Exodus 7:14–25

Hey, hey, good morning, friends. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions is where every day we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis to Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you today. When we have some coffee, we'll pray and we'll get into, well, miraculous work that God does to try to convince Pharaoh to let his people go.
Let's have some coffee and pray. Let's pray. Father. You are. A powerful God. Worthy of worship. And worthy of our attention. We pray now that as we read your word, that you would help us to understand it. Please, Father, teach us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right. We are at Exodus chapter seven, beginning at verse 14.
So the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning when he goes out to the water and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him and the rod which was turned to a serpent you shall take in your hand. And you shall say to him, Jehovah, God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you saying, let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness. But indeed, until now you would not hear. Thus says Jehovah, By this you shall know that I am the Lord.
Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river and the rod that is in my hand, with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that are in the river shall die. The river shall stink. And the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river.
Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 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. And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone. And Moses and Aaron did so just as the Lord commanded. So he lift up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants.
And all the waters that were in the river returned 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. Then The magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments. And Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them, as the Lord said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house. Neither was his heart moved by this. So all the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink, because they could not drink the water of the river. And seven days passed after the Lord struck the river. Well. Like normal, three questions. A, what's this about? B, what's the best versus some racism? C, what are we called to do? A, what's this about?
Well, this is the first plague that God has shown his power by changing Aaron's rod into a serpent, gobbles up the magician serpents. They had mimicked that trick by their dark arts. And here God says, I want you to go to the to the river. Pharaoh's gonna be there Moses and Aaron you're gonna go there. You're gonna strike the river and All the water all throughout Egypt. It's gonna turn into blood Are you gonna tell him let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness?
And notice it's not just the Nile but over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds and over all their pools of water, that they may become blood. And there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone. It didn't matter if it was from the Nile or from a stream that fed into the Nile or in the delta that would go into the Mediterranean Sea. Everywhere all across the land even in people's houses where they had water cups sitting on the table blood And this is not just some type of Naturalistic explanation, you know, some people will try to explain this away people always try to explain explain away the primary works of God this is not just rain hitting the northern slopes in Ethiopia and that causing the water to look like it turned red and increasing bacteria and killing the fish no this is Moses said this and the water turns to blood the people aren't dumb it's not it turned into something like blood and it's they haven't seen this before this is gross stink fish die Imagine you're a farmer.
What's that going to do to your field? Imagine you raise livestock. What's it going to do to your animals? There's a whole fishing trade built on people going up and down the Nile. What's that going to do to the fishing trade? I mean, it's going to destroy a huge part of their economy. It's going to destroy their livelihoods.
Not to mention, it's just gross. And beyond that. People start getting desperate. You can only last about three days without water. And so they started digging, digging and digging and digging. So they finally get to groundwater. Because they're desperate.
Farrah's heart's not moved. Pharaoh's heart's not moved because here come the magicians. They pour out some water and look, they're able to make it turn into blood too. I'm not sure what type of stuff they put in their water to do that. But it hardens Pharaoh's heart. Whatever, there's still a bunch of bums. They just want to take the slaves. They're just lazy and this will pass. God had told Pharaoh or God had told Moses when he was at the burning bush that this was going to happen.
And that this was going to be one of the signs. But it's going to get worse. It is this whole story. It was this is all all about what we're going to have a whole bunch of these plagues, 10 of them, and as we go through, we're going to find. This whole story is about God is going to redeem his people.
But Pharaoh. Pharaoh's got a hard heart. He's got a hard heart because he hates the Lord. He hates God's people. And the Lord lets him go. But the Lord actively hardens his heart. And it's going to take the absolute crumbling of the Egyptian economy before Pharaoh will ever relent.
And even then he's going to he's going to Regret Letting the Israelites go and we're gonna see what happens there, but this is about God Being sovereign Over both the hearts of men As well as over the creation he's made and he is going to bend heaven and earth to redeem his people What's the best verse for this? Well, I have verse 19 underlined and I have, uh, especially, uh, verse or the last part of the verse double underlined both in buckets of wood and pictures of stone. But I also have verse 16 underlined to let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. Maybe you would underline something different. That's okay.
What are we called to do in response to this? We believe him. We trust in him. He's the one who bent heaven and earth to send his only begotten son to redeem us. Right with great signs and wonders and miracles, he sent his only begotten son, not of ordinary generation, but by a miraculous birth that he might he might literally Command creation at times. Speaking to the waters and to the wind. Be quiet. And they listen to him. It's that same God who took on flesh.
Who tells us to come to him. So do we trust in him? Or do we still have hard hearts? We rest in him. We receive him as he's offered to us in the gospel and we cling to him. We thank God that he redeems. We thank God that he moves heaven and earth to save those whom he loves. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for who you are and all you have done. Father, we pray that you would please work in our hearts that we would love you and follow you. We pray that you would teach us to walk in your ways. In Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you take comfort in that great shepherd of the sheep who laid down his life for you. May you walk with peace. I'll see you tomorrow. 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 in 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.