Exodus 8:16–32

Hey, hey, good afternoon. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This 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 the book of Genesis to Leviticus, and we are at a couple new plagues. If you were with us the other day, you would have heard Daniel be very excited about the plague of frogs. Not so sure how he would feel about these next two plagues. Let's have some coffee.
We'll pray and we'll get in the God's Word Let's pray Oh Lord we thank you For waking us up this morning and giving the blessing of your word Father we pray that you would please help us to understand your word now. I pray that you would be even doing a work in our hearts that we would be soft. Lord that we would know the teaching of your Holy Spirit and that we would not have hard hearts in Jesus's name. Amen. Okay so we're at Exodus chapter 8 beginning at verse 16. We're gonna read through two different plagues together.
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 and the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast.
Then the magician said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. But Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said. And the Lord said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to 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 swarms of flies on you and on your servants on all your people and into your houses the houses of the egyptian shall be full of swarms of flies and also the ground on which they stand.
And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am Jehovah in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between my people and your people. Tomorrow this shall be. And the Lord did so. Thick swarms of flies came upon the house of Pharaoh into his servants' houses and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies.
Then Pharaoh called to Moses and Aaron and said, Go sacrifice to your God in the land. Moses said, It is not right to do so, for we will be sacrificing the abominations of the Egyptians to Jehovah our God. If we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, then they will not, then will they not stone us? We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to Jehovah our God as he will command us. So Pharaoh said, I'll let you go, that you may sacrifice to Jehovah your God in the wilderness. Only you shall not go very far away. Intercede for me.
Then Moses said, Indeed, I am going out from you and I will entreat Jehovah that the swarms of flies may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people. But let Pharaoh not deal deceitfully anymore, not letting the people go sacrifice to Jehovah. So Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. And Jehovah did according to the word of Moses. He removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people. Not one remained. But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also. Neither would he let the people go. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best first to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? So what's this about?
Well, they've had the frogs, the water's been turned to blood, and now God brings two more, two more. plagues upon Egypt. The first being that of lice. You can imagine this in your head, in your imagination, as Aaron takes his rod and strikes the dust of the ground and it flies up in the air and all of a sudden becomes lice. And lice gets on everyone, everywhere. And people are scratching and itching and the biting that comes with it, driving them to nuts, right?
And the magicians try to pull off the same thing that they did before. They can't do it. Or they tried to make lice and they can't pull it off. Oh, I hear we have a little guest. Do you want to come do coffee and devotions with me? Yeah. Oh. Oh, you want to say good afternoon or evening or maybe just say hi. Do you want to know what I was just reading about?
I was reading about God bringing the plague of lice on the Egyptian. Do you know what lice are? They're like little bugs that would crawl in your hearing and bite you everywhere. Do you like when bugs bite you? No. Could you imagine that the bugs biting you even as you were trying to go to sleep? Would that be good or sad? Sad, right? But guess what? What? Pharaoh won't, Pharaoh hardens his heart and he won't believe God. Is that good or sad? Sad, right? And God, and you want to, God says, he says, okay, you're not going to believe me. Guess what I'm going to do?
I'm going to bring flies. Yeah. Do you like when the flies bite you outside? They don't bite me. They don't go in my way. Oh, do you like when flies get in the house? They don't go in the house. Oh, Grandma would say they do. Well, the cats don't go in the house that I like. Oh, the cats aren't supposed to get in.
And I like the dog, and I like the fly and the bug, and I like the flowers. Listen, we're talking about the flies, though. When we get flies in the house, do we have to go swat, swat, swat everywhere? Yeah. Yeah. Do we like them getting on our food? No. Do we like them getting in our hair? No. Do we like them when they land on our arms? Yeah, okay. No, we don't like that.
But guess what God did? You wouldn't let the flies go in the Israelite houses in Goshen where all the Israelites lived no flies But in the Egyptians houses there were flies who do you think did that Not Satan it was God Yeah, God was the one who brought the flies because he was trying to punish Pharaoh and King of Egypt good question. Who is Pharaoh the king of Egypt? Yeah, and guess what He had enslaved God's people. Do you know what that means? He had made them slaves. I had to work and work and work nothing but work all the time That's only fun No, and so God says let my people go.
Oh Yeah, well Moses ran away for a while But now Moses is back and he's saying God says let my people go But guess what Pharaoh keeps doing He gives hardening his heart You won't listen you won't obey you won't believe no no no Pharaoh doesn't like God Pharaoh hates the Lord I thought Pharaoh would be Satan. Pharaoh is not Satan. Pharaoh is the king of Egypt, but he does not love the Lord. Who is Satan? Satan is a fallen angel. He's the adversary. But here we're talking about Pharaoh.
Do you think when God says something to you, you should make your heart hard like a rock? Or do you think you should listen? Listen, does it go better for us when we listen? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think maybe we can pray about that? Oh, you don't want your baby cats to run away, why don't we pray for our hearts ready? Okay. God, we thank you so much for that you are the God of all creation. You can command the frogs and you can command lice. You can send the flies where you want them.
But Lord, we pray for our own hearts. That we would not be like Pharaoh, that we would not harden our hearts. And God, we thank you. that nothing can stop you from saving your people, not even the strongest of kings. In Jesus's name. Amen. Can you say goodbye to our friends? May the Lord bless you. Oh, may the Lord bless you. And may you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. We'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.