God Reveals His Sovereign Power

The Ten Plagues under this heading God reveals His sovereign power and He does that first in His judgment upon Egypt and that's what we're looking at right now or started to look at last week.

And we looked at a number of things in fact we're now to the third point under this heading and we looked at this last week too so this is kind of review and I'm sorry if you weren't here I do have extra copies of the notes you can pick up after tonight. Some of you may have brought back what you had last week.

But the third point under that is the progression of the plagues and it's important for us to understand that well the first place God is a very purposeful God and things don't just simply occur to Him as He goes. You know sometimes we make up things as we go because we don't really have a plan and if we do have a plan it might be a little vague in some areas and we're just kind of evolving and developing our plans as we go but God's not like that. God does everything purposefully and very deliberately and so the plagues that He sent upon Egypt to judge them was very purposeful and not just simply to deliver God's people out of Egypt but as we talked about last time His primary goal is to judge

Egypt and not just Egypt and Egypt's people but specifically Egypt's gods and so we looked at that and I gave you this little kind of stair step visual of the plagues the ten plagues that we could very easily divide into by pairs and so there are five kind of progressive steps in the ten plagues and there's an incredible correlation between the plagues and the where God directed these plagues a correlation between that and the creation of all things and so the progression is really very simple starts with the simplest or the lowest and that would be the waters you have two plagues that deal with that we're going to see those in detail here in just a minute blood and frogs water turning into blood into frogs and then we have judgments upon the earth or the dry land and there we have lice and flies and then we move further up kind of the scale from the lowest to the highest we move up to the creatures on the dry land and that would include you know some kind of animal diseases moraine is the really a transliteration from the Hebrew but some kind of maybe anthrax or something like that we don't really know where it was and boils those two plagues were specifically directed toward the land animals and then from there we move up to vegetation vegetation and two plagues there hail and locusts and then finally the heavens and the two plagues there are darkness and the death of the firstborn and this completes really all the levels of creation you see

Egypt was trusting their gods and they had gods for every area of life every area of creation and rather than trusting God who is the creator they were trusting these made up you know gods that they made with their own hands their own minds they were trusting these gods and so God is going to judge them and so that's what you'll have with the plagues now let's start with the first two and the first two again are directed toward the gods Egypt's gods that were primarily in charge of the waters so it's judgment upon the waters and the first plague is the blood all the sources of the water in Egypt were turned into blood and if you have a bible open there you can look at chapter 7 verse 19

Exodus chapter 7 verse 19 let me read it to you then the Lord spoke to Moses say to Aaron take your rod and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt over their streams over their rivers over their ponds and over all their pools of water that they may become blood blood not just red colored water but actually blood and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt both in buckets of wood and pictures of stone now what does that mean it means even the water that had already been gathered up prior to the plague coming were also turned to blood all the sources of water and Moses and Aaron did so just as the Lord commanded so he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river in the side of Pharaoh and in the side of his servants and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood the fish that were in the river died the river stank and the

Egyptians could not drink the water of the river so there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt this is an incredible miracle now regarding the first plague the Nile of course being the life line of Egypt very very important I mean water is important isn't it not only for human consumption but also for the crops and so forth so since it was the life blood of Egypt numerous gods Egyptian gods were associated with it and three were foremost the first one you see in the picture there Hapi is the Nile god that according to archaeologists who have studied the subject Hapi possessed many of the same attributes of Yahweh which is quite interesting and this is the first god that god judges there in

Egypt but it's not just Hapi there's also the god Ta it's a good thing no one's sitting up here I might spit on them it starts with a P P-T I don't know how you'd pronounce it but I think it's Ta alright Ta called lord of the fish and I just read this a moment ago in chapter 7 verse 21 and the fish that was in the river died and the river stank so we have water turned to blood that caused the fish to die and so that's why we say that this plague was also directed toward their quote fish god or lord of the fish Ptah and then there's a third one Canoom strange way of spelling things but it probably is just simply pronounced Noom and Noom you see a picture there a lot of their gods look very similar but supposedly was fashioned

Noom supposedly created a fashioned man on the potter's wheel this is according to Egyptian religion and Hecht which we'll see her in just a minute was his wife and gave his clay creations the breath of life and so Noom was credited for a fashioning man and then Hecht his wife gave them the breath of life and this is what the Egyptians believed so all three of these gods were targets of this very first plague judgment upon these gods that the Egyptians worshipped and trusted above the one true God second plague under this category the second one remember they're in pairs the second one here regarding the judgment on the waters is frogs frogs came up out of the waters and covered the land chapter 8 verses 5 through 14 then the

Lord spoke to Moses say to Aaron stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams over the rivers and over the ponds and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt so Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt can you imagine that happening and the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt by the way we talked a little bit about this or at least I gave a little blurb about it it is very likely in my judgment that the Egyptians these magicians and that's what they were were able to mimic some of the plagues up to a certain!

trickery and maybe just gave a small little demonstration but it certainly could not have been of the magnitude of the plague or if they didn't do it by trickery Satan was allowed to have some power under the sovereignty and authority of God and so this may be a demonic demonstration here let me read on 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 sacrifice to the Lord of course he's lying and Moses said to Pharaoh accept the honor of saying when I shall intercede for you for your servants and for your people to destroy the frogs!

this is what Pharaoh said tomorrow I think if I had been Pharaoh I would have said right now it would be fine he said tomorrow and he said let it be this is what Moses said let it be according to your word and as you pick the tie be according to your word that they may remain in the river only so he said tomorrow and the frogs shall depart from you from your houses from your servants from your people they shall remain in the river only then Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh and Moses cried out to the Lord concerning the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh so the Lord did according to the word of Moses and the frogs died out of the houses out of the courtyards and out of the fields they gathered them together in heaps and the land stank that's the second time we have that I can imagine it would you know first we have the water stinking because all the dead fish and now the frogs stank as it says there alright now this judgment was upon

Hect I mentioned Hect a moment ago a goddess of the wife goddess wife of Noom a goddess appearing in the form of a frog a frog headed woman can you imagine that and maybe you can I won't go there but this is a clear judgment against against Hect and again Hect wife of Noom Hect was associated with the pantheon or collection of gods including Isis you might recognize that name Horus that's also a fairly familiar Egyptian god name Hathor and believed to have created the world and man this is what they believed now when this is interesting because when Moses granted Pharaoh the choice of when the frogs would be taken away God was offering him personal proof of the supernatural origin of the plague

I mean I just think about it I'll go back and read that again there in chapter 8 verses 8 through 10 Moses said to Pharaoh accept the honor he said I'm giving you an honor here of saying when I shall intercede for you for your service for your people to destroy the frogs from you and your house that is Pharaoh you have the choice I give you the honor to tell me when the frogs should be taken away that's interesting isn't it now why why would he ask that question because again God is offering Pharaoh proof personal proof of the supernatural nature of this see otherwise you can say well you know lucky you Moses the frogs just happened to come out at this time or maybe as they like to do today come up with some scientific explanation but Moses is saying really God through Moses not only supernaturally were the frogs brought to you as a plague but by my word really really

Pharaoh by your word you can tell me when they're going away so this removes all doubt that this is a supernatural thing now why Pharaoh said tomorrow that remains a mystery to me I mean get this there are frogs everywhere everywhere you look you get ready to dip out some cool water out of the bucket and there's a frog in your little ladle or your wife sets the food on the table and lifts the pan and there are frogs in there there's frogs in your bed and frogs under your bed and frogs in your closet and frogs in your shoes before you put them on if they wore shoes I guess they didn't and they're everywhere and not just you know in the poor areas of Egypt but even in Pharaoh's house and so here's Moses saying alright you get to choose Pharaoh tell me when to take the frogs away and he says tomorrow that's ridiculous why go another day with frogs well

I can't answer that but I can't answer why Moses gave Pharaoh the choice it was a personal proof that this is a supernatural event because Pharaoh said tomorrow and indeed that's when it happened God took the frogs away then alright so this plague this second plague ends like the first as I mentioned a moment ago and the land sank chapter 8 verse 14 alright so there are the first two plagues now we move from the waters to the judgment on the dry land here's the second phase the five phases of the plagues and we have the third plague the dry ground or dust was turned into lice it's not that all the ground all the dirt was turned into lice it's the dust in the ground God supernaturally turned the dust into lice and you can imagine how much dust there was and you know all you have to do at home is go a few days and the dust collects on all the furniture and such maybe not your house but my wife would kill me for saying this but sometimes it collects in our house too and can you imagine all the dust turns into lice this is the judgment chapter 8 verse 16 so the Lord said to Moses say to Aaron stretch out your rod and strike the dust of the land so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt and they did so for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth and it became lice on man and beast all the dust of the land all of it became lice throughout all the land of Egypt this is the plague the third plague and this one directed toward the dry ground first and third plagues demonstrate demonstrated

God's power to transform physical elements what did he do the first plague what was the first plague from water into blood took a physical element and transformed it into something totally different clear demonstration of God's sovereignty there and then in this third plague takes the element of dust whatever it might be made up of and completely transforms it into living creatures into lice if you can imagine what that might have been like now by the way I think I put there parenthetically one of the proofs of the deity of Christ Jesus did that too didn't he he turned water into wine took one element and transformed into another element it wasn't a trick it was a miracle alright how about the

God here Geb was the likely target of this plague and he held a high position among the gods associated with the dry ground he was the father of Osiris Seth Isis Nephtheth and all gods grouped together with him now on this picture we actually have three gods that are pictured here it's the one that's colored in is Geb in case you were wondering we'll get to the other two as we go along the Geb is the ground alright this is kind of a picture of the gods that are in charge of the physical world you have the earth the ground and then we're going to get to the air which is in between and then the sky will be that god over the top we'll get to those here in just a minute alright so Geb is the intended target the Egyptian priests or magicians could not duplicate this plague by trickery and since they had no real supernatural power they recognized it as quote the finger of god this is what they said this is the finger of god this is the real thing they're saying we've been tricking everybody we can't do this can't trick they couldn't take dust and turn it into lice alright now go on to the fourth plague swarms of flies that invade

Egyptian lands and houses chapter 8 verse 20 the lord said to moses rise early in the morning and stand before pharaoh as he comes out of the water then say to him thus says the lord let my people go that they may serve me or else if you will not let my people go behold i will send a swarm of swarms of flies on you and your servants on your people and into your houses the houses of Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies and also the ground on which they stand alright this is again directed toward Gab the same god vault here the god of the dry ground and these are swarms of flies can you imagine what that would be like god provides in exodus chapter 8 verse 22 we're nearly 23 to 24 yet another proof of the supernatural aspect of plagues this this is supernatural and how did he do that he said i will make a difference this first time he says i will make a difference or a distinction a division between my people and your people tomorrow this sign shall be and the lord did so thick swarms of flies came into the house of pharaoh into his servant's house and into all the land of egypt the land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies so he made a division that's supernatural i mean there's no other way to explain that how do you keep flies from you know corralled into one particular area of the city and keep them out of another because god did this he made a distinction at this point genesis chapter 1 verse 9 to 10 states that god created the dry ground and called it earth and so with this i think i have that on there with this second plague or really the second in this set god made pharaoh to know that i he said for him to know that i not geb that i am the lord in the midst of the earth all right judgment upon the creatures of the dry land and here we have the fifth and sixth plagues the fifth plague is murrain or some animal disease and it plagued all the livestock in the field chapter 9 verse 3 behold the land of the lord will be on your cattle the hand of the lord will be on your cattle in the field on the horses on the donkeys on the camels on the oxen on the sheep a very severe pestilence whatever it was and the lord will make a difference here this is again a difference between the livestock of israel and the livestock of egypt so nothing shall die of all that belongs to the children of israel now again the disease may have been anthrax that's been one point of speculation but the bible just doesn't really explain it some animal disease and though the egyptians worshipped numerous gods associated with animals two stood out as chief among them and the first one would be apis there's kind of a picture of him and apis was the bull god and then there's haethor haethor was the cow goddess alright those are two gods they worshipped and their area of protection or sovereignty so to speak was in the animal kingdom sixth plague

boils break out on the egyptians and their animals boils chapter 9 verse 8 so the lord said to moses and aaron take for yourselves handfuls of ashes from the furnace and let moses scatter toward the heavens in the sight of pharaoh and it will become fine dust in all the land of egypt and it will cause boils that break out in sores on man and beasts therefore throughout all the land of egypt then they took ashes!

man and beast and the magicians could not stand before moses because of the boils for the boils were on the magicians and on all the egyptians but the lord hardened the heart of pharaoh and he did not heed them just as the lord had spoken to moses and so here is the sixth plague this plague disgraced as we just read disgraced the egyptian priest magicians slash magicians who were among the most highly skilled physicians of that day and so this was a clear disgrace not only a judgment upon specific gods but a disgrace to the magicians of the day and god judged a number of egyptian deities the first one would be isis the goddess of healing and so there is clear judgment against isis and then this one imhotep if you watched any of the mummy movies imhotep was the chosen name for the mummy in those horror flicks but no association there imhotep was a pharaoh at one point in the third dynasty prior to this time and was the first physician known by name that archaeologists have been able to discover and also he was the only pharaoh who became a real god that is in egyptian religion and he was worshipped for his power to heal and to raise the dead and so imhotep was also i think the object of this judgment now with the third this third phase and we've come to the end of the third phase of god's judgment plagues five and six this third phase demonstrated god's sovereignty not only over the waters and the dry ground but also the creatures living on the ground so his judgment is very complete but he's not finished yet now we move to the judgment upon vegetation and with that seventh plague and a hailstorm beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree chapter 9 verse 22 then the lord said to moses stretch out your hand toward heavens that there may be hail in all the land of egypt on man on beast and on every herb of the field throughout the land of egypt and moses stretched out his rod toward heaven the lord sent thunder and hail and fire darted to the ground and probably lightning is what's suggested here and the lord rained hail on the land of egypt so there was hail and fire mingled with hail so very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of egypt since it became a nation and the hail struck throughout the whole land of egypt all that was in the field both man and beast and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field incredible hail storm if you can imagine we have a lot of hail around here in oklahoma but nothing like this in fact the testimony of scripture is that it never happened at all in egypt prior to this time i doubt that it has happened since all right now god judged egyptian egyptian gods associated with the sky and the air now we're going to get back to that diagram i showed you a while ago now what's colored at top is the god newt or the sky goddess whose body kind of created a canopy or vault over the earth and so that's why it's pictured that way and then shu is the one in between the god of the air and shu held up newt to separate

the sky from the ground so visually you can see how that worked in egyptian religion or idolatry then we have the eighth plague god sent swarms of locusts to devour all the vegetation left by the hailstorm whatever was left over the locusts took care of chapter 10 verse 4 or else if you refuse to let my people go behold tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory they shall cover the face of the earth so that no one will be able to see the earth and they shall eat the residue of what is left which remains to you from the hail they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field they shall fill your houses the houses of all your servants and the houses of all the Egyptians which neither your father nor your father's fathers have seen since the day that they were on the earth to this day and he turned and went out from Pharaoh so this is a major plague they've never seen anything like it before and now the text there that

I just read implies that the swarm of locusts filled the sky so you couldn't even see the earth I mean we're talking about almost blotting out all light momentarily blocking out certainly the light of the sun and we know this to be the case when there are swarms of locusts this has happened before or since and just!

the sun now the god then Horus god of the sky and one of them and he's the primary god of the sky the Egyptians believed the sun to be the eye of Horus alright and so the locusts darkened the eye thus a foreshadowing of the ninth plague which we're going to get to right now and that's a judgment upon the heavens and the ninth plague and the ninth plague is all sources of light were extinguished chapter 10 verse 21 then the Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt darkness which may even be felt that's an interesting expression so Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt we're talking about more than just the eclipse of light we're talking about a darkness where they couldn't even see one another because all light was extinguished and nor did anyone rise from his place for three days but all the children of

Israel had light in their dwellings so God again made a distinction there Pharaoh was considered the incarnation of Amun Ra and that's the god that the sun god that this plague directly judging but indirectly is a judgment upon Pharaoh because Pharaoh again in Egyptian religion was considered celebrated as the incarnation of Amun Ra and so this plague so insulted Pharaoh's divine claim that he said to Moses and Aaron you might remember this in chapter 10 verse 28 he said to them get thee from me take heed to thyself that you better be warned see my face no more for in the day that day thou seest my face thou shalt die that don't ever come back to me again or you're dead so this clearly demonstrates how Pharaoh felt about this particular plague he knew that this plague was directed toward

Amun Ra but indirectly toward himself and made him mad or you're dead all right then we get to the tenth plague well tenth plague final plague god's destroyer that's directly from the text the destroyer kills all the firstborn in Egypt and there are a number of passages that deal with that we're not going to take the time here tonight to look at those but here is the climax of the plagues the ten plagues and the climax of these plagues is the death of Pharaoh's son ok death of firstborn but I mean a lot of firstborn died in Egypt all firstborn died but the key focus here is the son of

Pharaoh he died and it served then as the ultimate judgment of Egypt's pantheon of gods their entire spectrum collection of gods it's the ultimate judgment so let's just consider some of the details here of the plague according to scripture the timing of it when was it the Bible says at midnight it tells us that in verse 4 chapter 11 and the Egyptians believed that souls were judged at midnight so the timing was instrumental God chose that timing for a purpose how about the task the task the destroyer kills the firstborn this is the task the destroyer for the Egyptians the title destroyer and this is the word that Moses by the inspiration of God used here the term destroyer belonged to the goddess

Amet and you see a picture of Amet there part lion part hippopotamus part crocodile kind of a frightening looking creature and was feared greatly feared by the Egyptians feared as the monster of judgment at midnight so you see just consider these facts God God's orchestrating this whole thing none of this is left to chance it's not just happened to be at midnight there was a purpose for that and it wasn't just you know Moses didn't choose the word destroyer just because he couldn't find a better word there was a reason for that and then also we have the target and this is the most important part the target of this plague was the moon you say the moon yeah the moon it was the first month of the year when this plague took place chapter 12 verse 2 and at full moon so it's full moon and so in this ninth in the ninth plague let's put all these together and we'll see how this pans out in the ninth plague remember

God judged Amun-Ra associated with Pharaoh all right he's incarnate Amun-Ra in the tenth plague God judged Mut the wife of Amun-Ra and who was the wife of the incarnate Amun-Ra Pharaoh's wife all right so it's a judgment upon her and then the child of Amun-Ra the god and the goddess moon is Khansu God of the moon and it was believed by Egyptians that Pharaoh's son was the incarnate of Khansu so you see the sweeping judgment not only upon these gods of the sun and moon and the association of Khansu it's not Khansu who excuse me Amet it's not Amet who's actually destroying it's God being the destroyer here it's a judgment upon these gods but because of their association with

Pharaoh and his wife and their son it's judgment upon them and so we start with the water we go all the way up to Pharaoh's household all the way to Pharaoh's son who was the revered incarnate God Khansu and so the judgment is complete so it's very interesting to see I think a number of things from this and we'll stop here it's interesting to see that when God sent these plagues upon Egypt and really upon Egyptian gods he had a plan and his plan was to completely judge all of their false gods and God did that and in the process broke Pharaoh so that God's people could be delivered and next time we'll look and see God revealing his sovereign power in the deliverance of Israel out of

Egypt Thank you.