping on your dog, Bob. Yeah. There you go. There you go.

[23:29] Now, the idea, God taking a small, very small creature innocent, harmless in itself, in its normal routine of things.

[23:47] And God taking that and making a detestable, frightening, alarming plague upon the people of Egypt. That's miracle.

[23:58] Only God could do that. All right. Now, verses 7 through 9. Magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.

[24:14] Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away frogs from me and from my people and I will let the people go that they may sacrifice or do sacrifice unto the Lord.

[24:30] Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glorify over me when I shall entreat for thee, for thy servants and for thy people to destroy the frogs from thee and thy house that they may remain in the river only.

[24:43] Now, interesting. Magicians again able to duplicate the miracle of the frogs creating or causing more frogs to come up from the water.

[24:55] But, realize something here. They could not take the frogs away.

[25:09] Yeah? They couldn't. And Pharaoh knows that. Now, whether they tried or not doesn't say.

[25:20] We shouldn't speculate. But, whatever the case is, they could not cause the frogs to go back into the water. So, Pharaoh does what?

[25:33] He entreats Moses and Aaron. He wants the frogs gone. He doesn't like the idea of going to bed with the frogs.

[25:46] Will you go pray to your God for us and ask him to remove those frogs.

[25:56] And, if he does that, I'll let the people go and worship him. Now, what does that say here? What does that tell us about Pharaoh? Pharaoh? What is it he knows about God?

[26:15] His power. And, that? Come on, Elsa, come on. Nice. He's starting to question the abilities of his God.

[26:31] Because, when he's saying, Moses, go pray to your God, he's still not accepting him. But, he knows that when Moses goes and prays, things happen.

[26:44] Well, you're often close. Yeah, you're right in what you're saying. I don't want to get all the way. He realizes these plagues that are coming, the river of blood, now the frogs, they are being caused by the God of Israel.

[27:03] I mean, why else would he ask Moses and Aaron to go and pray to your God? you know, because the only one that could remove all those things is the one that created it.

[27:17] And that's God. That's Jehovah. Now, he doesn't call him Jehovah. He said, just go and treat for us that he will remove these.

[27:28] And if he does that, then I will let the people go. All right? Now, now, Moses thinking, okay, now, Pharaoh, he's going to strengthen this thing here, strengthen this new knowledge of Pharaoh by saying this in verse number nine.

[28:01] Look at it. He said, glorify thyself over me when I shall entreat for thee. In other words, Moses is putting himself a level below Pharaoh here.

[28:15] Giving Pharaoh an upper edge here. Pharaoh, you just take the glory here. you tell me exactly when you want those frogs to disappear.

[28:31] What time of day? What day? We'll do it. And so, he said, Pharaoh, that's what you're going to do here.

[28:46] And the idea here is, what better way, what better way to show indeed that this is the hand of Jehovah God at work here.

[28:59] By enabling Pharaoh to set the time and the date to make these things go away.

[29:12] And he jumped at the chance because no doubt he thought, well, you know, something of such a magnitude can't just happen. snap my fingers.

[29:23] Somebody snap your fingers for me. Thank you. Just like that. You know, it just won't go well all of a sudden. So, I've got him here. Yeah.

[29:34] So, he sets the time. Okay? Moses goes and prays. Okay? Okay? Now, verse 10.

[29:57] Pharaoh sets the time. He said, tomorrow, what does this do tomorrow? And he said, be it according to thy word that thou mayest know that there is none like unto Jehovah our God.

[30:16] All right? None like him. I want you to know that, Pharaoh. You're going to learn that here. All right? Verse 11 through 15.

[30:29] And the frogs shall depart from thee, from thy house, from thy servants, from thy people. They shall remain in the river only. Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried unto the Lord.

[30:46] That is unto Jehovah 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, out of the villages, out of the fields, and they gathered them together upon heaps, and the land stank.

[31:04] But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, hearkened not unto them as Jehovah had said, just like God said would happen. Alright? Now, tomorrow, that's when it's going to happen.

[31:20] I want it to happen. Now, notice, Moses said, okay, that's what we'll do. Scripture says he went and cried unto Jehovah.

[31:31] That word cry is the idea of very loudly. You know, he didn't have to shout to get God's attention.

[31:44] Like, we don't have to shout to get God's attention. But he cried out loud for a purpose. What do you think that purpose was? Yeah, so everybody can hear him.

[31:59] Yeah. I mean, they're out there watching him, seeing what he's going to do. Now he goes back and talks to Pharaoh because Pharaoh was called for him. And now they go out here and Moses begins to pray loudly about the frogs.

[32:19] Doesn't say exactly what he prayed, but I can surmise. Oh, Father. No, not Father yet. Oh, Jehovah, our God, I pray on behalf of Pharaoh because he asked me to.

[32:42] Yeah. Please retreat the frogs from everything back into the water. Yeah.

[32:55] And what happens? No frogs to be found on the ground. they're all back in the marsh and whatever other waters they came out of.

[33:11] All right. Now, it doesn't tell us what tide the river was at. The frogs usually come out when the marsh goes down. Could be that was up, but they're back in there.

[33:25] They're out of the ground, out of the houses, out of the kitchens, out of the bedrooms. they're gone. Did Pharaoh stand there and say, well, imagine that.

[33:40] No. He was glad it happened. And he went back on what he said he would do.

[33:55] When he saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, hearken not unto them as the Lord said. Now, they gathered those frogs up, scooped them around, put them in piles.

[34:14] Literally, they put them and gathered them together by bushels. The word bushels there is the word translated from the word homer or omer, which they say is, an omer is 65 imperial gallons.

[34:33] Now, I don't know what an imperial gallon is compared to a regular gallon. Anybody? Google it. But you could realize 65 gallons is a lot of stuff.

[34:51] Amen? man? Yeah, piles, pile after pile after pile of frogs that have died. Now, they thought the stench from the water, when it turned to blood, the fish died, was bad.

[35:12] Now, they've got the stench from the dead frogs. You ever try to get a stench out of your nose? when you smell something?

[35:24] Yeah, plumbers probably have. I'm blessed with four senses of smell. Oh, okay. I thought maybe because you were Indian that maybe you had some kind of real sense of, that might be.

[35:39] Yeah. Now, so, these things all dried up. They put them together in piles. And, now, even though, even though everything went according to what God had said would take place, Pharaoh failed to keep his promise.

[36:06] The idea here, literally, when it says he saw that there was respite, it's literally as soon as he got air, or in other words, as soon as he had time to catch his breath.

[36:20] All right? You know, it's like when something bad like that's over, you go, whew, I'm glad that's over.

[36:33] You know, when he did that then, he, again, hardened his heart, did not follow through on what God, what he had promised that he would do in letting the people go.

[36:50] Any other thoughts? Questions, comments here? We're going to see more about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart later. But, isn't it amazing, isn't it amazing, how there are some people that no matter what God does, they are simply determined they're going to do their own thing, and not even give thought to what God wants to do.

[37:21] nor the end result of what happens when you disobey. Anybody see any parallel between what you see in Egypt here and Pharaoh and what's taking place today?

[37:39] give it again. Not everybody was in your class.

[37:51] I know they missed out. It was in Luke where it was talking about how Jesus healed multitudes who came the evening of the Sabbath.

[38:03] They had went to the Sabbath over. They carried all their wounded, all their sick, and all that, and they brought them to Jesus, and he touched them and healed them all.

[38:14] I told my Sunday school class, I said, I'm not impressed. I saw Benny Hinn do that. That's what you said. And I used your parallel on how Satan tries to match whatever God does.

[38:31] Not saying Benny Hinn is from Satan, but, you know, and it still happens today. People try to do something that will bring them out and put them on a castle and say, look at me.

[38:47] Yeah, yeah. People flock to the spectacular. But it's an amazing thing to me is, in the thing with Egypt and Pharaoh, except for the fact that God does some unparalleled things here, a lot of that could be attributed by people as a natural occurrence.

[39:09] Frogs are nothing new. Again, as we saw last week, the river turning red is nothing new. It does that at high tide. Natural occurrence.

[39:20] But what we're going to see as these plagues continue to unfold, God does away with that possibility.

[39:32] Yeah. Yeah. And it'll be to the point that the people, as well as Pharaoh in particular, is going to have to face this thing face to face.

[39:49] He knows it already or else he wouldn't have treated Moses and Aaron to pray. But it's going to take something drastic to get him to that point.

[40:03] But Pharaoh as well never does truly, completely submit to Jehovah. He finally obeys and lets him go after his son's dead.

[40:17] But it doesn't change his heart. It's a hard battle, isn't it? Dealing with people about the Lord. But the thing we've got to recognize is we're not the one that has to make it happen.

[40:32] We share the word. We share the good news. We share the reality of God's love through his son. sacrificial death for them. But it's the Spirit of God that has to do the convicting work within the heart to draw them to the Father.

[40:49] Yeah. Yeah. So, the only thing God's called, well let me ask you this. What has God called us to do? The one thing that God has called us to do.

[41:04] To share the gospel, to reach young people for Christ, and to live our life in a way that honors him. Ah, thank you Elsa. Man, if I had a big candy bar, I'd give it to you.

[41:19] To be obedient, and sharing the gospel surely is part of that. But he's called us to be obedient to him. And whatever he leads us, directs us to do.

[41:32] Alright? That's what Moses and Aaron were doing in the face of impossible odds. But he did it, and that's what he calls us to do. Alright, any other questions, comments?

[41:43] And that imperial gallon is 1.2 American gallons. 1.2, just a little over gallon. Alright? Father, again, thank you for your loving kindness and your goodness to us, and the grace that you have provided for us.

[41:58] Father, thank you that in the midst of all of this that we study, about what your activity was in Egypt. We see your hand of grace at work here, being merciful in revealing to the people of Egypt, the fallacy of false gods and worship, and the reality of your love and grace and power.

[42:18] So, Father, thank you for that, and thank you now that we can recognize afresh the need for us to be obedient, to be thankful for whatever you are doing around us and in us, so that you might glorify and honor your Son, and by doing that you honor yourself.

[42:35] And now thank you again for these that have come this evening and ask your blessings upon them and ask them that just honor yourself through our lives for the rest of this week.

[42:48] And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.