Exodus 10

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. We are at Exodus chapter nine, and we're going to go ahead and bite off that chunk. And it's. It's pretty neat what the Lord's doing when we have some coffee, we'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for what a blessing it is to get to read your word. We thank you for waking us up this morning, for the sound of songbirds, for creation that declares your glory. And we thank you for your special revelation, the scriptures. We pray that we would not have hard hearts ourselves, but that you would soften our hearts and lighten our eyes that we would read and understand in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay. So we are at Exodus chapter nine. No, not Exodus 9, Exodus 10. Here we go.
Now the Lord said to Moses, go into Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants that I may show the signs of mine before him and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son's son the mighty things I have done in Egypt and my signs which I have done among them that you may know that I am Jehovah.
We're going to approach this a little bit differently today. Instead of reading through and asking ourselves our questions, I'm going to kind of talk about things as we go. Why is God doing this? Well, he answers that question. He's going to show these signs of his. Why? Two reasons. So they can go and tell their children and their grandbabies. You're going to have a generational testimony. So you might know that I am the Lord. God is making his name Jehovah known. He's going to declare it to the people with mighty acts of power.
Verse 3, So Moses and Aaron came into Pharaoh and said to him, Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. Or else if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory, and 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 and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field and they shall fill your houses the houses of all your servants and the houses of all the egyptians which neither you nor your fathers have seen neither you nor your fathers 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. He goes and he says, this is the amazing thing, right?
Moses goes to one of the most powerful men in the world, Pharaoh himself, and he declares God's word. How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go Moses is to declare before Pharaoh you proud arrogant stubborn, dude. What are you doing? Humble yourself Listen to God.
Let my people go. I'm going to send another plague. Locusts. The hail's already killed so much stuff. I'm going to send locusts now. And they're going to devour everything that's left of your crops and of your trees. Then Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve Yehovah their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed? Even Pharaoh's own men around him are saying, Pharaoh, what are you doing, man? Just let him go. The economy is in shambles. The farms are in ruin. The kids and the grandkids are going to go hungry. They're starting to understand and they're starting to fear. So Moses and Aaron were brought again to Pharaoh and he said to them, go and serve Yehovah your God.
Who are the ones that are going? And Moses said, we will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds, we will go, for we must hold a feast to Yehovah. Then he said to them, Yehovah had better be with you when I let you and your little ones go. aware, for evil is ahead of you. Not so, go, you who are men and serve Yehovah, for that is what you desired. And then they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Pharaoh says, all right, fine, bring them in and let them go. Moses and Aaron come in and he says, who's going to go? Moses and Aaron say, all of us.
We all have to worship the Lord. And he says, that's not what you asked for the first time. He threatens them. He still doesn't believe that Jehovah is God. What would he say? The Lord had better be with you when I let you and your little ones go. This is a threat. It's not a veiled threat. It's a real threat. You better hope your God is actually real, Moses, because when I let you go, man, there's going to be price to pay.
Do you see the hardness of his heart? His hatred of the people? He doesn't want the women and children to go. He doesn't want them to worship God. I gotta tell you, even in our culture, people don't want the family to worship together. People don't want your children to know the Lord God of the scriptures. They'll give you Bible stories.
Maybe they'll put up with your kids for a while, but they just want they want to dissuade them from believing the Lord Let apart the family Then the Lord said to Moses stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts and that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every herb of the land, all that the hail has left.
So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt and the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the wind brought the locusts and the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and restored on all the territory of Egypt. there were, they were very severe. Previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them, for they covered the face of the whole earth. so that the land was darkened and they ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees, which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt.
God brings us wind. And as he brings us wind, Whole day whole night He's bringing his little insects of destruction Locusts come in a migratory pattern. They'd never have before And they decimate Says there's nothing green left on the trees the fruit left no herbs left everything Destroyed this is an agrarian society They depend upon their orchards and their fields and their livestock. They're being decimated.
Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste and said, I have sinned against Jehovah, your God and against you. Now, therefore, please forgive my sin only this once and entreat Jehovah, your God, that he may take away from me this death only. So he went out from Pharaoh and entreated Jehovah.
And the Lord turned a very strong west wind and took the locusts away and blew them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the land of or all the territory of Egypt. But Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. 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. So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, Go serve Jehovah. Only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you. But Moses said, You must also give us sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our God. our livestock also shall go with us not a hoof shall be left behind for we must take some of them to serve the Lord our God and even we do not know what we must serve Jehovah until we arrive there but The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go. And Pharaoh said, get away from me. Take heed to yourselves and see my face no more. From the day you see my face, you shall die. So Moses said, you have spoken well. I will never see your face again.
This last plague. Pharaoh, Pharaoh's just going back and forth, right? He says, I've sinned, go ahead and forgive my sins. But the Logos are driven out, and then he changes his mind. And without warning, the third, sixth, and ninth plague, without warning, they just show up. And the ninth warning here, or the ninth plague here without warning, it's a plague of darkness. God says, go do this. And Moses says, yes, sir. He goes out and he puts his hand out and darkness comes. Now this in Egypt is a major deal.
Re or Ra was the highest deity in the Egyptian mind. It was actually believed that Pharaoh was the son of Ra. Ra was the sun god. And this rising up of the sun was this triumphing over death and God has now proven himself that he is more powerful than Ra. It's not Ra who makes the sun rise up, but it's the Lord God himself. It's God who is over all creation.
He's over the Nile. He's over the insects. He's over the thunder. He's over the hail. He's over the livestock. He's over the locusts. And yes, he's even over the sun. And Pharaoh says, fine, go. I mean, this darkness is so thick they can't even leave their houses. In Goshen, there's light. How that happens, I don't know. This is the miracle. In all of Egypt, it's so thick darkness, it's palpable. They don't even leave their houses, but somehow in Goshen, there's still light. It's not just some type of sandstorm or something. They've experienced sandstorms before. They say, we've never experienced anything like this. Because God has overwhelmed all of creation to prove who he is.
Now he says, okay, fine, you can go, but you can't take any of your livestock. And Moses is like, how are we supposed to offer sacrifices? Do you see, Pharaoh is being moved more and more towards, fine, okay, you can go, but not your women and children. Fine, you can go, but not your livestock.
God is not satisfied in redemption unless it's total redemption. And the stakes keep getting higher and higher and higher until it comes to the point that all of Israel is going to leave. And it's not just going to be going to go and serve for three days out in the desert, but now they're leaving forever.
God is bringing this about. I think this is true in your life and my life too. He's not satisfied in just redeeming us in part, but he redeems us in whole. He changes our hearts. And then he transforms, renews our mind. And he sanctifies our lives. More and more, our lives are being put to death for the body of sin and being made alive in Christ. More and more in our lives, that darkness is meant to go away and the light is meant to take over our lives. But also we'll see that more and more, I think, in the world. that the Lord sometimes allows certain dictators and haters of God to hate his people more and more and more. Because it's in the greatest darkness of the lands in which we live that there's still light in the land of the ocean.
That there's still a beacon of hope. in the hearts of his people and the homes of his chosen ones. Because we have a testimony, a testimony to give to our children of God's great works of redemption. There's a testimony for you to tell to your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren of who God is and what he has done. And so trust in him. He redeems his people to the uttermost.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for The redemption you have given us in Jesus Christ. We pray that we would not be stubborn and arrogant, but we thank you for saving us, softening our hearts and turning us to yourself. Lord, we pray. We pray, Lord, that you would please let us know who you are and take comfort in both who you are and what you have done in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.